Stephen Tobolowsky

For this Reboot series, we are ending with One Day at a Time. This show was about a divorced mom, Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) whose father is not in the picture much anymore. She moves her two teenaged daughters, Barbara (Valerie Bertinelli) and Julie (Mackenzie Phillips) from Logansport, Indiana to Indianapolis. Barbara is the funny daughter who is always doing the right thing, while Julie is rebellious and angry. Schneider (Pat Harrington Jr.) is their building supervisor, and he takes on a bit of a parental role with the girls.

In the early seasons, Ann dates her divorce lawyer David (Richard Masur). However, after becoming engaged, Ann realizes David wants children of his own and she is not ready to go down that road again, so they break up. Her ex remarries and he eventually enters their lives again.

Julie marries Max (Michael Lembeck), a flight attendant, and they eventually have a daughter. Barbara marries a dental student Mark (Boyd Gaines). In the finale, Ann decides to take a job in London and Schneider moves to Florida to take care of his niece and nephew.

The series was created by husband-and-wife team Whitney Blake and Allan Manings. Blake was Dorothy Baxter on Hazel. Blake based the show on her experiences as a single mother raising three children. It debuted in 1975 and aired until 1984.

Franklin was not happy with the scripts in the first season. She said that she threatened to quit unless the quality improved for the second season.

Phillips dealt with substance abuse, and she was fired after the fifth season. She did come back later for a few appearances. When she entered rehab in 1980, the plot was that Julie and Max moved to Houston. In the seventh season, she returned for a two-part episode. In the final season, she collapsed on the set. When the producer asked her to take a urinalysis test, she told them not to bother and she was fired for the last time. Lembeck continued with the show, and he raised their daughter after it was said Julie left them. While Phillips was unkind, to put it nicely, to Bertinelli early in the series, they eventually became closer. Bertinelli was one of the few people who stood by her after she released a shocking autobiography. Later Glenn Scarpelli joined the cast as Alex. His father had been Ann’s boyfriend and after his father dies in a car accident, Alex asks to move in with Ann and Barbara.

Family members Nanette Fabray and Shelly Fabares both took roles in the series; Nanette played Ann’s mom and Shelly was a coworker. Howard Hesseman also joined the cast as Sam who would marry Ann.

The show was filmed before a studio audience. That surprised me a bit. I went back to watch a few shows for this blog, and I was surprised how dark the series was for a sitcom. Many of the shows, especially Norman Lear shows, were not very light-hearted. I remember liking this show as a teenager/young adult, but I must admit, they were hard to sit through the second time around, and it is not a show that I would choose to watch again.

The theme song was “This Is It.” Brill Building composed the music with lyrics by Jeff and Nancy Barry. Polly Cutter sang the song.

It is amazing that the show did so well in the ratings because it was moved around on the schedule eleven times during its run. For most of its life, it was in the top 20.

The show still had decent ratings after its nine seasons, but Franklin decided she was ready to be done. Harrington was the only cast member to win an Emmy. A 1984 spinoff was discussed for Schneider, but that show never came to fruition. It seems fitting for Harrington to win the Emmy. He has 166 acting credits, and appeared in movies with Elvis Presley and Robert Redford. He said 100 actors auditioned for the role of Schneider. He said that he was a family man with four kids and needed to put food on the table, so he went for it.

In 2005, there was a One Day at a Time Reunion on CBS. Franklin, Phillips, Bertinelli, and Harrington discussed their time on the show. The documentary featured private interviews with Masur, Fabares, Fabray, Lembeck, and Scarpelli.

At least three seasons were released on DVD, but I have not seen any references to seasons four-nine.

In 2017 a reboot was made of One Day at a Time. Three original cast members showed up on the new series. Phillips appeared as a counselor and former veteran leading a support group with PTSD, Glenn Scarpelli was in season three, and Lembeck directed the season one episode “Sex Talk.”

The remake was developed by Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce with a Latino cast for Netflix. The stars were Justina Machado, Todd Grinnell, Marcel Ruiz, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Rita Moreno. The Cuban family lives in LA. A single mother and former veteran dealing with PTSD, Penelope Alvarez (Justina Machado) lives with her daughter, Elena (Isabella Gomez), and son Alex (Marcel Ruiz), and her mom Lydia (Rita Moreno). Pat Schneider (Todd Grinnell) is the supervisor. Penelope works for Dr. Leslie Berkowitz (Stephen Tobolwsky). The reboot also focused on some tough subjects including mental illness, immigration, sexism, homophobia, gender identity, and racism. It aired for four seasons.

The critics were all on board. It was listed as one of the best shows of 2017 and received a variety of awards including four Emmy nominations. Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it was “lively without being rushed” and David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle felt it “was nicely written . . . and the performances are almost universally engaging.” Verna Gay of Newsday called Machado “flat out terrific.”

This time around, Gloria Estefan sang “This Is It.”

