Wait, What?: TV Pilot Viewing Surprises

[Blergh]

The Facts of Life pilot had Conrad Bain, Gary  Coleman, Todd Bridges and Dana Plato listed as 'Special Guest Stars" with them playing their Diff'rent Strokes characters. Interestingly, Mrs. G. hugged Arnold and Willis but NOT Kimberly (or Mr. Drummond) when they came to visit. Also the girl residents seemed to treat Arnold as a teddy bear that they eagerly hugged and kissed with the notable exceptions of Molly and   Tootie whose very first line on the show was to tell Arnold that he needed to grow a few inches (they'd later briefly be boyfriend/girlfriend). Mr. Drummond and his offspring pleaded with Mrs. G. to return to their place ASAP to which she promised she WOULD as soon as Eastland found a new permanent house mother (evidently if this new show had  bombed so Charlotte Rae would have been able to return as a Diff'rent Stokes regular but that was not to be). Then they made their exit. Curiously enough, Kimberly alone had zero interaction with any of the  dormitory residents- and it was her school that Mrs. G. had been summoned to help out so wouldn't she have actually had more familiarity with her classmates than her visiting father or brothers?  Also, Natalie offered to loan a formal dress to the tomboyish Sue-Ann that had belonged to Natalie's sister but that she herself 'had grown out of before she had grown into it'- the only mention of a sib for Natalie who would be her parents' only child for the rest of the series! The sole regular teacher Miss Mahoney claimed to be 32 but her performer Jenny O'Hara was, in fact,37-years-old at the time of the 1979 pilot. 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Blergh

[Irlandesa]

7 hours ago, KWalkerInc said:

On the pilot for Living Single, they use the living room set from Family Matters for the ladies' apartment.  The front door leads directly outside, as opposed to in all the following episodes, where it leads into a hallway that includes a staircase that goes up to Kyle and Overton's apartment. 

Thank you!  I just started watching Living Single and I read that it was an apartment building but when I watched the first ep, it really seemed like a house to me.

But in later episodes the hallway did appear.  It confused me but you've cleared things up.

[Bort]

5 hours ago, Blergh said:

Mr. Drummond and his offspring pleaded with Mrs. G. to return to their place ASAP to which she promised she WOULD as soon as Eastland found a new permanent house mother (evidently if this new show had  bombed so Charlotte Rae would have been able to return as a Diff'rent Stokes regular but that was not to be).

Apparently, that’s a common clause for actors when they’re spun off the parent show. There was a similar clause for The Ropers when they spun off Three’s Company and ABC purposely waited until the clause time was past before they cancelled it because the parent show stayed successful without them and it was cheaper to pay for just Don Knotts instead of both Norman Fell and Audra Lindley. 

[Blergh]

20 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Apparently, that’s a common clause for actors when they’re spun off the parent show. There was a similar clause for The Ropers when they spun off Three’s Company and ABC purposely waited until the clause time was past before they cancelled it because the parent show stayed successful without them and it was cheaper to pay for just Don Knotts instead of both Norman Fell and Audra Lindley. 

Charlotte Rae claimed that, this being the first time she was offered the starring role on a show (and having been the sole support for her offspring for many years), she didn't want to chance  being out the plane without a parachute so she herself insisted on the option of Mrs. Garrett being able  return  to the Drummond Household in case FOL didn't work out! 

     I'm not sure how universal a practice this is. When Polly Holiday got offered to lead the spinoff Flo she insisted on making an entirely clean break and not return to Alice when the spinoff failed and wound up having a prolific theater and cinema career for decades afterwards instead of being forever typecast as Flo. 

As long as I've brought up Flo,   Flo was supposedly passing through to see her domineering mother, timid sister and bestie in the Texas  hometown she hadn't visited in years on the way to a swanky hostess job in Dallas before she deciding on the spot to become the co-owner of the local watering hole and make fresh start for herself back in her hometown. OK, that was all well and good. What was odd was when she stopped by her mom and sister's house for the first time in all those years, her mother reacted as though she had just seen her minutes beforehand and had  a litany of complaints about Flo- not the least bit thrilled or happy that her wayward grown child was visiting after years of avoiding her. Of course, Flo wound up moving back in with her. 

