In CBS’ case, it was relatively transparent about the purpose of its anthology show: The network was clearly litmus testing. This phenomenon was eventually seen for what it was-filler-but it nonetheless brought some interesting ideas for shows to the small screen. But by the 1980s, cable had taken the wind out the concept.
#THE SMART ONE TV PILOT SERIES#
It was a little less obvious at first, because anthology series were common in the ‘70s. (As Television Obscurities notes, many attempts were made to repackage these pilots during the first 30 years or so of television’s mainstream success.) It makes sense-there was a long legacy of anthology shows like Love, American Style airing segments that were intended as backdoor pilots, a strategy that gave us a lot of junk, but also one of the most popular TV shows of all time, Happy Days.īut CBS Summer Playhouse, and equivalent shows for ABC ( Vacation Playhouse, which aired between 19) and NBC (under various names during the late 1970s, including Comedy Theatre, Comedy Time, and Comedy Theater) were essentially created to fill up space during a time of the year when people would rather be outside than watching TV. (Alas, audiences weren’t won over by puppeteer Richard Hunt’s considerable charms as a human actor.) The idea behind Puppetman was slightly ahead of its time-essentially a comedy about a puppet show, breaking the fourth wall in a way slightly closer to NewsRadio than The Muppet Show-but it wasn’t picked up, and CBS Summer Playhouse was something of a last ditch effort to see if audiences would really care. Ernie Tediumīut Puppetman, which can be seen here in full, didn’t make it past the pilot stage, so it was dumped into the CBS rotation as part of its anthology series CBS Summer Playhouse. We’re running head-first into development hell.
Today, Tedium talks about the tightrope of television-particularly television pilots, which are ruthless and kind of interesting. Nothing against the big paychecks that the actors on those shows likely got, but on a purely creative level, more ideas are thrown out in the television world than perhaps in any other industry. Which is why, in a weird way, it kind of makes sense that revivals have flooded streaming networks in recent years, including refreshes of Saved By the Bell, Animaniacs, and most recently Punky Brewster. Hell, that’s why one of the defining shows of the 1980s is called You Can’t Do That On Television. Today in Tedium: The idea that there should be limits on the quality of what ends up on or TV screens is a common one that’s been around for ages. Hey all, Ernie here with a freshly updated piece from the archives about a practice that was once common but you’re probably not aware of-how TV networks dumped unsold pilots on the air during the summer.
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