Valerie Harper leaving "Valerie"

What really happened? I just read her book. She makes it sound like one day the suddenly fired her out of the blue then tried to smear her reputation in court.

What really happened?

Valerie felt the show was becoming too reliant on the Bateman kid, and wanted it to be focused back on her. When she expressed disapproval, they canned her and wrote her out in a rather awful way, yet still keeping the show titled Valerie's family. She sued the producers and won.

Sandy Duncan was initially hesitant to take over the role, and called Valerie to talk to her about it. Valerie said she had no ill will and that Duncan should do it. Sandy said she wouldn't have done it without talking to Valerie first. Both are class acts.

Sandy was hesitant because she said something about the whole thing didn't look right to her. So we got her to look at it with her other eye and then things were fine.

OP, ignore the press and apologists here.

Glug glug cuckoo cuckoo bitch bitch bitch.

R1 post is a complete LIE

Sandy was hired and signed BEFORE Valerie was fired.

They wanted to make sure they secured Sandy services before giving Val the boot.

Sandy never spoke to Valerie about it.

The reason why Val won the lawsuit, is because both parties signed off on her revised contract.

All parties agreed to it, and both signed on the dotted line.

Then says later Val was fired.

Even though the show was never a ratings giant the show lasted a few years after they killed Harpers character off in a car accident. Same thing happened on Family Ties when it basically became the Michael J Fox show and the focus went off Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter. But they shut their mouths and went along with it knowing it the ratings went up due to Fox becoming the star. I may be wrong but I think Harper was producing it and receiving a piece of the show. Considering how popular Jason Bateman is the network may have been right shifting the focus to the kids. But I applaud Harper for not backing down to the them. Any sitcom involving kids theyre almost always going to upstage the adult characters.

[quote] I may be wrong but I think Harper was producing it and receiving a piece of the show.

You are not wrong, she and her husband produced it. Through her production company. Part of the win of her lawsuit includes owning a piece of the series.

[quote] But they shut their mouths and went along with it knowing it the ratings went up due to Fox becoming the star.

Meredith wrote in her book she ADORED Fox. At the time she was a battered wife at home, so Family Ties was a much needed distraction.

I liked Harper as the main character...I like Bateman too but I did stop watching the show once Harper was gone.

The networks side saying Harper was fired because she was mentally unstable

Valerie's side of the story

[quote]Meredith wrote in her book she ADORED Fox. At the time she was a battered wife at home,

no she wasn't. Even in her book her only allegations against him were that he was snide sometimes.

watch the Oprah show. The most she had to say was that he once walked out of a restaurant in Italy because they had a fight and he once said she ruined Thanksgiving.

those were the two big "incidents" the book was based on.

Merideth seems like a Boarderline or something.

R10 you better read the book again.

He hit her once, but his verbal abuse is considered battery and she was a battered wife.

its funny Valerie Harper I heard was mad at Sandy Duncan because she took the role. years later Valerie Harper stole the role from Patty Duke playing Golda Meir on tour.

r11=victim, just like Merideth

Sandy felt terribly guilty about being cast for the role. One night, she drove to Valerie's house and said: Look me in the eye and tell you forgive me.

Because her husband, Tony Cacciotti, was a demanding bitch. He screwed it up the way Edgar Rosenberg screwed up Joan Rivers' talk show.

Just when will Valerie Harper leave Valerie anyway?

How come Sandy Duncan doesn't work anymore. Is she opposed to working in LA? I thought she'd be like Cloris Leachman - always turning up on some sitcome as someone's grandmother or aunt.

Sandy sends Valerie a box of Wheat Thins every year on the anniversary of her taking over on The Hogan Family.

How could anyone buy John Hilerman as the father of Sandy Duncan and Josh Taylor?????

Harper was pretty stupid to pick a Miller-Boyett produced shitcom for her comeback vehicle. Did she really expected any kind of sophisticated humor from those hacks?

I recall that Valerie was asking for superstar pay. I think that was the main reason; however, if she thought she was worth whatever that sum was, she was probably a prima donna, as well.

The way Alan Hamel screwed up Suzanne Sommer's career?

My dad used to refer to Sandy Duncan as "Cockeye," LOL.

Harper was not a demanding bitch in any way. It was HER show and she had control over the direction of it. The producers treated her badly.

Sandy Duncan did call Harper to talk it over and air out any possible bad blood. It was in People Magazine.

[quote]...but his verbal abuse is considered battery and she was a battered wife.

That means 75% of the straight married men are battered husbands.

I batter myself everytime I look in the mirror.

Who does Michelle Veintimilla play in The Visit and why is it getting her a photo shoot with Chita and Roger? (Looks like Tom Nelis is playing one of the eunuchs, which makes sense).

