Forgotten TV: The Rousters (1983)

 Stephen J. Cannell, with The A-Team entering its 2nd season on NBC, sold another series with most of the same production crew, to the network in the fall of 1983. Unfortunately, The Rousters, a comedy-adventure series set at a carnival, was a bust.

The hook had to do with the grandson of Wyatt Earp, also named Wyatt (Chad Everett, ex-Medical Center), who acts as a bouncer for the carnival. Timothy Gibbs, fresh from Father Murphy, played his son. The supporting cast also includes actor-singer Hoyt Axton and a pre-Ernest Jim Varney, who is definitely comedy relief.

Airing on Saturdays, the network hype claimed Rousters would torpedo ABC's Love Boat, but such idle boasting often backfires, and it did here. Ronnie Milsap performs the theme song, while the music otherwise comes from Cannell's go-to composers, Mike Post & Pete Carpenter.

Coming as it did some 20-odd years after another short-lived carnival drama, Frontier Circus, Rousters suffered from the exaggerated hype and a bad time slot.

Here's the pilot movie:

Guest star Fred Dryer, of course, would stick with Cannell, and score with Hunter.

No rating. Just a public service.