Shows That "Collapsed" Right At The End

[segaradiofan]

Could be. What about "Good Times" first with Dad gone, then Mom and the kids by themselves?

When John Amos (James) left at the end of the third season, to me the show jumped the shark right then. It was never as good as the earlier years afterward.

 

[BrigThomson]

It was also alleged that he did not like working with the young folk. Apparently he "worked" with them but he wasn't the fatherly figure he portrayed.

Basically the same thing was said about Robert Young on "Father Knows Best."
Billy Gray (Bud) has said that all Young cared was that all the actors showed
up on time, knew their lines, and hit their marks. Unlike many family sitcoms,
where the sitcom kids often visit with the grownups' real kids when not working, Young had no off-camera interaction with Gray, Elinor Donahue, and Lauren Chapin.

That is half-true. Young pretty much had no off-camera interaction with Donahue and Gray but for Lauren Chapin, when Young found out just how awful her private life really was, he and his wife would often invite Lauren Chapin into their home to spend weekends with them. I am pretty sure Chapin brought this up on E! a few years back. For a while the Youngs really were like her second family.

Howeve once Father Knows Best ended, so did those weekend trips to the Youngs for Lauren Chapin.

There was a story that came out in the 1980's that Robert Young had a bad habit of getting oiled up and whacking his wife around. Same goes for the fatherly
Harry Morgan who got charged with the same goods. Charges for both men were dropped after they were forced to attend various social service-type programs.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

It also came out around the time of Young's death that he suffered from depression for years, and even attempted suicide at least once.

One show I haven't seen mentioned is "Seinfeld", based on the almost universally reviled final episode. ( I liked it, so I'm in the minority.)

On the "I'm not a doctor..." question, I remember that being Chris Robinson (can't recall the name of his character) from "General Hospital".

 

[bpatrick]

Re "I'm not a doctor": I keep thinking more than one
actor did that line, so it may have been Chris Robinson.
I thought he played on "GH" but Wesley Hyatt's "Encyclopedia
Of Daytime Television" doesn't show that he did.

I do remember Peter Bergman doing that commercial when
he played Dr. Cliff Warner on "All My Children."

 

[dadetim]

One of my all time favorite shows is Mama's Family. WKRP is another show I can't remember how it ended.

WKRP ended when mama carleson was gonna flip the format of WKRP to news talk. she didn't do it due to a conversation with the doctor (johnny fever, that is)

 

[Andy Coleman]

Chris Robinson played DR.Rick Webber during late 1970's and early 1980's on General Hospital. He was lead Herione Laura Spencer dad. after he left GH he starred on NBC soap Another World as villian Jason Frame. But as Rick Webber he played a part of a good Dr. I blame his character on AW for making the actor play bad guy roles. Because when he returned to GH he was wrote as a womanizer and also a villian . He had given his daughter Laura a drug to make her forget a murder she had wittnessed him do . when Laura remembered this he tried to do the same thing in the present day so she killed him with pair scissors.

 

[Ultimajock]

...throughout this thread, I've been tempted to contribute SheSpies, but I always remind myself that in reality the show's two seasons were more like different series using the same lead characters, and the second season (a relatively straightforward spy adventure) was simply not done as well or as appealingly as the first (a satire of conventional spy adventure series). I also think that Branded simply fell apart during the second, all-color season, perhaps because creator Larry Cohen didn't contribute to the writing as he had the first season...

 

[bpatrick]

Chris Robinson played DR.Rick Webber during late 1970's and early 1980's on General Hospital. He was lead Herione Laura Spencer dad. after he left GH he starred on NBC soap Another World as villian Jason Frame. But as Rick Webber he played a part of a good Dr. I blame his character on AW for making the actor play bad guy roles. Because when he returned to GH he was wrote as a womanizer and also a villian . He had given his daughter Laura a drug to make her forget a murder she had wittnessed him do . when Laura remembered this he tried to do the same thing in the present day so she killed him with pair scissors.

