TV stars who had badmouthed their own shows...

[mleach]

The tread in the 60s/70's section about singers badmouthing their own hits gave me this idea.

TV stars who had slammed their own shows in public. Some of the ones I can recall through reading in the paper, in books, on the radio, online over the years..

*John Amos & Ester Rolle ( Good Times...I believe this was in a 1976 edition of Ebony Magazine )
*Jay North ( Dennis the Menace )
*Cindy Williams ( Laverne & Shirley )
*Tom Bosley ( Wait Til Your Father Gets Home )
*Desi Arnaz Jr. ( Here's Lucy )
*Connie Hines ( Mr Ed )
*Bea Pons ( Car 54, Where Are you? )
*Jim Backus ( I Married Joan )
*Bob Denver ( Far Out Space Nuts )
*Randy Mantooth ( Emergency )
*Ted Bessell ( Me & The Chimp )
*Stephen Talbot ( Leave it to Beaver )


...of course over the years some of these folks did make a turnaround to go on to actually embrace the shows they had once slammed while others claim that their statements were taken "..out of context".

 

[wbhist]

From what I could tell, a more recent example was Katherine Heigl when she was in Grey's Anatomy.

 

[mleach]

Oh for the record I did go back and see that I had started a thread awhile back about stars who didn't like the roles that had made them famous. This is more about those who had slammed the actual show. Example..Bob Denver and the "Far Out Space Nuts". Denver was not only embarrised for himself but embarrised for everyone else who was connected to the show.

 

[larkin]

Robert Reed--The Brady Bunch; despite the fact that he came back for The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides and The Bradys.

Jackie Gleason--You're In The Picture; lasted one show as he came on the following week to apologize.

 

[radiorob2.0]

John Amos and Ester Rolle had issues with Good Times, as did show creators Eric Monte and Mike Evans, over the focus of J.J. and that character living up to every stereotype along with the direction of the show being more slapstick than real. Amos' opinions is what caused his character to be killed off in a freak Kiln Explosion...oh wait...that was Fawn Libeowitz.

Tina Louise wasn't very positive on Gilligan's Island. As far as Ted Bessel the story goes the title was suppose to be "The Chimp and Me" but Bessell made it clear a chimp wasn't going to have top billing so the improper English usage was the title.

 

[MattParker]

William Shatner was not too complimentary at one time about ST:TOS, and most especially its fans.

 

[LKellerIII]

William Shatner was not too complimentary at one time about ST:TOS, and most especially its fans.

If I remember, Shatner once hosted an SNL which included a Trekkie convention skit in which he dissed the "Trekkies" (played by the SNL cast) and told them to "get a life."

I've heard Ted Danson trash Becker on a talk show or two.

Patrick Duffy was always a great talk show guest, and while he never specifically bad-mouthed Step by Step, he made it very clear that he did it for the money. I believe he referred to the show as his "retirement pension."

 

[bpatrick]

Robert Reed--The Brady Bunch; despite the fact that he came back for The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides and The Bradys.

Jackie Gleason--You're In The Picture; lasted one show as he came on the following week to apologize.

I've told this story before, but this thread makes me want to repeat it. Reed was on "Password" for a week when he was appearing on "The Brady Bunch" and also playing Lt. Adam Tobias on "Mannix" roughly every other week; on Friday, Allen Ludden reminded viewers to watch Reed on "The Brady Bunch," and Reed shot in, "and Mannix!".

Jack Palance did a short-lived version of "The Greatest Show On Earth" for ABC in 1963-64. In an interview with writer Tedd Thomey, he pronounced the show "garbage" and said he did it only because it paid the bills.

Lee Marvin, when he was doing "M Squad," complained about the speed at which weekly episodes are turned out. "In the movies we do two, maybe three pages, a day. It's the leisurely way and it comes out good. But for this ---- Ballinger (his character, Lt. Frank Ballinger) thing, we're doing fifteen pages a day. What comes out is crud (not the word he used but the word considered fit for print) and mediocrity." His agent later said that he made statements like that just to get people to tune in, that he was really proud of the show.

George Reeves rarely badmouthed "Superman," but Jack Larson recalls the day, during a break, when Reeves was talking about his critically-acclaimed performance in 1943's "So Proudly We Hail!" and how producer Mark Sandrich (father of sitcom producer Jay Sandrich) had big plans to make him a star. But then Reeves was drafted, and while he was in the Army, Sandrich died. "If Mark Sandrich had lived, I wouldn't be wearing this monkey suit (the Superman costume)." But, as I said, that was rare behavior for Reeves, who was more concerned with kids believing the show and doing things like jumping out of windows in attempts to fly and breaking bones.

