TV shows that were re-tooled and revamped for one reason or another

Sometimes a TV show is put out there, and for one reason or another changes are made. Sometimes a cast member or two leave, sometime most of the cast is replaced, and sometimes the show's premise and/or title are changed.

The big example I can think of is the sitcom Valerie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hogan_Family

Valerie Harper left, Sandy Duncan came in, and it was re-named twice (this is the only example I can think of where a show was re-named twice).

After she left, it was re-named Valerie's Family: The Hogans, and then finally to The Hogan Family.

The Jeff Foxworthy Show was re-tooled in between seasons and networks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jeff_Foxworthy_Show

 

I worked on Valerie a little bit in the 1980s and remember vividly when it shut down and then came back as The Hogan Family. Valerie Harper was convinced she deserved a raise, went out on strike, and the producers stood firm and hired Sandy Duncan to replace essentially the same character. Note that Harper did sue NBC and eventually won and collected $1.4 million in damages.

The Ellen Degeneres Show went through a bunch of changes as well on its way to changing the title to Ellen. I can recall a bunch of cast members coming and going, to the point where I was sometimes confused if I had the right piece of film up on the post sessions.

There were quite a few shows out there (going back decades) where the series was initially built around two or three lead characters, but over time some minor background characters suddenly became the central focus of the show. This inevitably lead to turmoil and dissent as different actors' importance was reduced in later episodes. Lost in Space was one, where by the second season, Will & Dr. Smith were essentially the most important characters in the series; Happy Days was another, where eventually The Fonz became the breakout hit character (and the actor got about a 10X increase in pay). Good Times was another, where it was initially supposed to be about two parents trying to raise their family in the Chicago ghetto, but it became more of a show about the kids (particularly Jimmy Walker), which led to both parents eventually walking off the show. Family Matters was another, where they suddenly had to build the episodes around Steve Erkel. In each case, the show kind of warps and changes to something different than what the pilot intended it was going to be.

 

What's Happening changed a great deal once Raj moved out to start college and he and Rerun took an apartment together. New featuted characters (bug and little Earl) and little to no interaction with home life where the Mrs Thomas was.

 

Wonder Woman. First year they were in the 1940s and she's inthe military. Next year its modern.
Really a terrible show made watchable by Lynda Carter.

 

Sandy Duncan was involved or victim of that directly some years earlier. She had her own sitcom Funny Face, then she had her eye trouble so it lasted only a half season. She came back the next year with The Sandy Duncan Show, which also lasted a half season. But both were plagued by horrendously bad writing. One earlier episode one of one series had her have some problem because her car was in the shop, then a few weeks later she was having problems going to take her first driver's test to get her first license.

 

And Hazel's last season.

 

"77 Sunset Strip" was extensively revamped in its sixth season (1963-64). Declining ratings brought in Jack Webb as executive producer and William Conrad as director. All the actors except Efrem Zimbalist Jr were let go and it became more film noirish. Didn't work, show got cancelled. A few more disaster and alimony checks meant Jack Webb had to return as Joe Friday on a reincarnation of "Dragnet"
Doris Day's show had several re toolings.

Most successful retooling was probably the soap opera "Dark Shadows". Hideously boring small town New England ended up with all kinds of horror story plots and characters.

 

And The New Dick Van Dyke Show's last season.

 

The list is endless when it comes to long time, successful series that are on their last legs.

"All In the Family" becomes "Archie Bunker's Place"
"The Facts of Life" was retooled several times before its end

Many others

 

ABC had a quickie summer replacement sitcom called The Corner Bar, starring Gabe Dell as the owner/bartender. It lasted 10 episodes, which was all it was supposed to. The next summer they brought it back for 6 more new episodes but some of the characters (and writers?) were replaced. I remember this one being pretty funny, and with Gabe Dell from the old The Bowery Boys movies I saw Sunday mornings. I would really like to see it again because most of the jokes must have been over my head at the time! (This belongs in the never-made-it-to-DVD thread too.) This was almost Cheers before Cheers.

 

I enjoyed "The A Team" until the awful final season where they are caught and then go to work to the government.

