I’m a big William Daniels fan (he only plays one character, but he plays it so well) and I read an interview with him in TV Guide or People or some equally hard-hitting scholarly periodical in the last season of the show. When asked if rumors of tension on the set and Savage being a tyrant (particularly in the episode where his older brother guest starred as a teacher who sexually harasses Topanga) Daniels replied (I’m paraphrasing as I don’t have a copy) “Well… this is a business where an 18 year old who makes money for the producers can call the shots, and an 18 year old with a lot of money and a lot of power who’s been in this business since he was in diapers isn’t likely to call them with much professionalism or manners.” He was basically saying “He’s an ass, but I don’t blame him”, and he also said that his fondest memories by far of the show were his paychecks.
Ooooh, I just thought of one-how many seasons did Home Improvement last? Good god, an entire half hour of Tim Allen grunting.
I checked IMDB for the two women who played the daughters, Deborah Van Valkenburgh and Lydia Cornell. While their careers post-sitcom are awfully depressing, I see no obvious porn. (On the upside, Deborah, the brunette, is apparently featured in the new Rob Zombie flick, which has an appealing 70s-ploitation vibe, while Lydia, the blonde, is a published writer. And according to their bios, both women have classical theater experience. To which I say: Huh.)
Let’s see, that’s
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
Yep, only four years. One short. Dang.
Is Still Standing eligible? I watched this wretched show once and had to have my memories suppressed by a hypnotist.
Could you be thinking of Family Matters? The youngest daughter, played by Jaimee Foxxworth, has since had a career in porn.
Methinks that’s a rather unfair characterization of the show.
But now I get the theme song stuck in my head because of Family Guy. Never actually seen the show.
“Hey, Hey! Ya Crazy Beatle…”-Peter Griffen.
I saw it as a metaphor for a logical engineer-type (which I was) attempting to get along in a non-logical world.
Wow. It seems that you have a site that I must have a link to. Care to share?
That’s five different years, but it’s four seasons.
I am reminded of an article I read in Newsweek or some other news weekly some time in the '80s about the death of the sitcom. The point was that Hollywood was saturated with cocaine at the time and the writers, etc., would sit around thinking that they were producing comedic gold, when, in actuality, they were producing laff-track crap. Another thing was the prevalence of gays in Hollywood. Until Cosby came along, there wasn’t a strong male head-of-household in any recent sitcom. (You can see this today - Raymond isn’t exactly an alpha male.)
I suspect that most of these horrible shows date from that period.
The ** Home Improvment ** show was far more than Tim Allen grunting. Although I got tired of that beeyotch Jill whining because Tim wasn’t being supportive if he didn’t go with her to the stupid opera, it was still miles ahead of dreck like **Gimme a Break, Benson, ** and Fool’s House. (Sorry, I meant Full House. ) At least nobody on Home Improvement decided to perk up a lame episode by singing “Accentuate the Positive” or “Animal Quackers in My Soop.”
Mad About You. Here’s a show that starred the talents(?) of Paul Reisser and Helen Hunt, yet kept Hank Azaria in the background as a minor character. Did anyone realize he had more talent than the two stars put together and magnified?
Yes! I should have given it before – http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id161.htm
To me, the worst episode was the one in which Jill coerced Tim into getting a vasectomy, for Pete’s sake! I think that episode won some awards.
You think that’s bad? What about Knight’s short-lived (six episodes in 1978) pre-Too Close for Comfort star vehicle, The Ted Knight Show (not to be confused with the late-life retitling of T.C.C.)? Knight played the owner of (I am not making this up) an escort service, peddling the charms of characters called Graziella, Honey, and Irma.
Granted, Hank Azaria should have had a bigger part, but I have to take issue with the rest of your characterization. Until Helen Hunt’s character had the shark, that show was one of the best on TV.
Likewise with Golden Girls. I can watch that show today, and still laugh my ass off.
:eek:
If you ask me, Lydia Cornell is looking better than she did on the show.
True, but basically, every episode was that Men are like THIS and Women are like THAT. Tim has to be Mr. Macho, Jill whines about it, the kids are bad, Wilson tells some obscure tale in order to teach Tim something that he mixes up, Al is a nerd, blah blah blah. It was the same thing over and over and over.
Everybody Loves Raymond suffers from the same thing. There is only one dynamic between the various characters and every show plays upon that dynamic. Both shows were essentially repeating themselves after the second season.