What Might've Been: Brothers & Sisters (1979)

 The original Brothers & Sisters, not to be confused with the ABC drama of the same name from a few years ago, had a plum debut slot, airing after the Super Bowl in January 1979, back when the NFL's season finale still took place in January before being moved down to February for ratings purposes.

This Brothers, from Paramount. was one of three sitcoms modeled after "National Lampoon's Animal House", and bowed days after "Animal"'s own spin-off, ABC's Delta House. Like Delta House, though, Brothers & Sisters had some second generation talent in the cast. In this case, this was the first series for Chris Lemmon (Jack's son), miscast as a student of Greek background, and Mary Crosby (Bing's daughter, later of Dallas & Star Trek: The Next Generation). It also marked the first series for William Windom in nearly 10 years (My World....And Welcome to it).

Ratings challenged NBC took a chance, but dumped Brothers after three months. The show's theme song was co-written by Happy Days co-star Anson Williams, and sung by his future bride, Lorrie Mahaffey. Let's take a look at a sample episode:

Producers Nick Abdo, Bob Brunner, & Arthur Silver had all worked on Days, but couldn't manage a big hit without mentor Garry Marshall right away. 

Chris Lemmon didn't land another steady series gig for a few years until Duet, for Fox, nearly a decade later, and his last was TNT's Thunder in Paradise, as a sidekick to Hulk Hogan.

No rating. I was in bed by the time this turkey hit the air.