Oh, something else I noticed when watching The Facts of Life pilot- Cindy (Julie Ann Haddock) brought a live piglet into the house and Mrs. Garrett only advised her to bathe it in the tub instead of telling her she'd have to put it outside in a pen if she wanted to keep it!LOL

[Bort]

10 minutes ago, Blergh said:

Charlotte Rae claimed that, this being the first time she was offered the starring role on a show (and having been the sole support for her offspring for many years), she didn't want to chance  being out the plane without a parachute so she herself insisted on the option of Mrs. Garrett being able  return  to the Drummond Household in case FOL didn't work out! 

     I'm not sure how universal a practice this is. When Polly Holiday got offered to lead the spinoff Flo she insisted on making an entirely clean break and not return to Alice when the spinoff failed and wound up having a prolific theater and cinema career for decades afterwards instead of being forever typecast as Flo. 

Maybe that’s it. Audra Lindley was on board with The Ropers right away but it took six months to get Norman Fell to agree to it. The clause must have been one of the negotiating points.

[Blergh]

There are a few things that stand out 50 years later [!?!] re the Mary Tyler Moore Show Pilot.

1. The very first line is spoken by Phyllis  "Well, Mary, what do you think?" while showing Mary the apartment for the very first time!

2. The audience first meets Rhoda while she's standing outside on the balcony washing windows with Phyllis immediately drawing back to drapes to keep Mary from seeing her! Rhoda had counted on getting this particular apartment but Phyllis thwarted her  by signing a year's lease on Mary's behalf! 

3. Lou refers to Ted as 'Baxter' NOT Ted. 

[Kromm]

The main difference with The Munsters pilot is really just... more than half of the actors.  Otherwise it IS pretty consistent.  And yeah... another unaired pilot.  I've realized it's silly to have any rule that it has to have aired on TV at some point.  This DID get on the eventual DVDs for the show though.

 

 

So Fred Gwynne AND Al Lewis are the same but the REST are all different. 

And of course the version of Lily here is not only a different actress, like Marilyn and Eddie, but also is named "Phoebe".

There's enough in that clip that I think ALL of the casting changes seem to be good decisions.  Every actor they brought in was distinctly better than the replaced originals here.  Gwynne and Lewis of course didn't need replacing.  They're both great here.

Oh, and I'd say Eddie's personality is distinctly different here.  He's more overtly a brat. Frankly he's more interesting here.

EDIT - damn, my memory is faulty.  I completely blocked out that there were two Marilyns. This IS the same one who was in the entire first group of episodes.  I didn't remember that because they replaced her really fast with a different actress who was in the entire rest of the series run, but this one WAS in more than the pilot.  I didn't even realize this until searching more about the actress.  Once you trace it back it says she was in 13 episodes.  The seasons then were REALLY long so that was only like 1/3rd of the first season.  So only Yvonne Decarlo and Butch Patrick were missing.

By the way, that search ALSO confirmed that this is NOT a recoloring job. This pilot WAS filmed in color and that's another change made when it went to series. It was changed to Black and White both for financial reasons (much cheaper film at that point) AND to make it match the classic Universal monster films better.  There's also apparently some makeup differences, although I guess you have to look close to really quantify them.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Kromm

[Blergh]

7 hours ago, Kromm said:

The main difference with The Munsters pilot is really just... more than half of the actors.  Otherwise it IS pretty consistent.  And yeah... another unaired pilot.  I've realized it's silly to have any rule that it has to have aired on TV at some point.  This DID get on the eventual DVDs for the show though.

 

 

So Fred Gwynne AND Al Lewis are the same but the REST are all different. 

