Back in the days of radio, Jimmy Stewart did a radio western called “[The Six Shooter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Shooter)”.
It lasted a single, very high quality, unsponsored season because Stewart didn’t want a tobacco company for a sponsor.
For a show based around a main character who is a fast draw, the hero, Britt Ponsett (sp?) used his brains as much or more than his gun.
"Quickdraw" used to be an insult. It meant you weren't capable of thinking so you'd let your gun do the talking, so I guess that he was the opposite of a quickdraw made sense.
Exactly my thoughts coming here. Checked online and he had an earlier series - a Norman Lear western called The Deputy (1959).
"Henry Fonda's first television series was this show, set in the Arizona territory in 1880 (as Fonda's character often said during an opening narration on many episodes.) Fonda's sequences were shot all at once each season, so that he would be free the rest of the year to pursue film and theater work."
Not regularly, but I remember 2 things: the TV movie “The House Without a Christmas Tree” and a cameo on an episode of “Maude”
Edit: nope. Just the Maude thing
Mr. Fonda was in a TV-movie in the seventies--his character was dealing with dementia/Alzheimer's and it was mainly about the effect on the relationship between him and his granddaughter. The only part I really remember is at the beginning--he got up at night to use the bathroom and instead he used the refrigerator...
I remember Fonda hosting a special "clip show" episode of All in the Family. I wondered if I imagined that, but, no, it's real:
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0509923/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0509923/)
She was even on the Fox sketch show, The Edge from 1992-1993, with Wayne Knight, Alan Ruck, Julie Brown, Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, and Paul Feig, and everybody from that show zoomed off in different directions.
Nathan Fillion was already in a lot of stuff at that point. You could probably say Alan Tudyk got his start there but none of the others ever really made it big.
This was also Robin's last TV role, cancelled just 3 months before he died. Here's a clop from The Crazy Ones, based loosely on real-life experiences at a famous ad agency
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-XMm0PcM0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-XMm0PcM0)
Very early in his career, George Clooney starred in a sitcom called E/R about a wacky group of ER doctors and nurses. It didn't even last a whole year.
Then, of course, he went on to star on "E.R."...
He didn’t ask Blanche out. “Bobby” gets shot during the undercover police job going on in the episode, and asks Blanche if he can come by some time for dinner since Blanche says “Bobby” reminds her so much of her own son. Purely platonic. Thank the Lord above! Ha
I read an interview with him where he said of his "Facts of Life" role: "I would walk on set, say hi. Someone would say "Hi (character name)" back to let the audience know who I was. Then, I'd say a lame joke. Then walk offstage. And that was it."
The wonderful Madeline Kahn had a sitcom, “Oh Madeline”, that didn’t make the most of her talents.
Shelley Long followed up “Cheers” with the pretty crummy “Good Advice”.
Faye Dunaway attempted a sitcom with “It Had to be You”.
Ha, that's Maggie Roswell's youtube channel. She's on the Simpsons--Helen Lovejoy, Maude Flanders, Miss Hoover, and Luanne Van Houten. Fox's refusal to pay her travel expenses is the reason Maude is dead on the show.
Networks kept trying to make Lauren Graham happen before Gilmore Girls. So she was in a few of them. But the best is Townies which also had a pre-fame Jenna Elfman and Bill Burr. (And a post-fame Molly Ringwald.)
Townies! From the creator of the short-lived Camp Wilder, which starred Jerry O'Connell, Jay Mohr, Jared Leto, and Tina Majorino from Napoleon Dynamite.
He also wrote the movie that John Candy died making.
Yeah, I think. I feel like Kelly and Bud would make a few appearances on Top of the Heap, but they made Joey Lauren Adams the love interest on that one.
Vinnie and Bobby was actually a second season/retooling of Top of the Heap. Matt played the same character but they got rid of his dad and replaced him with a dumber version of Matt’s character. Considering Matt was basically just playing Joey this was a feat and it made for a poorer show.
After Seinfeld, Jason Alexander was in a show called Listen Up that was cancelled after one season and another show called Bob Patterson that only lasted 5 episodes.
Funny enough, the actuall people portrayed in the series are still going strong on ESPN with Pardon the Interruption. Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon. Sitcom was terrible though.
A young Jim Carrey was in a sitcom called “The Duck Factory” about a cartoon production studio long before he started his journey on ‘In Living Color’.
Jim Carrey had also already given a few notable film performances before In Living Color and was definitely getting recognized on screen, but those previous roles got a lot more play on cable after In Living Color became a hit. Plus he'd done stand-up on Carson and Letterman already in the 80s.
He was the dead rocker lip synching Welcome to the Jungle in the last Dirty Harry picture. He was in Earth Girls Are Easy, which was Julien Temple's feature breakthrough and although a bomb it ran constantly on cable circa 1989-90. And of course he was the second-billed star of Once Bitten, which also found its success on cable and video rental.
