Still More TV Stars who went from Hits to Flops
Yes, even television superstars can find themselves wallowing in sub-par series after achieving fame and fortune from programs that first captured the public’s imagination. No matter how popular, even legendary, an actor’s breakthrough role becomes, that hit can just as easily be followed on the actor’s resume by a flop — usually defined as a series that gets canceled after a single season, or sometimes even after just a handful of episodes. The causes may vary, as we’ve noted before: a poor timeslot with simply unbeatable competition, not enough publicity to make viewers aware, or just bad creative decisions on the part of the team behind the scenes.
And, not every program that has appeared on your screen was even meant to enjoy much longevity. The networks have been known to air short-order series to plug holes in their schedules when needed.
Stars who become the toast of Hollywood due to their success on one show sometimes find their egos badly bruised by outright rejection of their later TV venture. But if we are to praise an actor for one success, it’s only fair that he or she bear at least some responsibility for a subsequent failure.
By the way, no need to feel too sorry for them —the higher-echelon TV actors remain pampered, privileged, and very wealthy individuals, even as they shrug off their less-than-memorable ventures.
Let’s take a look at some more in this third installment — in no particular order (the links to the first two are listed at the end of this piece):
James Garner — The versatile Garner made his mark in films in drama (The Americanization of Emily, Murphy’s Romance) and comedy (Support Your Local Sheriff), and is perhaps best remembered for his successful lead roles in the western Maverick, and, of course, The Rockford Files. More than a decade after Rockford ended, he returned to weekly TV — and his “lovable rogue” persona — in the 1991 sitcom Man of the People, in which he played a con man who finds himself appointed to the city council of a Californian town, filling the position of his well-respected late wife.
Assuming the serious responsibilities of the position did not keep him from using his somewhat shady ethics to actually take on corrupt politicians and businessmen. Alas, the program aired for only six weeks on NBC in 1991, with two episodes remaining unaired.
A short-lived attempt to resurrect Maverick later also failed, but his career on weekly TV saw a brief extension in 2004, when he joined the cast of 8 Simple Rules after the untimely death of star John Ritter.
David McCallum — Several years after achieving success co-starring with Robert Vaughn on The Man From U.N.C.L.E, McCallum took on the lead role in The Invisible Man in September of 1975. While attempting to keep his invisibility formula from the government’s military intentions, he makes himself invisible after memorizing the formula and destroying his equipment. But he’s later unable to regain his visibility, and embarks on attempts to do so, with the help of a scientist friend.
The series ran only until mid-season, when it was cancelled and rendered invisible forever.
Robert Stack — Stack’s most famous role was that of Eliot Ness, real-life FBI agent leading an elite Prohibition-era team known as The Untouchables.
He later returned as one of the rotating stars of The Name of the Game from 1968-’71, in which he played a crime magazine editor. He returned to crime fighting for the 1976-’77 season in Most Wanted, in which he again led a small special task force out to track down the criminals on the L.A. mayor’s most-wanted list.
The series lasted a single season before its cancellation in April of 1977.
Stack returned as a crime fighter yet again in the 1981 series Strike Force, in which he played — you guessed it — the head of an elite unit of L.A. detectives solving the city’s toughest cases. That series aired 20 episodes before being canceled in May of 1982.
Judd Hirsch — Enjoying a lengthy career on television, Hirsch has starred in his share of both hits and misses. He led the top-notch comedy ensemble on the enormously popular Taxi between 1978-’83, but two years later experienced his least successful follow-up attempt with Detective in the House. In this hour-long series, he played an engineer and family man who longed to become a private detective, enlisting the help of an experienced but slovenly ex-P.I. to teach him the ropes. The series lasted for just over one month in the spring of 1985.
But Hirsch rebounded in 1988 with Dear John (based on the British sitcom) for a four-season run. In 1997 he teamed with Bob Newhart in the sitcom George & Leo, but despite the dual star power, the series lasted a single season. Aside from his many supporting and recurring roles in series such as Numb3rs and The Goldbergs, he starred again in the sitcom Superior Donuts (based on the stage play) beginning in 2017. That series lasted 34 episodes.
Bea Arthur — John Cleese’s BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers, which produced a total of only 12 episodes (6 in 1975, 6 more in 1979), saw no fewer than three attempted remakes on American television, the most notorious being Amanda’s on ABC in 1983. Both series were set in a small hotel, both featured an incompetent Spanish waiter, and yet the creators of the American version curiously — and disastrously — eliminated the character of Basil Fawlty from the mix. He instead became Amanda Cartwright, played by Bea Arthur, forever known as Maude (the character who originally appeared in an episode of All in the Family). Even if Basil had somehow survived this transatlantic crossing, it was obvious that a pale copy of the original series — even with many scenes lifted from the British version — just wouldn’t do.