And it's hard to know when Groucho Marx was serious and when he wasn't, but once, referring to the expense of filming and editing "You Bet Your Life," he said, "We could be making 'Gone With The Wind' every week and I could be playing with Scarlett O'Hara instead of George Fenneman." But then Groucho would invariably say that he took home in the neighborhood of $5000 a week, "and that's a nice neighborhood to be in."

 

[bpatrick]

How could I leave out Frances Bavier's remark, at a
Christmas party for the cast and crew of "The Andy
Griffith Show" and within earshot of writers Jim Fritzell
and Everett Greenbaum, that "this could be a good show
if we had some decent scripts." Years later, recalling that
incident, Greenbaum noted that some friends in a Southern
town (the real Siler City) bought a house for her, and that
within six months they wished she'd leave. What people
around here think of her would make a thread of its own;
suffice it to say that a lot of people wish she'd made good
on her threat to move back to New York, her hometown.

Agnes Moorehead sometimes complained about the scripts
on "Bewitched," but I think, deep down, she really had a good
time. She once said she played Endora as a "sophisticated gal"
who enjoyed giving mortals their comeuppance; "it appeals to
my snob instincts."

And I find it interesting that I've never known a game-show host
(well, maybe Groucho, but as I said, it's hard to know when he was
serious and when he wasn't) to complain about the show he or she
was doing; somehow you'd expect Bob Barker to say, "Here I am,
a grown man, with these silly people on 'Truth Or Consequences' or
'The Price Is Right'." His predecessor on "T or C", Jack Bailey, came
close when he said, "Dishing out the truth was OK, it was the consequences
I didn't like." But I should talk; I'd like to be a game-show host myself; I
lack three things: looks, a voice, and an extroverted personality.

 

[Ultimajock]

...during the final season of The A-Team, George Peppard let loose to a few reporters about both the series and Mr.T...and there were times when Robert Blake groused about both Baretta and Hell Town, but I suspect that was merely a standard sign of life for him ;-) ...

 

[Markxxx]

Joyce DeWitt didn't like Three's Company at all. Interestingly enough if you read her remarks she always is very careful to praise John Ritter as if he was some kind of comic genius and she said, Priscilla Barnes felt the same way. DeWitt and Barnes are good friends in real life. The rest of the cast and production she wasn't too keen on.

In an interview I saw Ann B Davis said, Robert Reed was just a very unhappy person. She chalked it up to his being forced into a closet, but she said, he also like to fight. She said, she was shocked that Robert Reed was a big supporter of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour because he couldn't sing and dance. It was something he wanted to do.

 

[bpatrick]

Another DeWitt, George, didn't badmouth a show, just an executive.
In the wake of the quiz scandals, in 1959, CBS canceled the original
"Name That Tune" because its top prize was $25,000 and the Eye Network
had just put a limit of $1000 on game-show winnings. DeWitt, however, was
in favor at CBS, and in January 1960 he was given a variety show, "Be Our
Guest," which he co-hosted with Mary Ann Mobley. Now it's not clear whether
or not the two got along, but a few weeks into the show's run Jim Aubrey replaced
DeWitt with his mafioso buddy Keefe Brasselle. DeWitt then spent the next few
years making pilots (mostly game shows) for CBS, none of which got on the air,
and by the time his contract ended he was little more than a "Jeopardy!" question
(answer?). I know of two occasions when he blasted Aubrey for this turn of events:
at a news conference when Brasselle replaced him, and in the Atlanta Constitution
at the time of "Name That Tune"'s return in 1974.

Why he didn't get a lawyer and try to break the contract with CBS so he could
work for one of the other networks is beyond me. Better still, if you ever see one
of his episodes of "Name That Tune," you'll see a guy I think could have given Mike
and Merv a run for their money in the talk-show sweepstakes.

Another game-show host of DeWitt's vintage, Herb Shriner, didn't badmouth his
show, "Two For The Money"; he just left in 1956 and tried a short-lived variety show
which was replaced by one of the true classic games: "To Tell The Truth".

 

[71dude]

Bea Arthur - Amanda's
Rue McClanahan - Mama's Family
Eve Plumb - Brady Bunch
Lucille Ball - Life With Lucy
Tom Wopat and John Schneider - Dukes of Hazzard
Andy Kaufman - Taxi

 

[mleach]

Rue McClanahan - Mama's Family

Carol Burnett wasn't exactly a fan of the syndicated Mama's Family either but in her case it was manily due to her divorce to series producer Joe Hamilton.

 

[wbhist]

Carol Burnett wasn't exactly a fan of the syndicated Mama's Family either but in her case it was manily due to her divorce to series producer Joe Hamilton.