So sorry, I just posted in the wrong thread.

The real story was Valarie said she only had three months to live. So NBC went out and hired Sandy Duncan.

Surprise, surprise, Valarie lived on...

NBC called her a liar and well you know the rest.

I'd love to see this show in reruns.

I'd love to see this show in reruns.

R15 nailed it. He has a terrible reputation. No one wants to deal with him.

To be fair, who wants to be married to a woman who will lie on national TV about dying.

[quote] Sandy Duncan did call Harper to talk it over and air out any possible bad blood. It was in People Magazine.

Link please

Whatever happened to Josh Taylor? He was really handsome in that show.

R35 he is on Days of our Lives

Does chemotherapy tighten your pussy?

Whatever happened to that flaming boy who played the prissy twin? Did he ever go on to do anything else?

Sandy felt so bad for taking over the job that Valerie had been fired from she arranged for Valerie to get a lifetime supply of Wheat Thins.

Sandy also promised to put in a good word for Valerie if she ever wanted to play the part of Peter Pan on t.v. and she offered to get Valerie's named added to the credits of Roots even though Valerie wasn't in it.

Valerie was so angry and insulted by this act of pity and condescension that she called up Mary Tyler Moore and Chloris Leachman and all three of them waited for Sandy in the t.v. studio girls bathroom and they all took turns pummeling Sandy without mercy.

The beat-down was so bad that Sandy had to get a new glass eye.

This was reported in U.S. News and World Report and 60 Minutes did a story about it.

Wow R42, I didn't know teenage girls from the 1980s even knew Datalounge existed.

R41, I would have believed you if you used Clitoris Leachman's correct name.

The actual story was that Valerie was having creative differences with the writers and producers. NBC was happy because they wanted a vehicle for Jason Bateman for a long time.

When Val got demanding NBC let her go and Val was not shy about talking about it.

The big difference was Val had a financial stake in the show before the problems. So instead of going to court, she paid a private "arbitrator" to settle it and the producers agreed to it. Valerie said, she believed she was right but realized how Hollywood worked and didn't want it to get around she was hard to work with. And if it took years to get through the courts, the truth, over time, would be lost and disputed.

By going to binding arbitration the case was resolved fairly quick and in her favor and she wound up with a total of 25% stake. This made the big difference as now Harper had no incentive to knock or run down or even talk about the show, since she'd lose money in the long run and she was getting a nice paycheck for doing nothing AND she was free to work on other projects.

As for the ugly pissy twin Mark, he turned out to be straight, go figure huh?

Here Valerie on Hour Magazine after winning her lawsuit

I've told this story here on DL before. It's my Hogan family story from the late 80s.

One night my best friend and I got really drunk and decided to write a fan letter to Edie McClurg. We asked for autographed photos for both of us and thought that since we were asking her, that we'd send her one of us. So we took a Polaroid selfie. We told her that we loved her and that we were very drunk.

Several weeks later, we both got autographed photos from her and a note that said she "loves ALL her fans, drunk or sober".

The story at R41 was not that funny, but I can't help but laugh. Maybe its my hangover.

Do you think Valerie well outlive Sandy?

Why didn't anyone ever cast Peter Falk and Sandy Duncan in a series? Glass half full or The Eyes Have it.

Wasn't there also a story about her trying to renegotiate her contract for more money and not showing up for work, thus her being fired? I could have sworn I read something like that around the time it was taking place. It was kind of like what Suzanne Somers did.

R52 what happened was she was in contract negotiations, and went on strike until the contact was settled.

A few days later both parties came to an agreement. After both parties signed the contract, Val went back to work and filmed one episode.

The next week she was fired,

That was the issue of the lawsuit. The contract was settled, both sides agreed to it, and both sides literally signed on the doted line.

Then a week later she was fired,

[quote]Why didn't anyone ever cast Peter Falk and Sandy Duncan in a series? Glass half full or The Eyes Have it.

This week's special guest star: Sammy Davis, Jr.!

again Valerie Harper stole Patty Duke's role as Golda Meir on the tour of the play

Thanks R48. I love her. Shocked to see Edie is only 63... meaning she was in her 20s and 30s while starring in WKRP, Ferris Bueller, Valerie, etc. She looks the same as she did 30 years ago.

I think Edie McClurg was born middle-aged. She was only in her mid-30s in Ferris Bueller and she looked like she was pushing 50.

For some reason, I'll always remember what Rex Reed said about Sandy as replacement, "yesterday's mashed potatoes." His female cohost said you're so mean, but Sandy was blandsville.

[quote]I think Edie McClurg was born middle-aged.