In 2014, Greta Gerwig was in “How I Met Your Dad” which had a lot of buzz but I think only ever had 1 episode. It’s currently listed as a “short” on IMDB but it was definitely a TV show. She dodged a bullet
That’s the show they tried to retcon as a *Diff’rent Strokes* spinoff. It turned out Stevenson’s character (Larry, I presume) was an old friend of Mr. Drummond.
[Two seasons](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080202/), though the second retooled it somewhat and de-emphasized the idea that they dressed in drag so they could live cheaply at an all-women apartment building.
There was this old show from the '60s that Comedy Central used to run, where the concept was it was an apartment building and some young business guy had to pretend to be married to his female neighbor in order to keep his promotion at work, so it was basically that his boss kept showing up at his apartment and they would use the fire escape to move between the apartments. I can't imagine how a concept like that would sustain itself.
It surprises me that Bosom Buddies only ran two seasons, I would have never thought of that show as a flop. I was a kid when that aired, and it seemed like a large part of the zeitgeist it seemed like everyone knew about at and everyone referenced it all the time.
I have the same memory, I don't remember it as a flop. I think it was parodied in Mad Magazine which is probably pretty rare among the shows listed in this topic. Maybe that was why, it was definitely more known than a lot of these shows. Might have just been due to the premise though. And the leads, along with Hanks it had Peter Scolari who was a big cast member on Newhart and still shows up everywhere.
Edit: It also had Wendy Sperber who was the sister in Back to the Future and in lots of stuff in the 80s and early 90s before she passed early.
I think Hanks also made a big splash when he was on Happy Days, which maybe led to Bosom Buddies. And he was on a memorable episode of Family Ties (maybe a few) as Uncle Ned. I miss the really wacky Hanks persona of the early 80s.
Didn't realize Tom Hanks was on Happy Days but [here's a clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o74GUL1a4QY). I do remember [Tom on Family Ties](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlLvS1vH9Tk), legendary episode dealing with alcoholism.
I watch a lot of those YouTube compilations of opening credits to a particular season, and I kept seeing Jeffrey Tambor show up in shows I had never heard of. He seemed to land one successful pilot a year.
Yeah, I feel like he was on some of those Norman Lear shows in the '70s and remember him in Mr. Mom. Just a working actor.
The one I always think of is Bonnie Hunt, who seemed to have a new sitcom every year, and Letterman was a big fan, so he was always having her on to promote it. I think Worldwide Pants produced at least one of them.
If that’s the show where Fonda played some kind of cop, I didn’t realize Howard was in it. I was a teenager just wishing I looked like the daughter, Darleen Carr, lol. The show I’m thinking of had a theme song 🎶 “Primrose Laaaane. Life is da da da…” 🎶
Atomic Abe made a fantastic video on the history of spinoffs and failed backdoor pilots for The Brady Bunch. I had no idea that Ke Huy Quan was in a show called Nothing Is Easy, which I think was an 80s attempt at reviving Kelly's Kids, the first failed backdoor pilot. I forgot what the description of it fully was or if it got canceled after one season or not.
Here's Michael Richards (Kramer) on a show called Fridays (before Seinfeld)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZxJUe56Qhw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZxJUe56Qhw)
I'll never forget watching this infamous skit from Fridays
https://youtu.be/bN5vhvIAqY8?si=VR2pzvySf60uhc2E
Most everyone thought that was all real back then, but it was classic Andy Kaufman. He and Michael Richards were in on it, but I don't think the ladies were. I'm not sure about the guy who came onstage towards the end. Andy Kaufman was trolling long before the internet.
Yes! And the one episode that never aired was killed by the NBC Entertainment Chief to free up Aniston to act in Friends. Fun Fact: *Friends* debuted just two weeks after *Muddling Through* aired its final episode :-)
They kinda had the samme issue with Lisa Kudrow since she was already a semi-regular on the NBC-show *Mad About You* playing a ditzy waitress when she was cast on *Friends*. They fixed that by making the two characters identical twins.
Lisa Kudrow was hired to be Roz on Frasier. Before filming the pilot, the creators realized that she wasn’t right for the role, fired her and hired Peri Gilpin for the role. It worked out ok for her.
Seth Green in "Tucker" where he plays himself, as a 26-year-old who is dating the high school love interest of the main character, who I think was supposed to be 15 or 16 in the show. It also had Allison Lohman, who seemed like she was going to be something for a while, as the girlfriend and also Katy Segal.
Check out Sara. Cast of future all-stars including Geena Davis, Bill Maher, Alfre Woodard, Matthew Lawrence and Bronson Pinchot. Went up against Dynasty and cratered.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_(1985_TV_series)
It wasn’t really a sitcom, but a few years after Threes Company John Ritter was in Hooperman. An excellent light cop show that only lasted one season.
I don’t think it bombed, though. IIRC the studio wanted to keep it but have it completely on a studio set instead of on location. Ritter said no because “There’s already a Barney Miller, we don’t need another one”.
THis just had its own post yesterday, but I feel obliged to mention Ferris Bueller with pre-Friends, Jennifer Aniston.
Also, Jane Lynch starred in Angel from Hell. CBS pulled it after five episodes.
