Forgotten Sitcoms: "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers"

In the fall of 1974, TV Guide asked five TV programming pros which new show would be the biggest hit of the coming season. Every single one of them picked the CBS series "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers." It was a show that seemed to have everything going for it:

* A Tony award-winning comic actor in the title role

* A choice timeslot right between two of TV's most popular shows -- "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"

* A top-notch creative pedigree -- it was created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, the men behind "MTM"

And yet, by January 1975, "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers" was gone.

Before an explanation, let's back up several years, to early 1971. David Davis and Lorenzo Music have written a script for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in which Mary Richards is audited, and then wooed, by a very shy, but charming, IRS agent. It's a natural role for Bob Newhart, who will soon have his own sitcom in the MTM stable. But at the last minute Newhart has to drop out, and no one knows what to do next.

No one except Valerie Harper.

Harper, who plays Rhoda, remembers a friend she worked with in the Second City comedy troupe. His name is Paul Sand. He isn't well known in the TV world, but he has vast stage experience, especially with producer Paul Sills -- in Second City and in another Stills creation, "Story Theatre," for which Sand has won a Tony award.

So Sand is cast in the MTM episode, "1040 or Fight" (you can see it on youtube, or on Hulu). MTM creators Brooks and Burns like Sands and his puppy-dog charm so much that they start thinking of a series concept for him.

But Sands is ambivalent -- he's thinking about going back to the stage. Then one day he sees James L. Brooks walking down the beach. He jogs down to join him, and Sands later recounted their conversation to TV Guide:

"I ran down and walked along with him. We had the following conversation. Jim: 'Ready to do a series, Paul?' Me: 'Yup. As long as I'm not married or a lawyer in it.' Jim: 'OK.' "

In "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers" Sand would play the unmarried, un-lawyer Robert Dreyfuss, an uptight, upright bass player who finally realizes his dream of becoming part of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

"It should do for the bachelors of the world what ['The] Mary Tyler Moore Show' did for bachelor girls," says CBS honcho Perry Lafferty, adorably.

In the series, pilot, Richard auditions for the symphony. His competition is an arrogant bassist, Mason Woodruff, wonderfully played by Craig Richard Nelson. Just before the auditions, the two men meet.

Robert: What a shame that we have to compete for this one position. Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if everyone got what they wanted the most?

Mason: To me, it would be a wonderful world if they made the best upright bass player king.

Nelson will become a regular on the show as a kind of frenemy for Robert. Also in the cast are Michael Pataki as Robert's brother and Penny Marshall, with "Laverne & Shirley" on the horizon, as Robert's sister-in-law. Robert's various friends and lovers would include young actresses like Robin Strasser and Mariette Hartley. After a few episodes, Robert's parents, played by Jack Gilford and Jan Miner, would become semi-regulars.

So the cast quality is there; the writing quality is there; the timeslot is to die for. But by January 1975, "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers" is dead.

What happened?

For one thing, given all that the show had going for it, expectations were astronomical. The show HAD to be a hit. There was no theoretical reason for it not to be. But there it was -- a ratings gulf between the high numbers posted by "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

Some executives thought it was because the show was too "sophisticated"; some thought that Sand just didn't come across well on TV.

At any rate, by late October, a pilot called "The Jeffersons" was completed, and on January 18, 1975, it replaced "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers" in the treasured time slot, kicking off an 11-season run on CBS. No one would ever accuse that show of being too sophisticated.

The funny thing is, "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers" was not an outright flop. It ended up in 25th place that season, garnering more viewers than its competition, "Emergency!" on NBC and "The New Land" on ABC. But 25th place isn't good enough when your lead-in is number one. And "The Jeffersons" finished its first season in fourth place.

As for Paul Sand, he has kept busy on stage and in minor film roles. He was a TV regular on "St. Elsewhere" and "Gimme a Break!" but theatre remains his first love -- in fact, at age 91, he's written a play that had a short run in Hollywood earlier this month.    

           

      

Forgotten Sitcoms: "The Mothers-in-Law"

"The Mothers-in-Law" could also have been titled "Lucy and Ethel's Children Get Married, Move Into the Garage and Have a Baby," but that's a terrible title.

It is, however, a kind-of-succinct description of this forgotten sitcom, which ran on NBC from 1967-69.

The title roles were played by Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard as, respectively, Eve Hubbard and Kaye Buell, longtime next-door neighbors and Lucy and Ethel-like friends who become even closer when Jerry Hubbard (Jerry Fogel) marries Suzie Buell (Deborah Walley, who unlike everyone else, didn't get to be called by her real name on the show). Herbert Rudley played Eve's husband Herb, and Roger C. Carmel played Kaye's husband, Roger C.

The executive producer of "The Mothers-in-Law" was Desi Arnaz, heralded before each episode by a "Desi Arnaz Presents" title. Long divorced from Lucille Ball by this point, Arnaz was also experiencing a career fade. Ten years earlier, he was regarded as the man behind the redhead, the one who helped make their TV production company, Desilu, one of the most successful in Hollywood. Now he needed to bounce back, and "The Mothers-in-Law" was his best shot.

