This Full House Was Never Too Crowded

January 30, 2023January 1, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we are looking at some of our favorite television families, the series would not be coplete without the Tanners. Airing from 1987 to 1995, Full House appeared on ABC, producing 192 episodes. Jeff Franklin created the show about widower Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) who raised his three daughters: D.J. (Candace Cameron Bure), Stephanie (Jodi Sweetin), and Michelle (Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen) with the help of his brother-in-law Jesse (John Stamos) and best friend Joey (Dave Coulier). DJ’s best friend Kimmy (Andrea Barber) is also on the scene quite often. Interestingly, Coulier was friends with Saget and early in his career, he slept on Saget’s couch while he was trying to become a comedian.

The First Season Cast Members Photo: time.com

Because Saget and Coulier were already friends, the two actors went on a road trip to Las Vegas with Stamos to help them get to know each other. Since Coulier and Stamos were both single at the time, they bonded a lot. On the show, Joey and Jesse also become closer friends, seeming to have more in common with each other than with Danny.

Danny is a sports anchor, his brother-in-law is a musician, and his best friend, a comedian. They juggle schedules to get the girls where they need to go and tuck them in at night.

In season two, Danny becomes the host of a morning show, Wake Up San Francisco. His costar, Rebecca (Lori Loughlin), is young and fun and smart. However, the romance is not between her and Danny; she dates and later marries Jesse.

Saget was always first choice for Danny but because of his schedule, the pilot features John Posey in the role. Jodi Sweetin was brought in after an appearance she made on Valerie. Loughlin was hired for a six-week limited romance but never left once she started.

There were a lot of famous celebrities who appeared on the show including Frankie Avalon, Scott Baio, The Beach Boys, Phyllis Diller, Annette Funicello, Kareem Abdul Jabaar, Little Richard, and Marcia Wallace. On one episode Cameron’s real brother, Kirk Cameron appeared with Chelsea Noble. They began dating and later married.

Surprisingly, the show’s writing staff was inconsistent; Franklin who also wrote for the show was the only writer to stay through eight seasons.

Several of the characters developed catch phrases that were repeated all over the country. Jesse’s was “Have Mercy”; Joey’s was “Cut it Out”; and D.J.’s was “Oh My Lanta.” Stephanie often said “How Rude” while Michelle fittingly had two (one for each twin), with “You Got it Dude” and “You’re in Big Trouble Mister.”

The theme song, “Everywhere You Look,” was co-written by Bennett Salvay and Jesse Frederick, with Frederick doing the singing.

The show was in the top thirty every year after season one. It was on Friday nights for most of its run. There was a short time during season two when it was briefly moved to Tuesdays and then aired on both Tuesdays and Fridays to try to build its audience numbers. During season five, the show moved to Tuesdays until it was canceled. Despite its being in the top 25 in 1995, the network decided to end the show. It cited increasing production costs.

Fun fact, Dave Coulier made a puppet for the show, Mr. Woodchuck. He sold it to Toys R Us if you are ever looking for a gift for a big fan of the show. Another interesting item is that Ashley Olsen was right-handed while Mary Kate was left-handed, so Michelle is ambidextrous.

Unlike so many of the reboots of shows from the 80s and 90s, this show had a sequel, Fuller House, starring the same cast from 2016-2020. The show recently began appearing in Me TV’s lineup of shows.

The cast was definitely one big family on the show and they considered themselves family off the air as well. This came to light recently after the death of Bob Saget. When asked about how they were doing, Coulier commented, “We pull together as a family during moments like this. We’ve pretty much experienced everything that a real family can experience. Getting picked up, getting canceled, marriages, divorces, births, deaths. I mean, it’s pretty much what every family goes through. And we’ve stuck together through all of it.”

He also said that it “was incredible to have a group of people in our lives like this, where we know we’re going to get that instant support system. It’s pretty special.” Bure said that the cast “genuinely love each other.”

Saget, Stamos, and Coulier truly watched the girls grow up and transition from their kids to their friends. It is these relationships that give the show the special heart-warming atmosphere that surrounds most of the scenes. There are the arguments, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings that all families experience, but there is also unconditional love both on and off the set. We would all be better off if we had a “Full House.”

