TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: Aaron Spelling (part 2)

Written By:

Alan Boon

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. Dedicated miners of this fecund seam begin to notice the same names cropping up, again and again, as if their whole career was based on a principle of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. What’s more, it isn’t all one-season failures and unsold pilots, there’s genuine gold to be found amongst their hoards; these men are surely the Titans of Telephemera!

Aaron Spelling

For many people, Aaron Spelling’s legacy begins and ends with Dynasty. If that were all he achieved, he could rest on his laurels as one of US TV’s moguls, bringing glitz and glamour into the homes of millions in a decade when Capitalism took a firm hold on the world it has since refused to relinquish. Perhaps other might remember him for Beverly Hills, 90210 or recall that he was the man who shepherded Charlie’s Angels into the world, but that’s to ignore a five-decade career in television, as an actor, a scriptwriter, and producer, turning a frail Jewish boy from Dallas, Texas, into a name synonymous with American television.

Spelling’s TV career began as an actor in I Led Three Lives and Dragnet in 1953, but never rose above small guest roles and switched to scriptwriting in 1956, selling his first script to The Jane Wyman Show. That same year, he produced a pilot for a TV show based on the popular radio series Box 13, and began working for Four Star Television as producer for western series Zane Grey Theater and Johnny Ringo in 1959, the latter of which he also created. While at Four Star, he enjoyed his first big hit in Burke’s Law, which starred Gene Barry as a millionaire police captain and established the star guest formula he’d employ on many of his later shows.

In 1965, Spelling signed a deal with United Artists Television to form his own production company – Aaron Spelling Productions, and over the next fifteen years Spelling would produce over a hundred TV shows and TV movies. While he had his fair share of misses, both near and not so (and we covered The Return of the Mod Squad (1979) in a previous edition of The Telephemera Years), Spelling began a period of huge success in 1975 with Starsky & Hutch, followed by Charlies Angels (1976), Family (1976). The Love Boat (1977), Fantasy Island (1977), Vegas (1978), and Hart to Hart (1979). We left off last time as Dynasty arrived, ensuring Spelling’s name would remain in lights throughout the 1980s, but the next few years – while free of the usual STARBURST fare – make for very interesting reading and were far from plain sailing…

. . .

Aaron Spelling Productions ended the 1981-82 Nielsen ratings with three shows in the top twenty, and another two at thirty and thirty-one, but the failure of Strike Force left them still looking to shore up their line-up, which already provided almost a quarter of ABC’s primetime offerings. As ever, a slate of potential new shows for the Fall 1982 line-up reached the pilot stage, with ABC given the pick of five such offerings that made it that far. They passed on Massarati and the Brain, which starred Daniel Pilon as a billionaire private detective solving crimes with the help of genius nephew (played by Peter Billingsley, soon to appear as Ralphie in A Christmas Story) and on sitcom Scared Silly, a John Astin-directed affair that featured Donovan Scott and stand-up comedian Jeff Altman as a pair of paranormal investigators hired to rid a spooky mansion of its resident spirit, written by The Jerk’s Michael Elias and Head of the Class creator Rich Eustis. They also decided against a full series for The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch, an Old West comedy which even Donny Osmond and an appearance from Dynasty’s Joan Collins couldn’t save.

More successful was Matt Houston, a strange chimera of a show that really shouldn’t have worked but nonetheless found its supporters at ABC and an audience on Sunday nights. Created by Lawrence Gordon, a solid hand who had worked with Aaron Spelling since Burke’s Law in 1963 and created The New People for Spelling in 1969, Matt Houston starred Lee Horsley – fresh from appearing as Prince Talon in The Sword and the Sorceror – in the title role, a wealthy Texan oil magnate who uses his spare time to moonlight as a private detective in Los Angeles. Despite a premise that had all the hallmarks of being created by throwing darts at a dartboard, Horsley carried the show with panache, aided by a solid supporting cast (which included Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century‘s Pamela Hensley as his lawyer sidekick) and a seemingly never-ending supply of murdered or robbed friends to provide casework.

