Wait – That Show Was a Hit?

 

“The Top Ten” is a phrase synonymous with success. Whether it’s a reference to Billboard music charts or weekly box office figures or Nielsen ratings, if you crack that list, it’s an impressive accomplishment.

 

So it may surprise you to discover that several Comfort TV era shows that achieved that exalted status are either not remembered fondly now, or have been completely forgotten.

 

 

 How did that happen? Let’s find out.

 

Note: Ratings information taken from The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh

 

The Restless Gun (1957)

The late 1950s was a television era when westerns reigned supreme, so anything with a horse could probably find an audience. The top ten in 1957 included not just The Restless Gun but also Gunsmoke, Tales of Wells Fargo, Have Gun Will Travel, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

 

Even casual classic TV viewers are likely to be familiar with those titles, all of which are still finding new fans on nostalgia networks and homevideo. But The Restless Gun is not as easily recalled and has not aged as gracefully, and if you watch a few episodes as I have it’s easy to see why.

 

There’s no real premise to the series, outside of cowboy Vint Bonner roaming the American southwest after the Civil War. He’s not a lawman or an outlaw, he’s not on a quest for revenge or a peaceful existence – he just doesn’t like to stay in one place very long. That doesn’t give viewers much reason to take an interest in his adventures. Bonner is played by John Payne, who is not a charismatic lead – in fact he delivers most of his lines with a near expression-free stare. Surprisingly, the show has received a DVD release – 78 episodes on nine discs. If you’re curious I recommend checking it out for free on YouTube first. 

 

 

Funny Face (1971)

From the moment she appeared as a teller in a delightful series of United California Bank commercials, it was obvious that Sandy Duncan had star quality.

 

After Time magazine called her “one of the most promising faces of tomorrow,” she costarred in two movies that didn’t do well, and then tried television. Funny Face was essentially a west coast version of That Girl – she played Sandy Stockwell, who leaves a small town in Illinois headed for Los Angeles with dreams of a career as an actress.

 

Was it good? No clue. I’m guessing it was at least pleasant, as I can’t recall seeing Duncan in anything where she wasn’t enjoyable to watch…except maybe that Love Boat episode where she played a grieving mother still mourning the loss of her child – but that story was doomed from the start.

 

I’d love to tell you more about Funny Face but no clips have escaped to the internet beyond the opening credits, and none of my unofficial sources have been able to snag a copy. 

 

The show ranked at #8 in its first season and earned its star an Emmy nomination, but only 12 episodes were filmed before Duncan required a medical leave to remove a benign brain tumor. After she recovered the show returned as The Sandy Duncan Show with a slightly altered premise, and was canceled shortly thereafter. Duncan emerged unscathed to battle monsters with Scooby-Doo, soar as Peter Pan on Broadway, and sell a lot of Wheat Thins.  

 

 

Bridget Loves Bernie (1972)

We’ve talked about this show before. Meredith Baxter played Bridget Teresa Mary Colleen Fitzgerald, an Irish Catholic schoolteacher who falls in love at first sight with cab driver Bernie Steinberg. “I think we have a problem,” they realize, and that was the introduction to this sweet and gentle sitcom about an inter-religious marriage and the culture clash of their respective in-laws.

 

 

 Despite being ranked fifth in the ratings among all shows in 1972, CBS shut it down out of concern over adverse reactions from a vocal minority of intolerant viewers. More than 40 years later it’s still the highest-rated TV series to be canceled. Not one of television’s prouder moments.

 

Phyllis (1975)

The Ropers (1978)

Flo (1979)

Three shows, all top-ten for a while then canceled soon after, with one obvious common trait – they were spinoffs from more successful, long-running series.

 

Phyllis was always going to be a tough sell on her own, as the character played by Cloris Leachman was best tolerated in smaller doses. Fans of The Mary Tyler Moore Show always enjoyed when she knocked on Mary’s door, but they didn’t root for her as they did for Rhoda, one reason why Valerie Harper’s spinoff succeeded and this one didn’t. 

 

 

Very few shows survive with unsympathetic leads. Making Phyllis a widow wouldn’t generate audience sympathy because we’d never met Lars anyway. So Leachman had to tone down the character’s grandiose, elitist tendencies, and then she really wasn’t Phyllis anymore.

 

Flo, by contrast, was an audience favorite on Alice, so one would think her solo prospects had a better chance. Was the problem having Flo make the transition from labor to management after she opened her own bar? That’s probably overthinking – the most likely answer the ratings did not remain high is the show just wasn’t funny.

 

 

Say this for The Ropers – at least the characters were the same as they were on Three’s Company. Didn’t really matter, as the series was a dud. Outside of learning that the girl that played the Bad Seed grew up hot, and its annoying yet somehow unforgettable opening credits sequence, I always feel bad for Norman Fell when I think about the show. It took months for the network to convince him to agree to the spinoff, and he was told if it bombed he could return to Three’s Company. But then it bombed and by then Don Knotts was living in his apartment. I hope he was paid well to sabotage his own career. 

 

 

 

House Calls (1980)

Next to Bridget Loves Bernie this is the best show on this list, and it’s a mystery to me why its 57 episodes never got a DVD release. There was great chemistry between Wayne Rogers and Lynn Redgrave as hospital coworkers in love but constantly bickering, and when things got too sweet David Wayne hijacked his scenes as a crusty older doctor with rapidly failing faculties. Back then senility, like being drunk, was a condition that could be fodder for comedy without someone forming a committee of angry concerned citizens.