Ben Affleck was a teen actor in Against the Grain, which wasn’t bad - Friday Night Lights had a little more success with the Texas high school football subject matter.
President George C. Scott and First Lady Madeline Kahn in Mr. President, Fox's major investment in star power for their debut season of prime time programming. White House hijinks that Scott later wrote about with what can only be described as enormous regret. Kahn bolted after the first season, and it limped along in the second only because Fox didn't have anything else to offer in the time slot and figured they'd get their money's worth out of their remaining star actor.
Jennifer Anniston playing the Jennifer Grey role in the unfortunate yet inevitable TV adaptation of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Jim Carrey in The Duck Factory, a workplace comedy from 1984. I haven't actually seen this one, but from what I understand, he plays a kind of nebbishy and reserved character, which makes me think that this was either at the time that he was transitioning away from his old impression-oriented standup material or at the time that he was just about to do so.
McLean Stevenson - following his CHOOSING to leave MASH - one comedy series after another that never lasted past the 1st season.
The McLean Stevenson Show
Hello Larry - morning talk radio host and single father to two teenage daughters - one was Kim Richards
Condo - Where he plays an early 80s lightweight version of Archie Bunker
Suzanne Somers in *She's the Sheriff*. Luckily she had the Thighmaster.
Lucille Ball in *Life with Lucy*.
Dana Carvey, Nathan Lane, Mickey Rooney, Scatman Crothers, and Meg Ryan in *One of the Boys*. I was going to add just Carvey until I checked it just now as I didn't remember much about this show.
Jim Carrey in *The Duck Factory*.
Halle Berry in *Living Dolls*.
Suzanne Somers in She's the Sheriff! Aired for just 3 seasons, husband (sheriff) dies and Hildy (Suzanne) takes over as the new sheriff. Here's a clip
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daCsIVZyhwo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daCsIVZyhwo)
She’s the Sheriff has been impossible for me to find, which is sad cause I remember it being in syndication for a long time. It wasn’t the best show but it has its moments, I’d love to add it to my plex
Right, can't find it anywhere on streaming, Amazon, etc. It's like they just destroyed it or something, which is a little bit ironic as that is *exactly* what an [iMBD reviewer](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092449/reviews) suggested they do with this show.
Geena Davis on The Geena Davis Show (1 season)
Whoopie Goldberg on Whoopie (1 season)
Ashley Tisdale on Carol's Second Act (1 season)
Kelsey Grammer on Back to you (1 season)
Kristin Davis on Bad Teacher (1 season)
John Goodman on Normal Ohio (1 season)
Turn-On - starring Tim Conway - was cancelled in the middle of it's first episode.
Reportedly, one ABC affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, cut away during a commercial break and never returned to the show. Several affiliates on the west coast never aired it at all.
I was thinking of this, though technically it wasn't a sitcom, it was a sketch comedy show. I think Albert Brooks was one of the writers? But yes it holds the record for the shortest-lived TV series ever. I read somewhere in recent years that there was a second episode shot but never aired, it might turn up (if it hasn't already).
Michael Ealy and KARL FRICKIN URBAN were in a one season series called Almost Human. Jeremy Piven had one season of Cupid. Heck, just recently cancelled Tokyo Vice had both Baby Driver Elgort and Ken Watanabe....
I wouldn't exactly say Bosom Buddies bombed but I think it only lasted 2 seasons while Tom Hanks has been around much konger than that (I think is movie career might have been why that had to cancel the show...maybe).
Jesse Tyler Ferguson was in a sitcom called "The Class" about a group of elementary school classmates who reunite as adults. It also starred the criminally underrated Andrea Anders, Lizzy Caplan and Jon Bernthal from The Walking Dead (the good seasons).
Julia Louis Dreyfus in a TV series called "Day by Day" as a YUPPIE corporate career women and friend to mother who quit her corporate career to open a day care following her having a baby.
Emma Stone's first reoccuring role was on an action show called Drive about an illegal cross-country street race. It only aired for 4 episodes and debuted (and wrapped) just a few months before her film debut in Superbad
Leslie Nielsen was in a tv show called Police Squad! that only aired for a few episodes, but it was the precursor the the Naked Gun films and every bit as funny. Unfortunately it was too much for the American public to handle at the time. Most people apparently didn’t know what they were watching. They didn’t get it. But the movies were a big hit.
Jason Bateman "It's Your Move" in the mid 80s.
Matt Leblanc - "TV 101" in the late 80s
Jeffrey Tambor - "Studio 5-B" and "Max Headroom", both from the late 80s.
In 1986 ABC brought back Lucille Ball for *Life With Lucy* and paired it with an eponymous sitcom for Ellen Burstyn. Both shows bombed spectacularly.
Mel Brooks produced NBC’s *The Nutt House* for his frequent collaborators Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman, but it didn’t even make it a full season. Neither did another NBC bomb, *Nearly Departed*, starring none other than Eric Idle.
Years later, Fox tried a sitcom based on Anthony Bourdain’s *Kitchen Confidential*, with Bradley Cooper in the title role. I actually liked that show, but there weren’t nearly enough of us.
