The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

For a show that ran as long as Who's the Boss? to have a single spinoff is rare.  It happened in 1989, when one of Samantha Micelli's friends got into modeling.  After rip-roaring ratings for the preview airing, things went downhill fast.  At least it was the start of something big for one of the supporting cast members.

The flavor of the month...or maybe that should be the flavor of the last 36 months of the 1980s was Australia.  Crocodile Dundee-mania was huge and Yahoo Serious was briefly relevant.  Surely, someone will incorporate an Aussie into a television show.  Lo and behold, CBS did with a family-oriented sitcom with an Australian live-in nanny, which is merely a blip in television history.

The 46th anniversary of the debut of this program happened earlier this week.  We decided to revisit it this week, as more footage of the show has found its way online in the last 6 years like Isaac Asimov talking about the future, Chuck Norris doing some martial arts, and Phil Donahue supposedly dating Bill Murray's grandmother.  Also, a sitting senator was supposedly an occasional guest?!

It's Lost in Translation time.  We're going down under for this installment, with a series that really pushed the envelope in Australia for most of the 70s, but barely made a whimper in the United States.  Was it because the American version didn't have the edginess?  Was it due to scheduling?  Could there have been too much going on?  Could it have been due to similar but more popular shows on other networks?  (Yes times four.)

We're trying to kick it up a notch this week.  It's not happening with this failed effort to bring a TV chef to a mainstream audience, in the form of a sitcom.  The events which happened two weeks before the premiere likely hurt more than giving the lead his own sitcom.

Greg's birthday is around the corner, which means it's time for Greg to play his Money in the Bank.  This year, Greg selected a show with someone from one of his favorite programs.  In 1977, there was a spinoff/revival of Bewitched with the focus on Samantha and Darren's daughter, who had witchy tendencies like her mother.  The television audience quickly shied away from the show.

Pilot Month 2026 ends with a television adaptation of one of the big comedic movies from the prior year, but there was no involvement from the key figure which made the movie a hit.  Unfortunately, Tommy Davidson is no Eddie Murphy.  It didn't help that this aired on a federal holiday, when people are celebrating the country's independence.

We're down to the final two pilots of Pilot Month 2026.  Sending us down the home stretch is an animated version of a beloved sitcom from the mid-60s, but with its characters a smidge older, plus two cousins are introduced to the show's canon.  Some shows should left untouched, so efforts like this cannot sully the legacy of the original show.

It's not The Odd Couple, but the minds behind Married...with Children created this pilot which had an odd couple--an outgoing door-to-door saleswoman and a top-tier international model who has everything but a friend.  Was this the beginning of a beautiful friendship?  It didn't get past pilot stage, so it's fair to say no.

The time has finally come to answer a question this podcast has posed for some time--What's a Snavely?  First, it's the first attempt to bring Fawlty Towers to this side of the Atlantic.  Second, it's a hotel.  Third, it's the surname of the owners.  Fourth, it's the seventh installment for Pilot Month 2026 and the 623rd episode of this podcast.