Who came up with the idea for that kid in the 4th season of The Partridge Family?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Hutch, Oct 19, 2014.

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  1. Hutch

    Hutch Forum Resident Thread Starter

    ...and Ruben's mustache (ala Starsky & Hutch season 4)?

    Goodness gracious. Was that the head of the studio's grandson or something? And the idea that a four year old kid wrote those songs is crazy. Was he a prodigy or did someone just not want royalties to songs they wrote?

    Also it seems they did some cover songs in that season that didn't make it to record.
     
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  2. Myke

    Myke Trying Not To Spook The Horse

  3. Gary7704

    Gary7704 Chasing that sound….

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    Good question, and you should be nominated for the best thread title award......
     
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  4. vamborules

    vamborules Forum Resident

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    He was Cousin Oliver before Cousin Oliver.
     
  5. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    According to Wikipedia, the casting on the show was beset with problems from the first season:

    At the end of the first season, Jeremy Gelbwaks' family moved out of the Los Angeles area, and the part of Chris was recast with actor Brian Forster. According to David Cassidy, Gelbwaks "had a personality conflict with every person in the cast and the producers". A dog named "Simone" was featured in the first season, but was phased out during the second season. At the beginning of the fourth season, a four-year-old neighbor named Ricky Stevens (Ricky Segall) was featured and would sing a children's song during each episode, but was dropped mid-season.

    Generally when this kind of thing happens -- replacing actors or adding new characters -- the ratings are going down and the producers are reacting to pressure from the network to change the show to make it more popular again. History has shown that this rarely works.
     
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  6. zen

    zen Senior Member

    I do recall when that four-year-old neighbor sang....the T.V. was turned off (usually mid song).
     
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  7. Muzyck

    Muzyck Pardon my scruffy hospitality

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    Isn't this the point where Fonzie jumps the shark?
     
  8. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    I wonder which fails more often: replacing/introducing new characters or having two characters get married.
     
  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Or the infamous "Moonlighting" rule: the sexual tension immediately dissipates the moment the two characters actually have sex. Better to keep them apart forever to keep the conflict going.

    The old JumpTheShark.com website had several dozen horrible TV show premises that usually indicated a show was in trouble and was trying to desperately liven things up:

    • the family trip to Hawaii
    • somebody getting married
    • new (younger) character introduced because the older characters got un-cute
    • a huge guest star who has nothing to do with the show (usually promoting a new hit song or album)
    • major cast change introducing a new character from out of nowhere
    • major cast change replacing an existing character (usually because the original actor was difficult or wanted more money)
    • the all-musical episode where the entire cast tries to sing
    • a "dream" episode where one person imagines an entire story, usually one with bizarre, show-shifting elements
    • the reveal that many previous episodes were all dreams (see: Roseanne and Dallas)
    • the "It's a Wonderful Life" episode, where one character imagines what it would have been like if he or she had never existed
    • massive appearance change (I'm reminded of the time Felicity cut her hair)
    • one character hits their head and has amnesia (done about 600 times on Gilligan's Island).

    There's a million of 'em. Most of these are jaw-droppingly stupid, and to tell you the truth, I think they rarely work.
     
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  10. jjh1959

    jjh1959 Senior Member

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    and those "very special episodes of...."
     
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  11. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    There's also the Charlie's Angels example: let's change an angel every year to get publicity about our search. Never mind we are losing viewers because our stories aren't very good.
     
  12. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    Amazing list, but the family trip to Hawaii really sticks out in my mind. I can think of a specific example off the top of my head, but having been raised in front of the television through the 60s and 70s it seems like the family trip to Hawaii was used dozens of times.
     
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  13. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    Or in the case of Baywatch, move the entire show to Hawaii, because financially strapped communities are so will to send lifeguards for training in America's most distant, expensive state.
     
  14. bekayne

    bekayne Senior Member

    Trip to Las Vegas
     
  15. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Perfect.

    Oh, I hated those. I wonder who was the first to say that. "Tonight, on a very special episode of blah-blah show..." Cosby maybe? I can't remember for a fact if they ever did this in the 1970s.

    Actually, scratch that: I can recall recording Ernie Anderson on a promo where he actually said "tonight, on a very special episode of whatever," and that would've been late 1979/early 1980.
     
  16. aoxomoxoa

    aoxomoxoa I'm an ear sitting in the sky

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    "Blow it out your ass!" said little Ricky! :D

    [​IMG]
     
  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    I think in that case, they had some actresses who quit to make a lot more money elsewhere, like Farah Fawcett. So it wasn't always the producers' idea. Or you had a dispute like the Three's Company case with Suzanne Somers, where she wanted a huge raise and the producers froze her out, eventually compelling her to leave.
     
  18. greelywinger

    greelywinger Osmondia

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    Darryl
     
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  19. milankey

    milankey Forum Resident

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    when people complain today's tv is bad they need to watch this to give them a sense of perspective.
     
  20. Uncle Meat

    Uncle Meat Forum Resident

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    Or maybe the Brady Brunch Hour
     
  21. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Partridge Family was a very, very bad show in terms of comedy. It was a classic in a sense, but I was always kind of bugged that they ripped-off the entire idea of the Cowsills and just recreated that group with the same kind of music and screwed the original people.

    That was a show that went beyond very bad all the way to horrible. Unbelievably bad. I actually worked on the (very shortlived) Brady Bunch show where the daughters all got married. What was it called? The Brady Daughters? Something like that. Luckily, I've blanked a lot of them out.
     
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  22. inperson

    inperson Senior Member

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    This is gold compared to most stuff on tv today.
     
  23. music4life

    music4life Senior Member

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    Also add when the main couple ("Mad About You" for example) have a baby.
     
  24. EdgardV

    EdgardV ®

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    They should have just focused more on Susan Dey's character — ah... ahem, that may have actually worked!

    Besides the rest of the lame elements of the show, I always thought that the non-band music for the show was unbelievably lame and predictable, almost generic. How ironic on a program with music as a supposed central premiss. A huge missed opportunity.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2014
  25. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Although... they did that in I Love Lucy and it became one of the most memorable shows in TV history. So I think it's possible for a sitcom to have a "baby" episode and not completely go to hell. In that specific case, Lucille Ball actually got pregnant in real life, so it was almost impossible to ignore it in the show, since she was in 90% of every scene.
     
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