TAT Communications, the offshoot of Norman Lear's Tandem Productions that packaged The Jeffersons, thought they had another hit when they sold CBS on the premise of A Year At The Top. Unfortunately, this tale of two struggling musicians making the dreaded Faustian bargain with the Devil didn't make it to Halloween.
Created by Heywood "Woody" Kling, Year told the story of two ordinary schlubs (Greg Evigan & Paul Shaffer) who made that deal in exchange for stardom. For this, Shaffer took a break from Saturday Night Live, where he was what they would call now a "featured performer" and not a regular member of the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players". As it turned out, Shaffer & Evigan recorded a whole album of material for the show, but you can imagine that the album flatlined almost immediately upon release.
For the stars, there is a happy ending, after all. 5 years later, Shaffer began his association with David Letterman, still going strong more than 30 years later. Evigan promptly rebounded with B. J. & The Bear (for which he also sang the theme song), then scored another hit in the 80's with My Two Dads. As for cracking the charts in real life, Evigan never did, but Shaffer took a crack with his 1989 novelty, "When the Radio is On", which we showcased a while back.
Gilmore Box offers up a commercial for the show, focusing on Evigan.
No rating. Never saw the show.
The biggest problem is the premise - a lot of Americans weren't having the Devil in their home week after week! It would have been one thing had a Faustian bargain been the topic of an episode airing on Halloween or a dream sequence (Which Happy Days and L&S did around the same time) but having it as the premise of a weekly sitcom was, er, damning!
ReplyDeleteAlso, how would it end? Would the schlubs who made the deal abide by it and be doomed for eternity, or find a way out? A little depressing especially if we're also supposed to laugh along at sitcom antics until that time comes.
It might have worked better as a feature film or TV movie, or a supernatural drama airing at the tail end of primetime.
Consider, too, what night of the week it was on----Fridays, opposite Donny & Marie, as I recall. End of story.
ReplyDeleteI agree Kling didn't think things through. Making this a movie would've made more sense.
Hobbyfan,
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like the plot of Disney's THE DEVIL AND MAX DEVLIN four years later in which Bill Cosby (for obvious reasons we don't need to mention) was far from miscast as the devil: a woman got a recording contract to keep the guy who got her signed to do it out of Hell and send her there in his place when she dies.
Never saw "Devil & Max Devlin", but I get the drift.
ReplyDelete