Forgotten Network/Syndicated TV Shows of the Past

[bpatrick]

I don't recall that "Watch Your Child" was carried on the full NBC network;
I think NBC offered it to its affiliates but didn't force them to carry it. The
o&os did, and I remember it pre-empting "Somerset" briefly in Birmingham, and
in a Saturday-morning slot in Louisville, but I suspect a lot of you never saw the
show.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but does anyone remember the American version
of "Fawlty Towers," "Amanda's" with Bea Arthur (ABC, 1983) or one from the same era,
same network with the weirdest name I ever heard: "No Soap, Radio"?

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

The Torkelsons was a family sitcom with Connie Ray. I have an ad for it in a TV Guide from 1991, showing their Country Thanksgiving Special with Patty Duke as a guest.

-crainbebo

Hail To The Chief Patty Duke

 

[anotherguyTN]

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but does anyone remember the American version
of "Fawlty Towers," "Amanda's" with Bea Arthur (ABC, 1983)?

There was also Payne with John Larroquette (CBS 1999) that was another attempt at an American version of Fawlty Towers that failed.

 

[onairb]

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but does anyone remember the American version
of "Fawlty Towers," "Amanda's" with Bea Arthur (ABC, 1983)?

There was also Payne with John Larroquette (CBS 1999) that was another attempt at an American version of Fawlty Towers that failed.

I remember both of those. "Amanda's" aired back-to-back with another forgotten sitcom in early 1983, "Condo". This was sort of a rehash of 'All in the Family' 's "Archie vs. George Jefferson" era. MacLean Stevenson headlined another dud sitcom, as a stereotypical WASP condominium resident, who was irritated when a Mexican family moved in next door(the dad in that family was Luis Avalos, a longtime member of 'The Electric Company'.) The two of them slung rehashed racial insults, while their wives (obviously) got along...not to mention their children, the oldest of whom got married and had a baby..can't remember in which order, though!

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

Anyone remember Joe Namath's Waverly Wonders? Namath played teacher to a special corriculumn for gifted students. Predated Welcome Back Kotter, whose teacher struggled less than patiently sometimes with the school's misfits. Waverly's legacy is it's fleeting moment in TV history-- I believe it lasted all of 3-episodes.

 

[bpatrick]

Or the show that followed it: "Who's Watching The Kids?"

NBC's fall 1978 schedule was full of forgettables:

Grandpa Goes To Washington
Dick Clark's Live Wednesday
W.E.B. and its replacement, David Cassidy--Man Undercover
The Eddie Capra Mysteries
Sword Of Justice

And fall '83 wasn't much better:

Boone
Bay City Blues
We Got It Made (somehow this one got revived in new syndicated episodes)
Mr. Smith
Jennifer Slept Here
Manimal
For Love And Honor
The Rousters (remember Danny Dark saying, "Rousters gonna sink the Loooove
Boat"?)
The Yellow Rose (NBC would probably have loved to have a hit with this primetime
soap, what with "Dallas," "Knots Landing," and "Falcon Crest" on CBS, and "Dynasty"
on ABC, tearing up the ratings at the time.)

In fact, there's a whole list of shows from fall '83 on ABC and CBS that could make this list:

ABC: Just Our Luck (white weathercaster discovers African-American genie; you can imagine
how the African-American community took to that idea--a servant)
Oh, Madeline (Madeline Kahn)
Trauma Center
It's Not Easy
Lottery (an attempt to revive "The Millionaire," but not enough emphasis on the lottery
winners and too much on the lottery representative and IRS agent who track them down)

CBS: Goodnight, Beantown (Bill Bixby and Mariette Hartley as co-anchors of a local Boston newscast,
with a love-hate relationship similar to Sam and Diane (or Rebecca) on "Cheers")
AfterMASH
The Mississippi
Whiz Kids
Cutter To Houston

 

[onairb]

CBS also had an unsuccessful military soap starring Dennis Weaver, called 'Emerald Point N.A.S', which replaced 'Cagney and Lacey' that season, ended on a cliffhanger in the spring of '84, and was never seen again, as CBS brought back C & L for a long run.

