One Day at a Time. I hate it but can't stop watching (Discussion of 2017 reboot added at page 5)*

Check out the Wikipedia entry. They don't come out and say it, but they did say that the cast of the show had "a great deal of turnover." I think when Ms. Franklin was not happy or felt there was a lack of chemistry with one of the other actors, they were dropped and replaced with other people. As the years went on, she managed to negotiate quite a bit of control over what went on in the show. In fairness to her, I'd say she probably felt she was just trying to make the show better.

What's shocking to me is that the show was on for 9 years and over 200 episodes. Yikes...

Although for most of its run, it was shot at KTTV Metromedia Square on Sunset Blvd., using Norelco PC70 cameras and Ampex VTRs... which were the same used at CBS TV City 4 miles away. Around 1980 or so, the show moved to Universal and used basically the same gear. The look of the show was similar because the lighting style and cameras stayed the same.

What's interesting is that rival shows like What's Happening, Three's Company, and Sanford & Son did have a different look -- actually worse than the CBS videotape sitcoms (IMHO). I can't put my finger on why, but lighting style was a lot of it.

 

I'm a big fan of sitcoms but many of them look hideous. I owned many on dvd at one time.

 

Two words: Glenn. Scarpelli.

This kid was terrible. A 3rd rate Ralph Macchio. But as bad as he was on the show, he was even worse as a singer. I picked this up years ago and his song "Get a Love On" made it on to more mix tapes than I think any other. It never failed to stop people and say WTF is this???
http://www.discogs.com/Glenn-Scarpelli-Glenn-Scarpelli/release/2905722

 

Another one of those shows we watched back in the day simply because it was on, not because anyone I know really liked it (more like tolerated at best).

In retrospect, it's another example of that strange phenomenon of the 70's where everyone had become so habituated to television in the 50's and 60's that they felt like they had to watch anything that happened to come on just for the sake of watching in and of itself.

 

Yeah, you get to see Mackenzie Phillips crash and burn on a heroin and cocaine speedball, not a pretty picture. It was so obvious she was ripped out of her gourd.

 

That's funny I have the exact opposite feeling (and I've worked in TV for ages too, although not so much in the technical end like you, Vidiot, so I defer to your expertise). To me those ABC shows always looked like they had better color and contrast (except NBC's Sanford-that looked like crap too)-all that CBS stuff looked like hazy mush. Videotaped shows from the past only look worse as TVs get better.

Some of the old videotaped variety shows look much better (Carol Burnett, Tony Orlando, etc) Why is that?

 

There's plenty else to do.
And I don't watch it everyday anymore.
I suspect it's nostalgia combined with a "love to hate" thing.
Oh boy, I think the forum has cured me

 

This.

My mom watched "One Day at a Time" even though she always complained about Bonnie Franklin. I watched it because she watched it. When it was in syndication and played in the morning along with "The Jeffersons" and "Alice", I watched it during summer breaks because my older sister watched it. She watched it because she thought it was better than the talk shows or game shows that were on the other two channels in town. My sister also didn't like Bonnie Franklin. We thought "Alice" was entertaining because of Flo. "The Jeffersons", however, was usually pretty funny.

So yeah, this show somehow seemed to get into a slipstream and stay there in spite of being rather unlikeable. Weird.

dan c

 

As a kid, I remember sitcoms and game shows on tv all the time and I loved it

 

I still wonder what the appeal is of Alice, Silver Spoons, Small Wonder, Charles In Charge, etc etc

 

"Silver Spoons" was pretty entertaining to us when we were kids. Likeable cast, including a young Jason Bateman as a snot brat spoiled pal to Schroder's character. It's been decades since I've seen an episode, so I have no idea if it holds up at all.

"Small Wonder", OTOH, is rightfully considered one of the worst shows in television history. Nauseatingly bad.

dan c

 

Silver Spoons was great for a few seasons. I wished Joel Higgins was MY father

 

"Small Wonder" is like a train wreck in slow motion. It's impossible not to watch it.