The show was created by two longtime "I Love Lucy" writers -- Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr. -- and the scripts were full of Lucy and Ethel-type misadventures. (Example: While the newlyweds are away, Eve and Kaye sneak into the garage to nose around the place, but get locked in, and hide in the shower when the couple returns.)

For the mothers-in-law, Arnaz turned to Arden and Ann Sothern, both of whom were long associated with Desilu -- Arden with the TV series "Our Miss Brooks" and Sothern with the TV series "Private Secretary." (Arden and Lucille Ball had also appeared together in the 1937 film "Stage Door.") Sothern didn't work out -- Ballard, to that point known more as a nightclub comic and impressionist, was much more of a comic contrast. Eve Hubbard was a rather stuffy WASP matron, while Kaye Buell was hot-blooded and Italian.

Arnaz sold the show to Procter & Gamble. This was back when advertisers still bought entire blocks of time on the TV schedule, and P&G was the long-time owner of a Sunday night half-hour on NBC right between "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" and "Bonanza," two of the tube's most popular shows. 

"Bonanza" finished the 1967-68 season in a three-way tie for fourth place; "Disney" finished at 25th place. "The Mothers-in-Law" finished in 37th place -- it appeared that after watching "Disney," most of America turned away from "The Mothers-in-Law" and to CBS to catch the last half-hour of "The Ed Sullivan Show" before stampeding back to NBC and "Bonanza." This happened even though Arnaz appeared on a couple of episodes as a performer -- with Desi Arnaz Jr. accompanying him on drums. 

NBC was unhappy with the show's ratings and considered cancelling it, but P&G wanted to keep it on the air -- it was selling lots of Ice-Blue Secret deodorant! They threatened to move the show to ABC, so NBC gave in and kept it on the schedule. (For the second season, Richard Deacon replaced Roger C. Carmel as Kaye's husband when Carmel left in a pay dispute. The character's name remained Roger C.)

In the second season's first episode, Kaye's grandmother visits from Italy. She is under the impression that Jerry and Suzie-Deborah are still unmarried, so they agree to "get married" while great-grandma is there, even though they've been hitched for a year. Then right in the middle of the ceremony, Suzie-Deborah gets the news -- she's pregnant -- and great-grandma dies of a heart attack. (I may have made up that last part.)

The birth of twins in early 1969 -- Joey and Hildy -- didn't help the ratings. (What's wrong with you people?!) "The Mothers-in-Law" finished the 1968-69 season in 40th place. P&G found a new timeslot tenant for the following fall -- Bill Cosby. And Desi Arnaz? Aside from a few unsold pilots, "The Mothers-in-Law" was his last project behind the cameras. In front of the cameras, he still made appearances on talk and variety shows, and in 1976 he hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live" that ended with a conga line in the studio. He died in 1986.

Forgotten Sitcoms: "Dave's World"

The final episode of "Dave's World" aired on CBS the night of June 27, 1997.

And I'll bet you a quarter that the last time you thought about "Dave's World," if you have thought about it at all, was on June 27, 1997.

"Dave's World" ran on CBS from 1993-97. Four seasons, 98 episodes. It was based on the work of Dave Barry, a newspaper columnist. (Remember them?) Specifically it was based on two books by Barry -- beyond that he had nothing to do with the show, which is a shame, because he's a pretty funny guy.

(Side note: One of my favorite Barry lines came in a column about being awakened at dawn by his toddler. Barry's wish was that someone would create an early-morning TV show for kids called "Let's Go Back to Bed.")

Harry Anderson, late of "Night Court," played Dave Barry, a columnist with a Miami newspaper. DeLane Matthews played Beth, his wife. (They stayed together all four seasons, even though in real life Dave and Beth split during the show's run.) Meshach Taylor, late of "Designing Women," played Dave's lifelong friend Sheldon, a plastic surgeon. Shadoe Stevens, late of "Hollywood Squares," played Dave's editor, Kenny. J.C. Wendel played Dave's assistant, Mia.

If "Dave's World" had any kind of ratings success, it was due to its location on the CBS schedule. It aired on Monday nights, nestled snugly between two popular shows -- "Evening Shade" and "Murphy Brown." It finished the season tied with "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" in 21st place. It stayed in the same slot the next season, sandwiched between "The Nanny" and "Murphy Brown," and again finished in 21st place.

In the fall of 1995 "Dave's World" was moved to Wednesdays, and the slide began. The show fell out of the top thirty, and Patrick Warburton was added to the cast as a love interest for Mia.

Then came the end -- a move to Friday nights for the 1996-97 season. Competition was tough -- this was the heyday of ABC's TGIF sitcom lineup that included "Family Matters," "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and "Boy Meets World." "Dave's World" kicked off the night for CBS, followed by a new show, "Everybody Loves Raymond." "Dave's World" was yanked in January, with remaining episodes burned off in the early summer. "Everybody Loves Raymond" was saved by a move to Monday nights.

"Dave's World" received one Emmy nomination -- in 1996, for Outstanding Cinematography for a Series. Congratulations, Tony Yarlett! Sorry you didn't win. Its theme song was Billy Joel's "You May Be Right," performed by Southside Johnny. But because of rights issues, you won't hear it on the DVDs of the show. And as far as DVDs go, only three of the show's four seasons are available. There is no discernible online outcry or petition to make season four happen.