Edie played a teenager in Carrie (see below).

A few years later she already was playing middle-aged women -- I remember her doing fortyish-fiftyish "Mrs. Marv Mendenhall" on David Letterman's daytime show in the early 1980s.

Couldn't have been nice for her ego, but it's been a great run that a lot of other character actresses haven't had.

McClurg is one of those actors who make a decent living and have long careers without becoming famous. Just looked her up on IMDB and wondered if she's a lesbian. She's been a working actress for forty damn years but no one would care (or be surprised) if she's gay.

Anyone know?

Why do you all keep saying that Sandy Duncan has an artificial eye? She doesn't. Urban legend.

Yeah, like Wiki is a good source.

Edie was also on Letterman's nighttime show, playing a character, I guess that Mendenhall. So she had a scripted spiel to recite, and I remember asshole David breaking the 4th wall to point that out, sort of embarrassing her for no reason. He was always looking for a gotcha, but would've been more polite with a real star (not to diss Edie, but she's a character actress, and wasn't famous at all at the time.) Letterman can be such a cranky old coot.

First of all, eyes are not made of glass and in any case, Duncan doesn't have one.

"Meanwhile, shortly after the premiere, Duncan underwent surgery on her left eye to remove a benign tumor. As a result, she lost vision in the eye (It was not replaced with a prosthetic eye, as some urban myths claim)."

[quote]McClurg is one of those actors who make a decent living and have long careers without becoming famous. Just looked her up on IMDB and wondered if she's a lesbian. She's been a working actress for forty damn years but no one would care (or be surprised) if she's gay. Anyone know?

She's straight -- had boyfriends, but nothing long-term that I ever heard about. Brainy and a little reserved.

There's another Groundling who also specialized in middle-aged roles from an early age: Mindy Sterling, who played Dr. Evil's henchwoman in all the Austin Powers movies and has been in dozens of TV things. She's a doll.

Why are you trying to keep this never-married, childless woman in the closet, R65?

Just kidding! :) If Edie was another type of actor, I'm sure you'd see plenty of that, though.

Thanks for the info. The fact that she seemed old when she was so young has made her kinda ageless.

I've always liked her, and I was surprised by her age.

Found this re Sandy - she lost sight in her eye and had stitches.

First time I saw Edie in anything was that Cheech and Chong movie where she played the uptight mother until she got in the van with the boys. She was a riot.

I couldn't believe Edie was in Carrie.

r57, Edie is older than her bios claim. She is pictured in several University of Missouri at Kansas City yearbooks from the years 1963-1966. You can view these on Ancestry.com.

Their public records index lists her as being born in 1945.

An Edie interview from a few years ago.

That's right, Mrs. Poole is taking over the thread.

Last year there was a rumor that a new Bewitched might happen. Edie was who I thought should play Gladys Kravitz.

Edie would bring a cheerful menace to the role. Not just simple nosiness, but nosiness with a malignant purpose, masked behind that (clearly fake) chipper smile.

It probably wouldn't be a good idea to cast a 70 year old Gladys Kravitz in a new Bewitched, unless you wanted to raise the odds that there would be a repeat of the original need to recast.

Valerie should have called that fat slob, Roseanne to discuss "creative differences."

[quote]How come Sandy Duncan doesn't work anymore. Is she opposed to working in LA?

I think she's dead, isn't she?

No, you're thinking of Sandy Dennis.

Sandy Dennis is dead. Dead! DEAD.... DEADDDDD!

I sort of remember part of the theme song to one of Sandy Duncan's sitcoms.

If you only

Had a penny

To your name

You would give it to buy

Unsightly ribbons for her hair

70 is not what it was 40 years ago, R73. I believe Edie would be fine, especially since the first Mrs. Kravitz died from cancer at 48, rather than old age.

Sandy Duncan did a nude shot on one of her sitcoms.

Buck never would have been fired from a show named after him.

Mary would have never said that r82.

Beth would have.

Yes, but Buck's mother never did a sit-com with Valerie Harper. Oh well, once you have to explain the joke it's dead. Buck never would have missed the point as spectacularly as you did, R83.

Years ago, on the Gilda Radner-era SNL, there was a throwaway joke involving Sandy Duncan. In the background of the sketch, a radio was playing, and Don Pardo intoned, "And now Sandy Duncan, for Viewmaster."

Then Sandy Duncan's distinctive nasal voice was heard saying, "What? I don't see anything. What? I don't get it..."

Edie was on a recent episode of NCIS and part of the plot was the agents were trying to figure out which person at the airport was an assassin and I very badly wanted it to turn out it was Edie.

Alas, no.

[quote]Why do you all keep saying that Sandy Duncan has an artificial eye? She doesn't. Urban legend.