 

[azumanga]

Anyone remember Joe Namath's Waverly Wonders? Namath played teacher to a special corriculumn for gifted students. Predated Welcome Back Kotter, whose teacher struggled less than patiently sometimes with the school's misfits.

Actually, Waverly Wonders, which ran in 1978, followed Kotter, which started in 1975.

 

[azumanga]

ABC: Lottery (an attempt to revive "The Millionaire," but not enough emphasis on the lottery
winners and too much on the lottery representative and IRS agent who track them down)

A few years earlier, around 1978, NBC had a similar series, "Sweepstakes", which each week featured three people that won a nationwide lottery, and their fates after they got their winnings. No regular cast, other than Edd Byrnes as the lottery draw host.

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

Anyone remember Joe Namath's Waverly Wonders? Namath played teacher to a special corriculumn for gifted students. Predated Welcome Back Kotter, whose teacher struggled less than patiently sometimes with the school's misfits.

Actually, Waverly Wonders, which ran in 1978, followed Kotter, which started in 1975.

You beat me by a nose; realizing my error yesterday, I logged on to correct it today, after work. Still, I had this painful confidence somebody would catch that mistake and beat me to the punch, and sure enough somebody did. God must have had me in mind when he inspired the invention of erasers on pencils.

 

[johnnya2k6]

Scratch (1991): Teen magazine show produced out of KXTV in Sacramento, but syndicated across the country.

KXTV also produced "Pulse", which was a medical magazine show that continued to air overseas well into the 2000s.

 

[Bob1370]

You may find it odd to see the Mickey Mouse Club in this thread--but there's a version of it that belongs, in between the two iterations we all remember.

Baby boomers remember the original 1955-59 Mickey Mouse Club on ABC (the one that made Annette Funicello a breakout star)--which was still doing well in the ratings when ABC dropped it, largely because the network didn't want to continue paying the high production costs of a 5-day-a-week comedy/variety show for kids, and Walt Disney didn't want to turn it into a cut-rate product. Disney then pulled all his programming (including Zorro and Disneyland) from the ABC network and took his act to NBC in 1961, where the successor to Disneyland started a 30 year run...but NBC had a set daytime lineup of soaps and game shows and wasn't interested in buying a new Mickey Mouse Club production run in the early 1960s. So Disney repackaged and syndicated the 1955-59 production to a new generation of kids seeing it for the first time on local stations across the country starting in 1962, and enjoyed a pair of successful runs from 1962-68 and again from 1974-76. That encouraged them to launch a new full-color production of the Mickey Mouse Club with a new set of tween-aged and teen-agedMouseketeers who would connect with a generation of kids born since the old show had started to age into nostalgia. Disney remembered their sour experience working with a network, and their success in selling the reruns themselves market-by-market, so they did the new show in syndication, marketing it directly to local stations without shopping it either to CBS, ABC or NBC. It started in January of 1977 with fewer than 40 markets carrying it, got as high as about 70 by mid-year, but lost so much money the New Mickey Mouse Club never made it to a second season of production. It's been pretty much forgotten today and so are that generation of Mouseketeers (although Courtney Love auditioned for the show during casting late in 1976 as a 12-year-old, and almost made the final cut...try to imagine how interesting a Mouseketeer she might have been).

Third time was a charm for the Mickey Mouse Club, which made a comeback with all-new shows in 1988 on Disney's own cable channel without ever hitting over-the-air broadcast. The third Mickey Mouse Club lasted the longest, through the mid-90s, and created the biggest number of kid Mouseketeers who grew into major adult stars, including Ryan Gosling, Keri Russell, Britney Spears, JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera.

