Combat! was one of ABC’s most popular shows in the 1960s. The early episodes were directed by Robert Altman. All but the final season were in B&W, giving it a “period” feel. (Star Vic Morrow was against the switch to color in 1966). All of the episodes were set in France.
It was supposed to run from D-Day to the liberation of Paris (June–August 1944), but they stretched it out five years. There was even one “winter” episode that showed off the Olympic skiing skills of “Caje,” played by Pierre Jalbert. What mountains they were in and how a Cajun learned to ski so well were never explained (Jalbert was actually French Canadian).
I remember that song! Kinda. It’s been a while. This is one of those deals where I have dim recollections of liking it a lot but can’t for the life of me remember why. I’m pretty sure that it aged better than Soap, though.
I remember Harry O. Two seasons, as I recall; set in San Diego, then in Los Angeles. Going on memory here, but as best I recall, Harry was a former police detective who got injured on the job and had to leave the force. So he set himself up as a private detective who frequently crossed paths with the local police.
Pretty standard so far, but all 1970s TV detectives had to stand out somehow; they had to be unique in some way: Kojak had his lollipops, Cannon had his Lincoln Continental, Rockford had his father, Columbo had his “Oh wait, one more thing.” What Harry had was a broken-down car that rarely-to-never worked, meaning that Harry often had to ride the bus to investigate cases.
And in one of the two seasons, Harry’s neighbour was a pre-Charlie’s Angels Farrah Fawcett. Yowza!
A Norman Lear gem, All that Glitters, set in a world where men keep house and raise the kids while women are high-powered executives. As it happens, turning an offensive stereotype on its head does nothing to make it less offensive.
And another from the 80s that I’m certain no one remembers, as it has either been disappeared from the bios of the only stars I recall, or I imagined it.
A sitcom set at a fashion magazine (I think), Dixie Carter and Martin Short were secondary characters. Carter’s only action was to walk through the set like a stone-faced model on a runway. Someone would ask her about doing something only ordinary people do, and without looking around or changing expression, she would coldly ask, “Are you kidding?”
I only remember Short from two scenes in the same episode. He apparently had a non-content job at the mag but volunteered to cover a fashion show or something. Someone asked what he knew about fashion, and he said, “What is there to know? Vertical stripes make you look thin, and don’t wear white after Labor Day.”
Later he cruises into the room, snapping his fingers hiply, wearing a long coat thrown jauntily over his shoulders. He makes a sharp about-face at the sight of his nemesis, who follows him off camera. Later he emerges again with the coat buttoned all the way down with his arms trapped inside.
Please don’t ask why that’s all I remember or why in such detail.
Speaking of Dixie Carter, she and future Designing Women costar Delta Burke were part of an ensemble cast for Filthy Rich. Slim Pickens played the recently-deceased patriarch who left conditions of his will on video to his surviving family members, most of whom he despised. He forced them to live together under one roof, where they’d plot and scheme against each other while attempting to look like they were getting along.
This thread brings back a lot of memories. I used to like Don Adam’s screen test. If I recall, it was a competition where two contestants filmed the same scene. I also remember Best of the West because it was really hyped when it debuted.
Wife, sweeping) “I just can’t get the dirt off this floor.”(Husband) “Honey, it’s a dirt floor”
The ones I remember are the sitcoms that are forgotten because they never went into syndication. Anybody else watch It’s a Living? Sitcom about waitresses with a great cast. Also Angie, another sitcom about a waitress with a great cast (anything with Doris Roberts as the mother is automatically great). I also remember the very first season of FOX. I liked Duet, until it turned into Open House (with a very young Ellen Degeneris as the receptionist. Also, remember Herman’s Head?
My late husband read all of Nero Wolfe mysteries and had a box set of the A&E series. I would watch an episode now and then with him. I thought it was very well done, though it didn’t grab me. I thought of it as ‘a man’s Masterpiece Theater’.