Urban legend? What's urban about it? It was and probably still is a common misconception. Everyone knew Sandy Duncan went blind in one eye. It's an easy mistake to assume that meant she lost the eye and not merely its sight.

What's amazing is that Sandy Duncan could continue to dance - and not dance like you. She's a real dancer.

She was so pretty on that show.

Edie McClurg is not doing well, allegedly.

Sadly, almost at the same time Edie get crowned DL Fave we find out she has dementia.

Funny IMDb has the show listed as Valerie I thought it was changed to The Hogan Family

[quote]R4 They wanted to make sure they secured Sandy services before giving Val the boot.

She had other offers?

I figured the PTB weren’t gonna take anymore guff from female sitcom upstarts with bossy husbands.

I liked the show better with Valerie. I remember reading that Sandy had a development deal with NBC, but I guess nothing was in the pipeline, so they offered her The Hogan Family instead.

The show treated Valerie horribly and she deservedly won.

Even if she was a diva and her husband was an asshole, she and the producers came to an agreement and signed a contract. Then they reneged and she was fired. Dumb on their part because there was a contract.

Like the Suzanne Somers case, if this happened today, there would be overwhelming support for Valerie and Suzanne on social media, etc. For Valerie especially since she had resolved the matter.

Les Moonves was the head of Lorimar during this show's run and until Warner Bros. purchased it. Go figure.

We all know you can believe Valerie Harper

I see a light. Should I walk toward it , queers ?

I don't remember much about The Hogan Family except the airline pilot father was sexy as fuck and I wanted to see him nude or at least shirtless.

Why didn't they just re-cast with Valerie Perrine or Valerie Bertinelli? It would have solved everything.

Valerie Bertinelli was too Young at that time.

Val held out for money. She was not mistreated. She was a diva.

A deal is a deal. It was HER show!

Suzanne's situation was totally different. She asked for too much and to this day thinks she is a martyr for women everywhere.

Valerie moved forward and didn't hold grudges. She and her HUSband even donated their money to charity.

Val didn’t hold grudges cause she got paid.

She had no business holding out for more money.

Suzanne heard Larry Hagman was making $100k per episode for Dallas, which was UNHEARD OF then, so she wanted more than him cause she felt she was an even bigger star. She asked for more than double what Hagman was making.

Gary Coleman also managed to wring a lot of money out of Tandem Productions for [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic]; I think at one point he was second only to Larry Hagman and Carroll O'Connor in how much money he made. And he ended up seeing very little of it.

Gary Coleman is a very sad story.

[italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] takes away the excuse for why the kids from [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] didn't work much after it since Jason, Ricky, and Alfonzo all got series after it. And it also makes it all the more coincidental that this show and [italic]ALF[/italic] got pushed off NBC for [italic]The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air[/italic], which the network produced in-house.

Lorimar was a non-entity in sitcoms before this show premiered. The pilot for what eventually became [italic]She's The Sheriff[/italic] had been made several years earlier with Caroline McWilliams, but they mainly did dramas prior to Miller and Boyett parting company with Garry Marshall and Paramount Television. They also merged with Telepictures around this time (1986), and this is also when they brought back [italic]Mama's Family[/italic] and [italic]It's A Living[/italic]. Their only other sitcoms prior to this were [italic]The Good Life[/italic], a Screen Gems co-production with Larry Hagman and Donna Mills, and [italic]Just Our Luck[/italic], a show about T.K. Carter, later of [italic]Punky Brewster[/italic] (which NBC never even tried to air opposite anything other than [italic]60 Minutes[/italic]) a black genie to a white "master" the NAACP protested into oblivion.

[quote]Suzanne heard Larry Hagman was making $100k per episode for Dallas, which was UNHEARD OF then, so she wanted more than him cause she felt she was an even bigger star. She asked for more than double what Hagman was making.

Don Murray made that same gamble with [italic]Knots Landing[/italic]. He lost.

I wonder why Christine Ebersole got the ax and was replaced by Judith Kahan.

Despite being a 90-minute McDonald's commercial, [italic]Mac & Me[/italic] actually gave her something to do.

Sandy was funnier and more natural on The Hogan Family than Valerie was on Valerie. The show improved immensely when Val left.

I actually felt the show was better when Val left.

Judith Kahan and Christine Ebersole were good in other things but just never seemed to gel here, and they were instantly overshadowed by Edie McClurg.

R107 Wasnt Jason Bateman let go from the first season of Silver Spoons when he was like 13 because he was so charming as the frenemy Derek that audiences liked him better than the main kid, Ricky Schroeder?

I thought that was funny if true.

Bateman was very charismatic since young.