I wonder how Wesley Hyatt managed to leave that out.

 

[Kurt Toy]

I'm surprised no one mentioned "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In". Once Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Goldie Hawn, Judy Carne, and some others left and were replaced by the likes of Richard Dawson, Sarah Kennedy, Donna Jean Young, etc. the show was not quite the same. In retrospect it ended up just like any other comedy-variety show.

 

[firepoint525]

I'm surprised no one mentioned "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In". Once Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Goldie Hawn, Judy Carne, and some others left and were replaced by the likes of Richard Dawson, Sarah Kennedy, Donna Jean Young, etc. the show was not quite the same. In retrospect it ended up just like any other comedy-variety show.

In other words, just like Saturday Night Live, which has run on fumes for many years!

 

[ajc_trw]

I thought McGinley was fantastic on Married...with Children personally.

Agreed, and how many seasons was he on? ???

Enough to break the "Jump the Shark" curse IMHO

 

[fortmill]

I nominate Wings. I really loved that show until about the time Helen and Joe got married (the wedding episode was one of the funniest ever). After that, the show quickly deteriorated with lame plots and unlikely jokes.

 

[gr8oldies]

"Northern Exposure" first after they turned Maggie the pilot from a likeable charachter int a b**ch, then after Joel left.

 

[firepoint525]

"Ellen" (her sitcom, not her talk show) when it became more about her character being a lesbian, and less about comedy! : So far, I've seen no evidence that she has made the same mistake with her talk show, but I am not usually able to watch it when it is on.

 

[mleach]

"Ellen" (her sitcom, not her talk show) when it became more about her character being a lesbian, and less about comedy! : So far, I've seen no evidence that she has made the same mistake with her talk show, but I am not usually able to watch it when it is on.

And Ellen DeGeneres would agree with you too. A few years back I remember she made a comment that making her show "too gay" was a big mistake. Too bad at the time she was doing her sitcom she didn't listen to Elton John. A few month after her "coming out" episode had aired, Elton said "..ok..your a lesbian..so what..just go back to being funny !!".

 

[gr8oldies]

It went from a sitcom to being a cause..and it died

 

[LKellerIII]

"Moonlighting" - starring Cybil Shepherd and a new face named Bruce Willis (1985-89) started out as a very clever comedy/mystery series.

They tried to get creative with the format, and did some interesting things including a Shakespearean episode.

In my opinion, the downhill slide started when they decided to "break down the fourth wall"...that is, they would interrupt the dialogue or action to talk directly into the camera to the audience. That can be a funny format for a half hour comedy (George Burns, for example, in Burns and Allen), but in a drama, or action show, the gimmick tends to kill any suspense that has been built up by the mystery story line.

After that, the show degenerated quickly - scripts were not completed on time, so ABC had to run three-peats and four-peats. Fans of the show got tired of waiting, and there were stories about jealousy and competition between Willis and Sheperd.

The last few shows were virtually unwatchable.

 

[azumanga]

[Moonlighting] scripts were not completed on time, so ABC had to run three-peats and four-peats. Fans of the show got tired of waiting, and there were stories about jealousy and competition between Willis and Sheperd.

The 1988 writer's strike didn't help things, either. I recall an episode where a story abruptly ended, with Willis and Sheppard telling the audience that that night's episode has been left unfinished, due to the strike, before going to some sort of musical number about the strike.

 

[Tim L]

Ive said this before, but I think The Drew Carey Show went way too "out there" in the last few years..They were at their best when it was just simple funny stories about 4 friends who happened to live in Cleveland. For example, Craig Ferguson, while he is a really funny man (and he shows it on his late night show)..His "gay relationship" with Drew went a bit far in my opinion..

 

[STF]

I agree completely on "Ellen" and "The Drew Carey Show." They both completely lost their way at the end for all the reasons that have already been mentioned.