You’re probably thinking of I’m a Big Girl Now, which ran from 1980 to 1981, although Dixie Carter wasn’t in it, so perhaps the character you mean was played by Sheree North. The easiest way to search for something that you remember at least one actor in is imdb.com. Look on YouTube for the opening credits from this show. The truly weird thing about this show was that the main characters worked in a think tank at the beginning of the one season of the show. In the middle of that season, the workplace changed to a newspaper office. No, the characters didn’t quit and change jobs. The workplace simply changed with no explanation. Perhaps the showrunners simply decided that it was too hard to write a show set in a think tank, so they felt no obligation for the show to make any sense.
In the late '60s and early '70s, there was a crop of “youth-oriented” shows that were “trendy” and “hip” and “now” and “relevant.” I mentioned The Mod Squad and The Young Rebels upthread. Others included the below, which I find memorable only for their casting of Elaine Giftos and Kate Jackson.
NB: The revamped version of Storefront was Men at Law, not Work.
There is an Italian version, available on MHz, where Nero and Archie go to Rome after some issues in NY. There is an Italian Saul Panzer. Interesting, but not as good as the A&E one.
My wife has read about all of them. I should read one some day, but I did like the TV series.
I watched it for five years before I figured out it ws Jewish. There was a lot of Yiddish vocabulary and construction on TV in the '50s and '60s so who knew?
Ca. 1980, I remember an “Emergency”-esque show called “240-Robert.” It was pretty good, too.
The one justification for the existence of “My Mother, The Car,” by all accounts, is that my Sunday comic section’s crossword puzzle uses it as a clue, as in “My Mother, The ___”.
psychobunny - I didn’t mention Herman’s Head because I don’t consider it that obscure, but it always seems to find its way to discussions like this. Funny thing, I only started watching because I was intrigued as to how Yeardley Smith would be like in live action, and it almost immediately became one of my favorites. This is pretty much the only “high concept” show I’m aware of where the concept was actually clever and handled very well. Could get a little heavy-handed at times, but no more than any other sitcom of the era. Four seasons was just about right…no what-coulda-beens, no wearing out its welcome.
I do seem to remember a surprising number of other shows taking potshots at it. Mad TV and The Critic come to mind. Never understood why.
Three seasons, actually. Perhaps the reason it was mentioned so much was because the concept for the show was so different. It was easier to say something clear about it.
IIRC there was a skit on Saturday Night Live where maybe Kevin Nealon said something about being with Fox News and that drew laughter. I interpreted it to mean “Yeah, Fox is going to compete with the big three networks and CNN, uh huh.” So Fox, which began in 1986, seemed to be the target. Not all their offerings were great but I really liked “Herman’s Head.”
The network had its “grand opening” when it expanded its programming into prime time on April 5, 1987, inaugurating its Sunday night lineup with the premieres of the sitcomMarried… with Children and the sketch comedy series The Tracey Ullman Show . The premieres of both series were rebroadcast twice following their initial airings (at 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Eastern/Pacific, respectively) that night, which Jamie Kellner, who served as the network’s president and Chief Operating Officer until his resignation in January 1993, stated would allow viewers to “sample FBC programming without missing 60 Minutes , Murder, She Wrote , or the 8 o’clock movies”.[16][17][18] Fox added one new show per week over the next several weeks, with the drama 21 Jump Street and comedies Mr. President and Duet completing its Sunday schedule.[19] On July 11, 1987, the network rolled out its Saturday night schedule with the premiere of the supernatural drama series Werewolf , which began with a two-hour pilot movie event. Three other series were added to the Saturday lineup over the next three weeks: comedies The New Adventures of Beans Baxter , Karen’s Song , and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (the latter being an adaptation of the film of the same name). Both Karen’s Song and Down and Out in Beverly Hills were canceled by the start of the 1987–88 television season, the network’s first fall launch, and were replaced by the sitcoms Second Chance and Women in Prison .
