September 12, 1972
Maude preimered.
Maude stars Bea Arthur as Maude Findlay, an outspoken, middle-aged, politically liberal woman living in suburban Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York with her fourth husband, household appliance store owner Walter Findlay (Bill Macy). Maude embraced the tenets of women's liberation, always voted for Democratic Party candidates, strongly supported legal abortion, and advocated for civil rights and racial and gender equality. However, her overbearing and sometimes domineering personality often got her into trouble when speaking out on these issues.
The program was a spin-off of All in the Family, on which Beatrice Arthur had first played the
character of Maude, Edith Bunker's cousin; like All in the Family, Maude
was a sitcom with topical storylines created by producer Norman Lear.
Unusual for a U.S. sitcom, several episodes (such as
"Maude's Night Out" and "The Convention") featured only the
characters of Maude and Walter, in what amounted to half-hour "two-hander" teleplays. Season 4's "The Analyst"
was a solo episode for Bea Arthur, who delivered a soul-searching,
episode-length monologue to an unseen psychiatrist.
Maude, introduced as Edith Bunker's cousin, had been
married three times before marrying her fourth and current husband. Her first
husband, Barney, had died shortly after their marriage; she had divorced the
next two, Albert and Chester. Albert was never portrayed on screen, but the
episode "Poor Albert" revolved around his death, while Chester would
appear on the show (played by Martin Balsam). Her current husband, Walter Findlay (played by Bill Macy), owned an appliance store called Findlay's Friendly Appliances; he
was said to be a Maytag dealer in the first episode. Maude and Walter met
just before the 1968 presidential election.
Maude sometimes got in the last word during their many arguments with her
hallmark catchphrase, "God'll getcha for that, Walter."
Maude's divorced daughter, Carol Traynor (from her
second marriage, played by Adrienne Barbeau; in the Maude pilot, an episode of All in the Family, Carol was played by Marcia Rodd), and Carol's son, Phillip (played by Brian Morrison
and later by Kraig
Metzinger), also lived with the
Findlays. Though single, Carol maintained her reputation of dating many men, as
evidenced by her weekend "business trips" with various boyfriends.
She dated various men throughout early seasons, eventually forming a serious
(but brief) relationship with a man named Chris (played by Fred Grandy) in the later seasons. Like her mother, Carol was an
outspoken liberal feminist who was not afraid to speak her mind, though they
often clashed. After the fourth season, and with ratings dropped, Barbeau's
appearances were reduced.
The Findlays' next-door neighbors were Dr. Arthur
Harmon (a stuffy, sardonic Republican whose views
clashed with those of Maude; in lieu of Archie Bunker, Arthur was Maude's
foil), played by Conrad Bain and his sweet but scatterbrained second wife Vivian,
played by Rue McClanahan, who confirmed in an interview with the Archive of American Television that she was approached by Norman Lear during the taping of the All in the Family episode "The Bunkers and the Swingers"
(1972), to take on the role as a late replacement for Doris Roberts, who was originally intended for the part. Arthur had
been Walter's best friend since the two men served together in World War II; he was the one who brought Walter and Maude together
in 1968 and "affectionately" called Maude "Maudie." Vivian
had been Maude's best friend since they both attended college together. When
the series began, Arthur was a widower and Vivian
was a soon-to-be divorcée (her previous last name was Cavender); in a late
first-season episode, Vivian and her husband Chuck were getting a divorce after
21 years of marriage. Arthur and Vivian began dating at the beginning of the
second season and were married during the middle of it.
For the entire run of the show, Maude also had a
housekeeper. Shortly after the series began, the Findlays' hired Florida Evans, a no-nonsense black woman who often had the last
laugh at Maude's expense. Maude would often make a point of conspicuously and
awkwardly demonstrating how open-minded and liberal she was (Florida almost
quit working for Maude because of this). Despite Florida's status as a maid,
Maude emphasized to Florida she felt that they were "equals," and
insisted she enter and exit the Findlay house via the front door (even though
the back door was more convenient).
As portrayed by Esther Rolle, the character of Florida proved so popular that, in
1974, she became the star of her own spin-off series, entitled Good Times. In the storyline of Maude, Florida's husband,
Henry (later James), received a raise at his job, and she quit to be a
full-time housewife and mother. Good Times is based on the childhood of
its creator, Mike Evans, who starred as Lionel Jefferson on All in the
Family and The
Jeffersons. Whereas Maude
took place in New York, the setting for Good Times was Chicago.