They gave him [italic]It's Your Move[/italic] so that Ricky would not be led into temptation.

Wasn't Roman Brady the dad?

I've seen a few reruns of Silver Spoons recently and was wondering why Jason Bateman left. He was better than AR.

Why was his show not a spinoff?

Sandy Duncan definitely fit in better with what the producers wanted (obviously). You could tell with Valerie there were two tones to the show and it was an uneasy mix.

The [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] thread is here so this one can stay on topic.

Valerie and her dance partner Tristan McManus were being interviewed when they were on Dancing With the Stars.

Tristan prided himself on having never seen MTM or Rhoda; that she was only Valerie to him, not her character.

So the interviewer asked Tristan in front of Valerie: "Can a person lose 10 lbs. by 8:30?"

Tristan was like, um, what time is it now?

Valerie burst out laughing.

[italic]ALF[/italic]'s ratings fell out of the Top 30 when the Tanners had another baby and [italic]The Simpsons[/italic] came on and started poaching their writing staff, and [italic]Hogan[/italic] also fell with it. Even though ABC had most of M-B's other shows, CBS, who was almost in as bad a shape then as NBC had been 10 years earlier, took it off their hands and put it on Saturday at 8:30 after another new show from the same producers called [italic]The Family Man[/italic] with Gregory Harrison as a fireman. It fizzled out in a short time and they put this show on hiatus only to burn off the rest of what ultimately was the last season in the summer of 1991. They fell from #32 to #85. ABC had [italic]The Young Riders[/italic] against it, which was also cancelled, and so was every show NBC tried to put in the pre-[italic]Golden Girls[/italic] time slot.

[quote]Meredith wrote in her book she ADORED Fox. At the time she was a battered wife at home, so Family Ties was a much needed distraction.

But didn’t she end up shooting him? But she got a light sentence because she was a battered wife.

No it was Madonna who shot foxes when she was pretending to be British.

BTW, she's doing an excellent job playing Norma Desmond in a performance art piece she's been work shopping on the internet.

Although, I don't think posting all those pics is really what Desmond meant when she said "We had faces then."

But hey, if Madonna wants to post pics of every new face she gets, I guess that's her interpretation of it.

Who do you think will play Max? I'm guessing Sean Penn but he's so hard to look at.

Has Rupert Everett's face settled yet?

Why does someone post about Madonna in threads that have absolutely nothing to do with her?

Are you that obsessed with her?

Do you think Valerie ever tried black cock?

One of those sitcoms where the supporting character became the breakout star and the actual star of the show was PISSED. It happened a lot in the 80s. It was usually the guy who played the oldest son who turned into a teen idol, but sometimes it was another cast member, like Jackee on 227.

[quote]Valerie should have called that fat slob, Roseanne to discuss "creative differences."

I'm sure Roseanne reached out to her last year.

Didn't that happen on Rhoda where Julie Kavner became the breakout star and was the funny one?

Since Fame the series had just ended, Valerie Landsenberger would have been the perfect choice

Or Valerie Perrine. Now that’s a sitcom I would’ve watched.

est started to backfire on Valerie Harper.

[quote]One of those sitcoms where the supporting character became the breakout star and the actual star of the show was PISSED.

Ummm.... didn't it happen on MTM? Valerie was the breakout and got her own spinoff. I don't think Mary resented her at all -- but maybe that's because Mary's company produced both shows.

It probably happened the way she said.

Rhoda wasn't the breakout star, Mary was always the star of MTM.

[quote] Do you think Valerie ever tried black cock?

Or Jason Bateman?

A male poster on here said he hooked up with Bateman in the early 90s. Versatile, flip-flop fucking all night. The post was very detailed, but who knows.

Really? I always pictured him as a total top.

Lots of guys are versatile.

How would they know details?

r141 the poster himself gave lots of details about the whole thing. Where they met, etc. It was a while ago, I can't remember the exact thread.

But how would the poster know the details about Alfonso and Jason? It’s made up, honey

Details about he night he hooked up with Bateman, r144. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Janet Hubert must have soured Alfonzo on black women since his wife is white.

R38 and R46, he appeared in a former child star campaign against Kirk Cameron's bigotry. (The clip is below.)

I don't remember either of the actors playing twins being flaming. Maybe you're thinking of that kid from Who's the Boss?

R148: That show made a better case for abortion than [italic]Maude[/italic].

My stepdad knew the kid from Who’s The Boss was gay since he was small

Yeah he got AIDS. We only want fresh and clean hasbeen grown up sitcom kids.

Who needs him when we got Chad Allen who could actually act?

[quote]I wonder why Christine Ebersole got the ax and was replaced by Judith Kahan.

