Unfortunately, I don't think she was alone.
We know already about Norman Fell's suspicion that they delayed officially cancelling "The Ropers" on purpose in order to avoid bringing him and Audra Lindley back to "Three's Company." But Joyce DeWitt has talked at length about the misogyny she suffered at the hands of NRW, right down to not even being told the truth about whether they had planned to spin off Jack (which they did, with "Three's a Crowd"). Dave Powers, too, talked about how Jenilee Harrison in particular suffered during her time there, as she was thrown into a very tense and awkward situation with no experience or support from anyone. And even though I still think Suzanne Somers (and her husband and manager) overplayed their hands in trying to get her a substantial raise and part ownership of the show, I do believe how NRW and ABC responded to those demands - not just firing her, but reducing her final appearances to cameos (taped on a separate set and then inserted into episode tags, without a proper goodbye scene) in order to "punish" and demean her, and then suing her or threatening to sue anytime she played a character that even resembled Chrissy Snow a little bit in subsequent pilots for other networks - was juvenile. (Again, I'm not saying they didn't have good reason to fire her. I just think they could've been more professional about it).
Ironically, that isn't how the show's creator, Stu Silver, intended the show to be. He created "Webster" as a modern-day Tracy/Hepburn comedy for Alex Karras and Susan Clark, who had a deal for their own show with ABC. Then, Emmanuel Lewis impressed ABC executives with his appearance in a Burger King commercial. IIRC, the network snapped him up immediately, with the idea of creating a show around him. Instead of creating that show for him, however, they decided to add him to "Webster" - or "A (Whole) New Ballgame," as it was dubbed originally. Naturally, Karras and Clark were upset by the network's decision, as what became "Webster" was not what they had signed up for; and for a long time, there was tension among the three, until someone (forget who) basically told the grown-ups in the room to stop taking their frustrations out on the child. (Besides, I doubt a show starring just Karras and Clark (and Henry Polic II) would've lasted beyond a half-season anyway, lol).
As did "Mama's Family" and (God help us) "Out of This World." But, like I've always said, the bars for quality and for success were much, much lower for first-run syndication shows in the '80's than they were anywhere else, lol.
By
Khan ·
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.