Thursday, April 18, 2019

What Might've Been: The Goodtime Girls (1980)

After successfully mining the nostalgia of the 50's (and later, the 60's) with Happy Days & Laverne & Shirley, Garry Marshall tried moving further back in time with a mid-season replacement series that ABC picked up in 1980.

However, The Goodtime Girls ended up a 1-season wonder, after the network moved it out of its cushy post-Days perch after a month. Apparently, it was slotted to give Laverne a bit of a breather during the 1979-80 season.

The show was set in the 40's, as evidenced by the Andrews Sisters' "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree" being used as the theme for the pilot, the credits of which will follow shortly. With an ensemble cast mostly comprised of future stars such as Annie Potts (later of Designing Women and "Ghostbusters II"), Peter Scolari (who'd follow up with another Paramount entry, Bosom Buddies, the following fall), Adrian Zmed (later of T. J. Hooker), and already familiar talents like Georgia Engel (ex-The Mary Tyler Moore Show) & Sparky Marcus, fresh from The Bad News Bears, which had flopped on CBS a year earlier.

Edit, 5/4/23: Had to change the video to a sample clip w/closing credits:



Yes, the title card was edited off.

Sad to say, we lost Georgia Engel earlier this week.

No rating. Never saw the show.

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