In March 1983, the six Spelling shows were joined by a seventh as At Ease, which ABC had reserved as a mid-season replacement, took over a spot vacated by The New Odd Couple on Friday nights. The updated version of Neil Simon’s classic sitcom had failed to find an audience, despite (and hopefully not because of) an intriguing switch to have black actors in the roles of Felix and Oscar. and was cancelled after eighteen episodes. At Ease was a rare thirty-minute sitcom production from Spelling, set on a US Army base and starring David Naughton from An American Werewolf in London and Jimmie “Good Times“ Walker as computer technicians looking for an easy life. Essentially The Phil Silvers Show’s Sgt Bilko set-up but with computers instead of the motor pool, At Ease was created by National Lampoon writer John Hughes, who within a year would have writing credits on National Lampoon’s Class Reunion, Mr Mom, and National Lampoon’s Vacation, and who would make his directorial debut with Sixteen Candles in 1984.

Running for fourteen episodes, At Ease was not renewed for a second season, despite Hughes’s advances elsewhere, but Spelling still finished the 1982-83 season with three shows rating in the top twenty. What’s more, Dynasty was now the number five show and The Love Boat climbed into the top ten on the back of its usual parade of celebrity guests, which in season six included such needle-movers as Milton Berle, Ernest Borgnine, Lorne Greene, Florence Henderson, Mickey Rooney, and Adam West, as well as the ubiquitous Joan Collins and Spelling’s daughter Tori (who’d made her debut in an episode of Vega$ in 1981 and would play a string of small roles in his shows until striking out on her own in 1987, with negligible success). It is possible, though, that The Love Boat‘s renaissance was purely down to episode twenty-five’s double-bill of Catherine Bach and Heather Thomas, which presumably broke both the ratings and the zippers of many adolescent boys.

1983 brought a new hit show in the shape of Hotel, based on Arthur Hailey’s 1965 novel of the same name, a staple of second-hand bookshops all over the English speaking world from the mid-1980s onwards. Hotel had been adapted into a 1967 film starring Rod Taylor as hotel manager Peter McDermott, but for Aaron Spelling’s TV version – developed by John Furia Jr and Barry Oringer – it was James Brolin in the hot seat, working under rich owner Victoria Cabot (Anne Baxter), a change from the novel’s Warren Trent. Hotel debuted on September 21^st 1983 and became an instant hit, ending the year as the ninth most-watched show on US TV, using The Love Boat‘s guest star of the week formula to great effect. It was a welcome success for Spelling, who saw two other pilots – Shotting Stars, starring Billy Dee Williams and Parker Stephenson as two actors play private detectives who become private detectives for real when they are fired from their acting jobs, and hospital sitcom Venice Medical – fail to make it to series.

The success of Hotel was balanced out by a fall in viewing figures for The Love Boat, Matt Houston, Hart to Hart, and Fantasy Island (which had even jettisoned Hervé Villechaize’s Tattoo in an effort to turn things around). The latter two fell out of the top forty shows and were cancelled after three and seven seasons, respectively, but The Love Boat held on, still earning a 19.0 rating. TJ Hooker improved its position in the Nielsens to forty-one from fifty-three, while Dynasty flew even higher than before, adding almost two ratings points and beaten by only Dallas and 60 Minutes. With two shows out and only one show in, Spelling Productions lined up four new shows for ABC for Fall 1984. Velvet, an attempt to do a new version of Charlie’s Angels, starred Leah Ayres, Shari Belafonte, Mary-Margaret Humes, and Sheree J Wilson as four secret agents who worked undercover as aerobics instructors, but the network passed on taking it to series, perhaps wondering just how many scenarios would call for aerobics’ classes, even in the calisthenics-obsessed 1980s.

Of the other three pilots, two were greenlit for Fall and Glitter debuted first, starring David Birney and Morgan Brittany as crusading journalists working for the eponymous entertainment magazine. With each episode focussing on a number of stories being investigated by the magazine’s staff of writers, there was ample room for guest appearances, a formula that experienced creators Art Baer, Ben Joelson, and Nancy Sackett knew Spelling would find appealing. Going head-to-head with Simon & Simon on CBS and both Cheers and Night Court on NBC, Glitter struggled to attract an audience from the outset and was pulled from the schedule after just three episodes for a rethink. It was moved to a relatively attractive slot on Tuesday nights in December, with no serious competition from the other networks, but despite guest appearances from the likes of Linda Evans, Erin Moran, Markie Post, and Ginger Rogers, it lasted just three more episodes before disappearing once more. The final eight produced episodes were shown in December 1985 over a period of two weeks.