 

[azumanga]

[The New Mickey Mouse Club] started in January of 1977 with fewer than 40 markets carrying it, got as high as about 70 by mid-year, but lost so much money the New Mickey Mouse Club never made it to a second season of production. It's been pretty much forgotten today and so are that generation of Mouseketeers (although Courtney Love auditioned for the show during casting late in 1976 as a 12-year-old, and almost made the final cut...try to imagine how interesting a Mouseketeer she might have been).

The most-notable members from that version were Lisa Whelchel and Julie Piekarski -- both appearing a couple of years later as regulars for "The Facts of Life", though Julie would leave that show after the first season.

 

[johnnya2k6]

Day & Date (syndicated, 1995) with Dana King (currently an anchor at KPIX in San Francisco); it had potential, but became lost in the headlights when Access Hollywood debuted in 1996.

And yes, D&D is also owned by CBS (who probably have a massive archive of syndicated magazine shows over the years, with Entertainment Tonight making up the majority).

 

[johnnya2k6]

Day & Date (syndicated, 1995) with Dana King (currently an anchor at KPIX in San Francisco); it had potential, but became lost in the headlights when Access Hollywood debuted in 1996.

And yes, D&D is also owned by CBS (who probably have a massive archive of syndicated magazine shows over the years, with Entertainment Tonight making up the majority).

 

[johnnya2k6]

A few late entries:

Go For It! TV (USA Network and later ABC Family, 1999)
The Krypton Factor (U.S. version; ABC, Summer 1981 (hosted by the late Dick Clark) and syndicated, 1990)
The Internet Cafe (PBS, 1996), from the producers of Computer Chronicles
Bull (TNT, 2000), a drama set in the backdrop of Wall Street
Miss Match (NBC, 2003), starring Alicia Silverstone
Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal (syndicated, 1996)

 

[crainbebo]

A few late entries:
Go For It! TV (USA Network and later ABC Family, 1999)

Nope. Go For It was syndicated E/I by Litton. In most markets, it ran from late 2003 to 2005, in some earlier. My local CBS affiliate KIRO 7 aired the E/I game/variety show on Saturday afternoons. Other affiliates included WB 100+ stations on Sunday mornings, some UPN [like WJZY and WNLO] and KTVK Phoenix/KUSI San Diego, to name a few.
Some DT2s have just added this in an E/I block with Animal Tails, Danger Rangers and Exploration/Richard Weiss, including KCRG-DT2 and KECY in El Centro.

-crainbebo

 

[nativeatlanta]

I remember in the mid 1970s as a kid watching S.W.A.T. on ABC. The late Robert Urich was one of the cast members. It got canceled after 2 seasons because it was considered too violent for its time. It had a great theme song thou.

Another forgotten show is the game show Remote Control. It aired on MTV in late 1980s. Back when MTV was still enjoyable to watch.

MTV also had a dating show in mid to late 1990s with cohost Jenny McCarthy. Carmen Electra was cohost one season.

 

[johnnya2k6]

Another forgotten show is the game show Remote Control. It aired on MTV in late 1980s. Back when MTV was still enjoyable to watch.

MTV also had a dating show in mid to late 1990s with cohost Jenny McCarthy. Carmen Electra was cohost one season.

That would be Singled Out; unlike Remote Control (or Nickelodeon's Double Dare or Finders Keepers), there was no syndicated version.

And who could ever forget...
WOW: Women Of Wrestling (syndicated, 2001)?
Hi Honey, I'm Home! (ABC/Nick at Nite, 1991)

 

[bmasters1981]

Salvage One
ABC. Andy Griffith runs some kind of salvage yard with his family. IIRC he wanted to make a rocketship of some sort. Don't think the plot ever evolved to that length.
Seems like I remember ads during the 1979 World Series.

It was also CPT who made it with Bennett/Katleman (as was the case w/the pilot, simply called Salvage). IIRC, the pilot was an ABC Sunday Night Movie.