The series was canceled after four seasons. The network said it did not have enough viewers, despite the fact that Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 100% rating for every year. It was praised for dealing with many hard subjects and featuring a matriarchy of three generations of women who make their way through life and support each other even when they don’t agree with each other.

I think that the failure of this show to make it to five seasons is a common factor that we will see in streaming shows. Networks had more of an incentive to keep shows around when there were fewer options. Now there are so many shows available that it’s almost impossible to know what is available to watch. Considering that three networks used to get most of the viewers tuning in, now you can multiply that by hundreds. I’m not sure what it will take to keep a show running more than three years anymore.

I hope you enjoyed taking a look at four reboots that succeeded in bringing back original viewers and building a new fan base for themselves. I’d love to hear if any of these were shows you would root for.

Here we are in week 2 in our blog series looking at some of our favorite families. Last week we were in Long Island with the Seavers. Today we are traveling east to Detroit to spend some time with The Tool Man and his family.

Home Improvement was on ABC from 1991 through 1999; this was the era my older boys grew up in, and I think they have some fond memories of watching this show. They weren’t alone, because it was one of the most-watched shows of the decade. It stayed in the top ten the entire time.

Matt Williams, Carmen Finestra, and David McFadzean created the series. A lot of writers worked on the show. Richardson talked about the writer’s room where all the writers were men and she did the scripts at first without saying anything, because she didn’t want to rock the boat. She said eventually she would tell them a woman would not say that and defended her position more often.

It was based on the stand-up comedy of Tim Allen. Tim Taylor (Tim Allen) is married to Jill (Patricia Richardson) and they have three boys: Brad (Zachery Ty Bryan), Randy (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), and Mark (Taran Noah Smith). They live in Detroit where Tim has a television show for Binford Tool Co.; he was previously one of their salesman.

The cast is rounded out with their neighbor Wilson (Earl Hindman) who doles out advice to Tim, but whom we never see more than part of his face. Al Borland (Richard Karn) is Tim’s assistant on the show. During the run of the show there were several Tool Time girls including Pamela Anderson and Debbe Dunning. The show was a parody of This Old House, a home-improvement show on PBS for years.

Originally the show was titled Hammer Time. The first pilot starred Frances Fisher playing Jill Taylor. The studio audience did not view her as a comedic actress, so she was recast. Al was a harder part to cast. John Bedford Lloyd auditioned for the roles of Tim’s assistant and neighbor Wilson. He got the part of Wilson but dropped out when he learned his face would not be seen on tv. That’s when Hindman took over. Stephen Tobolowsky was then offered the role of Al, named Glen at the time. He was occupied with a project at the time, so Karn was hired, and Al was created.

In a June 6, 2017, episode of thehomeimpodcast.com, Karn was interviewed. He was asked what one of his favorite Al moments was on the show. He talked about a scene when Tim invited him over to play poker. He had asked about a theme and then showed up in a 10-gallon hat as a cowboy. He said Tim opened the door, and Karn would raise his hat and hit the light. Every time that happened, Tim cracked up. Karn said he could not stop himself from laughing.

Jill has her hands full living with four males, and I can certainly relate. Tim is a bit stubborn, accident prone, spends lots of time with his cars, and often acts like one of the kids. Allen was from Detroit himself and one of his quirks on the show was wearing Michigan sports apparel.

There were a lot of guest stars on the show during its nine seasons: race car drivers Johnny Rutherford, Robby Gordon, Mario and Michael Andretti, and Al Unser; golfer Payne Stewart; Denver quarterback John Elway; boxer Evander Holyfield; NASA astronaut Ken Bowersox; basketball player Grant Hill’ singers The Beach Boys and The Manhattan Transfer’ comedians Drew Carey and Rodney Dangerfield; ex-President Jimmy Carter; talk show host Oprah Winfrey; and actors Jack Nicholson, Dan Aykroyd, and Marlon Brando.

Home Improvement was still in the top ten after its eighth season. Richardson was offered $25 million for a ninth season, and Taylor was offered $50 million, but they both declined.

The theme song was “Iron John’s Rock.” It was composed by Dan Foliart. In addition to the music, it included Allen’s grunting that became a catch phrase of a sort and several power tools in the background.

When Allen got his second series, Last Man Standing, Karn, Richardson, and Taylor Thomas guest-starred on the show. Also, many of the tools he used on this show were Binford tools.

This was one of those much-loved shows. In a time before DVR, families sat down to watch television together when their favorite shows were on. The shows were relatable to all family members. It was well written, and the stories had the right amount of humor and heart-warming moments. When a series stays in the top ten for almost a decade and the stars turn down huge piles of money to end the show, you know the quality is still there. Like The Dick Van Dyke Show, this show ended on a high note, and I’m so happy we did not have to go through the “they should have ended it a year or two before” stage. Thanks to the entire cast for being a team player and bringing an amazing show for a decade.

thewritelife61

How pop culture influences us

One Day at a Time

Home Improvement: It’s Just a Name; No Improvement Needed Here