Don Fedderson hadn't sold a series to ABC since My Three Sons moved to CBS. When the 1970-1 season began, he had just 1 series left, and that was The Lawrence Welk Show, which moved to syndication in the fall of '71.
In the winter of '71, Fedderson sold The Smith Family to ABC. Originally meant to be a comedy-drama, sort of like Room 222, except it was about a cop (Henry Fonda) and his family, the format was changed in the 2nd season to a straight sitcom, and the show's theme song, a cover of "Primrose Lane", sung by Mike Minor (Petticoat Junction), was added.
When you consider that the supporting cast included Ron Howard (ex-The Andy Griffith Show), three years away from Happy Days, and British actor Michael James-Wixted, you'd think the kiddo's would've been sitting in watching with the parents. Well, we don't know that for sure. After the show was cancelled, the only TV work Fonda would do going forward was a series of commercials shilling for GAF's View-Master.
Following is a network promo, which looks like it was joined in progress. Voiceover by John Erwin.
I cannot recall if I've seen the show, so no rating.
Once again, your history is awry.
ReplyDelete"Primrose Lane" was the first season theme of The Smith Family.
Those early episodes were a good example of Don Fedderson's style of "warmedy", with low-keyed humor as opposed to boffo yuks.
When ABC picked up Smith for season 2, they told Fedderson that the show should show more of Fonda's work as a police detective, and less of the warmedy: "... more cop and less pop ..." was the phrase that TV Guide used.
Accordingly, Fedderson ordered up a new title sequence showing Fonda in a lot of cop situations (squad car/radio call/shootout/ etc.), then in more family scenes (minus "Primrose Lane").
In fact, none of those "cop" scenes were from actual Smith episodes; Fedderson just kept on doing warmedy as before, which likely soured ABC on keeping the show going.
Not that it made any difference anyway; Henry Fonda was working on the MacMurray System, as developed by Don Fedderson for My Three Sons back in the day.
Basically, Fonda shot all his scenes for every show in a tight three-week period, with everybody else filling in the rest of the shows working around his scenes.
Hmm, seems the sources I checked had it backward. I think Henry Fonda took the McMurray System to ensure he'd be available if a movie part came along while the series was in production. Too bad that system isn't in place as much as it was back then.
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