Life Goes On, But Television Shows Do Not

January 23, 2023January 1, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 3 Comments

This month’s blog series is “Some of Our Favorite Television Families.” In 1989 I remember tuning into a new show on ABC on Sunday night called Life Goes On. I continued to plant myself in front of the television every Sunday night for the next four years to do life with the Thatcher family.

The Cast of Life Goes On Photo: tvline.com

Executive Producer Michael Braverman worked with Chris Burke, an actor with Down syndrome in 1987 in a movie Desperate. ABC asked Braverman to create a series for Burke. Life Goes On was the first series to star a character with Down Syndrome.

The Thatchers lived in a Chicago suburb. Dad Drew (Bill Smitrovich) is a restaurant owner of The Glen Brook Grill and Special Olympics coach. Mom Libby (Patti LuPone) was a stay-at-home mom but when their restaurant burns down, she goes to work for an advertising agency.

Oldest daughter Paige (Monique Lanier season 1, Tracey Needham, seasons 2-4) has a great relationship with her brother but a trying one with her sister. She was Drew’s daughter from a previous relationship and moves back into the house trying to find her purpose in life. Lanier left the series to have a baby, so Needham took over the role.

Son Corky (Chris Burke) is the middle child. He has Down Syndrome and much of the first season is centered on Corky, especially his acclimating to “regular” high school.

Daughter Becca (Kellie Martin) is the youngest; she is extremely intelligent but feels socially awkward, and many of the episodes from later seasons feature Becca as she grows up. Many shows include her boyfriends, Tyler (Tommy Puett), Corky’s best friend and her boyfriend for the first half of the series, and Jesse (Chad Lowe), her boyfriend in seasons 3 and 4.

The show handled a lot of sensitive issues from a practical and healthy perspective. Corky deals with the difficulties his disease produces, especially how other people interact with him. After graduation, he gets a job at a local movie theater, moves into an apartment, and meets a girl named Amanda who also has Down Syndrome. The two eventually marry. His best friend Tyler dies in a car accident while Corky is a passenger in the car. Another ongoing storyline was when Becca’s boyfriend Jesse was diagnosed with HIV. It dealt with the ways people treated him, or mistreated him, after his diagnosis and the effect his illness had on their romantic relationship.

The show reminded me a bit of Family having three kids, with the son being the middle child. In that show, both sisters got along with Willy but Nancy and Buddy’s relationship was not always positive. It had a lot of humor written into the scripts and like life, more heart-warming than heart-breaking moments.

Life Goes On borrowed the Beatles song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” for its theme song; the song contained the lyrics “Life goes on.”

From The Partridges to the Thatchers Photo: wikifandom.com

The home in the opening credits of the series was located at 305 North Bowling Green Way in Brentwood as cited by https://www.iamnotastalker.com/tag/tv-houses/page/3/. If you have never seen her webpage, you should definitely check it out. Filming was done at a sound stage and at the Warner Brothers Ranch, an area you know well if you’ve been reading my blog for a while. The Thatchers lived in the same house the Partridges did.

The show was nominated for four Emmys, winning two. Lowe won for supporting actor in 1993 and Martin was nominated for supporting actress but lost to Mary Alice in I’ll Fly Away. Burke won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television

Last fall it was announced that a sequel to the series might be in the works. A pilot was produced in January for a show that Martin would star in with both Martin and Lowe producing. This show would portray Becca returning to her hometown.

In the series finale in 1993 Jesse and Becca marry after she finishes college and begins her career as a doctor. She wants to have a baby which he has a hard time reconciling with his AIDS. Becca is telling a story to a ten-year-old boy at the time and at the end of the show, she kisses him and says “Good night Jesse,” leaving us to imagine that she and Jesse did have a baby but leaving the actual identity of his parent unknown. It is also revealed that Becca married a man named David after Jesse died from AIDS.

