Around the time of Small Wonder, there was another direct-to-syndication sitcom called Out of This World, about a teenage girl who was half-human, half-alien, giving her weird superhuman powers. I watched more of it than I should, because said teenage girl was pretty cute, but objectively it was an absolutely awful show.
Notable for using as its theme song the old Bing Crosby hit “Swingin’ on a Star” (the first time I had heard it), and for having none other than Burt Reynolds as the voice of the girl’s alien father. He never appeared, but talked to her over space-telephone at the end of every episode.
I am mildly surprise to see that, like Small Wonder, it lasted four seasons.
A better example is The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer. The concept was terrible from the start – the idea that Abraham Lincoln was an oversexed idiot just wasn’t going to fly, and once the NAACP started picketing over its portrayal of slavery, you knew it was a disaster.
Harvey Korman attempted an American adaptation of Fawlty Towers. One episode (the pilot) made. I honestly believe he could have done a workmanlike turn as Basil.
No it doesn’t. The cast knew it was the final season well ahead of time, and they knew they were filming the last episode. I am afraid you are confusing the actors with the people they are playing.
The PRinces of Malibu. Brandon and Brody Jenner and Spencer Pratt being over-privileged lazy brats. Two episodes aired.
The Hasselhoffs. They aired the 1st and 2nd episode back to back. 700K people tuned in for the first episode. Approximately 30% of those viewers did not stay tuned for the 2nd episode. and that was that.
No, I did not confuse the two. I said the real-life episode to which the poster was referring sounded a lot like the final episode of MTM, in which the players reacted to losing their jobs.
If there was such a real-life episode, I’d like to know more about it.
Virtually all of the Nazis in the show were played by Jewish actors (some of whom were genuine refugees) who relished the prospect of lampooning the Third Reich. In addition, Robert Clary, who played Cpl Louis LeBeau, had actually been in a concentration camp.
One of the key conditions in casting them was that the Nazis should never come out on top in any episode.
In an interview I remember watching, Bob Crane said they wanted to show how clever Allied POWs were in outwitting their captors.
It was a very well thought-out concept, and the episodes were both hilarious and suspenseful. There was never any doubt as to who the bad guys were.
Interestingly, it had originally been set in an American prison, but didn’t sell until it was moved to a POW camp. The creators of the series were inspired by the novel Stalag 17, and the original name of the TV show was Stalag 13. This resulted in a plagarism suit necessitating the change in title.
At the Emmys, it looks like it got nominated for Best Comedy – with Crane and Klemperer getting nominated for the Best Lead and Best Supporting – in the first season; and then got nominated for Best Comedy again, with Crane and Klemperer getting nominated for Best Lead and Best Supporting again, in the second season; followed by getting nominated for Best Comedy again, with Klemperer actually managing the win, in the third season (before winning again in the fourth, and getting nominated again in the fifth). That’s pretty danged solid.
1992’s Woops!, which lasted a whole 11 episodes. I only watched it because of Lane Davies (who I had a hopeless crush on after watching him on Santa Barbara).