 

Oh man, I dunno. It blasts past "so bad it's good" territory right into "so bad I wish I was dead".

Dan c

 

I, like many others here, watched many a sitcom when I was growing up in the 70s; including One Day at a Time.

Part of the problem is that Norman Lear comedies are very hard to watch now because they've aged terribly, and this is one of his worst. I think only Good Times is worse than this one.

I do watch Sanford and Son on Antenna TV and think it is hilarious. I don't watch any of Norman Lear's other shows. It is difficult to get through one episode of most of them.

I did tune in to one episode of ODAAT on Antenna TV recently, and it happened to be the final episode. I saw how it ended, so that's all I need.

 

I'm surprised to see the hate for "Good Times". The first three seasons are really good, with John Amos and Esther Rolle balancing Jimmie Walker's goofier antics...or at least trying their best.

But yeah, I've left "One Day at a Time" recently and almost none of it seems familiar. I thought I'd watched it at least sometimes as a kid but aside from Schneider and the three Romano ladies, I have no memory of anybody else.

And to that I say, "Good."

 

I watched the show back in the day, and I sometimes watch the reruns now.

 

I didn't watch TV heavily as a kid (and not much at all now), though I do remember those shows. When I see any part of them now, I'm amazed at how amateurish they often are - lame acting, cheap sets, clunky dialogue. "Sanford & Son" is one of the worst offenders - just cheap and grungy looking, and really hammy thespianship.

 

Well, the Tony Orlando & Dawn show was shot on the same TV City stage as the Carol Burnett Show (as I recall), with the same cameras. I don't believe that the ABC shows looked better. In truth, all of this stuff from this era looked terrible. But if they spend the money on color-correction, noise reduction, and enhancement, they can be improved to a point. A lot of it to me is just very noisy electronics in the camera, plus really bad flat "sitcom" lighting.

 

This it it! This is it lol

 

I have watched it at times since Antenna TV started airing it.
I liked Schnieder and I thought the girls (Bertinelli and Phillips) were funny at times and likable.
I just didn't like Bonnie Franklin.
As others have said, I just found her very annoying. I don't even know why. She was horrible.
Maybe if they had gotten another actress to play the mother, maybe it wouldn't have been half bad.
The writing wasn't great either, especially compared to All In The Family.

 

An old pal of mine was the engineer on Donny Most's album ("Ralph Malph" from Happy Days), and he said the experience was bad enough that he opted to bail on the recording business and get into video.

A lot of these shows have a huge amount of YELLING in place of acting. Way over-the-top crap. For sheer volume, I think Good Times was the worst. But One Day at a Time was really, really bad. What's astonishing is how long many of these stayed on the air: 9 years for One Day, 11 years for The Jeffersons, 9 years for All in the Family (plus another 4 years for Archie Bunker's Place). Shows generally don't last that long today.

 

When Glenn was trying to get his music career off the ground, he made an seemingly out-of-nowhere "guest appearance" in an issue of Archie Comics. He joins "The Archies" on stage at a concert and everyone in Riverdale is apparently in awe of his huge celebrity. The problem was, by the time the issue hit stands, Glenn's 15 minutes of teen idol fame were already up.



As it turns out, Glenn's father Henry was a cartoonist who'd worked for Archie for many years. He must've called up his bosses and said "Guys, my kid's show got canceled, now he thinks he's gonna be a rock star for cryin' out loud. Can you help me out and give him some promotion? Otherwise he's never gonna move out of my garage."

Henry also did some "Glenn Scarpelli in Hollywood" one page gag strips which appeared randomly throughout the Archie books for a year or so after this issue. By the time those started running Glenn's career was stone cold so those strips became unintentionally hilarious in a cruel sort of way.

 

I watched it when it was on, but don't feel compelled at all to watch it now. Does you get a comforting feeling watching it?

 

I guess I, once again, have a different opinion than the rest of you. I liked the show when it got serious. Excellent dramatization of topical issues, which is why the show was so popular...aside from Valerie Bertinelli.