I think the dog sitcom was called * It’s a Dog’s Life. * I was just a kid (no more than 11, I believe) but I remember saying, “that’s gotta be humiliating.”
Actually, you’ve got it backwards. Man from Atlantis, where Patrick Duffy played “the last citizen of Atlantis” was before Dallas.
I always got the impression that The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfieffer was the brainchild of someone who watched the British series Blackadder and thought “How can I translate this to American TV?”
This sounds an awful lot like It’s a Dog’s Life, a bizarre experiment by Brandon Tartikoff at NBC that aired in the (IIRC) late 70’s. The only noteworthy person in it (and I use that phrase advisedly) was a pre-SNL Joe Piscopo.
I remember a few…
When Married With Children first came out,there was a show right after called Open House about Real Estate agents…go figure…I think the show had a SMALL fan base.
Another victim of the “After married with children crap show” was Herman’s Head. Basically it was about a guy who worked a regular office job,and every now and then,it would cut away to these four people in his head, basically representing his Intellegence,his Feminine side, His “Id” and his paranoid side.I actullay liked it for a while,but there was one epsoide that offended me (a semi-racist statement was made that in retrospect was actullay kind of funny) and I quit watching it. The guy who played Herman’s boss died in a car crash not too much later (in real life.)
Again with Married with Children…there was an episoide that was basically a pilot for a “new” sitcom they were tryung (It was some guy and Matt Leblanc I think) Forgot the name of the resulting show,but didin’t last long. Soon to follow was another show,this time about Carpenters (It stared this guy from a Soap Opera called “Generations” and Matt Leblanc again I think) The show was sorta funny,but once again like 10 episoides later,it was gone.
And of course the Flygirl Show and all 5 episoides of it… 
Whoa, now! Jason Bernard (Herman’s boss) died, but IMDB says it was a heart attack. He lived not too far from my house for a while, after Herman’s Head ended.
The Matt LeBlanc show you’re thinking of is a Married With Children spinoff that IMDB says was called Top Of The Heap (although I coulda sworn it was called Puttin’ On The Ritz). Matt’s character from MWC and his dad move into a seedy apartment (with a hot jailbait slut neighbor girl) and try to plot their way into money and high society. Seven episodes. Same characters came back a year later in Vinnie and Bobby. Again, seven episodes.
And I need to contribute something new here, hmm…how about Chicken Soup, the sitcom that wanted us to believe that Jackie Mason and Lynn Redgrave could hook up romantically? And how about a couple of recent entries: The Wayne Brady Show and The Colin Quinn Show.
Hey Now…you’re dissin’ the only reason I ever watched that dreck! That “hot jailbait slut neighbor girl” was played by none other than ga-ga-goo-goo-HOT actress Joey Lauren Adams. Yeah, she’s still incredibley good-looking, but when she was so young & playing a role that dripped with red-hot sexuality…Wow! Why someone didn’t take that character & put her in her own show…I don’t know…
Susan Dey starred in a sitcom on CBS, circa 1992, where she owned a restaurant/bar in New York. This one lasted a few episodes, which is surprising given Susan Dey’s acting talent…
What was the name of George Carlin’s failed sitcom? There’s bottling lightning if I ever saw it.
NO, it was Martin Mull and not Beau Bridges.
In United States.
united states. Look, Ma, no Martin Mull!
Martin Mull. Look, Ma, no united states!
I didn’t say being a hot jailbait slut neighbor girl was a BAD thing…hehe. That’s precisely why I watched the show too. She had what seemed like a hundred square acres of flat tummy, and she showed it allll the time. mmm.
Aw, hell, now I have to think of another failed crappy sitcom. Um…okay, Melba, a sitcom that premiered in January, 1986, on the day the Challenger exploded. They tried to air the already-filmed episodes in August, but the ratings were either CBS’s worst ever or close to it. Disappeared mucho fasto.
I liked Ellie well enough, and I’m glad it’s coming back. However, I understand that they’re going to do away with the running clock display. This makes sense. After all, why would you want to start a half-hour sitcom off by demonstrating that nearly a third of the air time will be commercials and other clutter? Might make some people question the validity of TV watching as an activity.
I was under the impression that Hogan and his Heroes were really part of an Allied espionage operation and that they pretended to get caught so as to be able to operate from inside the walls of a POW camp.
Well ain’t I the proverbial chopped liver…
While we mentioned Herman’s Head, we didn’t mention that it was a vehicle for Yeardley Smith, voice of Lisa Simpson. In fact Lisa mentions the show tangetially on one Simpsons ep.
That would be, well, The George Carlin Show. Two whole seasons. Pah. It’s freaking Law and Order compared to the gems in this thread.
Falcone weighs in at an impressive nine episodes. CBS attempted to ride the Sopranos wave with a bad Mob series. It’s bad to blatantly rip off Tony and his crew. Its worse to attempt it while restricted by network obsenity standards.
In the animated category i’d like to mention MTV’s Brothers Grunt. Stay with me on this one. Five grotesque blue guys with various organs prolapsing from their half naked and contorted frames. Each was named after a Rat Packer for some unknown reason. And none of them spoke. It was all pained grunts, hence the title. I think it was a poor attempt to distill the cartoon gross-out factor that was pulled off more subtely (if you can imagine that) from its contemporaries, Ren, Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead. It was dumb.
edited because apparently I am also dumb. grunt – Alpha
Well, my mind remembers it as Martin. Whaddya know!
Maybe I was just trying to forget Beau Bridges, can ya blame me?
That’s what I meant by it having a smaller budget. That aside, it was the same formula. Father, mother, teenage son (who sounded like Ajax from Duckman, if I remember this right), teenage daughter, and of course the baby. The adorably cute muppet baby with all the gimicky lines.
. . . . . . . and come to think of it, I miss The George Wendt Show
Well, we’d all like to forget Beau Bridges. Especially that load of crap movie version of The Hotel New Hampshire.
Max,thanks for the correction on Jason Benards death. I read in a source it was a car accident,but it was wrong I suppose.
Let’s see,there were some other ones…
Homeboys In Outer Space: From the title alone I knew it was dead in the water. Absolutely the worse show I ever had the displeasure of seeing.
Dr.Science (I think): I actullay liked the show sometimes, it was sorta funny. Don’t remember exactly how long it lasted though,but mabye not more than 2 seasons.
OK, I HAVE to know … there was a sitcom about women in prison called Women in Prison? I LOVE women in prison movies … how the hell did I miss that? What was it about? How do I start my Nick at Nite campaign for it?
Fish Police-4 episodes.
Paired with four episodes of Scorch…a 2 foot tall dragon who drops by a meterologist/weather guy’s house after a 300 year nap.
Agrees to be portrayed as a puppet on air to spice up the nightly news segments.