John Ritter:
Lots of guest work in the '70s, plus a recurring role on The Waltons.
Three's Company, the show that put him on the map, allowed for the occasional movie (Americathon, Hero at Large, They All Laughed), and eventually earned him an Emmy.
Three's a Crowd, a too-late and unnecessary star vehicle.
Hooperman, which might have been ahead of its time and really had no place on late '80s ABC.
The actor for hire years, with projects as all over the place as the Problem Child movies to the original IT to The Dreamer of Oz to an arc on Anything But Love. I feel John's casting in a lot of these cases was meant for irony-kitsch.
Fish Police -- was never going to work.
Hearts Afire -- sandwich show; crashed and burned once it had to carry its weight.
The actor for hire years, part II, with a more diverse (respectable?) batch of projects; I really liked his run as Ben's [!@#$%^&*] father on Felicity. The role I would have loved to have seen him play was one of Beverly Leslie's relatives on Will & Grace (who, naturally, falls for Karen).
Clifford the Big Red Dog; never watched it, but that seems like solid casting.
8 Simple Rules; I remember John's comeback being a big deal. SNL had a parody commercial for ABC's sitcoms with John, Bonnie Hunt, and Jim Belushi ("Last Chance Tuesdays").
Who's to say how things would have wound up, but I think that had he lived, John would probably still be in actor for hire mode, with guest spots and arcs for anything and everything. The Big Bang Theory is a given.
By
Franko ·
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.