The Originals and the Imitators

[DRW50]

I hadn't thought of it that way, as MWC was so little known early on, but I can see some of the same vibes. 

[Bright Eyes]

Katey Sagal basically made that joke at the Roseanne roast, but it was more specifically about their characters.

Edited June 11, 2024 by Bright Eyes

[DRW50]

Wishman was a 1983 ABC pilot, a ripoff of ET, even if the design of the alien might make you think it was imitating Paul Rudd's favorite film, Mac and Me. It was beaten in the ratings by a Magnum PI repeat.

The pilot has a slew of soap names (past and future) in the cast, with Linda Hamilton (then best known for her work on David Jacobs soaps) and Joseph Bottoms (pre-Santa Barbara) as the lead couple, Jean Bruce Scott (just off DAYS) as her friend, and John Reilly (in-between ATWT and GH) as the evil government boss. 

Bottoms rescues the alien, very, VERY awkwardly putting him in a potato sack, and flees the facility. Hamilton is, rightfully, astonished and doesn't want to be involved, but quickly comes around. They go on the run, and the end sets them up to keep going on the run. In this sense it also reminds me of Voyagers, with the late Jon Erik Hexum, which had started earlier that TV season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyagers!

I got to watch the pilot, but I don't see it online now.

There are a few clips. Most of it is the generic "heartwarming" cheese (the alien helps Bruce's husband [the actor stopped appearing in front of the camera not long after this pilot...] and son reconcile) and generic government bad guy schemes, but there is some odd sleaze in one particular segment where the alien watches Hamilton as she is in the shower and leaves the shower, and she is...bemused? She then goes back to her bedroom (actually her friend's guest bedroom), and they laugh, and say they want to have children, and start making out while the alien is still nearby. Only when he jumps on the bed (which Hamilton says reminds her of her old family dog) do they finally stop.

Hamilton is the best part of this, as she often is, although Joseph Bottoms is worth watching as a very stupid character and possibly the most tanned warehouse-bound scientist ever. The shirtless scene and extremely tight trousers he wears don't hurt. 

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Edited June 11, 2024 by DRW50

[Vee]

I saw a clip of this the other day and hoped to never see it again. Thank you for bringing it back into my life. Wishman is possibly more scarring than the new MST3K season's already-infamous Munchie.

[DRW50]

Sorry for the trigger!

I had heard a bit about Munchie in the last year or two but never have seen it. Looks like he got lost on the way to the Garbage Pail Kids.

[Vee]

He's voiced by Dom DeLuise. As is often the case, that's all anyone needs to know. If you're curious I believe Pluto TV (and the 24/7 YouTube stream) often runs many of the Season 13 episodes on their MST3K channel.

Edited June 11, 2024 by Vee

[DRW50]

Thanks.

[All My Shadows]

That theme song is the only thing from Supertrain that had any staying power. Cobert knew what he had and reused many of its elements for the NBC game show Chain Reaction less than a year later. That version only ran a few months, but it was revived on the USA Network from 1986 to 1991 - still using the Cobert theme.

[te.]

Witches of Eastwick had two different attempts to make it to television - first an actual comedy in 1992 from NBC starring Ally Walker, Julia Campbell and Catherine Mary Stewart and then a 2002 FOX version starring Marcia Cross, Kelly Rutherford and Lori Loughlin. Someone wanted this tv show to happen.

[Wendy]

The version above I talked about happened around 2009-ish, so three! It had Jaime Ray Newman, Rebecca Romijn, and Lindsay Price. (With, again, Paul Gross as the male lead.) So some soap cred with the cast. (The write up also mentions Sara Rue, but she wasn't one of the three main women. Dailymotion has some episodes up, so maybe I'll check them out again and refresh my memory.)

[DRW50]

My main memory of Eastwick is one of the women (maybe Price) using her powers to get a gay man to want her. Rather than trying to make it something wicked or hot, the show was more honest about it in that his boyfriend found them and was disgusted, and then the gay guy, with the spell now worn off, was confused and horrified. 

(if this had been done on daytime I imagine certain soap columnists would have called it hilarious and brave)

[kalbir]

The Richmonds of Chicago were middle class (Charlie was a city highway worker, Diana was a teacher) and they had three kids and not five. Other than being a family sitcom featuring an African-American family, I'm not seeing any parallels with The Cosby Show unless I'm missing something.

Oddly enough, I see some elements of Charlie & Co. in Family Matters, besides Jaleel White being in the cast of both shows: set in Chicago, middle class African-American family, both families have an aunt named Rachel.

 

Married...with Children, Roseanne, The Simpsons to me seem like responses to the big 1980s family sitcoms The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Who's the Boss, Growing Pains. Think about it, The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Who's the Boss, Growing Pains all embodied Reagan-era ideals and Married...with Children, Roseanne, The Simpsons were the total opposite, the anti-Reagan-era ideal family sitcom.

[Khan]

Exactly. 

Usually, the TV industry responds to the culture, rather than influences it, so I wonder if Reagan-era fatigue might have been setting in sooner than the latter shows would suggest - like, say, 1985 or '86?

[Khan]

In both cases, you had a show built around a comedian who had first seen success in the '60's and '70's (although, Cosby's act lent more material to his show's writers than Flip did his - unless they had plans to bring on "Geraldine" later, lol).  You also had, in both cases, a co-star with a musical background, with Gladys Knight having the obvious edge there; and an oldest son (Malcolm Jamal Warner on "Cosby"; KSJ on "Charlie") who was good-looking, popular, and who seemed to care more about his friends and his girlfriends than about his studies. 

And then you had the parents in both shows as full-time professionals and not like the Jeffersons or the Evanses on "Good Times," where the mom stayed home while the dad went off to work.  I don't recall "Charlie" focusing much on the parents' work lives beyond an episode or two; but, then again, I don't recall "Cosby" doing much with Cliff or with Clair's job after the first few seasons either.

Ironically, I've heard or read somewhere that Jaleel White was supposed to play Rudy before they changed the character to a female or that he was in serious contention.  So, "Charlie & Co." kinda, sorta gives you an idea of what, if anything, "Cosby" would have been like with Jaleel playing the precocious, younger child instead of Keshia Knight Pulliam.  And of course, before Kristoff St. John portrayed the older son on "Charlie," he played one of Denise's many obnoxious boyfriends on an episode of "Cosby," too.  (Seriously, it's a toss-up as to which Huxtable daughter had the worst tastes in men, lol).

The only place where there is real difference between the two shows, aside from income levels, is in the depiction of the sole daughter on "Charlie."  To me, she's a more stereotypical (black) teenage girl, obsessed with boys and gossiping about boys on the phone with her girlfriends and always there for a sassy, snappy comeback about how her parents just don't understand what it's like for teenagers these days.  Sort of like Brenda and Tiffany on "227" - but, now that I think about it, Vanessa Huxtable could fit that type pretty well, too, lol.

Oh, and "Charlie" had the better theme song, I'm just saying:

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Edited June 18, 2024 by Khan

[kalbir]

@Khan Thank you for the reply re The Cosby Show/Charlie & Co.

I've pointed this out before but I think 1985/86 was the turning point season of the 1980s. Escapist shows like the primetime soaps and the big action shows were out, shows that gave comfort and warmth were in. Look at what two of the biggest hits that season were: sophomore surprise Murder, She Wrote and rookie breakout The Golden Girls. Even though both shows main characters were women over 50, the shows appealed to viewers of all walks of life. I pinpoint 1986 as the year s--- got real (AIDS crisis, Space Shuttle Challenger, Chernobyl) and with the world around us changing so much, television viewers sought comfort and warmth.