And of course the version of Lily here is not only a different actress, like Marilyn and Eddie, but also is named "Phoebe".

There's enough in that clip that I think ALL of the casting changes seem to be good decisions.  Every actor they brought in was distinctly better than the replaced originals here.  Gwynne and Lewis of course didn't need replacing.  They're both great here.

Oh, and I'd say Eddie's personality is distinctly different here.  He's more overtly a brat. Frankly he's more interesting here.

EDIT - damn, my memory is faulty.  I completely blocked out that there were two Marilyns. This IS the same one who was in the entire first group of episodes.  I didn't remember that because they replaced her really fast with a different actress who was in the entire rest of the series run, but this one WAS in more than the pilot.  I didn't even realize this until searching more about the actress.  Once you trace it back it says she was in 13 episodes.  The seasons then were REALLY long so that was only like 1/3rd of the first season.  So only Yvonne Decarlo and Butch Patrick were missing.

By the way, that search ALSO confirmed that this is NOT a recoloring job. This pilot WAS filmed in color and that's another change made when it went to series. It was changed to Black and White both for financial reasons (much cheaper film at that point) AND to make it match the classic Universal monster films better.  There's also apparently some makeup differences, although I guess you have to look close to really quantify them.

I MUCH preferred Butch  Patrick's slightly whiny Eddie to Happy Derman's outright bratty one! the latter sure didn't live up to his moniker (and why they didn't just call him his give name of Nate was puzzling). 

While I prefer Yvonne De Carlo's  Lily to Joan Marshall's Phoebe, I have to admit that Herman was more overtly flirtatious to her Phoebe than he ever would be to Lily. I wonder if, in addition to her looking too similar to Morticia, they decided to tone down the Munsters' passion so as not to have the Addams Family cite that as copying them! 

 

Oh, while it's on  my mind, (since it debuted the same month in 1964), Gilligan's Island had a few other surprises viewers wouldn't have guessed. One is that the radio announcer 'introducing' these lost castaways would be the only time in which the Skipper's actual name (Jonas Grunby- ugh) would be mentioned, the only time Lovey's actual given name of Eunice would be alluded to and one of two times in which the Professor's actual name of Roy Hinkley would mentioned (the other one was when they used his actual name when introing him to Zsa Zsa Gabor playing millionairess Tiffany Smith [?!] so she could make a joke saying he was 'hunkly' instead of Hinkley')! Oh and but the radio announcer never gave any name for Gilligan himself besides that one name (and even the writers never were in agreement whether that was his surname or given name much less if he actually had any other name).  I don't know about anyone else but I'm glad the Skipper just got called the Skipper and nothing else (especially that somewhat  bummer name) and, even though Eunice WAS considered a perfectly acceptable 'society' name among the well-heeled back when the show aired , thanks to Carol Burnett, it  now doesn't fit Mrs. Howell as well as Lovey!  Lastly, calling the Professor 'Roy' or 'Mr. Hinkley' just wouldn't have been smooth. 

[SVNBob]

8 hours ago, Blergh said:

the radio announcer never gave any name for Gilligan himself besides that one name (and even the writers never were in agreement whether that was his surname or given name much less if he actually had any other name).

Fan theory is that he's Dobie Gillis's pal Maynard G. Krebs, and that Gilligan is his middle name.

This was alluded to in one of the Dobie Gillis tv movies, but was never actually made canon.

[Kromm]

1 hour ago, SVNBob said:

Fan theory is that he's Dobie Gillis's pal Maynard G. Krebs, and that Gilligan is his middle name.

This was alluded to in one of the Dobie Gillis tv movies, but was never actually made canon.

What's in the theory on why his personality would be so different?  It can't ALL be down to drugs. 

[SVNBob]

2 minutes ago, Kromm said:

What's in the theory on why his personality would be so different?  It can't ALL be down to drugs. 

