Lucasfilm Animation-The LEGO Group
For the middle of Summer, quite a few new series premiered this week across the decades. 1955 kicked things off with two prime time game shows, neither of which survived the Summer but one introduced a new game show host who would go on to much bigger and better things in 1973 with a revival of a show he hosted in the 1960s. 1975 also had two new daytime game shows, one with a giant pinball machine that was riddled with errors, and the second lasting just over a year. 1975 also saw the premiere of a soap opera that has developed a cult following since its cancellation. 2005 had a mixed bag of shows, mostly on cable, but one network competition series sought a new lead singer for an existing band. 2015 had an animated Star Wars miniseries, and a kids show that brought a character from a trippy 1969 kids show back to TV for a guest spot. Scroll down to see all the new shows — and one TV movie — that premiered this week and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.
1955
- July 7 – Make the Connection (NBC, One season, 13 episodes)
- July 8 – Windows (CBS, One season, 8 episodes)
- July 9 – Musical Chairs (NBC, One season, 11 episodes)
Make the Connection was a game show hosted by Jim McKay. McKay was replaced after four episodes with a new host making his game show hosting debut — Gene Rayburn. Betty White made one of her earliest game show appearances as a panelist, following her debut on What’s My Line? a few weeks earlier. She was a regular with Gene Klavan, Gloria DeHaven and Eddie Bracken. The game had a similar structure to shows like What’s My Line? and I’ve Got a Secret, which were all part of Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. A handful of episodes exist, including at least one McKay episode. The BUZZR network has occasionally aired episodes as part of its ‘Lost and Found’ programming event and during Betty White tributes.
Windows was a live dramatic anthology series that served as a Summer replacement for Edward R. Murrow’s Person to Person series. Actors who appeared on the series include Geraldine Page, Jason Robards, Melvyn Douglas and Anthony Perkins. Ray Bradbury was one of the writers on the show.
Musical Chairs was a panel game show hosted by Bill Leyden, with Mel Blanc, Johnny Mercer and Bobby Troup as regular panelists. Home viewers would mail in questions about music for the panel to answer, but it was not a competition and no score was kept. However, if a viewer was able to stump the panel they would win a 21-inch RCA television (RCA owned NBC at the time). Only one episode is known to exist, with Helen O’Connell as a guest panelist.
1965
- No new series premiered this week in 1965.
1975
Labine-Mayer Productions
- July 7 – The Magnificent Marble Machine (NBC, Two seasons, last broadcast on March 19, 1976)
- July 7 – Rhyme and Reason (ABC, One season, last broadcast on July 9, 1976)
- July 7 – Ryan’s Hope (ABD, Thirteen seasons, 3,515 episodes)
The Magnificent Marble Machine paired a civilian contestant with a celebrity to answer questions and gain control of a giant pinball machine. Art James was the host. When the show premiered, a contestant needed five points to gain control, but the rules were later changed to four points. Bumpers initially scored 200 points but scoring errors grew each week as the machine aged. The rules were eventually changed so that only seven ‘thumper bumpers’ would add 500 points for each hit with nothing else scoring. Early in 1976, the show’s format changed to feature two celebrity teams. A celebrity from the winning team drew the name of an audience member to play the bonus round with them. The show originally aired at 12:00 PM, but moved to 12:30 PM on December 1, 1975 as Wheel of Fortune expanded to an hour. The move reduced the show’s run time to 25 minutes as an NBC news break was broadcast at 12:55 PM. The show was pulled from the schedule after the January 2, 1976 episode to make way for a trial run for the talk show Take My Advice, and it returned on January 19 with the all-celebrity format which led to its demise. The last first-run episode was broadcast on March 19, 1976, but reruns aired until June 11 due to a technicians’ strike that delayed the premiere of the replacement show, The Fun Factory. A clip from the show featuring Gary Burghoff can be seen in the 1979 film The China Syndrome as the program interrupted for a news bulletin. The original audio is not heard, replaced with music composed for the film, and the credits make no mention of the show, its production company or Burghoff.