After Florida's departure in 1974, Mrs. Nell Naugatuck
(played by Hermione
Baddeley), an elderly (and vulgar)
British woman who drank excessively and lied compulsively, took over. Unlike
Florida, who commuted, Mrs. Naugatuck was a live-in maid. She met and began
dating Bert Beasley (an elderly security guard at a cemetery, played by J. Pat O'Malley) in 1975. They married in 1977 and moved to Ireland to care for Bert's mother. Mrs. Naugatuck's frequent sparring with
Maude was, it can be argued, just as comedically popular as Florida's sparring.
The difference in the two relationships was that Mrs. Naugatuck often came off
as if she despised Maude Findlay, whereas Florida seemed only periodically
frustrated by her boss.
Lear said the last name 'Naugatuck' was directly taken
from the town of Naugatuck,
Connecticut, which he found amusing.
Due to the popularity of the program, Baddeley even visited the town in the
late 1970s and was given a warm, official ceremony at the town green.
Maude then hired Victoria Butterfield (played by Marlene Warfield), a native of Norman Island in the British
Virgin Islands, whom Maude initially
accused of stealing her wallet. Victoria remained until the end of the series
in 1978. However, Warfield's character was never as popular as her two
predecessors, and she was never given a credit as a series regular.
The opening title sequence begins with an aerial shot of New York City, including the Chrysler Building. It then showcases a drive from the city to Maude's
house in Tuckahoe, where Maude
answers her door to greet the viewing audience. Although the sequence
supposedly shows the trip in the then-present day (1970s), most of the cars in
one part of the sequence appear to be from the 1950s.
One shot in the title sequence takes the viewer over
the George
Washington Bridge. In reality, this
bridge connects New York City with New Jersey to the west, whereas Westchester County, where Maude
lives, lies to the north of Manhattan. The most obvious and direct route from
Manhattan to Tuckahoe would be to drive through The Bronx.
The show's theme song, "And
Then There's Maude", was written
by Marilyn and Alan Bergman and Dave Grusin, and performed by Donny Hathaway.
The character of Maude Findlay was said to be loosely
based on creator Norman Lear's then-wife Frances. She first appeared on two episodes of All in the Family as
Edith Bunker's cousin. Maude represented everything Archie Bunker did not: She was a liberal, a feminist, and upper-middle class, whereas Archie was conservative, sexist, and in the
working class.
Maude's political beliefs were closer to those of the
series creators than Archie Bunker's, but the series often lampooned Maude as a
naive "limousine
liberal" and did not show her
beliefs and attitudes in an entirely complimentary light. Just before the
show's premiere in September 1972, TV Guide described the character of Maude as "a
caricature of the knee-jerk liberal."
While the show was conceived as a comedy, scripts also
incorporated much darker humor and drama. Maude took Miltown, a mild tranquilizer, and also Valium; she and
her husband Walter began drinking in the evening. Maude had an abortion in
November 1972, two months before the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal nationwide, and the
episodes that dealt with the situation are probably the series' most famous and
most controversial. Maude, at age 47, was dismayed to find herself unexpectedly
pregnant. Her daughter Carol brought to her attention that abortion was now
legal in New York State. After some soul-searching (and discussions with
Walter, who agreed that raising a baby at their stage of life was not what they
wanted to do), Maude tearfully decided at the end of the two-parter that
abortion was probably the best choice for their lives and their marriage.
Noticing the controversy around the storyline, CBS decided to rerun the
episodes in August 1973, and members of the country's clergy reacted strongly
to the decision. At least 30 stations pre-empted the episode. Future Golden
Girls creator Susan Harris was a writer on the episode.
The producers and the writers of the show tackled other
controversies. In a story arc that opened the 1973-74 season, Walter came to grips with his alcoholism and subsequently had a nervous breakdown. The beginning of the story arc had Maude, Walter,
and Arthur enjoying a night of revelry. However, Maude panicked when she woke
up the following morning to find Arthur in her bed. This alarmed her to the
point that both of them swore off alcohol entirely. Walter could not do it
("Dean Martin gets a million dollars for his buzz") and became
so aggravated during his attempts to stop that he struck Maude. Afterward, he
suffered a breakdown as a result of his alcoholism and guilt over the domestic violence incident. The arc, which played out in two parts, was
typically controversial for the show but gained praise for highlighting how social drinking can lead to alcoholism.