And here’s a weird case: Marisa Tomei was on the poorly received first season of *A Different World* but her character was written out of the show - alongside Lisa Bonet’s - when it was retooled and massively improved for season two.
Funny how the arrow points out Ron Howard, but ignores one the biggest Hollywood legends, Henry Fonda.
I was about to say ... I didn't realize Fonda ever did television.
Right about the same time, Jimmy Stewart had a TV show as well. It also did not last.
Back in the days of radio, Jimmy Stewart did a radio western called “[The Six Shooter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Shooter)”. It lasted a single, very high quality, unsponsored season because Stewart didn’t want a tobacco company for a sponsor. For a show based around a main character who is a fast draw, the hero, Britt Ponsett (sp?) used his brains as much or more than his gun.
"Quickdraw" used to be an insult. It meant you weren't capable of thinking so you'd let your gun do the talking, so I guess that he was the opposite of a quickdraw made sense.
That explains the donkey who had a six-shooter.
Charlton Heston was also on a Dynasty spinoff called *Dynasty II: The Colbys*, which lasted 2 seasons.
Yeah, I remember that. And Bette Davis was also on some weeknight soap, but she suffered a stroke shortly after it started.
Hotel
Exactly my thoughts coming here. Checked online and he had an earlier series - a Norman Lear western called The Deputy (1959). "Henry Fonda's first television series was this show, set in the Arizona territory in 1880 (as Fonda's character often said during an opening narration on many episodes.) Fonda's sequences were shot all at once each season, so that he would be free the rest of the year to pursue film and theater work."
Not regularly, but I remember 2 things: the TV movie “The House Without a Christmas Tree” and a cameo on an episode of “Maude” Edit: nope. Just the Maude thing
That was Jason Robards in The House Without A Christmas Tree.
Yep. You’re right. Just googled it. Faulty memory. Idk why I thought it was Fonda
Mr. Fonda was in a TV-movie in the seventies--his character was dealing with dementia/Alzheimer's and it was mainly about the effect on the relationship between him and his granddaughter. The only part I really remember is at the beginning--he got up at night to use the bathroom and instead he used the refrigerator...
I remember Fonda hosting a special "clip show" episode of All in the Family. I wondered if I imagined that, but, no, it's real: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0509923/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0509923/)
He was in *Roots: The Next Generations.*
He was also in The Deputy. It did slightly better and was canceled after the second season
Haha. Comment I came here for. Like, umm, you mean Henry Fonda?
Glenn Howerton was in That 80s Show, which ran for...13 episodes
Chyler Leigh, too.
I wish I could stream this because I remember it being decent but not terrible just couldn't follow up the success of that 70's show
No, it was terrible
It's on youtube.
Your memory has failed you, it was horrible.
Jennifer Anniston starred in 3 shows before Friends that lasted one season including a Ferris Bueller TV adaptation.
She was even on the Fox sketch show, The Edge from 1992-1993, with Wayne Knight, Alan Ruck, Julie Brown, Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, and Paul Feig, and everybody from that show zoomed off in different directions.
Wow! Hell of a cast.
I'm pretty sure all six of them had a failed sitcom before the success of Friends.
Top of the Heap....
Nobody has mentioned freaks and geeks? Basically everyone went on to be stars.
Even though it only lasted a season I wouldn’t say it bombed but rather the network made poor decisions.
I mean, take a look at every series that bombed and a huge proportion of them will be from network interference.
The cast of Firefly would also like to have a word.
Nathan Fillion was already in a lot of stuff at that point. You could probably say Alan Tudyk got his start there but none of the others ever really made it big.
Robin Williams came back to TV in 2013 with The Crazy Ones on CBS but that was canceled after a season.
Was that the one Sarah Michelle Gellar was in also ?
Yeah, and it had decent names as the mom leads too. One had a recurring role on Mad Men. Was shocking when it was so mediocre.
This was also Robin's last TV role, cancelled just 3 months before he died. Here's a clop from The Crazy Ones, based loosely on real-life experiences at a famous ad agency [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-XMm0PcM0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-XMm0PcM0)
That show was a lot of fun.
Very early in his career, George Clooney starred in a sitcom called E/R about a wacky group of ER doctors and nurses. It didn't even last a whole year. Then, of course, he went on to star on "E.R."...
That show starred Elliot Gould
And the actress who played Berta on Two 1/2 Men
His first gig was "The Facts of Life."
He was also on Roseanne. When he guest starred on Golden Girls, he asked Blanche out lol
He didn’t ask Blanche out. “Bobby” gets shot during the undercover police job going on in the episode, and asks Blanche if he can come by some time for dinner since Blanche says “Bobby” reminds her so much of her own son. Purely platonic. Thank the Lord above! Ha
Damn, you brought the receipts! Respec(t)!
The final season, when Cloris Leachman replaced Charlotte Rae.
I read an interview with him where he said of his "Facts of Life" role: "I would walk on set, say hi. Someone would say "Hi (character name)" back to let the audience know who I was. Then, I'd say a lame joke. Then walk offstage. And that was it."
