Fixing a failed 1992 sitcom set during the Founding.
Fixing a failed 1992 sitcom set during the Founding
O ne of the most entertaining ongoing conversations during this Semiquincentennial summer has been about depictions of the American Founding in popular culture. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton has reigned supreme in recent years, and before that there was another popular Broadway musical, 1776. Mel Gibson’s film The Patriot has plenty of fans, as does the HBO miniseries John Adams. The list of formative literature about the period includes Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride,” Cooper’s The Spy, and Esther Forbes’s Johnny Tremain. But I enjoy discussing a more obscure — and less successful — work, a busted sitcom pilot called 1775. Starring Oscar nominee Ryan O’Neal (Love Story, Paper Moon), this program had a solid premise with remarkable, albeit unrealized, potential to depict the Revolutionary era in clever ways.
When CBS aired 1775 on Saturday, September 5, 1992, the network billed it as a “special presentation” in an effort to lure viewers from its competition on the other networks: the college football opener between the No. 1 ranked Miami Hurricanes and the Iowa Hawkeyes, an episode of Cops, and a rerun of The Golden Girls. O’Neal stars as Jeremy Proctor, a Philadelphia innkeeper with a fashionable wife named Annabelle (Lesley-Anne Down) and three unmarried daughters. Naturally, Jeremy’s worried about money. Revolution is in the air and that’s bad for business. The rebellious youngest child is tired of riding the old family nag and wants a horse of her own. The vain and pretty middle child wants a boyfriend, but she must wait for her nerdy, homely older sister Maude to get married first. Desperate to reunite Maude with her ex, Jeremy and Annabelle decide to take the girls to the upcoming Freemason’s Ball. Tickets and gowns are expensive, though, so Jeremy asks for money from his brother-in-law, George Washington (Adam West). Although Jeremy’s improbably quick trip to Mount Vernon is fruitless, Annabelle gets the money from her sister Martha.
It’s all moot, though, because — surprise! — Maude doesn’t want to marry her ex. The final scene is a warped version of the hugging-and-learning cliché: Jeremy and Maude have a good talk about marriage, but he insults Annabelle, who then points a pistol at his crotch. That gets them both excited and they run upstairs in a fit of passion. Run applause track, roll credits (Executive Producers: Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had worked on Three’s Company and its two spinoffs), remind viewers to stay tuned for the network television premiere of Gorillas in the Mist.
It’s easy to understand why CBS didn’t buy more episodes of this weird show. Its ratings were awful. Variety declared, “O’Neal and company offer double takes and supposedly witty retorts, trying for the look of the best sitcoms, but here it’s painful to watch.” Yet weirder shows than this have had respectable runs — ABC aired 65 episodes of a sitcom about a family of dinosaurs, for Pete’s sake — and 1775 has some clever moments.
When Governor Massengill of Pennsylvania (played by Jeffrey Tambor; the actual governor at the time, John Penn, had a name not associated with a feminine hygiene brand) ponders new sources of revenue, Jeremy suggests, “Why don’t we just tax people’s incomes and be done with it?” Massengill replies, “No politician would ever be that stupid.” Not a bad line. There’s also a clever sight gag: as the vain daughter pinches her cheeks, she explains that she’s putting on her makeup. There’s bawdy revolutionary wordplay — “After your performance last night,” Annabelle says to Jeremy, “I wouldn’t be so critical of minutemen” — and period-appropriate potty humor — “My life is going into the porcelain chamber pot.”
And the premise was promising. The most obvious lineage for the show is the British comedy Blackadder, set during different periods of British history. Newhart and Fawlty Towers showed the variety of plots and characters that an inn can offer. Ultimately, though, 1775 spoofed family sitcoms. The set looks like every living room and kitchen you’d see on television in the ’80s and ’90s, and the opening sequence features a variation of the family portrait cliché — including a nod to the moment in the Growing Pains theme when the wife and kids leave the husband posing alone. There is a lot of good material in tweaking the conventions of that subgenre.
If only I had been a CBS executive in 1992, I could have saved the show by offering the kind of helpful notes that writers and producers always enjoy getting from suits. First, personalize the show and clarify its focus by changing the title to Founding Father. Second, add a son to the cast. Have him work at a printing press or join the Continental Army. And keep playing with sitcom conventions and plotlines. Have a nosy neighbor who’s a loyalist spy; have the parents talk to the kids about the need to drink more alcohol; have a character get addicted to coffee, a colonial version of overstimulated plotlines from Saved by the Bell, Family Ties, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Most of all, feature the historical figures visiting Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress. Write an episode based on the time John Adams and Ben Franklin needed to share a bed in New Brunswick. Their argument over whether to open the window could fuel an episode’s B-plot. Joke about Founders’ signature achievements: “I’m sorry Mr. Hancock, but there’s no room for you.” “At the inn?” “No, in the guestbook.” And replace Adam West with someone who won’t play Washington as what Variety called a “nincompoop.” Nate Bargatze’s “Washington’s Dream” sketches on Saturday Night Live show that Americans don’t mind laughing at the Founders, but we want them to have some dignity. Get Tom Selleck on the line.
And don’t forget that sitcom staple, the Very Special Episode. Have an episode arc with a boyfriend getting killed in battle. Have the British try to quarter troops at the inn. Tackle racial issues through slavery. The pilot has a black character who shines Washington’s boots and rolls his eyes at the man’s stupidity, but try an episode where the Committee of Five discusses the phrase “All men are created equal” and another with a slave-owning Southerner at the inn.
Founding Father — er, 1775 — could have been a funny show. And even if it weren’t historically accurate, it could have sparked interest in the period and even humanized the Founders by placing them in the familiar medium of a weekly sitcom. In an alternative universe, we’d have spent this summer watching classic episodes and quoting our favorite lines.