Shortlived: Day By Day

While the starting looks like pure 80s cheese now, Day by Day was actually an entertaining show with likable characters. The story of a yuppie couple who get off the fast track to open a home daycare center, Day by Day avoidedthe mire of "cutsie-poo" humour unlike "Full House" but perhaps it's premise kept people away regardless.

Most people remember the Brady Bunch themed episode where the couple's teenage son (played by C.B Barnes)imagines he's Greg Brady, oddly, he would later play Greg Brady in the movies.

A lot of talent came out of this series, this was Julia Louis Dreyfus's first noticable stop post SNL and pre Seinfeld, Courtney Thorne Smith went on to a longer running but much poorer quality sitcom and fans of Thora Birch may find her role as a kindergartener a huge contrast to "American Beauty".

The series only ran for two seasons, despite it's "Family Ties" lead in, which was odd considering it was generally well praised and remembered.

Merch: Eight is Enough Kite Fun Book

Is that supposed to be Dick Van Patten? Kind of looks like Bo Svenson.

The image on the cover is one of my nightmares, why are they smiling?

Movie Related: Baby Talk

"Look who's Talking" was a clever and fun little movie that spawned nothing but failure in the form of it's spin offs and sequels. I'm not going to even go into the movies here, just it's loosely based TV version "Baby Talk" which ran on ABC in 1991.

I'm always amused by the "TV Equivalent" casting of movies, here Bruce Willis equals Tony Danza and John Travolta's TV version were George Clooney and Scott Baio respectively. Hard to believe that there was a time when Clooney was a poor man's Travolta, it's also hard to believe, given his career at the time that Travolta didn't take the TV gig.

Connie Selleca was the original mom (ABC even aired preview clips of her in the role) but she smelled a stinky diaper with this series and walked out. Julia Duffy, fresh from Newhart, took the role (most likely in a pinch) but she was recast when the show returned in the fall.

Time slot changes, a revolving door for cast members and a baby with the thoughts of Tony Danza are usual signs of impending doom, oh and a little thing like being rated "worst series on Television" didn't help either.

I'm sure somebody out there has a petition to get this on DVD, *shiver*....

Alan Thicke shills for Woolco

Canadian super star Allan Thicke was the Woolco spokesman in Canada until it's demise, as I mentioned earlier, there used to be big "Thicke Price Pick" banners in the store with a photo of his face. He was to Woolco as Hasslehoff was to Germans....

Merch: Family Ties Game

Anybody else think it's odd that the manufacturers felt the need to cram Skippy Handleman's face onto the box? I mean by this time Michael J Fox was a movie star, did they think Marc Price's mugging face was going to sell 10,000 more units?

Tonight at 7: Fish!

I love old TV Guide ads, tonight's (if tonight is April 1, 1977) episode involves everyone getting suspicious when a local house goes up in flames seeing as Victor has a fascination with matches. Guest stars include Detrich from Barney Miller. I would sp be there!

Actually come to think of it, I probably did watch this....

Short Lived: Lush Life

A recent rerun of "Tank Girl" (a movie I like) made me think of Lori Petty's self created Fox sitcom "Lush Life" which had a miserably short tenure in 1996. The plot revolved around Petty and her roommate (Kayrn Parsons from "Fresh Prince") and the whacky schemes they got into. I watched every episode of this show and that's all I remember sadly, my own wife who watched alongside has no memory of it whatsoever.

As much as I think Petty is a fun person to watch, the public seemed to disagree and Lush Life was sent out to pasture after four episodes. Fox is known for cancelling fantastic shows like "Arrested Development" but I think in this case, they just axed something resoundingly average...

TV's Fabulous Faces

A new feature for a while here will be selections from the 1976 Scholastic book "TV's Fabulous Faces" by Peggy Herz. I picked this book up in 1984 on a weekend outing with my parents, mostly because it had info on "Space:1999". I was too old to be on this outing and old enough that my parents worried I'd have a party if left alone (because kids who are into "Space:1999" always have keggers) so I ended up memorizing this thing.

Thebook is a fun little time capsule into the TV Season that year as can be evidenced by the cover, I'm going to routinely post photos and nuggets of info from it. Here is the first segment, culled from an interview with actor Ron Pallilo:

"When the show first came on the air, people thought Horshak was retarded. "That made me very angry" Ron said "People pinned that label on Horshak because he is very young." Ron shook his head in disgust."

Ron you missed your Oscar calling....

Merch: Brady Bunch Kite Fun Book

What the %$&^#%? I've never heard of these things before but there were tons and they were made by Western (Gold Key). I love Gold Key comix. This one is more realistic than the Happy Days one I featured last week. Also much less homoerotic...