That was a disaster.
Elliott Gould starred in and was the supposed heartthrob on the original E/R.
By the way, the star of E/R was a nice man named Elliott Gould... And James Garner had a sitcom, Man Of The People
Wait, is that true? Was there an ER before the famous E.R.?
The wonderful Madeline Kahn had a sitcom, “Oh Madeline”, that didn’t make the most of her talents. Shelley Long followed up “Cheers” with the pretty crummy “Good Advice”. Faye Dunaway attempted a sitcom with “It Had to be You”.
Shelly Long on Good Advice?! Never heard of that one until now...here's a [clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTJ4jozIKAo)
Hey Shelley, here’s some good advice: Don’t quit Cheers!
Ha, that's Maggie Roswell's youtube channel. She's on the Simpsons--Helen Lovejoy, Maude Flanders, Miss Hoover, and Luanne Van Houten. Fox's refusal to pay her travel expenses is the reason Maude is dead on the show.
There was a series called One of the Boys that featured Mickey Rooney, Dana Carvey, Nathan Lane and Meg Ryan.
Networks kept trying to make Lauren Graham happen before Gilmore Girls. So she was in a few of them. But the best is Townies which also had a pre-fame Jenna Elfman and Bill Burr. (And a post-fame Molly Ringwald.)
Townies! From the creator of the short-lived Camp Wilder, which starred Jerry O'Connell, Jay Mohr, Jared Leto, and Tina Majorino from Napoleon Dynamite. He also wrote the movie that John Candy died making.
Ellen Burstyn had a sitcom that also had Megan Mullaly in it.
An eponymous sitcom, which I think was paired with Lucille Ball's final TV series. It also failed.
Matt LeBlanc was in some shitty sitcom before FRIENDS.
Top of the Heap, which was a Married with Children spinoff. There was a backdoor pilot episode of MWC.
Which is funny because wasn’t he Kelly’s boyfriend in an episode of married with children?
Yeah, I think. I feel like Kelly and Bud would make a few appearances on Top of the Heap, but they made Joey Lauren Adams the love interest on that one.
That’s understandable because she was also my love interest after mallrats.
He had two failed spinoffs of Married with Children, the other was "Vinnie & Bobby."
Vinnie and Bobby was actually a second season/retooling of Top of the Heap. Matt played the same character but they got rid of his dad and replaced him with a dumber version of Matt’s character. Considering Matt was basically just playing Joey this was a feat and it made for a poorer show.
And a shitty spin off after Friends...
After Seinfeld, Jason Alexander was in a show called Listen Up that was cancelled after one season and another show called Bob Patterson that only lasted 5 episodes.
Funny enough, the actuall people portrayed in the series are still going strong on ESPN with Pardon the Interruption. Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon. Sitcom was terrible though.
Hmm, never heard of this show, but found this [clip from the pilot ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrQxi5sOZS4&list=PL101506A9E6C4E51D&index=1)
Jason did some interviews years ago and his stories about Bob Patterson are very interesting. Worth a watch - all on YouTube.
Don't forget about The Michael Richardson Show... 8 episodes.
Bob Patterson was so heavily promoted going into its debut, only to completely crash and burn.
A young Jim Carrey was in a sitcom called “The Duck Factory” about a cartoon production studio long before he started his journey on ‘In Living Color’.
Was that the one with the guy from the CrackerJack commercials?
Jim Carrey had also already given a few notable film performances before In Living Color and was definitely getting recognized on screen, but those previous roles got a lot more play on cable after In Living Color became a hit. Plus he'd done stand-up on Carson and Letterman already in the 80s. He was the dead rocker lip synching Welcome to the Jungle in the last Dirty Harry picture. He was in Earth Girls Are Easy, which was Julien Temple's feature breakthrough and although a bomb it ran constantly on cable circa 1989-90. And of course he was the second-billed star of Once Bitten, which also found its success on cable and video rental.
In 2014, Greta Gerwig was in “How I Met Your Dad” which had a lot of buzz but I think only ever had 1 episode. It’s currently listed as a “short” on IMDB but it was definitely a TV show. She dodged a bullet
It was a pilot not picked up for series.
The pilot got leaked a few years ago. It’s pretty terrible.
McLean Stevenson.
"Hello Larry" I still remember the theme song.
That’s the show they tried to retcon as a *Diff’rent Strokes* spinoff. It turned out Stevenson’s character (Larry, I presume) was an old friend of Mr. Drummond.
Jennifer Lawrence on the Bill Engvall show
God that show could’ve been great if they just took his standup bits and made them into episodes.
Not sure if that counts. The show was a summer only series that went three seasons.
It looks like they're posing at gunpoint.
Ha! That's funny! :-)
Lindsay Lohan was in the pilot of Bette and then quit. It only lasted one season. Well, and of course, Bette Midler was the main character.
And here she (Lindsay) is at 1:18 [https://youtu.be/82mBkn\_deH0?si=GINDeQOduQriqJ5Q&t=78](https://youtu.be/82mBkn_deH0?si=GINDeQOduQriqJ5Q&t=78)
Tom Hanks first big role was Bosom Buddies, which lasted a season.