Probably because she's INSANE!

She had to get a gimmick.

Shockingly, I wrote to my dear friend Scott a huge MTM/Valerie fan SIX years ago last week about Valerie's impending death.

My poor friend suddenly died weeks later, yet Valerie Harper is still with us!

Like someone above said Val didn’t really seem the right fit for a Miller/Boyett show.

Antenna runs the show now and I saw a couple of the Valerie ones the first time since the Original airing.

Writers don't appreciate actors telling them they suck.

Josh Taylor wore the pilot uniform very well.

He seemed to have better acting chemistry with Sandy than with Valerie in the few episodes I've seen.

They really wanted Valerie off. She not only died, but the house caught fire and destroyed almost all evidence she ever existed.

I used to watch this show all the time when I was a kid, but I have zero recollection of Valerie. I only remember Sandy. Weird.

How did they kill off Valerie on the show?

She died in a car crash. Her husband's a pilot and she died in a car crash. I say she was murdered.

I guess if an actor on a series wants a hefty pay raise, they have to get the other cast members with them and they all have to demand it, like Friends. When it's just one actor demanding a big raise, the network usually tells them to go fuck themselves, like Valerie and Suzanne Somers.

The cast of [italic]What's Happening!![/italic] tried that and ABC responded by cancelling it and the two other Bud Yorkin (sans Norman Lear) shows they had on at the time.

I listened on audiobook to Valerie's memoir I, Rhoda, and she said that she was concerned about the level of writing, that the audience wasn't laughing at the lines, and the producer told her they would sweeten it in the editing room.

Having come from the pinnacle of Mary Tyler Moore, and the pretty good Rhoda, this series, with that canned laughter, was quite a come down for her, even though she owned a piece of it, and it must've been very frustrating.

It was somewhat less stupid than the M-B shows on ABC, especially the abysmal [italic]Full House[/italic]. Once the legal dust was settled, it had its moments but it was never truly great TV. Sitcoms don't get any better than [italic]The Mary Tyler Moore Show[/italic], so of course you're going to be disappointed going from that to a more kid-centric show. The casting helped, as did the fact that Jason Bateman turned 18 while it was on the air.

Valerie/The Hogan Family obviously wasn't a great sitcom, but it was better than other shows that were on at the time like Family Matters or Full House which were just utter garbage.

[italic]Dinosaurs[/italic] was the only good TGIF show.

Sitcoms in the 80s were mostly family-centered, and most of them were utter shit. It must've been frustrating for actors and writers after all the great adult-centered sitcoms in the 70s like MTM and All In the Family. In the 80s, for every one Cheers or Golden Girls you had 10 ALFs or Websters.

[italic]MTM[/italic] and [italic]All in the Family[/italic] overlapped with [italic]The Brady Bunch[/italic] and [italic]The Partridge Family[/italic], R169.

r169 the latter two were basically put out of business by the former two. The Norman Lear show really did change the landscape. At least for a while. In the 80s it was right back to stupid family-oriented sitcoms.

And the stupidest one of all was [italic]Who's the Boss[/italic] which came out of Embassy the year before Lear and Jerry Perenchio unloaded it on Coca-Cola. Warner Bros.' [italic]Growing Pains[/italic] was almost as bad, and making it worse yet is that Alan Thicke had been a writer on a very funny Lear show called [italic]Fernwood 2Night[/italic], which was on YouTube until Sony called the copyright cops and had it pulled off.

Judith Light's talents were wasted on Who's the Boss. An excellent actress, and all she could get was that shit show. At least she made a ton of $$$ off of it!

She reminds me of the one woman in synagogue you never want to sit next to.

[quote]At least she made a ton of $$$ off of it!

And nickel and diming the later years of our shows to do it!

The FOL girls' craft services budget almost bankrupted the company, they had no choice to cut back!

The writers must've hated Valerie's guts. They could've just killed her off with a heart attack or something but instead they had her in a horrible car crash and if that wasn't enough they burned the damn house down too. It was like "fuck you BITCH! We're SO glad you're outta here!"

At least it wasn't a grease fire.

They did have some nice exterior cinematography of David running back to the house after he learns it burns down. They were capable of writing good stuff when they wanted to. The episode with Valerie on a diet was hilarious. But too often they took the easy way out. Valerie tried to get them not to. Sandy was more go-with-the-flow and she needed the money. She used the SAG strike next year to go back to Texas and enable the rise of the monster known as Barney the Dinosaur.

I hated the Angela/Tony romance on Who's the Boss, which is a rare for me not to like the main coupling. They never dated anyone else before they got together? How stupid. Tony was annoying in general.

