back around 1989 or 1990 there was
a short-lived sitcom that featured a blind
central character. This was fiction, the
actor who played him was not blind. What
was the name of the show, and of the actor?
Nobody I talk to can remember this show.
Please help.
I believe it was “Mr. Sunshine” starring Jeffrey Tambor. He played a blind guy who was totally obnoxious, but thought people didn’t like him because he was blind. IIRC, it lasted 4 episodes before being cancelled by ABC.
“Mr. Sunshine” aired on ABC off on from March 28, 1986 until September 3, 1986. It did indeed star Jeffrey Tambor as a blind English professor named Paul Stark. It also featured Nan Martin, Barbara Babcock, Leonard Frey, Cecilia Hart, and David Knell.
The only other series I recall that had a blind person as its central character was “Longstreet” which starred James Franciscus as a blind insurance investigator.
There was also a show called “Good and Evil” that aired briefly in 1991. Mark Blankfield was one of the stars and he played a very accident prone blind man.
There was also an 80’s remake of a 60’s sci-fi show where one of the main characters was blind. He wore a special device that allowed him to see in other spectrums than visible light. Ironically, the actor couldn’t see well when wearing the “device”, a gold-painted hair band, but saw perfectly well when he had it off and played blind.
Wish I could remember the name of this show…
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
Thank you for answering. I think this
was the show, not the aforementioned Mr.
Sunshine. Did they try to rewrite the
show to make him seeing? Also, was Mark
Blankman a popular stand up comedian at
the time? For some reason I recall this
show and “Seinfeld” having some kind of
similarity.
“Good and Evil” only aired five or six episodes. A combination of low ratings and protests (over the blind character) resulted in a quick cancellation. The show was quite similar to “Soap.”
Mark Blankfield was a sketch actor from the early 80s SNL ripoff “Fridays.”
“Good and Evil” ran on ABC on Wednesday nights at 10 from Sept-Oct. 1991. It starred Teri Garr (who was good) and Margaret Whitton (who was evil).
The National Federation of the Blind protested Mark Blankfield’s portrayal of a blind psychiatrist.
Thanks for answering. You wouldn’t believe
how many people I’ve asked about this show
without anyone remembering it. People were
starting to call me “the blind tv character
guy”
AWB, your post seems to be an awfully good description of the character “Geordi LaForge” on “Star Trek - The Next Generation”.
*Keeves: AWB, your post seems to be an awfully good description of the character “Geordi LaForge” on “Star Trek - The Next Generation”. *
Gee, y’think?
You’d think that having a sig line from the original ST pilot, I’d remember the show.
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
The similarity between Seinfeld and Good and Evil was that both Mark Blankfield and Michael Richards were on Fridays.
Yes, I was just going to say they were on Fridays, which was pretty good, better than SNL. Mark Blankfield used to do a pharmacist strung out on drugs.
There was also a short-lived tv series in the '80s called “Sable”. The title character seemed to be a sort of Batman clone (ordinary person who puts on a costume at night to fight crime). One of the reoccuring secondary characters was blind. (The character was named “Cheesecake” and he and Sable would communicate by sending cheesecakes to each other with messages on the box in braille.)
“Sometimes I think the web is just a big plot to keep people like me away from normal society.” — Dilbert
Please tell me you’re joking.
Thanks for answering. That was a pretty
obscure connection, congratulations!
About my other question about the show
being rewritten, I seem to remember that
the network tried to make the controversial
blind psychiatrist character a seeing person, or dropped the character altogether, before they finally cancelled the series. Does any of this ring a bell?
I’m afraid he may not be joking. I had
forgotten about that weird show, it didn’t
last very long. I’m beginning to see a pattern here - “blind character = quickly cancelled”
Well, I don’t know about that. Isn’t *Early Edition[/] (the show about the guy with the newspaper that tells him the future) still on the air? Does it still have a blind character? I haven’t watched it in a long time, so I honestly don’t know.
And Night Court weathered not one but two blind characters. Granted, the first character, a surly assistant played by Elaine Bouzler <sp?>, didn’t last long, but it was the character, not the show, that got the axe. I think the second character, who ran the newspaper stand in the breakroom, lasted quite a bit longer.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
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