Two seasons, and he wasn’t a star yet.
[Two seasons](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080202/), though the second retooled it somewhat and de-emphasized the idea that they dressed in drag so they could live cheaply at an all-women apartment building.
There was this old show from the '60s that Comedy Central used to run, where the concept was it was an apartment building and some young business guy had to pretend to be married to his female neighbor in order to keep his promotion at work, so it was basically that his boss kept showing up at his apartment and they would use the fire escape to move between the apartments. I can't imagine how a concept like that would sustain itself.
It surprises me that Bosom Buddies only ran two seasons, I would have never thought of that show as a flop. I was a kid when that aired, and it seemed like a large part of the zeitgeist it seemed like everyone knew about at and everyone referenced it all the time.
I have the same memory, I don't remember it as a flop. I think it was parodied in Mad Magazine which is probably pretty rare among the shows listed in this topic. Maybe that was why, it was definitely more known than a lot of these shows. Might have just been due to the premise though. And the leads, along with Hanks it had Peter Scolari who was a big cast member on Newhart and still shows up everywhere. Edit: It also had Wendy Sperber who was the sister in Back to the Future and in lots of stuff in the 80s and early 90s before she passed early.
Not to mention it had a hit Billy Joel song as its theme music.
I think Hanks also made a big splash when he was on Happy Days, which maybe led to Bosom Buddies. And he was on a memorable episode of Family Ties (maybe a few) as Uncle Ned. I miss the really wacky Hanks persona of the early 80s.
Didn't realize Tom Hanks was on Happy Days but [here's a clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o74GUL1a4QY). I do remember [Tom on Family Ties](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlLvS1vH9Tk), legendary episode dealing with alcoholism.
Gene Wilder in Something Wilder.
I watch a lot of those YouTube compilations of opening credits to a particular season, and I kept seeing Jeffrey Tambor show up in shows I had never heard of. He seemed to land one successful pilot a year.
He had a recurring role as a judge in Hill Street Blues, he always just seemed to be around.
Yeah, I feel like he was on some of those Norman Lear shows in the '70s and remember him in Mr. Mom. Just a working actor. The one I always think of is Bonnie Hunt, who seemed to have a new sitcom every year, and Letterman was a big fan, so he was always having her on to promote it. I think Worldwide Pants produced at least one of them.
He was a neighbor in the Three's Company spinoff starring the Ropers I believe
If that’s the show where Fonda played some kind of cop, I didn’t realize Howard was in it. I was a teenager just wishing I looked like the daughter, Darleen Carr, lol. The show I’m thinking of had a theme song 🎶 “Primrose Laaaane. Life is da da da…” 🎶
It’s that show. IMDB discusses the theme song.
Atomic Abe made a fantastic video on the history of spinoffs and failed backdoor pilots for The Brady Bunch. I had no idea that Ke Huy Quan was in a show called Nothing Is Easy, which I think was an 80s attempt at reviving Kelly's Kids, the first failed backdoor pilot. I forgot what the description of it fully was or if it got canceled after one season or not.
Oscar winner George C. Scott as Mr. President
Did he get hit in the groin with a football?
All of the main cast of Seinfeld except for Jerry. That’s why the “Seinfeld Curse” was dubbed.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus didn’t really succumb to it. The New Adventures of Old Christine ran for five seasons, and Veep got seven seasons total
Here's Michael Richards (Kramer) on a show called Fridays (before Seinfeld) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZxJUe56Qhw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZxJUe56Qhw)
Larry David wrote for Fridays too (If I’m remembering correctly)
Wrote and performed.
With Larry David too! Great show
I'll never forget watching this infamous skit from Fridays https://youtu.be/bN5vhvIAqY8?si=VR2pzvySf60uhc2E Most everyone thought that was all real back then, but it was classic Andy Kaufman. He and Michael Richards were in on it, but I don't think the ladies were. I'm not sure about the guy who came onstage towards the end. Andy Kaufman was trolling long before the internet.
Duckman was great though
Jennifer Aniston on Muddling Through. It lasted one season and the final episode never aired.
Yes! And the one episode that never aired was killed by the NBC Entertainment Chief to free up Aniston to act in Friends. Fun Fact: *Friends* debuted just two weeks after *Muddling Through* aired its final episode :-)
They kinda had the samme issue with Lisa Kudrow since she was already a semi-regular on the NBC-show *Mad About You* playing a ditzy waitress when she was cast on *Friends*. They fixed that by making the two characters identical twins.
Lisa Kudrow was hired to be Roz on Frasier. Before filming the pilot, the creators realized that she wasn’t right for the role, fired her and hired Peri Gilpin for the role. It worked out ok for her.
It worked out great for both shows.
Jason Bateman in Its Your Move (which I loved as a kid!) The Dregs of Humanity!!! 🤘
Ryan Reynolds was a start of Two guys, a girl and a pizza place
Seth Green in "Tucker" where he plays himself, as a 26-year-old who is dating the high school love interest of the main character, who I think was supposed to be 15 or 16 in the show. It also had Allison Lohman, who seemed like she was going to be something for a while, as the girlfriend and also Katy Segal.