"Mystery Science Theater 3000" wasn't as good after it moved from Comedy Central to the Sci-Fi Channel. We lost both Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank and got Pearl, Professor Bobo and the Brain Guy.
Bill Corbett replaced Trace Beaulieu as Crow and he just wasn't the same Crow after that. Because the show moved to the Sci-Fi Channel, nearly all of the movies were Sci-Fi. The riffing was still pretty good, though.

 

Anybody remember Tempature's Rising a comedy about a hospital? The first season it starred James Whitmore, Clevon Little and Joan Van Ark. By the second season Whitmore was out and Paul Lynde was the star. Little's character went from funny guy in the first season to a very serious guy in the second season. Very confusing to a young kid like me at the time.

 

The first year of Mannix was totally different than the rest of the series. It was a more serious take of Man From Uncle and James Bond.

The Good Guys.

Laverne and Shirley first went to California, then there was no Shirley.

Barney Miller pivoted late in the first season away from Barney's family.

 

I worked on Laverne & Shirley the last couple of years. I remember Cindy Williams going out on strike because they wouldn't let her breast-feed her baby on the set, plus she claimed Penny Marshall got much more favorable working conditions because she had 3 or 4 relatives working on the show (including show creator Gary Marshall), so she left. They knew that there would be issues because Cindy was already visibly pregnant by the last episode of Season 7, so they quickly married her off to a fireman. The guy was bandaged from head to toe, so we had no idea who the actor was going to be. In the first episode of Season 8, "Laverne" answered a phone call from "Shirley," said, "hey, I hope you're having a great time on your honeymoon," and then she was never referred to again. They also took her out of the opening titles and replaced it with some generic shots of kids playing hop-scotch. Very weird situation.

Welcome Back Kotter had some format changes in the final season, because John Travolta had left the show for his movie career, and co-star Marcia Strassman (Gabe Kaplan's wife) had demanded a bigger part, so they made her a part-time teacher at the high school. Needless to say, these changes did not go over well, the ratings fell, and the show got the axe.

There's a whole book out there about shows that changed and how actors were replaced, abruptly left the show, or just died. In many cases, the changes did not help the show. As one example, Mr. Ed was never as good after next-door neighbor Larry Keating died. Same problem with Dennis the Menace, after Joseph Kearns (the original "Mr. Wilson") suddenly died. I think in the latter case, this was the first time I was aware that the characters in TV shows were played by real people. The "Two Dicks" problem of Bewitched is a similar situation of a cast substitution, though I think Mr. Ed, Dennis the Menace, and Bewitched kept the exact same format as much as they could.

 

Not exactly. It was Joe Mannix (Mike Conners) working for a high-tech detective agency called "Intertec," headed up by Joe Campanella. Mannix clashed often with the boss. The network forced them to change the format after season 1, so they had Mannix quit and start his own private detective agency without the high-tech computers.

 

and of coarse! LOST IN SPACE!

 

Your In The Picture turned into The Jackie Gleason Show in 1961.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_in_the_Picture

jerol

 

Charles In Charge....swapped out the whole family.

Family Matters....refocused on the Steve Urkel character, one Winslow daughter went upstairs and never returned. (The actress who played her ended up doing adult films).

Happy Days retooled to cash in on the popular "Fonzie" character, said bye bye to Chuck Cunningham. (It would retool a couple more times.)

Speaking of cast replacements....'Til Death had 4 different actresses playing the role of the Stark's daughter.

 

Is that the one where he apologized on air for how awful the show was? Heh.

 

Yep. That's the one.
I saw it, too.
Gleason had another incident where he fractured his wrist and the next week he was in a chair center stage talking about it.

jerol

 

They've changed out Don Draper's son on Mad Men about 4 times as well, partly because they grow pretty fast at that age, and partly because the kids didn't get along with mother January Jones. But the content of the series has stayed intact.

 

Rhoda as well. First it was about her marriage to Joe, then it was about her breakup with Joe, then she changed jobs and the show became completely different.

 

Gotta ask: Did you have a hand in the 'Lightning Man' episode?

 

In the first season the show was called "These Friends Of Mine" and it had a significantly different cast.

 

I believe they called it that to sponge off of the success of Friends.