She also claimed dissatisfaction with the quality of the first five years (1967-72) of her own variety show and cited that as the reason why that part of the show's run was never edited in half-hour chunks for the syndicated Carol Burnett & Friends - but this may have had something to do with producer/packager Bob Banner co-owning those first 133 shows (unlike the last 145 from 1972-78 of which she maintains full ownership). As well, I seem to recall her completely disavowing any knowledge of the short-lived 1964 variety series The Entertainers of which she, Bob Newhart and Caterina Valente were originally designated "rotating" hosts, maintaining it wasn't "her" show - that too was a Banner production.

 

[Markxxx]

Rue McClanahan - Mama's Family

I saw an interview with Rue and she claims her dissatisfaction was she originally was asked to do it and loved it. She was supposed to play a character that was bold and brassy and stood up to Thelma. Then she said the producers hired to play Dorothy Lyman to play Naomi Oats and gave all her original lines to her. Indeed in the NBC years of "Mama's Family" Naomi was always ready to scrap with Mama and wasn't dumb. In the syndicated years Naomi was dumbed way down (as was Vinton)

So Rue was left with the "leftovers" she said.

She also said how great her show "Apple Pie" was and how it should've been a big hit. I never saw that, but Rue thought it was great.

 

[McCorryKL]

Peter Davison famously (or infamously) declared his era of Doctor Who to be "crap". Gil Gerard between the 2 seasons of Buck Rogers said the first season was all glitter and no substance. He was all in favor of the changes for the second season but in years since then reversed himself to brand the second season as garbage and the first season a fun romp. Or something like that. Martin Landau always speaks ill of the second season of Space: 1999 when in the company of fans of the show and when being interviewed by mainstream press prefers to sidestep the show completely. From all accounts, he was scathingly critical of the show almost throughout its production (both seasons).

And although not a TV star, producer Ralph Bakshi has been reported as swearing and telling someone to grow up if he's asked about his produced seasons of Spiderman and Rocket Robin Hood.

 

[Ultimajock]

Carol Burnett wasn't exactly a fan of the syndicated Mama's Family either but in her case it was manily due to her divorce to series producer Joe Hamilton.

She also claimed dissatisfaction with the quality of the first five years (1967-72) of her own variety show and cited that as the reason why that part of the show's run was never edited in half-hour chunks for the syndicated Carol Burnett & Friends - but this may have had something to do with producer/packager Bob Banner co-owning those first 133 shows (unlike the last 145 from 1972-78 of which she maintains full ownership).

...as I recall, that's much the same reason why the last season of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was never included in the syndication packages -- George Schlatter and Ed Friendly had quit as executive producers, leaving the series' ownership to Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, who installed writer Paul Keyes as the show's primary producer. Schlatter has loudly blasted Keyes and that final season ever since...

 

[mleach]

And although not a TV star, producer Ralph Bakshi has been reported as swearing and telling someone to grow up if he's asked about his produced seasons of Spiderman and Rocket Robin Hood.

For a number of years it was reported in books such as "Forbidden Channels: The Truth They Hide from TV Guide" by Penny Stallings that Mary Tyler Moore had said the very same thing in regards to those who just can't accept her past Mary Richards..didn't stop her fans from trying anything to discredited it.

Much lake Dana Plato from Diff'rent Strokes and the soft core "porn" movie she had one shortly before her death , the flick "Jack and Jill & Jill"..to this day many of her most serious fans deny that Dana was ever a part of it even though the truth sadly is in the pudding.

 

[ShawnHill1]

And I find it interesting that I've never known a game-show host
(well, maybe Groucho, but as I said, it's hard to know when he was
serious and when he wasn't) to complain about the show he or she
was doing; somehow you'd expect Bob Barker to say, "Here I am,
a grown man, with these silly people on 'Truth Or Consequences' or
'The Price Is Right'." His predecessor on "T or C", Jack Bailey, came
close when he said, "Dishing out the truth was OK, it was the consequences
I didn't like." But I should talk; I'd like to be a game-show host myself; I
lack three things: looks, a voice, and an extroverted personality.

...if you believe that E! True Hollywood Story episode from several years ago, Richard Dawson (and to lesser extent, Ray Combs) had conflicts with Family Feud's production staff, particularly producer/executive producer Howard Felsher. Felsher didn't hold back his disdain for Dawson, and didn't exactly heap praise on Combs either (or Louie Anderson, as he just left the show shortly after this THS episode was produced). Anderson, at least during his last two years hosting Feud, wasn't exactly enamored with the show either, and predicted the show would be canceled soon; well...it's been several years since the proclamation, and it's still on.