I’m guessing that Martin and Lowe must still be close if they are involved in a potentially new project. Typically, one of the things I run across in my research is the relationships of the cast members. Unfortunately, I could not find any information about how the cast got along, with the exception of LuPone’s and Smitrovich’s dislike of each other. In her biography, LuPone mentions that the two costars were not even speaking to each other by the time the show went off the air and did not get along during the filming of most of the episodes.

LuPone was also not particularly happy with her character’s plots, or lack of plots. It’s surprising that a show would cover so many controversial or misunderstood topics and yet not address the role of women very well. When LuPone was discussing her character during the run of the show, she said that she was “’very unhappy with the way the season has unfolded and how unimportant the mother is in the family. I’m not satisfied — there’s no other way to put it. There are a lot of issues for women over 40 that they could have explored and they chose not to.’ LuPone says she has made her discontent known, but ‘men run the show, and they’re not interested in exploring these issues. [Libby] is going the way of all Hollywood mothers — she’s just a fixture, a device.’”

If you want to learn more about the show, Herbie Pilato wrote a book, Life Story—The Book of Life Goes On: Television’s First and Best Family Show of Challenge. I’m not sure how the book was received by the cast and crew, but Braverman wrote the forward. It has a 4.5 rating on Amazon and most people gave it a 5.0.

I’m not sure how well the show would play in the 2020s. Because it dealt with so many topics of the eighties and nineties, it may feel stuck in that time period. However, we have proven over and over that we are slow learners and there are probably a lot of issues dealt with in the show that we are still trying to resolve today. And, there are a lot of great life lessons and stories to learn, so it would be well worth investing in the DVD set to check it out.

Everyone is Welcome on The Waltons

January 16, 2023January 1, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we celebrate some of our favorite families, The Walton family has to be on the list. Those of us who were kids in the seventies grew up with the Walton kids. Debuting in 1971, the show was canceled a decade later.

The Cast of The Waltons Photo: theguardian.com

The show was listed as a historical drama, but it had a lot of humor in it as well. Based on the book Spencer’s Mountain by Earl Hamner Jr. from 1961, the show was incredibly popular. In 1963 a movie was released based on the book. Hamner created the book from his childhood memories, and many of the plots and characters were based on real events and people. The ending of the episodes has often been parodied, and even if you never watched the show, you recognize the ending when the kids all said “Goodnight John Boy”, “Goodnight Ben”, “Goodnight Erin”, etc until they were told to go to sleep. Hamner said this was a regular activity in his home, and he did have six siblings.

In 1971 a made-for-tv movie called The Homecoming: A Christmas Story received great ratings, so the show was ordered by CBS for a new series. It was produced by Lorimar Productions and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution in syndication. After the show went off the air, both CBS and NBC aired a total of six sequel movies.

The Waltons have a big family. John (Ralph Waite) and Olivia (Michael Learned) live with John’s parents Zebulon (Will Geer) and Esther (Ellen Corby). The couple has seven children: John Boy (Richard Thomas), Jason (Jon Walmsley), Mary Ellen (Judy Norton Taylor), Erin (Mary Elizabeth McDonough), Ben (Eric Scott), Jim Bob (David W. Harper), and Elizabeth (Kami Cotler).

The story was set in Virginia in Walton’s Mountain, a fictional town based on Spencer’s hometown of Schuyler. During the years that the show was on television, it covered 1933 to 1946. John runs a lumber mill, and the family does some farming. Halfway through the series, Grandma Walton has a stroke and Grandpa Walton passes away; in real life Corby did have a stroke and Geer died that year.

The Baldwin Sister Photo: thewaltons.com

During the run of the show, we get to know a lot of the community members including The Baldwin sisters, Emily and Mamie (Mary Jackson, Helen Kleeb), who sell Papa’s recipe, otherwise known as moonshine; Ike Godsey (Joe Conley) who runs the general store; Flossie Brimmer (Nora Marlow), a widow who owns a boarding house and communicates the town gossip; Yancy Tucker (Robert Donner), a local handyman; Sheriff Ep Bridges (John Crawford), and Reverend Fordwick (John Ritter).

