The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

As you surely know, the occasional personnel change on a TV show occurs for various reasons, ranging from health issues and death to just going in a different direction.  In 1982, one of television's most popular shows, The Dukes of Hazzard, experienced such a change over salary issues.  Out were the popular Bo and Luke Duke, in were Coy and Vance for a lackluster season, before Bo and Luke returned.

Some shows age like a fine wine.  Others age like bad milk.  This show falls under the latter, a show which would never see the light of day in 2025 but did get 13 episodes in 1988.  Scott Bakula stars in this series as a new hotshot lawyer who has a way with the ladies, a year before Bakula would hit it real big.  In true 1988 "don't give a darn" fashion, there was enough misogyny and quasi-racism to go around.

The 21st century has brought new forms of inspiration for TV shows.  This show is an example of that, taking one social media user's rants about his father as the basis of a comedy series.  In what we believe is beautiful casting, the father is played by William Shatner, whose 94th birthday is coming this Saturday.  With the Shat, you never know what $h*! he may say.

It's Lost in Translation time on the podcast!  To start, we look at the second attempt to Americanize the classic British comedy Fawlty Towers, but with Bea Arthur as the lead.  It followed a stinker of a show.  (Condo, see episode 79.)  However, it also was up against one of the most popular series of the 1980s.  Despite being evicted after 13 episodes, that number is still more than the number of episodes of Fawlty Towers.

This coming Monday, Mike is celebrating his birthday (the big 5-0) and he chose this as his Money in the Bank pick, a cult classic about a police inspector with a hair trigger temper, as well as a hair trigger on his very large Magnum gun.  It was good enough to squeak by for two seasons.  As for this selection, trust Mike.  He knows what he's doing.

We first talked about this series 472 episodes ago.  (Do the math.)  We felt it was worth a revisit since it can now be seen every Saturday night on Catchy Comedy.

In short, this show is the beta version of Robin Hood: Men in Tights, also from the brilliant mind of Mel Brooks.  It couldn't be too bad since it has rerun on A&E, TV Land, Decades, and now Catchy Comedy.  Thus, When Things Were Rotten is hardly a thing that is rotten.

In a podcast first, we found a premise so flimsy that it almost broke the three of us...and this was deemed as okay to air during the family hour (and later on TGIF) on ABC?!  This was a vehicle for the Smolletts, six kids in all, including that one.  The less said about this train wreck, the better.

As we have said time and time again, a good format for a TV show never really dies, it goes away for a time and returns with a new twist.  In this case, the timeless Neil Simon play The Odd Couple went from the Broadway stage to the big screen, then to the small screen with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.  Less than a decade later, it returned in this form, with Ron Glass and Demond Wilson playing the lead roles.

The show covered in this episode shares many of the same traits as episode 531, Bridget Loves Bernie--the trials and tribulations of an interfaith couple, the good ratings, but also the swift cancellation.  Social mores changed quite a bit from 1972 to 1989, meaning this show didn't get the criticism from religious leaders.  What happened?  You'll have to dive into this heaping serving of Chicken Soup to find out.

Falling in love and becoming a couple have long been a staple of television series.  In 1972, CBS, after the overwhelming success of a controversial sitcom in All in the Family, added this show, another controversial entry which was about an interfaith relationship.  Despite superb ratings, the series lasted one year due to said controversy.