The first season episode "The Grass Story"
tackled the then-recent Rockefeller
Drug Laws, as Maude and her
well-meaning housewife friends try to arrange to get arrested in protest over a
grocery boy's tough conviction for marijuana possession. The severity of the marijuana laws was contrasted with the
characters' own lax attitudes toward drinking and prescription pill abuse.
In season four, Maude had a session with an analyst,
in which she revealed insecurities about her life and marriage and talked
through memories from her childhood. The episode was a solo performance by
Beatrice Arthur.
During the fifth season, Walter suffered another nervous breakdown, this time even attempting suicide, when he saw his
business go bankrupt.
The Nielsen ratings for Maude were high, in particular, during the
first seasons of the program (during the heyday of topical sitcoms, which its
presence helped to create), when it was regularly one of the top-ten
highest-rated American television programs in any given week.
In Great Britain, Maude was not shown nationally, although it
was shown in the ITV
regions of Westward, Border, Tyne
Tees,[ Anglia, Yorkshire, Granada and Channel. Satellite
station Sky One ran the series in the early/mid 1990s.
In the fifth season, Maude unexpectedly plunged
from #4 to out of the top thirty in the ratings. In 1978, late in the sixth
season, CBS revamped the series. The final few episodes paved the way for Maude
to be appointed to Congress as a Democrat during the 1978 U.S. midterm elections
(she helped campaign for a congresswoman who unexpectedly died in her house).
With this change, Maude and husband Walter would move to Washington, D.C., and the rest of the regular cast written out of the
series. In the story, the Harmons moved to Idaho, where
Arthur accepted a job offer, while Carol also got a new job offer and she and
Phillip moved to Denver.
Those plans changed after just three episodes in the new format, when
Bea Arthur decided she no longer wanted to continue the role of Maude. Thus,
the Maude series ended. Lear still liked the idea of a member of a
minority group in Congress, and it evolved into the pilot Mr. Dugan, about a black congressman. Mr. Dugan was
judged below standard, and, in 1979, the same premise was reworked as the short-lived CBS
sitcom Hanging In starring Bill Macy and several cast members from Mr.
Dugan.
September 13, 1977
SOAP Priemered on ABC.
The show was created as a parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy. Similar to a soap opera, the show's story was presented in a serial format and included melodramatic plot elements such as amnesia, alien abduction, demonic possession, murder and kidnapping. In 2007 it was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME," and in 2010, the Tates and the Campbells ranked at number 17 in TV Guide's list of "TV's Top Families".
The show was created, written, and produced by Susan Harris. The show aired for four seasons and 85 episodes. The final four episodes of the series aired as one-hour episodes during the original run on ABC. These hour-long episodes were later split in two, yielding 93 half-hour episodes for syndication.
The cast included three former soap opera actors. Robert Mandan (who played Chester Tate) had previously appeared on Search for Tomorrow as a leading man for Mary Stuart, and Donnelly Rhodes (who played Dutch Leitner) had played the first husband of Katherine Chancellor on The Young and the Restless. Arthur Peterson, Jr. ("The Major") played Rev. John Ruthledge in the radio version of Guiding Light.
Soap is set in the fictional town of Dunn's River, Connecticut.
In the opening sequence of the first installment, the announcer says that the Tates live in a wealthy neighborhood. Jessica Tate and her husband, Chester, are hardly models of fidelity, as their various love affairs result in several family mishaps, including the murder of Mary's stepson, Peter Campbell (Robert Urich). Even though everyone tells Jessica about Chester's affairs, she does not believe them until she sees his philandering with her own eyes: while out to lunch with Mary, Jessica spots Chester necking with his secretary. Heartbroken, she sobs in her sister's arms. On later occasions, it becomes clear Jess has always known on some level about Chester's affairs but never allowed herself to process the information.
The wealthy Tate family employs a sarcastic butler, Benson (Robert Guillaume).
Mary's family, the Campbells, are working class, and as the series begins, her son Danny Dallas, a product of her first marriage to Johnny Dallas, is a junior gangster-in-training. Danny is told to kill his stepfather, Burt Campbell, Mary's current husband, who, Danny is told, murdered his father Johnny. It is later revealed that Danny's father was killed by Burt in self-defense. Danny refuses to kill Burt and goes on the run from the Mob in a variety of disguises. This eventually ends when Elaine Lefkowitz (played by Dinah Manoff in one of her earliest roles), the spoiled daughter of the Mob Boss (played by Sorrell Booke), falls in love with Danny and stops her father, who then tells Danny he will have to marry Elaine or he will kill him. In the fourth season, it is revealed that Chester is, in fact, Danny's true father, the product of a secret affair between him and Mary before his marriage to Jessica.