Although the Depression is hard for the family to navigate, WWII caused even more hardship in their community. All four Walton boys serve in the military as does Mary Ellen’s husband. John Boy’s plane is shot down, and Curtis (Tom Bower), Mary Ellen’s husband, a physician, was sent to Pearl Harbor and believed to have died. However, years later Mary Ellen learns he has been alive the entire time, and she finds him living under an assumed name, depressed from his wounds. They divorce, and she later finds love and marries a second time. In later seasons, Olivia volunteers at the VA hospital and is not an active member of the series. She later is said to develop TB and moves to a sanitarium in Arizona. Her cousin Rose (Peggy Rea) moves into the house to help take care of the family, and a couple of years later, John moves to Arizona as well. The sequel movies took place in 1947, 1963, 1964, and 1969.

John Boy grows up to be a journalist and a novelist; he narrates the opening and closing of each episode, and the voice of the adult John Boy is Earl Hamner, the author. He is able to attend Boatwright University in a nearby town before moving to New York to begin his writing career. Jason is interested in music, and Mary Ellen becomes a nurse.

Walton’s Mountain was part of the Hollywood Hills range near the Warner studios in Burbank, and the town was built at the studio as well. Because the original set was destroyed when the show was canceled, later sequels had to recreate the home. That building is still being used and became the Dragonfly Inn on Gilmore Girls.

Although the network did not think the show would last, the show was very popular with both the viewers and critics. The networks had just done the “rural purge” where they canceled all shows with rural themes even those like Green Acres that were receiving high ratings. However, congressional hearings were held to discuss the moral compass of programming on television, and President Bush wanted more family shows, so the network gave it a go. I’m guessing they did not want the show to do well considering it was definitely a rural show, and they put it up against The Flip Wilson Show and Mod Squad. Ralph Waite did not want to be tied to a series long term but his agent told him not to worry about it, the show would never sell.

When Thomas was asked about the show’s popularity, he said, “It was kind of a miracle and a mystery. Certainly, the last thing any of us expected was that it would be embraced the way it was. I think our competition on Thursday night was Flip Wilson and Mod Squad, which were hugely popular and terrific shows for people. I think we premiered in 34^th place and finished the season in first. It was just this steady climb. The critical community certainly came and went to bat for us.”

In 1973 the series won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. That same year Richard Thomas won the Emmy for Lead Actor. Michael Learned received the Emmy in 1973, 1974, and 1976. Will Geer and Ellen Corby also were presented with awards: Corby won for Supporting Actress in 1973, 1975, and 1976 while Geer received the honor in 1975 as well.

The show’s ratings began declining in the late seventies. I’m not sure why Learned left the show; I do know she admits she suffered from alcoholism during those years. Waite was let go to save money for the series. The network wanted the show to concentrate on the younger viewers, but apparently, it was too late, or the show had come to the natural end of its life.

In the finale episode, the Walton family members and the Godseys attend a party at the Baldwin sisters’ mansion. If you look closely, you will see several unknown guests in the group–they included Hamner and other cast and crew members.

If you want to experience the life of this show, I have two suggestions for you. You can watch several seasons of the show on DVD, or you can check out John & Olivia’s Bed & Breakfast Inn which is located just behind the boyhood home of Hamner. It’s a five-bedroom, five-bathroom home inspired by the depression-era home of the Waltons.

It’s hard to explain the popularity that The Waltons had in the 1970s. I’m trying to come up with a show that was as critically acclaimed and was watched by the entire family for almost ten years. The only shows I can compare it to are Bonanza which aired for fourteen years and Little House on the Prairie which was on the air for nine years. Viewers embraced the characters and the values of the Walton’s Mountain community. We all felt we knew the family intimately and cared about what happened to them. It left a legacy, and I’m sure it influenced many people currently in the television industry. If you have never seen the show, you definitely want to watch a couple of seasons and if you grew up with it, you might want to revisit your old friends.

Nanny and the Professor: The Mary Poppins of the 1970s

January 9, 2023January 1, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are starting off the new year with a blog series taking a closer look at some of our favorite families. Between Mary Poppins and The Nanny, we had Nanny and the Professor. A lot of my friends don’t remember this show, but it was part of the ABC lineup for two years. It began its life on Wednesday nights in 1970 followed by The Courtship of Eddie’s Father and then Room 222. The second season, it moved to Friday nights airing after The Brady Bunch and before The Partridge Family. The short third season found the show on Monday nights up against Gunsmoke and Laugh In which surely set it up for failure.