It's stated in Gilligan's Island that Gilligan and the Skipper are "war buddies" (presumed to be the Korean War).   So between drugs and PTSD, there's enough basis for a personality shift.

[magicdog]

17 hours ago, Blergh said:

While I prefer Yvonne De Carlo's  Lily to Joan Marshall's Phoebe, I have to admit that Herman was more overtly flirtatious to her Phoebe than he ever would be to Lily. I wonder if, in addition to her looking too similar to Morticia, they decided to tone down the Munsters' passion so as not to have the Addams Family cite that as copying them! 

Quite possible!  They would have definitely claimed Phoebe as a copy of Morticia, intentional or otherwise.    It did seem funny though watching Herman being this child like guy in love with a hot vamp like Lily though! 

 

17 hours ago, Blergh said:

the only time Lovey's actual given name of Eunice would be alluded to and one of two times

For years, I'd thought Lovey WAS her name!  In my area, the pilot wasn't often run (most of the black and white episodes in fact - probably was the syndication package at the time), so I only knew her as Lovey Howell.  If anything, it means the Howells adored each other, and Thurston alluding to her nickname just makes thing so cute between them!  

17 hours ago, Blergh said:

but the radio announcer never gave any name for Gilligan himself besides that one name (and even the writers never were in agreement whether that was his surname or given name much less if he actually had any other name).

Sherwood Schwartz has said more than once that Gilligan was his last name and his first name is "Willy".  It was in the original bible for the show, but I don't recall it ever being used on screen.  

Plus, my HS principal's last name was Gilligan and we used to make affable jokes about it!  That woman must have heard them all from 1964 to her dying day!

[Blergh]

3 hours ago, magicdog said:

Quite possible!  They would have definitely claimed Phoebe as a copy of Morticia, intentional or otherwise.    It did seem funny though watching Herman being this child like guy in love with a hot vamp like Lily though! 

 

For years, I'd thought Lovey WAS her name!  In my area, the pilot wasn't often run (most of the black and white episodes in fact - probably was the syndication package at the time), so I only knew her as Lovey Howell.  If anything, it means the Howells adored each other, and Thurston alluding to her nickname just makes thing so cute between them!  

Sherwood Schwartz has said more than once that Gilligan was his last name and his first name is "Willy".  It was in the original bible for the show, but I don't recall it ever being used on screen.  

Plus, my HS principal's last name was Gilligan and we used to make affable jokes about it!  That woman must have heard them all from 1964 to her dying day!

Of course, the irony was that Yvonne DeCarlo WAS a hot vamp (and had been a fave femme fatale in Hollywood for the previous 20 years) but she deliberately hid her natural beauty under that green makeup and wig because she wanted to have her fun playing Lily since she loved the idea of spoofing monster movies! 

A bit more trivia was that the then in-demand child performer Billy Mumy was offered to play Eddie. Yet,  as much as he loved monster movies, the thought of having to deal with that much makeup being put on for hours before starting to film, worrying about it running under the hot lights then spending another hour having it taken off at the end of each shooting day, got him to decline the role. However, he DID have his fun playing Eddie's snotty acquaintance Googie who made life miserable for the family  via his pranks when he was their houseguest and, in fact, was an off-camera friend of Butch Patrick!

 

 

Good point about the Howells but it's interesting that there WERE times in which they had disagreements (even once going so far as Thurston moving OUT) and Thurston had dozens of different tones for saying 'Lovey' but even at his most frustrated or annoyed he NEVER reverted to calling her 'Eunice'! I imagine, that, had he done so, that would have signaled the marriage was over! Still, overall, they DID adore each other.

Interesting that Mr. Schwartz said Gilligan's first name was supposed to have been 'Willy' but I'm glad they never said it aloud. 