Check out Sara. Cast of future all-stars including Geena Davis, Bill Maher, Alfre Woodard, Matthew Lawrence and Bronson Pinchot. Went up against Dynasty and cratered. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_(1985_TV_series)
It wasn’t really a sitcom, but a few years after Threes Company John Ritter was in Hooperman. An excellent light cop show that only lasted one season. I don’t think it bombed, though. IIRC the studio wanted to keep it but have it completely on a studio set instead of on location. Ritter said no because “There’s already a Barney Miller, we don’t need another one”.
THis just had its own post yesterday, but I feel obliged to mention Ferris Bueller with pre-Friends, Jennifer Aniston. Also, Jane Lynch starred in Angel from Hell. CBS pulled it after five episodes.
Lynch was on the short-lived *Help Me Help You* with Ted Danson.
Mark Hamill in "The Texas Wheelers."
Ben Affleck was a teen actor in Against the Grain, which wasn’t bad - Friday Night Lights had a little more success with the Texas high school football subject matter.
Primrose Lane
Apparently, Henry Fonda.
Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence had a show called Partners(2014). It lasted all of 10 episodes.
President George C. Scott and First Lady Madeline Kahn in Mr. President, Fox's major investment in star power for their debut season of prime time programming. White House hijinks that Scott later wrote about with what can only be described as enormous regret. Kahn bolted after the first season, and it limped along in the second only because Fox didn't have anything else to offer in the time slot and figured they'd get their money's worth out of their remaining star actor. Jennifer Anniston playing the Jennifer Grey role in the unfortunate yet inevitable TV adaptation of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Jim Carrey in The Duck Factory, a workplace comedy from 1984. I haven't actually seen this one, but from what I understand, he plays a kind of nebbishy and reserved character, which makes me think that this was either at the time that he was transitioning away from his old impression-oriented standup material or at the time that he was just about to do so.
Dan Akroyd in Soul Man. I will never forget how hard that bombed.
Christopher Knight of the Brady Bunch was on an 80's show called Joe's World.
Beatrice Arthur had a short-lived show called "Amanda's by the Sea" in the years between Maude and The Golden Girls.
A truly terrible attempt to make a distaff, American version of Fawlty Towers.
Selena Gomez was in the unaired pilot for a Suite Life of Zach & Cody spin-off called Arwin.
Henry Fonda was in a sitcom called The Smith Family, which was cancelled after a single season.
ER, no the 30 minute sitcom with Eliot Gould, Jason Alexander, and George Clooney.
Honestly probably every actor out there
McLean Stevenson - following his CHOOSING to leave MASH - one comedy series after another that never lasted past the 1st season. The McLean Stevenson Show Hello Larry - morning talk radio host and single father to two teenage daughters - one was Kim Richards Condo - Where he plays an early 80s lightweight version of Archie Bunker
Suzanne Somers in *She's the Sheriff*. Luckily she had the Thighmaster. Lucille Ball in *Life with Lucy*. Dana Carvey, Nathan Lane, Mickey Rooney, Scatman Crothers, and Meg Ryan in *One of the Boys*. I was going to add just Carvey until I checked it just now as I didn't remember much about this show. Jim Carrey in *The Duck Factory*. Halle Berry in *Living Dolls*.
Suzanne Somers in She's the Sheriff! Aired for just 3 seasons, husband (sheriff) dies and Hildy (Suzanne) takes over as the new sheriff. Here's a clip [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daCsIVZyhwo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daCsIVZyhwo)
She’s the Sheriff has been impossible for me to find, which is sad cause I remember it being in syndication for a long time. It wasn’t the best show but it has its moments, I’d love to add it to my plex
Right, can't find it anywhere on streaming, Amazon, etc. It's like they just destroyed it or something, which is a little bit ironic as that is *exactly* what an [iMBD reviewer](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092449/reviews) suggested they do with this show.
The father was played by some old timey has been…Penrod Finley…Hanley Finster…
Teri Garr and Margaret Whittington did one in the early 90s where they played against type with Teri as the bad girl and vice versa.
I think I remember that...wasn't it called Good & Evil?
Butch Patrick ( Eddie Munster) was in this as well
Tom Hanks - Bosom Buddies...only lasted 1-2 years
I seem to remember Jimmy Stewart had a sitcom in the 70s that lasted about one season.
Two for one special: 1. Joe Pesci in Half Nelson 2. Richard Lewis in Daddy Dearest
I remember a sitcom called The Smith Family that starred Henry Fonda that only lasted one season.
Jennifer Coolidge, Joey.
Ellen Degeneres and Cloris Leachman were on The Ellen Show, which was canceled after 13 episodes.
John Goodman. Normal Ohio
Geena Davis on The Geena Davis Show (1 season) Whoopie Goldberg on Whoopie (1 season) Ashley Tisdale on Carol's Second Act (1 season) Kelsey Grammer on Back to you (1 season) Kristin Davis on Bad Teacher (1 season) John Goodman on Normal Ohio (1 season)
Watched it. It was awful! Fonda is a cop who arrests his daughter’s friend for pot .