Logic dictated that no viewer would sit down to watch Amanda’s when Fawlty Towers was still hovering around on PBS affiliates at the time. Consequently, Amanda’s lasted only half a season. Fortunately for Bea Arthur, she found further success in The Golden Girls.
Shelley Long — In her first series after leaving the hit Cheers, Long’s new sitcom venture, Good Advice, was beset with problems despite considerable talent both in front of and behind the camera. In the show, she played a successful marriage counselor and author despite the failure of her own marriage (due to her husband’s affair). Her character shared an office suite with a divorce lawyer, played by Treat Williams. The series debuted late in the 1993 season, airing six episodes. The beginning of its second season was delayed due to Long suffering from the flu, and the network putting the show on hiatus. It was then overhauled, and didn’t begin airing its second season of 10 episodes (with additional cast member Teri Garr) until a full year later, beginning in May of 1994. It was cancelled that August, with three episodes remaining unaired.
Adam West — After starring in his trademark role of Batman from 1966-’68, West continued to be typecast in the role, as other series and variety specials asked for him to revive the character for various sketches and promotions. He attempted starring in a new lighthearted series twenty years after Batman with The Last Precinct in 1986, created and produced by the legendary Stephen J. Cannell (The Rockford Files, The A-Team, etc.)
The hour-long comedy centered on a L.A. police precinct populated with police academy’s least promising recruits and wanna-be’s, all determined to repair their hopeless reputations as incompetents. West played their captain, while other cast members included Ernie Hudson and Keenan Wynn.
The pilot episode aired in January of ’86, with six weekly episodes following that spring before the series was cancelled.
Patty Duke — Despite becoming the darling of the younger generation in her dual roles on The Patty Duke Show (1963-’66), and considerable success in feature films and TV movies, Duke never found success again as the star of a weekly series, despite many attempts.
Nearly 20 years after The Patty Duke Show enjoyed its heyday, she returned to the sitcom format in 1982 with the series It Takes Two. It was created by Susan Harris (Soap, Benson, The Golden Girls). Richard Crenna co-starred as Duke’s husband, as the series dealt with issues arising from both marriage partners having full-time careers. The show lasted a single season of 22 episodes, ending in April of 1983.
She returned in April of 1985 to star in Hail to the Chief, another series created by Susan Harris — back when the notion of a woman president was considered fodder for comedy rather than a real possibility. In typical Harris fashion, Duke, as the first female President Julia Mansfield, basically played it straight among a White House staff of over-the-top eccentrics.
The cast included Ted Bessell (That Girl) Dick Shawn, and Herschel Bernardi. The premiere episode garnered quite good ratings, but subsequent episodes saw the viewership quickly decline, and the series was cancelled after a total of only 7 episodes. As evidenced in the clip here, much of the dialogue wouldn’t make it on a network comedy today.
Duke returned yet again, on the Fox network, in the summer of 1987 with the sitcom Karen’s Song. She played forty-year-old divorcee Karen Matthews who begins dating a younger, 28-year-old man. Co-stars included Teri Hatcher and Laine Kazan. A total of thirteen episodes were made before cancellation that September, leaving four episodes unaired.
In April of 1995, Duke took on an hour-long drama called Amazing Grace, in which her character turns her difficult life around after a near-death experience and becomes a minister. The details aren’t important. Why not, you ask? The program both premiered and ended within that month of April.
Jimmie Walker — Yes, Walker rose to fame in the Norman Lear-produced series Good Times, premiering in 1974. For reasons left as a mystery for the Ages, his loud, obnoxious, lazy teenage character who incessantly proclaimed “Dy-no-MITE!” as his favorite catchphrase (and inexplicably triggered shrieks of laughter and applause from the studio audiences), resulted in drawing most of the focus of the show, to the detriment of veteran actors playing his parents, Esther Rolle and John Amos.
Good Times ended in 1979, with Walker attempting a miliary sitcom, At Ease, in March of 1983. The show, created by none other than comedy filmmaker John Hughes and set in a mid-western army base, was closely based on the classic Phil Silvers Show (aka Sgt. Bilko) from the mid-1950s. Alas, Walker was no Phil Silvers, and At Ease lasted only 14 episodes.
He tried again with Bustin’ Loose, a syndicated series, in 1987. Based on the 1981 Richard Pryor film, Walker played a small time Philadelphia con man sentenced to do community service, and residing with a social worker and the four orphans living with her. The bad news for Walker was that he was no Richard Pryor, either.
The series was a bit more successful than At Ease, in that it lasted for 26 episodes.