The first season ends with Jessica convicted of the murder of Peter Campbell. The announcer concludes the season by announcing that Jessica is innocent, and that one of five characters – Burt, Chester, Jodie, Benson or Corinne – killed Peter Campbell. Chester later confesses to Peter's murder and is sent to prison. He is soon released after a successful temporary insanity defense.
[edit]
Major plots of later seasons
Other plot lines include Jessica's adopted daughter Corinne courting Father Tim Flotsky, who ended up leaving the priesthood, and the two eventually marrying and having a child who is possessed by the Devil; Chester being imprisoned for Peter's murder, escaping with his prison roommate Dutch, and being afflicted with amnesia after a failed operation; Jessica's other daughter, Eunice, sleeps with a married congressman, and then falls in love with Dutch; Mary's stepson Chuck, a ventriloquist whose hostilities are expressed through his alter ego, a quick-witted dummy named Bob; Jessica's love affairs with several men, including Donahue, a private investigator hired to find the missing presumed-dead Chester, her psychiatrist, and a Latin American revolutionary known as "El Puerco" ("The Pig"; his friends just call him "El"); Billy Tate's confinement by a cult called the "Sunnies" (a parody of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Movement, called the "Moonies" by its critics), and then his affair with his school teacher who becomes unhinged; Danny and his romantic trials with the daughter of a mobster, a black woman, a prostitute, and Chester's second wife, Annie; and Burt's confinement to a mental institution, his abduction by aliens while being replaced with an oversexed alien look-a-like on Earth, and getting blackmailed by the Mob after becoming sheriff of their small town.
At the beginning of each episode, off-camera announcer Rod Roddy gives a brief description of the convoluted storyline and remarks, "Confused? You won't be, after this week's episode of...Soap". At the end of each episode, he asks a series of life-or-death questions in a deliberately deadpan style—"Will Jessica discover Chester's affair...? Will Benson discover Chester's affair? Will Benson care?" and concludes each episode with the trademark line, "These questions—and many others—will be answered in the next episode of...Soap."
Writer Susan Harris developed a story arc for five seasons of Soap, but the series was canceled after its fourth season, due to declining ratings. Therefore the final episode, which originally aired on April 20, 1981, did not serve as a series finale and instead ended with several unresolved cliffhangers. These involve a suicidal Chester preparing to kill Danny and Annie after catching them in bed, Burt preparing to walk into an ambush orchestrated by his political enemies, and Jessica about to be executed by a Communist firing squad.
A 1983 episode of Benson mentions Jessica's disappearance, noting the Tate family is seeking to have her declared legally dead. In the episode, Jessica appears as an apparition whom only Benson can see or hear and reveals to him that she is not dead, but in a coma somewhere in South America. No other incidents from the final episode of Soap are mentioned.
The show was controversial during its time, often generating criticism for its relatively frank depictions of homosexuals, racial and ethnic minorities, the mentally ill as well as its treatment of other taboo topics such as social class, marital infidelity, impotence, incest, sexual harassment, rape, student-teacher sexual relationships, kidnapping, organized crime, and new age cults.
Much of the criticism focused on the openly gay character of Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal). Soap was among the earliest American prime time series to include an openly gay character who was a major part of the series. Social conservatives opposed the character on religious grounds, while some gay rights activists were also upset with the character of Jodie, arguing that certain story developments reinforced negative stereotypes, i.e. his desire to have a sex change operation, or represented a desire to change or downplay his sexual orientation.
A number of organizations then mobilized against Soap, including the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the International Union of Gay Athletes,[4] and the National Gay Task Force. Also mobilized were the National Council of Churches, the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the National Council of Catholic Bishops, although they asked the members of their 138,000 collective churches to watch the show first, and then inform ABC of their feelings about it. Nonetheless, the network reportedly received 32,000 letters of complaint before the show's premiere, and eight out of 195 ABC affiliates refused to air the show.[6]
Much of Soap's controversy, among liberals and conservatives alike, ironically actually helped to sell the series. In June of 1977, a Newsweek review of the show's pilot by Harry F. Waters panned the show while mischaracterizing some of its basic plot elements and offering exaggerated reports of its sexual content.[citation needed] Waters also stated:
Soap promises to be the most controversial network series of the coming season, a show so saturated with sex that it could replace violence as the PTA's Video Enemy No. 1." Whether Waters' errors and misrepresentations were intentional or accidental is unresolved.