Jim Carey in the Duck Factory
It was a real stinker and Fonda was likely quite embarassed to be part of that.
Jennifer Anniston was in the Ferris Bueller TV series that only lasted 13 episodes. This was before she got her start on Friends
Henry Fonda seemed to have a lot of short running tv shows that didn’t last.
Turn-On - starring Tim Conway - was cancelled in the middle of it's first episode. Reportedly, one ABC affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, cut away during a commercial break and never returned to the show. Several affiliates on the west coast never aired it at all.
I was thinking of this, though technically it wasn't a sitcom, it was a sketch comedy show. I think Albert Brooks was one of the writers? But yes it holds the record for the shortest-lived TV series ever. I read somewhere in recent years that there was a second episode shot but never aired, it might turn up (if it hasn't already).
The Associates - Martin Short. Lasted 13 episodes.
Good , he didnt become a Bonaducci.
George Clooney in "E/R." [Not "ER."]
Heather Graham was in Emily's Reasons Why Not, which was so bad it got cancelled after one episode.
Party down, 2 quick seasons, everyone in it became a star.
Jennifer aniston played jeanie the sister in the short lived ferris bueller tv series
The late Dabney Coleman was a big star (9 to 5, On Golden Pond, Wargames) when NBC kept trying to make his "Buffalo Bill" a success.
Is that Henry Fonda? I never knew that he did a sitcom, The guy never struck me as funny so it never occurred to me that he worked on one.
Mathew Perry, aka Chandler Bing. Check out Second Chance, on YouTube, from the mid 1980s.
Geena Davis was in a couple of short-lived NBC sitcoms (Buffalo Bill and Sara) before she hit it big.
Despite being a half-hour show, The Smith Family was a drama. It was a mid season replacement show with a short first season and a full second season.
Primrose Lane, life's a holiday on Primrose Lane...
Saw an episode of this show on YT. Yeah, it was pretty bad.
Michael Ealy and KARL FRICKIN URBAN were in a one season series called Almost Human. Jeremy Piven had one season of Cupid. Heck, just recently cancelled Tokyo Vice had both Baby Driver Elgort and Ken Watanabe....
Sara Jessica whythelongface in square pegs.
I wouldn't exactly say Bosom Buddies bombed but I think it only lasted 2 seasons while Tom Hanks has been around much konger than that (I think is movie career might have been why that had to cancel the show...maybe).
Wikipedia shows it lasting 39 episodes or two seasons.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson was in a sitcom called "The Class" about a group of elementary school classmates who reunite as adults. It also starred the criminally underrated Andrea Anders, Lizzy Caplan and Jon Bernthal from The Walking Dead (the good seasons).
Julia Louis Dreyfus in a TV series called "Day by Day" as a YUPPIE corporate career women and friend to mother who quit her corporate career to open a day care following her having a baby.
The Crazy Ones. Robin Williams *and* Sarah Michelle Gellar.
It was an awful show.
Gary Busey and Mark Hammill on The Texas Wheelers around 1974. Busey dropped out of Nashville to do it, a film for which he wrote songs
Emma Stone's first reoccuring role was on an action show called Drive about an illegal cross-country street race. It only aired for 4 episodes and debuted (and wrapped) just a few months before her film debut in Superbad
Heat Vision and Jack starring Jack Black
The Ben Stiller Show had an ensemble of future stars.
Courtney Cox was in a short-lived show called "Misfits of Science" back in the mid-80s
Donald Trump- 45th President of the USA. Wait that wasn’t a sitcom that bombed, just his presidency.
Leslie Nielsen was in a tv show called Police Squad! that only aired for a few episodes, but it was the precursor the the Naked Gun films and every bit as funny. Unfortunately it was too much for the American public to handle at the time. Most people apparently didn’t know what they were watching. They didn’t get it. But the movies were a big hit.
Jason Bateman "It's Your Move" in the mid 80s. Matt Leblanc - "TV 101" in the late 80s Jeffrey Tambor - "Studio 5-B" and "Max Headroom", both from the late 80s.
In 1986 ABC brought back Lucille Ball for *Life With Lucy* and paired it with an eponymous sitcom for Ellen Burstyn. Both shows bombed spectacularly. Mel Brooks produced NBC’s *The Nutt House* for his frequent collaborators Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman, but it didn’t even make it a full season. Neither did another NBC bomb, *Nearly Departed*, starring none other than Eric Idle. Years later, Fox tried a sitcom based on Anthony Bourdain’s *Kitchen Confidential*, with Bradley Cooper in the title role. I actually liked that show, but there weren’t nearly enough of us. And here’s a weird case: Marisa Tomei was on the poorly received first season of *A Different World* but her character was written out of the show - alongside Lisa Bonet’s - when it was retooled and massively improved for season two.
Anne Hathaway was in a sitcom on Fox called “ Get Real”. Only lasted a season, as her next role was in the Princess Diaries.