AJ Carothers and Thomas Miller created the show for 20^th Century Fox Television. Carothers was best known for his Disney movies, and this show has that same type of atmosphere. English-born Phoebe Figalilly (Juliet Mills) is hired by Professor Harold Everett (Richard Long) to be the housekeeper and nanny for this three children: very intelligent Hal (David Doremus), prankster Butch (Trent Lehman), and musical prodigy Prudence (Kim Richards) who had a pet rooster named Sebastian. Juliet Mills, sister to Parent Trap star Hayley Mills, was offered the role after auditioning in England. An open casting call was done for the role in London.

Nanny became very close to the three children, and she and Professor Long had a subtle romance. You could tell there was chemistry, and he began working less and hanging out with the family more often.

Nanny had a great intuition, but we were always left wondering if there was more to her secret knowledge than we were aware of. While the Professor hired her, she showed up unannounced for the job. Sometimes she hinted at being much older than she looked. One of the running gags of the show was that she always knew when people were at the front door or on the phone before the doorbell or phone rang. She also seemed to be able to communicate with animals including the kids’ dog Waldo. She also fixed up and drove around in a 1930 roadster which she named Arabella in honor of her favorite aunt.

Nanny had a lot of relatives who showed up at the Everett household from time to time. Uncle Alfred (John Mills, Juliet’s father) entertains the children with this stories and human flying act. Aunt Justine (Ida Lupino) and Aunt Agatha (Majorie Bennett) arrive in a hot air balloon. Uncle Horace (Ray Bolger) claims to be able to make it rain. Aunt Henrietta (Elsa Lanchester) comes with the circus; in another episode she helps get rid of a ghost.

Fun fact, the background music was taken from My Favorite Martian. The theme song was called “Nanny” and was written and sung by The Addrisi Brothers. The song is:

Soft and sweet
Wise and wonderful
Oooh our mystical magical nanny

Since the day that nanny came to stay with us
Fantastic things keep happening

Is there really magic in the things she does
Or is love the only magic thing that nanny brings

You know our nanny showed us you can make the impossible happen
Nanny told us have a little bit of faith and lots of love

Phoebe Figalilly is a silly name
And so many silly things keep happening
What is this magic thing about nanny
Is it Love Or is it Magic

The show might be done, but much of the merchandise that was used to promote the show still exists. Colorform sets, coloring books, paper dolls, comic books, View Master reels, and several books are available on ebay.com

Even though the move to Monday night could not have been good for ratings, Mills said the cast was stunned when the show was canceled. In a July 22, 2019 interview with foxnews.com, she said, “I think we were all shocked, actually, and not ready to move on.” She said she does not regret starring in the show, and that the cast was “wonderful, really, very professional and very good. She said the show had a special place in her heart. “I’m proud of it and have very, very happy memories of it, she said. “I’m still recognized all over the place for that as much as anything I’ve ever done, which is extraordinary. People just hear my voice and they turn around, ‘Hey Nanny.’”

Although Nanny and the Professor might not be as well known as other shows of its decade, it deserves to be remembered. Even though it never hit the 100-episode target for syndication, the show was played on other networks after it was canceled. I could not find any network showing reruns or anywhere to stream the show, and the DVDs are currently not available on Amazon but they are available on other DVD websites. It might be worth searching for to have a marathon weekend binge some cold, winter weekend.

Family Affair: When Indiana and New York Collide

January 2, 2023January 1, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are celebrating some of our favorite television families. Many families were single parents in the classic age. In the fifties, Bentley Gregg, a wealthy attorney, raised his niece with his houseboy Peter on Bachelor Father. Fred MacMurray raised his three boys in 1960. In 1966 Bill Davis (Brian Keith), a wealthy engineer, raised his two nieces (6-year old Buffy played by Anissa Jones and 15-year old Cissy played by Kathy Garver) and Buffy’s twin, nephew Jody (Johnny Whitaker) with his valet Giles French (Sebastian Cabot) on Family Affair.