Carol Burnett — No one can dispute the historic status and comedy gold of Burnett’s sketch/variety show which ran from 1967–’79. But few of her fans realize that she embarked on another series, Carol & Company, in March of 1990. It was a weekly half-hour comedy anthology show with a talented repertory cast, first airing as a mid-season replacement, and given a second season before leaving the air in July of 1991 after a total of 33 episodes.
Less successful was Burnett’s attempt to resuscitate her variety show, The Carol Burnett Show, in November of ’91. It was pretty much a carbon copy of her first sketch-variety series, with different supporting players. But tastes had changed by then, and her rather conventional sketches couldn’t compete with the edgier comedy styles of the time. Only six episodes were aired.
Robert Conrad — Conrad enjoyed recognition in the late ’60s starring in The Wild, Wild West, but most of his subsequent efforts failed miserably. In 1971, he starred in a short-lived courtroom drama series, The D.A., a half-hour series which may have inspired the later Law & Order, i.e. the first half of each episode centered on the D.A.’s office investigators compiling the evidence of a crime, with the second half taking place at the courtroom trial of the suspects. Conrad played Deputy D.A. Paul Ryan.
The show was cancelled at mid-season and replaced by the new sitcom Sanford and Son. Conrad achieved moderate success in 1976 with the WWII drama series Baa Baa Blacksheep (later re-titled The Blacksheep Squadron). That series ran for two seasons.
In 1979, he actually starred in not one but two short-lived series in the same year: The Duke (five episodes) airing in April and May, and the fall entry, A Man Called Sloane, a Quinn Martin spy series that aired 12 episodes between September and its cancellation in December.
In his 1988 series High Mountain Rangers, Conrad portrayed an ex-Marine and semi-retired leader of a mountain rescue team in the Sierra Mountains and Lake Tahoe region. The program debuted in January of ’88 but was cancelled that spring after airing twelve episodes.
Robert Blake — Hoo-boy…After his successful series Baretta from 1975-’78, and performances in a number of TV movies, Blake co-wrote and starred in the pilot for a new series, Hell Town in which the infamous tough guy actor starred as a streetwise priest in a Los Angeles ghetto. Imagine that. Neither can I. Neither could anyone else in 1985. Yet the series ran for fifteen episodes (with the opening theme sung by Sammy Davis Jr. just like Baretta) from September to December of that year before being yanked.
And now it’s time to put these also-rans to bed. Again!
Until next time…
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Other television-related articles of mine that might be of interest to you:
“Television Stars Who Went from Hits to Flops” | by Garry Berman | Medium
“More TV Stars Who Went from Hits to Flops” | by Garry Berman | Medium
“Those Hilarious British Panel Shows” | by Garry Berman | Medium
“Perry Mason” and its Entertaining Imperfections | by Garry Berman | June, 2024 | Medium
“Retro Review: Pan Am” https://medium.com/@garryberman/retro-review-pan-am-2afc7af35905
“Has “Fawlty Towers” Been Overrated?” | by Garry Berman | May, 2024 | Medium
“Television’s Greatest Sitcom Dad?” https://garryberman.medium.com/televisions-greatest-sitcom-dad-ef2dab761525
“A Mother’s Day Tribute to our Funniest Sitcom Moms” https://medium.com/@garryberman/a-mothers-day-tribute-to-our-funniest-sitcom-moms-68f9122538a8
“Breaking the Fourth Wall (in comedy)” https://medium.com/@garryberman/breaking-the-fourth-wall-in-comedy-51edfa9f88f0
“Comedy to Die For: When Death Rears it’s Head in Sitcoms” https://medium.com/@garryberman/comedy-to-die-for-when-death-rears-its-head-in-sitcoms-7a51cb0acc32
“Saying Goodbye to ‘Modern Family’” https://medium.com/@garryberman/saying-good-bye-to-modern-family-73897235416d
“No Laughs, Please: Our Greatest Comedians as Dramatic Actors” https://medium.com/@garryberman/no-laughs-please-37fdf614e85a
“Fifty Years of ‘The Odd Couple’ on TV” https://medium.com/@garryberman/fifty-years-of-the-odd-couple-on-tv-part-i-62a0eac93520
“My Funny Valentine: Comedy’s Real-life Married Couples” https://medium.com/@garryberman/my-funny-valentine-comedys-real-life-married-couples-1f0605e2caca
“The First Person to be Censored on TV was…Eddie Cantor?” https://medium.com/@garryberman/eddie-cantor-the-first-person-to-be-censored-on-tv-78b56c68cae1
“Mary Kay and Johnny: Television’s First Sitcom” https://medium.com/@garryberman/mary-kay-and-johnny-televisions-first-sitcom-835fec303b5e
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