September 14, 1967
The first episode of Ironside aired.
September 14, 1972
The series The
Waltons began airing.
The series pilot The
Homecoming: A Christmas Story was broadcast on December 19,
1971. Beginning in September 1972, the series aired on CBS for nine seasons. After the series was canceled
by CBS in 1981, NBC aired three television movie sequels in 1982, with three
more in the 1990s on CBS. The Waltons was produced by Lorimar Productionsand distributed by Warner Bros.
Domestic Television Distribution in
syndication.
September 16, 1927
Peter Falk was born. The
actor is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo.
He appeared in numerous films and television guest roles, and has been
nominated for an Academy Award
twice, and won the Emmy Award on five
occasions and the Golden Globe award
once. The Columbo character was originally played in a 1960 episode of the NBC
anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show, where the detective was played
by Bert Freed, and in a subsequent Broadway
play by Thomas
Mitchell. Falk first appeared as Columbo in Prescription: Murder
, a 1968 TV movie, but the character was not the subject of a show of its own
until 1971. Columbo aired regularly from 1971 to 1978 on NBC, and then
more infrequently on ABC as TV movies beginning in 1989. The most recent
episode was broadcast in 2003.
Despite his frazzled exterior, Columbo possesses a keen mind and invariably
solves his cases by paying close attention to tiny inconsistencies in suspects'
stories, hounding them until they confess; he merely puts on a good show of
being dimwitted so that the criminals will be more at ease around him.
Columbo's signature technique is to exit the scene of an interview, only to
stop in the doorway to ask a suspect "just one more thing," which
often brings to light the key inconsistency. Four of Columbo's cases gave Falk
the chance to work with his longtime friend Patrick McGoohan, the latter playing the episodes'
villain roles.
In May 2009, it was reported that Falk is suffering from dementia, and he no longer remembers his
role in Columbo. In June 2009, a conservatorship was placed on him by a California court.
The 83-year-old Falk died at his longtime Roxbury Drive Beverly Hills home
on the evening of June 23, 2011. The cause of death was later revealed as
cardiorespiratory arrest, with pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease as underlying
causes. Falk was survived by his wife and two daughters. His daughters said
they would remember his "wisdom and humor". Falk is buried at
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
September
16, 1972
The Bob
Newhart Show premiered on CBS-TV.
The Bob Newhart Show is an American sitcom produced by MTM Enterprises that aired on CBS from September 16, 1972, to April 1, 1978, with a total of 142 half-hour episodes spanning over six seasons. Comedian Bob Newhart portrays a psychologist having to deal with his patients and fellow office workers. The show was filmed before a live audience.
September
16, 1987
The first episode of Wiseguy aired on CBS.
Wiseguy originally starred Ken Wahl as
Vinnie Terranova, a Brooklyn native and deep cover operative for the FBI under the supervision of senior agent Frank
McPike, played by Jonathan Banks.
The primary cast was rounded out by Jim Byrnes, who played an information operative known as
Lifeguard (real name Daniel Burroughs) who assisted Vinnie in the field. This
cast remained together for three full seasons, after which Wahl left the
series. The writers conceived a new lead character Michael Santana, and brought
on Steven Bauer to fill the role.
The
show placed #74 on Entertainment
Weekly's "New TV
Classics" list.
September 17, 1972
M*A*S*H first aired
M*A*S*H (the television series) developed by Larry Gelbart, adapted from the 1970 feature film MASH (which was itself based on the 1968 novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, by Richard Hooker).
The series is a medical drama that was produced in association with 20th Century Fox Television for CBS. It follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the "4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" in Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War. M*A*S*H's title sequence featured an instrumental version of the song "Suicide Is Painless", which also appears in the original film. The show was created after an attempt to film the original book's sequel, M*A*S*H Goes to Maine, failed. It is the most well known version of the M*A*S*H works.The
series premiered in the US on September 17, 1972, and ended February 28, 1983,
with the finale becoming the most watched television episode in U.S. television
history at the time, with a record-breaking 125 million viewers (60.2 Rating
and 77 Share) , according to the New York Times. In contrast to the high
turnout for the final episode of M*A*S*H, it struggled in its first season and
was at risk of being cancelled. However, season two of M*A*S*H placed it in a
better time slot (airing after the popular All in the Family) and the show
became one of the top ten programs of the year and stayed in the top twenty
programs for the rest of its eleven-season run. The show is still broadcast in
syndication on various television stations. The series, which covered a three-year
military conflict, spanned 251 episodes and lasted eleven seasons.