I weep for how that show degraded Katherine Helmond when she was the heart and soul of [italic]Soap[/italic]. And it made people forget how good the first wave of Norman Lear sitcoms (1971-1978) were.

Tony Danza has always played a character named Tony on pretty much everything he's ever done. The joke is that he's so stupid he wouldn't be able to remember what his character's name was if it wasn't Tony.

This deconstruction is the perfect illustration of why I fucking LOVE this site and would die if it ever went offline.

Where the hell does all this knowledge come from? And it is not even slightly boring. Even thigh the topic itself is as pedestrian as it gets.

I love you people.

And to whoever mentioned [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic]: Mrs. Claxton (Nan Martin) and Mr. Ha-Ha (Alan Blumenfeld, who also kissed John Ritter on the lips in [italic]Problem Child 2[/italic]) were on this show on the concurrent season they were both on GG.

[quote]No, you're thinking of Sandy Dennis. Sandy Dennis is dead. Dead! DEAD.... DEADDDDD!

I used to have a movie reference book that once claimed Sandy Dennis was in [italic]The Million Dollar Duck[/italic] instead of Sandy Duncan.

I loved the episode where the kids played "keep away" with Sandy Duncan's glass eye. Sandy finally got the eye back when she grabbed a frying pan and smacked the slightly less homely twin in the balls.

I've been DVRing "Hogan Family" on Antenna TV for the last several months. As others have said, it wasn't a great sitcom but did have its moments. I like Valerie and Sandy both. The dynamic between Sandy and Jason Bateman became fun to watch because she liked to needle him. Also wonder what happened to Tom Hodges, who played one of Bateman's friends, a blond jock. Just saw a nice episode where the Batman character locks Hodges in a closet because he's drinking too much at a party. Hodges was a pretty good actor. He left the show but returned in one of those very special episodes. Out of the blue the character was diagnosed with AIDS and died.

Meanwhile, Bateman's other friend was a classic Miller-Boyett nerd in the Urkel mode but unfunny. Have to imagine any laughter he generated came from the editing room.

I remember how [italic]Beavis and Butt-Head[/italic] used to use Stewart Anderson's affinity for these shows as an example of his uncoolness.

Valerie was on at 3.10pm in uk. Daytime tv. I used to bunk off school to see Jason, officially my first crush. Only recently u said tgis on FB and was astonished to see many of my childhopd girl 'friends' say the same. I remember being disappointed when it suddenly became The Hogan family..as Valerie H was TV class havng been Rhoda. Sandy seemed like a kids tv presenter..over acting. Yrs later, in Golden girls re-runs, i was delighted and intrigued by 'digs' at the Valerie situation. Back then i just didnt know what had happened. Still love Jason today...and only later realised hed been on Little House.

So did they have Valerie get hit by a drunk driver and die? Like the mom from Full House?

Or was it just a regular car accident?

R190, no car accident. I believe she died in a house fire.

Before Sandy was cast, producers toyed with the idea of replacing Valerie Harper with Sonja Harper to appeal to a younger, hipper audience. It was also hoped her brother Buzz would make recurring appearances.

When they approached Harper she responded, "In your dreams!"

It was for the best. She was never funny or interesting. That is why I always avoided my friend Thelma's home when she lived there.

I used to live near the house used for exteriors.

It is still there.

I remember R2 from the original post and still laugh at it now.

Bravo, Miss R2.

Valerie Harper is a nice lady in Hollywood.

R191, really? I also thought she died in a car accident. I just saw an ep with Sandy Duncan where their house is on fire. Weird they would do an ep like that when they killed her off the same way.

Josh Taylor must have been happy when Valerie left since he got more airtime afterward.

I always wondered how the twins could be twins when the thick one was obviously Latino. He had some major cakes too, when they got older on the show.

As stated above, the writers killed Valerie off in a horrible car accident and then decided to burn the house down to get rid of any trace of her. She really must have pissed them off something fierce. They were all basically "DIE bitch DIE!"

Jason Bateman was on Stern a few years ago and talked about the episode where the house burns down and he was pretty funny about it.

I like the episode where Sandy decides to work out at home, thinking her workout video is still in the VCR, but it's the porno tape Mark and Willie couldn't eject.

Plus I think one of plot points of the fire , was the fire destroyed all the pictures of Valerie .. I always thought the fire was over kill.. the producers really hated her . I am surprised they didn’t write in that she brutally raped, right before the car accident

When I was a kid, I was aware of the backstage drama but it didn't really dawn on me how cruel it was what they did to Valerie's character. It really was unprofessional on the side of NBC, Lorimar, the producers, writers, etc. Even if Harper was a complete bitch, there was no need to do that. They didn't even reference Valerie again for the rest of the series, if I recall correctly.

