Life Goes On, And So Does the Blog

There's a handfull of television shows that fall into the little-known category of "episodes that are supposed to serve as launching pads for spinoffs of other shows, but those shows never get picked up so you have an episode of a show where the regular stars are barely on, and you never see the guest stars again." I was explaining this to some people at the Toy Wishes show yesterday, when one of the questions on Trivial Pursuit: The 80's Edition asked what show Empty Nest was a spinoff of. (The asnwer, of course, is The Golden Girls.)I then proceeded to bore the heck out of the toy rep by telling her that before Empty Nest premiered, there was an episode of Golden Girls with the same name. It featured Oscar winner Rita Moreno and veteran actor Paul Dooley as the Girls' next-door neighbors, a doctor and his wife dealing with "empty nest" syndrome as their youngest daughter went away to Columbia University. Moreno, lonely and feeling ignored, decides to reignite her acting career. Dooley agrees to cut down his hours and build a home office in order to spend more time with his lovely wife. Their neighbor was an arrogant, annoying test pilot played by David Leisure, best known for his role as "Joe Isuzu" in car ads.

Empty Nest was picked up as a series. But it was tweaked quite a bit. The set stayed the same, but Moreno was dumped, as was Dooley. Are you hearing this? They dropped an Oscar winner and a reliable, respected actor, and they kept Joe Isuzu. They also added Richard Mulligan as a widowed doctor, and they completely tweaked the meaning of the show, as Mulligans adult daughters, played by Kristy McNichol and Dinah Manoff, fly back to the nest for some Daddy love. Park Overall joined the cast as the sassy Southern nurse. Leisure remained the annoying neighbor, but was demoted from test pilot to some sort of seaman. The show ran for a number of years but never transcended mediocrity. It would have been nice to see if Moreno and Dooley could have created a TV classic.

A similar fate befell Tony Orlando. Orlando appeared on a first season episode of The Cosby Show as the benevolent director of a community center in a tough neighborhood. The Cos shows up with wife and Theo in tow, but the episode belongs to Orlando as he manages the center and avoids the subject of committment with his girlfriend, Ada Maris, who would later go on to star in another, lesser known Golden Girls spinoff,Nurses. The show had less potential than the Dooley/Moreno vehicle, but it would still be interesting to see whether this show that never was had the stuff to become a part of TV history.

It always fascinates me that whether a pilot is picked up or a struggling show renewed for a second season can mean eternal glory for an actor (millions of dollars, the chance to, in the words of the FAME theme song, LIVE FOREVER) or a lifetime of waiting tables--and that decision can be made by one person in a bad mood. It just goes to show that our lives are impacted by one or two decisions we have no control over. Whoah. See how much we can learn from sitcoms?