Starting nine days after Glitter, in a Saturday night slot with both TJ Hooker and The Love Boat as its lead-ins, Finder of Lost Loves was co-created by Art Baer’s nice Jill, alongside Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman creator Gail Parent and Christopher Vane. Baer had written a string of episodes for The Love Boat and, again, the Spelling formula obviously rubbed off, with this new show also leaning heavy on famous (or at least semi-famous) guest stars as the customers lining up to be reunited with former flames. Tony Franciosa starred as Cary Maxwell, a private detective who makes it his life’s work to play matchmaker after the death of his wife, with the help of Deborah Adair, fresh off a season on Dynasty, and Topper’s Anne Jeffreys. Tom Bosley, Kathy Lee Crosby, Buddy Ebsen, Leslie Nielsen, Dick Sargent, and Dick van Patten were among those seeking romantic assistance, but audiences were less keen and Franciosa’s agency was closed down after just one season.

With Glitter’s departure from the schedules in December 1984, another Spelling show was brought in as a mid-season replacement, this time one directly looking to take on Riptide, the NBC detective show that most appealed to those watching TV on Tuesdays at 9pm. From Strike Force creator Lane Slate, MacGruder and Loud was also looking to appeal to fans of Cagney & Lacey, CBS’s Monday night police procedural that also leaned heavy on the domestic dramas of its principals, Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly. John Getz and Kathryn Harrold starred as a married couple working together as LAPD detectives in a department where fraternisation between partners was strictly forbidden, and so the show was as much about them trying to keep their marriage a secret from their bosses as it was about the crimes they solved. Debuting right after Super Bowl XIX on January 20^th 1985 before settling into its regular Tuesday slot, ratings tumbled from the off and there was no sign of the show once the Fall 1985 schedules were released, a fate which also met Matt Houston, finishing up in July 1985 after three seasons.

TJ Hooker, which despite William Shatner’s star power had often struggled for ratings, should have joined Finder of Lost Loves and Matt Houston on the chopping block in the summer of 1985, and its final episode even threw a Hail Mary – never followed up on – which saw Hooker move to Chicago to work undercover on a drugs case. ABC did cancel the show, but CBS stepped in, albeit with a much-reduced budget and no Adrian Zmed (who left to host syndicated music show Dance Fever). It marked the first time since 1968’s The Danny Thomas Hour that an Aaron Spelling production aired on a network other than ABC, although Spelling’s relationship with the network was far from over, with Dynasty now the number one rated show, beating Dallas for the first time to claim that honour. Hotel, too, was doing well, coming in at number eleven in the Nielsen rankings for the 1984-85 season, although The Love Boat – once the jewel in the Spelling crown – was languishing down in the mid-forties, dangerously near to the threshold for cancellation.

The ongoing success of Dynasty made a spin-off inevitable, and The Colbys – initially rather obviously billed as Dynasty II: The Colbys – duly arrived in November 1985, developed by Dynasty producers Eileen and Robert Pollock, the husband-and-wife team responsible for the introduction of Joan Collins as Alexis Carrington into the show, one of a series of moves the pair made that turned Dynasty’s fortunes around. The Colbys focussed on an offshoot of the Colby family based in California, with an amnesiac Fallon Carrington Colby returning from the dead to become the main link between the shows, although much of the drama was provided by Charlton Heston and Stephanie Beachum as the warring married couple at the head of the California clan. With California providing a much more opulent location than boring old Denver, it was expected that The Colbys would soon surpass its parent show and it was accordingly handed a much bigger budget, although its premiere episode – aired with Dynasty as its lead-in, rated slightly less than its more established “rival.”

The Colbys was just one of just two new Aaron Spelling shows to debut on ABC that Fall, with another – International Airport, – stalling at the pilot stage. ABC were not convinced by the potential of a show set in a busy airport (which would, of course, have allowed for Spelling’s requisite guest stars), despite the presence of Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century‘s Gil Gerard, The Greatest American Hero’s Connie Sellecca, and Berlinda Tolbert from The Jeffersons among the airport’s staff. The pilot aired as a TV movie in May 1985.

Next time on Titans of Telephemera: What was Aaron Spelling’s other new show for 1985 and why did it fail? Also: Lucy!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: pre-1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1967 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1970 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1974 (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)