It never changed officially. But you’re right, the ads definitely referred to the show as just “Third Rock” towards the end.
SAved bt the Bell was, for the first season or two, called Our Miss Bliss. A lot more focus was on the teacher (MIss Bliss,) ans the students interation with er. Later, half the cast was gutted and replaced when they went to high school (IIRC, Zack, Lisa, Screech, and Mr.Belding were the only ones to survive “the Purge”…not that there were that many more characters anyway.)
In subsequent synidcated episodes of Our Miss Bliss (renamed to Saved by the Bell, natch) Zack Morris would give an intro describing what was going to happen for some reason.
What made it really weird was no mention of the two “best friends” that Zack had while in junior high that vanished into high school, AND the fact thatJesse was now his “best friend,” and had been for years since they were kids and they always hung out…umm…yeah, except for those two years Zack never seemed to remember you existed…
“Good Morning Miss Bliss” and “Saved by the Bell” were actually two separate shows. There was no intention of ever officially connecting them until the show became a phenomenom and NBC reran episodes of Good Morning Miss Bliss as Zack’s junior high memories.
I’m guessing the two shows had the same producers and/or directors? Cause why else would four actors all go to the other show…with the same names, no less?
Edit: They did have the same names, right? I mean…it would hard to explain why Zack’s junior high memories had the wrong names…
Thank God for that. I like the show, and think it has a great ensemble cast; but the first few episodes where she was whoring around weren’t so great. It’s much more fun for her to point and laugh at the other cougar who makes an appearance now and again. Now they need to get Bobby a better job ala the Jay Mohr character in Gary Unmarried. The show is more enjoyable with Mohr as a DJ as opposed to a house painter. Now they just need to bring back his on-screen brother full time. He’s a great add-in to the show.
Wasn’t there a show in the 70s called James at 15? Then when the kid aged a year it was called James at 16? I don’t think it made it past that.
Yep. 1977 was the year it was on. It changed names from 15 to 16.
Saved by the Bell had the same production company as Miss Bliss, but Miss Bliss ran on Disney and was cancelled after one season. When it was cancelled, NBC bought the rights and changed everything around to create Saved by the Bell. When Saved by the Bell became a huge, giant hit, they added the Miss Bliss episodes into the rotation to expand the syndication package.
Oh…and Still The Beaver became The New Leave It To Beaver when it moved from Disney to TBS.
I think special mention should be given to Disneyland/Walt Disney Presents/Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color/The Wonderful World of Disney/Disney’s Wonderful World/Walt Disney/The Disney Sunday Movie/The Magical World of Disney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_anthology_television_series
I notice we are getting a number of the shows a second time through, hopefully this isn’t one.
The Bob Cummings Show was also "Love that Bob"
Didn’t Milton Berl change sponsors and change the name of his show since the program was named after the sponsor?
And didn’t Ed Sullivan start out with his show named after his newspaper column?
Yes. Sullivan was first called The Talk of the Town.
There was a soap opera called Loving (an inferior version of “All My Children”) that was significantly revamped and renamed the City.
IIRC, a 70’s soap called Friends & Lovers was retitled For Richer, For Poorer.
The Andy Griffith Show actually went into syndication while the show was still on the air. The repeats were re-titled “Andy of Mayberry”.
Because it’s Wikipedia you can fix this error and add a reference to the book you mentioned. You noticed the problem, you can fix it.
I may have a winner!
Scooby Doohas changed titles, voices, and characters, and even some names through it’s many incarnations.
Even though I grew up during it’s beginnings, my kids are addicts so I can now say I’ve seen every episode of every season more than once! Damn PVR just keeps recording them!
BTW it was “The Kids of Degrassi Street” originally.
Holy crap! These Friends of Mine was renamed Ellen so that it wouldn’t get mixed up with Friends? All this time I thought it got changed to stroke Ellen’s ego and make it focus more on HER tthen her FRIENDS. Ellen, I owe you an apology.
Scrotes and Goats, when it went into syndication, was marketed as Scrotes and Goats Redux. Sounded pretentious to me.
I know. I’m just feeling lazy. 
My fuzzy memories from, what, 16 years ago, told me that the Friends thing was the reason given at the time. But I’m sure Ellen’s ego had nothing to do with it.
An obscure British sitcom called Packet of Three in the first season, and became Packing Them In in the second and last season, because one of the three stars quit.
And once they ditched the pizza place (along with the owner/operator and David Ogden Stiers) it became a MUCH better show.
-Joe