That's why I was happy to see Valerie awarded damages.

The house didn't burn down! The fire damaged the attic and second floor. There was also no mention of everything Valerie-related burning up. There was a scene where Bateman's character discovers a charred photo of either the family or Valerie. I love how so many of you are just making stuff up.

Either later in that episode or the next one, the family stays with the Pooles next door, which I think was the ep that introduced Willard Scott as Mr. Poole. And then amazingly the following week the Hogans' house was back to normal.

Nobody could do "Midwest Frau" like Edie McClurg. She was brilliant at that particular type. Her brief scene in Planes Trains and Automobiles is still hilarious.

A thread with this topic reaching 200+ posts is truly an "Only on Datalounge" experience.

Can you imagine what went on in the writer's room?

"Hey, how about we burn down Valerie's house for shits and giggles this week?"

"Sounds hilarious! Let's do it."

The writers probably wanted Valerie to die in the house fire and the kids to find her charred corpse, but of course that would've been too much for network tv in the 80s.

Well, actually, they probably could've gotten away with it on Cheers with Shelley Long.

[italic]Cheers[/italic] never would have done that to Diane, and the audience wouldn't have accepted Rebecca if they did that. To kill off one leading lady in 1987 is one thing, but two?

A lot of 1980s sitcoms did fire episodes. [italic]Webster[/italic], [italic]Punky Brewster[/italic], and [italic]The Facts of Life[/italic] used it to spark a change of either their home or their business.

This was a much more controlled fire. R204 is correct; the whole house didn't burn down, just the parts with most of the evidence that Valerie Hogan ever existed. They made it clear that this ain't [italic]Dallas[/italic] and she ain't comin' back.

[quote]Meanwhile, Bateman's other friend was a classic Miller-Boyett nerd in the Urkel mode but unfunny.

He was nothing compared to me.

I think that a car crash is a respectable way to kill off a character.

R208, no way. Diane was an iconic character. Valerie, not so much.

R194 has the saddest "claim to fame" tale ever posted on the DL.

Life is such a sweet insanity.

The more you learn the less you know.

What the Hell does that even mean?

Jason Bateman really did look like he could've been the biological son of Valerie Harper and Josh Taylor. The two younger sons looked like they came from the Gypsies.

Interesting that Lorimar would hire Suzanne Somers for Step By Step considering her own salary issues. I guess they paid her well enough to keep her happy and not cause a snit fit.

Wasn't it that Valerie drove her car into the garage and crashed into the water heater and that's what started the fire? Valerie was left unconscious and died in her car, so both the house fire and car crash are correct.

Why did the boys call their aunt "Sandy"?

Weird!

It seems all was forgiven at SOME point!

I met Valerie Harper and she was nice as pie.

I wonder if Sandy only gets her prescription put in one lens.

R215 I think just that the longer you live, and the more you experience, the less it makes sense. I was 46 when Trump was elected and nothing in my life that had happened before could've prepared me for that eventuality. After 46 years of life experience, I was really thrown for a loop and shocked in a way I didn't think possible.

Not a very "sweet" insanity, but I think that's the kind of thing they mean. Just when you think you know everything, BOOM something wonderful or terrible happens that you never would've expected.

Charlie Hauck, the creator of this show, was one of the writers and producers of [italic]Maude[/italic], if you can believe it.

[quote] Interesting that Lorimar would hire Suzanne Somers for Step By Step considering her own salary issues. I guess they paid her well enough to keep her happy and not cause a snit fit.

More likely she was grateful for getting a second chance with [italic]She's the Sheriff[/italic] and a third chance with that show.

Suzanne had a ton of $$ by then from the Thighmaster and all of her home shopping products for lonely fat women, so I'm sure she wasn't as obsessed with getting big tv money anymore.

Didn't Valerie die from the brain cancer?

We have stopped putting her on the Dead Celebrities list.

Don't forget the Vagisizer, r224.

[quote]He was nothing compared to me.

Or me!

R228: He was better than you if Jason still could make room for him to have a small role in [italic]Game Night[/italic].

I remember being really into this - even more than some of the biggest sitcoms of the day. I don't really get it, though, because there wasn't any big hook?

Speaking of sitcom disasters, WEBSTER burned down the house in Season 2, and the uterus clutching episode of Webster where Ma'am Papadopolis loses her baby and crawls to the bathroom in her pink outfit (from later that season) with the shoulder pads is online.

That storyline was ludicrous!

Everyone knows post-op trannies can't get knocked up!

I agree with that poster about Trump - him being president is something I still can't believe is real.

They thought they needed a lead actress who would be comfortable asking for more money, Rose.

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