Rhyme and Reason, hosted by Bob Eubanks in his return to daytime TV six months after the cancellation of The Newlywed Game, featured two contestants and a panel of six celebrities. A two sentence phrase was shown with the contestants writing down a word that rhymed with the last word of the sentence, and a selected panel member had to guess the word by composing the second part of the poem. If the correct word was used, the contestant scored two points. If the opponent’s word was guessed, they got one point. If the word was not guessed, a different celebrity was chosen. The regular panel included Nipsey Russell and married celebs Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall. Some believed the show had been designed to spotlight Russell’s talents as ‘comedy’s poet laureate’. The show originally aired at 2:30 PM against NBC’s The Doctors. It was moved to 1:30 PM on December 29, 1975 which had been the home of Let’s Make a Deal, but the competition was even tougher with newly expanded to 60-minutes soaps Days of Our Lives on NBC and As the World Turns on CBS. The show ended two days after its first anniversary on the air. It was replaced by a little show called Family Feud. The tapes of the show are belived to have been wiped as was the practice at the time, but the pilot episode does exist. An audio recording of the final episode was discovered in 2011 that featured the celebrities destroying the set as the show progressed, breaking props, tearing the carpet, and knocking down Eubanks’ podium.
ABC wanted a soap similar to General Hospital, and Love of Life head writers Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer created a new show the network was calling City Hospital. Another of the show’s working titles was A Rage to Love. The setting for the show was unusual in that it was an actual location, the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, with references to areas like Central Park and Sheepshead Bay as the writers wanted to show how New York has communities. When original Frank Ryan actor Michael Hawkins left the show in 1976, his replacements included Andrew Robinson, Daniel Hugh Kelly and Geoffrey Pierson. When Kate Mulgrew announced her departure in January 1978, the writers wanted to kill of her very popular character, Mary Ryan, but ABC refused to allow that. Three different actresses took on the role of Mary, with Nicolette Goulet in the role when Mary was finally killed off. Due to the skyrocketing cost of producing the show, Labine and Mayer sold it to ABC in 1979, with storylines taking a turn to the surreal after the sale with take-offs of King Kong, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Jaws, Manhattan, The Godfather, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, not something the show had previously been known for. Labine revealed the network was not behind the storylines and she would do the Prince Albert the ape storyline again, not feeling that it was a mistake as many had regarded it as. A Raiders of the Lost Ark storyline was inspired by Labine’s vacation in Egypt. ABC fired Labine and Mayer at the start of 1982. New head writer Mary Ryan Munisteri shifted focus to the newly arrived Kirkland family and paid less attention to the Ryans, with various cast members dubbing the show Kirkland’s Hope. Labine and Mayer were asked back a year later after ratings declined, and Kate Mulgrew briefly returned to the role of Mary as a ghost to communicate with her beloved Jack, urging him to move on with his life. Classic film actress Gloria DeHaven was hired in the Summer of 1983 to play the mother of Jillian Coleridge. Ratings rose slightly but not enough, and Labine and Mayer were fired again, replaced with General Hospital head writer Pat Falken Smith, who once again shifted the focus from the Ryan and Coleridge families, moving the setting from Ryan’s Bar to Greenberg’s Deli. Several fan favorite actors were fired or left on their own accord. Smith was replaced in 1985 with Millee Taggart and Tom King, who shifted the focus back to the original families. The show was moved from its 12:30 PM time slot to Noon, which led many to believe General Hospital creator Agnes Nixon had lobbied for so her new show Loving could fill the 12:30 slot, giving her an entire block of shows, including All My Children and One Life to Live. Others saw the move as a positive, taking it out of the way of The Young and the Restless on CBS, but it competed with Super Password on NBC and both shows remained in that time slot until they ended, with the game show outlasting the soap by three months. The last version of the Ryan’s Bar set was modified and used on One Life to Live as a bar/club in Llanview. OLTL and Ryan’s Hope shared the same finale date, January 13, 23 years apart. Ilene Kristen revived her role of Delia several times on General Hospital, older and running Ryan’s Bar, and revealed to be the long lost mother of Ava Jerome (Maura West). The series won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 1977 and 1979. Helen Gallagher (Maeve Ryan) won Lead Actress in 1976, 1977 and 1988. Louise Shaffer (Rae Woodard) won Supporting Actress in 1983. The show’s writers won four consecutive years between 1977 and 1980, and in 1983 and 1984. The show also won for Lighting Direction (1987), Design Achievement (1981), Direction for a Drama Series (1979, 1980) and Outstanding Individual Director (Lela Swift) in 1977. The show also won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Television Writing in Daytime Serials (1976-1979, 1981-1984, 1987-1990).
