Richard Irvin - Forgotten Laughs: An Episode Guide to 150 TV Sitcoms You Probably Never Saw

Brad Pitt had a small part in an episode of one, while George Clooney played a former boyfriend on one. Jennifer Aniston and Michelle Williams each portrayed teenagers on different ones. Oscar winners Julie Andrews and Faye Dunaway were stars of their own. Some aired only once and were never seen again. A handful produced several episodes that never aired at all.

Forgotten Laughs: An Episode Guide to 150 TV Sitcoms You Probably Never Saw profiles little-known, short-lived situation comedies that aired less than six episodes when originally broadcast. As many as thirteen episodes were produced for some of these comedies, but they were canceled before all of them could air. Others made only a limited number of episodes as try-out series that were never renewed. Forgotten Laughs also describes certain sitcoms that were canceled before any episodes were televised, including several series (e.g., ) that the Fox network ordered but never broadcast.

In addition to airing less than six episodes, the other requirement for a comedy to be featured in Forgotten Laughs is that it had to have more than one episode produced; thus, pilots that never resulted in a series are excluded. This also means that a comedy like Kid Mayor is not included. Kid Mayor was a sitcom about a nineteen-year-old guy who became the mayor of a small town. The show had an order from the WB network for six episodes, but the series was canceled in the middle of taping its first episode. The head of the WB was present at the taping, hated the episode, and canceled the sitcom on the spot.

For each of the comedies in Forgotten Laughs, a brief description is provided of the series concept and its main characters along with background information about the show and an episode guide for both aired and unaired episodes. Episode descriptions in this guide were obtained from the following sources:

If videos of the sitcom were available, descriptions were based on viewing the episodes. Over 700 episodes were viewed, primarily at the Library of Congress and The Paley Center.

If videos were not available, episode descriptions were obtained from reviewing scripts written for the series or requesting summaries of episodes from writers and producers. Descriptions based on a script or contributed by a writer or a producer are so noted in the guide.

As a last resort, episode descriptions were extracted from print or electronic media such as reviews of the sitcom and TV logs printed in newspapers or found online.

Most of the episode descriptions contained in Forgotten Laughs are being published for the first time.

While attempts were made to keep all of the episode descriptions for a particular series more or less equal in detail, this was not always possible. Videos may exist for some episodes of a comedy but not all. The same can be said for scripts. Even summaries provided by writers or producers can vary in length with some recalling very little about their series. As one writer told the author about his inability to remember the storyline of an episode he scripted, maybe its psychological protection in response to working on that series.

Despite multiple attempts to obtain episode descriptions for particular comedies, in some cases, little information could be found. A situation comedy is excluded if descriptions could not be procured for the majority of its episodes. At least four comedies fall into this category: the unaired The Mens Room and Thick and Thin ordered by NBC, the unaired HBO series 12 Miles of Bad Road, and the twice-aired The Mike OMalley Show. Since information could be found for only a few episodes of each of these series, they are not profiled in this book.

Also, any comedy that aired less than six episodes on a broadcast network but was later resurrected with new episodes on a cable network is not included. The animated sitcom Home Movies, which was broadcast briefly on UPN and then was brought back by the Cartoon Network, falls into this category.

Even for situation comedies described in the book, details about the number of episodes produced, what they were about, and who wrote and directed them were not always easy to obtain. If the information could not be found for a particular comedy, its profile simply indicates that a writer, director, or storyline of an episode is unknown.

In Forgotten Laughs, sitcoms are organized around their main theme related to different stages in life, from growing up to raising kids, from starting a new job to starting over. Within each thematic category, the comedies are listed in alphabetical order. These categories are not mutually exclusive, and one could argue that some sitcoms could be placed in more than one category. The comedies covered in the book range from 1952s An appendix is included listing each series in chronological order by the TV season in which it premiered.

As noted in the Acknowledgments, over fifty writers, directors, and producers provided information about the various short-lived sitcoms on which they worked. They not only helped with descriptions of episodes, but several also provided insights into the development of their comedy and behind-the-scenes anecdotes. For example, one writer related the story of the son of the star of the sitcom being such a poor actor that he was directed to read his one line with his head in a waste paper basket (see . Such anecdotes are included in the series profiles.

When contacted by the author about the short-lived comedy While not all of the sitcoms described in Forgotten Laughs may be characterized as utter failures, they certainly cannot be said to have been successes.

The reason a series expired after only a few episodes is generally because of its Nielsen ratings as evaluated by various network executives who saw little potential for the ratings of the sitcom to improve. Generally, the lower the rating, the more likely a series is to be canceled quickly or not be renewed after a few episodes. However, low ratings in and of themselves do not explain the abrupt demise of all of the comedies profiled. Some shows are canceled, or not renewed, even when they get respectable ratings but lose a large share of the audience from the series that preceded it. This phenomenon, known as the falloff factor, is viewed by network executives in the same way a real estate developer does not like to see an ugly property being built in a fancy neighborhood the overall value of the area is decreased.