TV Shows That Became A Different Show From How They Began

Ehhhhhh... they're not all ingenues and models. Katherine Heigl once ripped a $600 mic of mine apart while leaving the set, and that was no fun.

 

I disagree. Kevin Can Wait to me was kind of a King Of Queens rewrite. Kevin Gable was kind of a retired Doug Heffernan who had kids and like Doug had a wife out of his league. It wasn't a bad show (I have been watching the reruns just to see what it was like in the beginning as I'm a big KOQ fan) and I think it could have stayed around a few more years under that premise. When Leah joined the cast and then subsequently Erinn Hayes was killed off after 1 season, it really changed into a different series about a retired cop with a security company with Leah and the next door neighbor. It failed as it just wasn't funny and the rapport between Kevin and Leah just wasn't there in these new roles. A full KOQ reboot would have been more successful IMO.

 

It also took place in Indiana, then suddenly Zack, Lisa, and Screech are all in Los Angeles.

 

I forgot to mention Belding moved with them.

 

The Price Is Right had a completely different game in its initial run of nine years when it was hosted by Bill Cullen. Four contestants sat as a panel and would bid on prizes. They would try to outbid each other. Whoever bid the closest to the actual retail price without going over won the prize. We all know what it has become.

The Today Show, when it started with Dave Garroway as its host, was often comedic and had an emphasis on entertainment. It even had a monkey that would roam the set. It was really a morning variety show that also gave you the news of the day. Through a succession of hosts and network bosses, it has become much more newsy.

 

Incorrect. South Park aired (and still airs) at 10pm with a warning regarding coarse language and mature subject matter prior to the intro. It also features the TV-MA rating, meaning not suitable for anyone under 17.

Sorry but if you're going to spin bologna when all of this is easily verifiable, I'd be remiss not to bring this up.

 

i don't think you are following what they are saying. has nothing to do with the time or rating of the show

 

Basically stating that parents are they accountable ones for showing SP to their kids. All the warnings in the world won't change how bad parenting is unfortunately a reality, which is why the creators make fun of and scorn that bad parenting in their shows... something that's been mocked throughout the entire show's run; not just the last handful of seasons.

 

The Tonight Show is probably the best example of this. Each host made it into a completely different show.

 

they were saying the show started out as cutting edge for the youth and now they seem like grumpy old men

 

Just reread it and it doesn't seem like that is what's conveyed. Parents were upset about the content their kids were exposed to and those kids who now are adults raising kids of their own are doing so poorly.

 

maybe they will explain. i took it as originally parents didn't want their kids watching because of the content but now content seems tame and more about the creators whining

 

The last series of Homicide. Characters acting out of character to fit the plot.

 

Just watch how the intro sequences evolve. Or watch the first two clips in the embedded video and click the last link and get the drastic change.

https://youtu.be/CBOhAmEJX_A

https://youtu.be/fx6kTsctQws

 

Regardless of time slot/rating, there were parents/groups that wanted the show gone from the airwaves. Some recent seasons have had Matt/Trey complaining about bad parenting which I found to be a mildly ironic 180 degree change.

In some ways the show is better/nuanced now than the earlier south park episodes that were shock/catch phrase lenient.

Also i've seen it aired here before 10pm on select occasions. Might be the east coast feed in Vancouver or maybe when they did marathons(?).

 

I recall reading once that the show's producers were pressured to make changes in the later seasons to improve the ratings, like hiring young twenty-something actors (who looked out of place) to play new cops.

 

To be fair, Walt's actions led to his brother-in-law being killed. And by the last episode, Skylar and Walter Jr. were living together in a small apartment.

I never bought into Skylar getting involved in Walt's criminal enterprise.

 

I think I read the same, but I thought several characters were acting out of character in that final series. I love the show - my favourite police show - and while I think it goes gradually downhill, the last season almost doesn't belong

 

it airs all day on comedy central some days lol

 

Even sketch comedy/variety shows ended up way different than they began. Take Benny Hill. His show, in the 1950's and '60's, was originally a formula of recurring characters (Fred Scuttle, Mervyn Cruddy, etc.), loads of impersonations, his playing multiple characters in one sketch, TV show and film satires, parodies of commercial campaigns of the day and satiric looks on the culture at large, interspersed with the occasional musical guest(s). And even as the sexual revolution was manifesting itself on his show in the early 1970's, he still largely kept to this mix. It was after Dennis Kirkland became producer/director in 1979 that the show changed direction to its ultimate detriment (so much so as to basically jump the shark), in his early years at the helm transforming the show into a de facto Playboy magazine of the air via the Hill's Angels and charges that the show had basically become a video strip club. By the time all that was toned down later in the '80's, Benny's creative bankruptcy - and his (and his cast's) mailing in their performances in a lifeless and rote manner - was all the more exposed.

Then there are those who would argue that In Living Color was a wholly different show after all of the Wayans' left after many a battle with Fox censors.

 

That historical background sounds like the impetus for the "Don't call me Shirley" joke in Airplane.

But wasn't Jerry Springer also a TV news anchor before he started doing his own de facto sideshows?

 

TV characters that went from one show to another would also go that route. Lou Grant, for one. A news editor on the Mary Tyler Moore show, then after he went to a big city newspaper . . .

 

Didn't that also happen with The Man From U.N.C.L.E.?

 

Sounds like budgetary pressures in S2 (ABC, remember, was the financially challenged "third network" in those days, so much so that when they had to go color it was basically a budget-buster for them).