[Kromm]

Okay... the surprise with this one isn't how different the unaired pilot was from the show... but how identical it was to the eventual first aired episode... other than Rachel Dratch being ditched in favor of Jane Krakowski.  You can see that even though Tina Fey was forced to recast the role of Jenna that she stuck to her guns and the rest was pretty much identical (even while clearly reshot).  Lorne Michaels was the one who pushed the recasting.  And yes... I think Lorne was correct in this case.  I've never really found Dratch that funny in anything she's done, and even though virtually everything about the character is the same (they did change her last name), Jane K acted all of this as sly and arch, whereas Dratch was going for... I dunno.  It seems blunter and sillier, even with the same lines.  Jenna quickly became a character based mostly on vanity and over the top ego.  That wouldn't have worked with Dratch. 

 

[Raja]

From the backdoor pilot of NCIS on a JAG episode they dropped the ex FBI Agent and picked up an ex Secret Service Agent at the end of the NCIS first episode. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

53 minutes ago, Raja said:

From the backdoor pilot of NCIS on a JAG episode they dropped the ex FBI Agent and picked up an ex Secret Service Agent at the end of the NCIS first episode. 

Well she totally fucked ion their mission because of her personal vendetta. Plus, Blackadder was just horrible.

Also, “Ice Queen”  and “Meltdown” was a back door pilot, not the actual official one. On JAG, Gibbs said he’d been at NIS/NCIS for over 19 years. We learned in the actual show, it was 10.

[Raja]

The Fall Guy movie reminds me that probably due to Lee Majors on The Six Million Dollar Man and  The Fall Guy and Linda Evans on Dynasty I saw a lot more of The Big Valley than Bonanza.

To the pilot of The Big Valley, Heath the illegitimate son of their father arrives to claim his birthright, so his little sister Audrey takes it upon herself to try to seduce him into incest to prove he knew he was making a false claim. Only to have her turn into the virginal blond angel for the main run of the show.

[Blergh]

Speaking of Bonanza, the pilot had the Four Cartwright men do something they never attempted again: sing the lyrics to the THEME! Evidently, it proved so awkward that not only was it not done again, but it got edited out before the network airing (but somehow the clip of it got preserved).

[magicdog]

7 hours ago, Raja said:

To the pilot of The Big Valley, Heath the illegitimate son of their father arrives to claim his birthright, so his little sister Audrey takes it upon herself to try to seduce him into incest to prove he knew he was making a false claim. Only to have her turn into the virginal blond angel for the main run of the show.

True!  Initially Audra was supposed to be a "kitten with a whip" type character (who compared herself to her brother Nick) but suddenly someone insisted she be this tame and sweet girl.  Not that Linda Evans couldn't pull off both personas, but I think they wanted Barbara Stanwick to be the strong woman of the Barkley household.  Incidentally, in her earliest appearances on the show, the character of Victoria Barkley was much softer and mentioned taking midday naps like the most genteel upper class women of the era. 

[ABay]

That's Miss Barbara Stanwyck 🙂

[Raja]

Since they did a lot of product placements. On Hawaii 5-0 Danny had an HPD issued Mustang as his vehicle in the pilot but then came the contract with GM and his iconic car, which McGarrett always drove, was the Camero for a decade. And Fords were always driven by bad guys. Only when the contract ended did another detective drive a classic 60s Mustang 

Edited June 7 by Raja

[EtheltoTillie]

On 9/10/2020 at 12:30 AM, Kromm said:

Man, if you REALLY want to go down a rabbit hole, look at the credits (and a bit of the show) of the Good Morning Miss Bliss Pilot. 

The notes on the YouTube video say this DID air and so is not an unaired pilot.  So it applies to this topic really well. It went from this (even MORE adult centered than the episodes which folded into Saved By the Bell, and with TOTALLY different kids (including.... look closely... Brian Austin Green).

 

 

Wow, this is awful.  The pacing is practically comatose.

[Palimelon]

As per Wikipedia, "the original Good Morning, Miss Bliss pilot aired on NBC in the regular primetime timeslot of The Facts of Life." It also only aired once, and was never added the episodes rerun in syndication.