The show was on CBS until 1971, producing 138 episodes during its five-year run.

The cast of Family Affair Photo: decades.com

The kids grew up in Indiana and now have to adjust to an apartment in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Their uncle has to adjust from being a carefree bachelor to a parent of three children, and Mr. French’s quiet days are now noisy and full of small crises. The five of them become a family and learn rely on each other.

The show was created and produced by Don Fedderson and Edmund Hartman. Fedderson, who had been the creative force behind My Three Sons, sold the show to CBS without having to film a pilot.

There were a lot of similarities between the two shows. In addition to two single men bringing up the three siblings, their production schedules were similar. Fred MacMurray had been promised a schedule where all his filming was done in one or two blocks for the entire season. Likewise, Keith used two thirty-day blocks to shoot all of his scenes. Garver and Cabot probably had the hardest time filming. The kids could only work limited hours, so quite often when scenes required Cissy or Mr. French, they were talking to a “big paunchy guy from New York with a cigar in his mouth,” pretending to be one of the other cast members.

On My Three Sons, Dodi’s doll “Myrtle” was sold in toy stores. Buffy’s doll “Mrs. Beasley” was also sold to its youngest fans. Buffy often took the doll with her, and Mr. French was embarrassed when he had to “babysit” the doll. The 1967 Mrs. Beasley can still be found on sites like ebay, but be prepared to pay $500 for a doll in mint condition.

Cast with Mrs. Beasley. Photo: tvseriesfinale.com

Frank DeVol who wrote the theme for MacMurray’s show also composed the instrumental song for Family Affair.

Glen Ford was offered the role of Uncle Bill; this may have been because he played a single father in the movie version of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. When he turned it down, the production crew turned to Keith.

Uncle Bill and Mr. French did not become perfect parents instantly. Uncle Bill often lost his temper, and Mr. French was not accustomed to having his tidy bachelor pad look like a cyclone hit it. Unlike other single-parent shows, the kids’ deceased parents were mentioned often and were kept a part of their life.

Kathy Garver reminisced about Keith later in life. She said that he was very much like his character: “He had three adopted kids, two biological kids and loved kids . . . He was a gruff ex-Marine, but he had a heart of gold.”

Ironically, the show was canceled during the big rural purge despite the fact that it was set in Manhattan, and it continued to do well in the ratings. CBS did air the show in syndication daily from its end until 1973.

Keith with his youngest costars Photo: closerweekly.com

While the cast appeared to be very close, there was a lot of dysfunction among the cast members after the show went off the air. In 1976, Anissa Jones died from an overdose; Jody Whitaker had a lot of addiction problems but then turned his life around. Sebastian Cabot had a stroke and died in 1977. Brian Keith who was devastated by Jones’ overdose and his real daughter’s suicide, was diagnosed with cancer and took his own life in 1997. Garver and Whitaker, the only survivors, both have appeared on Broadway in the past decades.

Like almost every popular show from the sixties, this one was rebooted in 2002. It was on the WB for thirteen episodes. Gary Cole took on the role of Uncle Bill while Tim Curry became Mr. French.

Garver has accepted that she will always be known for her role as Cissy. There was an announcement in 2019 that a show titled Aunt Cissy starring Garver was going into production. It was a Travis Hunt Production filmed in LA. It has its own Facebook site, but it does not look like it ever aired. Six episodes were filmed, but I have not found any other information about the series.

In addition to Mrs. Beasley, there was a lot of merchandise associated with the show. Gold Key Comics published four comic books in 1970 based on the series. You can also find lunch boxes, puzzles, coloring books, View Master reels, a board game, and even a piece of luggage.

Although the plots were quite simple, this show was a favorite for many families. It was a series the entire family could enjoy. Fans watched the kids grow up for the five years it was on the air. Although Uncle Bill was quite wealthy, the family never appeared to be a rich one. The kids kept their Indiana morals. When I was researching for this blog, I found a lot of fans expressing fond memories and giving heartfelt tributes, and that is a true legacy for any show.

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Month: January 2023