Cheers was halfway through its 5th season when it birthed its first spin-off. Unfortunately, they picked the wrong characters for said spin-off.
The Tortellis was a mid-season replacement series when it bowed in the winter of 1987. Network suits must've thought that Nick Tortelli (Dan Hedaya) was popular with viewers despite the routine verbal castration from his ex-wife, Carla (Rhea Perlman) every time he visited Cheers. Nick had remarried, but new bride Loretta (Jean Kasem, in her series debut) was an attempt at modernizing the scatterbrained wife character made famous by Gracie Allen.
As the series begins, Nick & Loretta have already split, with Loretta moving to Las Vegas to move in with her sister. Nick, of course, follows, and so does chaos. There was the inevitable crossovers with the parent show, as Carla showed up in a dream sequence, and Norm (George Wendt) & Cliff (John Ratzenberger) flew to Vegas to visit in one early episode.
However, 13 weeks was all The Tortellis got before NBC swung the axe. Jean Kasem never landed another series gig, and outside of any radio or cartoon gigs with then-husband Casey (American Top 40, Scooby-Doo, etc.), was not heard from again.
Let's take a look at a sampler.
4 comments:
I wouldn't totally say "not heard from again." She was the wifezilla in Casey Kasem's final days, when he was dying from Lewy Body Disorder and essentially kept Kasem's kids from his first marriage away from their father.
Well, aside from that, Chuck, she never landed another series gig. Hard to believe it's been 8 years since we lost Casey, BTW.
Another forgotten TV show. I didn't even think of this one. In April on my blog, I did the A toZ Blogging thing, with "Forgotten TV Shows" as my theme. A lot of the shows I included I have seen on your blog. Most people who responded to my posts ddi not remember the shows I featured. I now bet no one would have remembered this one, either.
Thank you for writing, Jamie. Have to look up your blog sometime.
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