Many
of the stories in the early seasons are based on real-life tales told by real
MASH surgeons who were interviewed by the production team. Like the movie, the
series was as much an allegory about the Vietnam War (still in progress when
the show began) as it was about the Korean War.
In
1997, the episodes "Abyssinia, Henry" and "The Interview"
were respectively ranked number 20 and number 80 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest
Episodes of All Time. In 2002, M*A*S*H was ranked number 25 on TV Guide's 50
Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
M*A*S*H
aired weekly in its original CBS run, with most episodes being a half-hour in
length. The series is usually categorized as a situation comedy, though it is
sometimes also described as a "dark comedy" or a "dramedy"
because of the dramatic subject material often presented. The show was an
ensemble piece revolving around key personnel in a United States Army Mobile
Army Surgical Hospital (MASH; the asterisks in the name are not part of
military nomenclature and were creatively introduced in the novel) in the
Korean War (1950–1953). The "4077th MASH" was just one of several
surgical units in Korea. As the show developed, the writing took on more of a
moralistic tone. Richard Hooker, who wrote the book on which the television and
film versions were based, noted that Hawkeye's character was far more liberal
in the show than on the page (in one of the MASH books, Hawkeye makes reference
to "kicking the bejesus out of lefties just to stay in shape"). While
the show is traditionally viewed as a comedy, there were many episodes of a
more serious tone. Airing on network primetime while the Vietnam War was still
ongoing, the show was forced to walk the fine line of commenting on that war
while at the same time not seeming to protest it. For this reason, the show's
discourse, under the cover of comedy, often questioned, mocked and grappled
with America's role in the Cold War. Episodes were both plot and character driven,
with several episodes being narrated by one of the show's characters as the
contents of a letter home. The show's tone could move from silly to sobering
from one episode to the next, with dramatic tension often occurring between the
civilian draftees of 4077th—Hawkeye, Trapper John, B.J. Hunnicutt, for
example—who are forced to leave their homes to tend to the wounded and dying of
the war, and the "regular Army" characters, like Margaret Houlihan
and Colonel Potter, who tend to represent ideas of patriotism and duty. Other
characters like Col. Blake, Maj. Winchester, and Corp. Klinger, help
demonstrate various American civilian attitudes towards army life, while guest
characters such as Eldon Quick, Herb Voland, Mary Wickes, and Tim O'Connor also
help further the show's discussion of America's place as Cold War war-maker and
peace-maker.
Laugh
track
Series
creators Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds wanted M*A*S*H broadcast without a
laugh track ("Just like the actual Korean War", Gelbart remarked
dryly), but CBS rejected the idea. By season two, a compromise had been
reached, whereby the producers were allowed to omit the laugh track during
operating room scenes if they wished. As a result, few scenes in the operating
room contain laughter. Certain episodes omitted the laugh track completely
("O.R.", "The Bus", "Quo Vadis, Captain
Chandler?", "The Interview", "Dreams", "Point of
View", "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen") as did some international
and syndicated airings of the show. The first five seasons of the series
contained a noticeable laugh track, similar to other laugh-tracked sitcoms of
the period, but by Season Six, newer, significantly quieter, laughs were
recorded and employed. In the United Kingdom, where the show was broadcast by
the BBC (and therefore also without advertising breaks), the laugh track was
removed entirely from all episodes.
On
all released DVDs, both in Region 2 (Europe, including the UK) and Region 1
(including the U.S. and Canada), there is an option to watch the show with or
without the laugh track.
Syndicated
broadcasts in the U.S. and UK today retain the original U.S. laugh track.
September 18, 1917
June Foray is born.
The voice actress, best is known as the voice of many popular animated characters (particularly Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Cindy Lou Who and Granny). Her long and prolific career has encompassed radio, theatrical shorts, feature films, television, record albums (particularly with Stan Freberg), video games, talking toys and other media. Foray was also one of the founding members of ASIFA-Hollywood, the society devoted to promoting and encouraging animation.September
18, 1957
The Big Record
premiered on CBS-TV. The show only lasted one season.
Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa
