The ’80s were full of sitcoms with famous faces and strange premises, yet a few of them never managed to last the decade, and most Americans don’t remember them at all.
Florence gets her own hotel
Florence Johnston from The Jeffersons actually had her own spin-off show for a while. Checking In involved her finally getting away from George Jefferson’s apartment, and running housekeeping at Manhattan’s St. Frederick Hotel. Marla Gibbs played Florence once again.
Larry Linville, Liz Torres, Ruth Brown, and Robert Costanzo also featured in the show. There was no doubt that Gibbs could absolutely carry the jokes, and the hotel setting gave her all sorts of colorful characters to bounce off. The problem was that CBS aired only four episodes in April 1981. Florence returned to The Jeffersons shortly after.
Legal aid with punch lines
Reinhold Weege is best known for creating Night Court. But there was a time before that when he tried his oddball workplace humor in a different setting, this time in a Manhattan legal-aid office. Harold Gould played David Ross, an experienced lawyer surrounded by younger attorneys and clients.
Park Place was less about the punch lines and slapstick humor. It focused more on drier, quicker humor that was more character-driven. Turns out, that’s not what TV networks wanted in the 1980s, and CBS only aired four episodes of the show in April 1981. They then canned it.
An apartment full of future stars
You already know that a show is going to be funny when it has a cast list featuring Mickey Rooney, Dana Carvey, Nathan Lane, and Scatman Crothers. Rooney played Oliver Nugent in One of the Boys, a retiree who moved in with his college-age grandson, played by Carvey.
Lane played the grandson’s roommate, and Crothers was Oliver’s friend Bernard. Rooney and Crothers really knew how to play off each other, while Carvey and Lane were clearly made to be stars. But NBC aired only 13 episodes in early 1982 before canceling the series.
Five kids arrive fast
The setup for Baby Makes Five was pretty simple. Eddie and Jennie Riddle already had three kids, then they learned twins were on the way. It made for some hilarious moments, with Peter Scolari playing Eddie and Louise Williams playing Jennie.
It was a comedy that relied more on the chaos of normal family life. There were no over-the-top sitcom characters here. That might’ve been why it failed, as ABC aired only five episodes of it in April 1983. Even Scolari leading the show couldn’t save it from such a short run.
Dad gives the advice
Domestic Life was one of the more ridiculous sitcoms. Martin Mull’s Martin Crane gave family advice professionally, but his own family life was far from stable, and that was where the humor was. Megan Follows played daughter Didi, and Christian Brackett-Zika played young Harold.
Reviews at the time were pretty good, and a lot of critics praised Harold’s lines, although the show didn’t last very long. CBS aired only ten episodes in 1984. Some of the episodes were aired in winter, some in spring, and some in July. That sort of schedule probably didn’t help viewing figures.
Pleshette takes the newsroom
You’d think that, with Suzanne Pleshette as the star, Suzanne Pleshette Is Maggie Briggs would’ve been a hit. Sadly not. The character of Maggie Briggs was an experienced Examiner reporter reassigned from harder news to the Modern Living section.
Kenneth McMillan played her longtime newsroom colleague, Walter. It’s their constant back-and-forth that really made the show funny, but CBS didn’t seem to think so. The show’s entire run only lasted from March to April 1984 before it was canceled. What a shame.
The show changes halfway through
It seems that NBC really wanted Spencer to do well. So much, in fact, that it practically became another show halfway through its run. It started off with Chad Lowe playing 16-year-old Spencer Winger, living with parents played by Mimi Kennedy and Ronny Cox. It originally aired in December 1984, and Lowe left after only 6 episodes.
But NBC wanted to make it work, so they brought in Ross Harris and removed Cox’s character. They also added Frances Sternhagen and Harold Gould as grandparents. The show’s title changed to Under One Roof, and it returned in March 1985. It was over by May of the same year.
Patty Duke gets the Oval Office
Patty Duke played the president of the United States, Julia Mansfield, in 1985’s Hail to the Chief. It should’ve been sitcom gold. There was enough political nonsense to keep things funny, after all, and Susan Harris, the creator of Soap, was behind the writing.
The first episode had 32% of viewers watching it. But viewing figures soon fell to 24% of the share, then 23% and 22%. ABC decided after seven episodes that it was done with presidential hijinks and canceled the whole show.
A Chicago family lands on CBS
It’s weird that Charlie & Co. is so forgotten. It had Flip Wilson, Gladys Knight, Jaleel White, Kristoff St. John, and Della Reese all in the same sitcom. The show centered on Charlie Richmond, a Chicago highway employee, and his schoolteacher wife Diana, along with their three kids.
The show might’ve been a regular family comedy, but still, the cast had some serious personality to it. CBS ordered 18 episodes. Viewing figures weren’t great, however. The network canceled the show in May 1986.
Retirement becomes prime time
Coming of Age wasn’t your typical sitcom about young singles or parents with unruly kids. No, it was about retirees in Arizona, kind of like The Golden Girls. Paul Dooley and Phyllis Newman played Dick and Ginny Hale, while Alan Young and Glynis Johns were some of the neighbors.
It was a show that had plenty of dry jokes. The Los Angeles Times actually called it the funniest of three CBS comedies launched in spring 1988, it was that good. But CBS’s odd scheduling choices meant that viewership was low, so they canceled it.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