1985
- No new series premiered this week in 1985.
1995
- No new series premiered this week in 1995.
2005
Joe Murray Productions
- July 6 – Mind of Mencia (Comedy Central, Four seasons, 52 episodes)
- July 8 – Camp Lazlo (Cartoon Network, Five seasons, 61 episodes, 2 specials, 14 shorts)
- July 8 – Stankervision (MTV2, One season, 5 episodes)
- July 9 – Catscratch (Nickelodeon, One season, 20 episodes)
- July 9 – Time Warp Trio (Discovery Kids, One season, 26 episodes)
- July 10 – Hogan Knows Best (VH1, Four seasons, 43 episodes)
- July 10 – The Princes of Malibu (FOX, One season, 6 episodes)
- July 11 – Rock Star (CBS, Two seasons, 26 episodes)
Mind of Mencia ended after four seasons as star Carlos Mencia felt the show would have become repetitive and redundant.
Camp Lazlo‘s humor is similar to Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Life, as both series were created by Joe Murray, but more suited to a younger audience. The show won three Primetime Emmy Awards during its run for Outstanding Animated Program, Outstanding Individual in Animation and Outstanding Short-format Animated Program.
Stankervision was a repackaged version of sketch show The DAMN! Show, which featured Yucko the Clown. The show had the highest ratings at the time for MTV2 and Yucko was unsure of why it was cancelled. It was later revealed that sponsors had problems with the show which led to its demise.
Catscratch was a loose adaptation of Doug TenNapel’s comic book series, Gear. A second season of Time Warp Trio was planned but never materialized. FOX cancelled The Princes of Malibu after airing two episodes. The remaining four were broadcast on Fox Reality Channel.
Rock Star was a singing competition series hosted by Brooke Burke and Dave Navarro. J.D. Fortune won the first season, selected to be the new lead singer for INXS. New supergroup Rock Star Supernova chose Lukas Rossi as the lead singer in Season 2. Alice in Chains was approached for the second season but the band turned it down. A third season was planned, but CBS cancelled the series. Velvet Revolver was approached for Season 3 but also turned it down. The producers still hope to have a third season. Future American Idol Season 5 contestant Chris Daughtry auditioned for season one of the series but did not make the cut. Supernova is no longer active. Fortune headed INXS for six years until his contract expired and was not renewed after the ‘Original Sin’ tour in 2011. The group disbanded in 2012.
2015
Sid and Marty Krofft Television
- July 6 – LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales (Disney XD, 5-part miniseries)
- July 8 – Million Dollar Listing San Francisco (Bravo, One season, 9 episodes)
- July 8 – Why? with Hannibal Buress (Comedy Central, One season, 8 episodes)
- July 9 – One Bad Choice (MTV, One season, 10 episodes)
- July 10 – Mutt & Stuff (Nick Jr., Two seasons, 74 episodes)
- July 11 – 7 Days in Hell (HBO, TV movie)
Anthony Daniels and Billy Dee Williams provided the voices for their C-3PO and Lando Calrissian characters on LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales.
Million Dollar Listing San Francisco is the third spin-off of Million Dollar Listing.
Mutt & Stuff was created by Sid and Marty Krofft, their first new show in over a decade. The show starred Calvin Millan, son of series producer Cesar Millan. The Krofft’s H.R. Pufnstuf, Freddy the Flute, and Cling & Clang guested on a two-part episode of the show. Pufnstuf was revealed to be the uncle to the character Stuff. The show was nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards in 2016 for Outstanding Pre-School Children’s Series and Outstanding Directing in a Children’s or Preschool Children’s Series.
7 Days in Hell was a sports mockumentary inspired by the Isner–Mahut marathon men’s singles match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships. Andy Samberg and Kit Harington starred. The cast included Fred Armisen, Lena Dunham, Will Forte, Karen Gillan, Howie Mandel, Michael Sheen, Mary Steenburgen, June Squibb and Jon Hamm. Appearing as themselves were David Copperfield, Chris Evert, John McEnroe, Soledad O’Brien and Serena Williams.