The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Allan Burns and Chris Hayward. Developed by Norm Liebmann and Ed Haas.

Theme song composed by Jack Marshall

• 000. My Fair Munster (Pilot) – UNAIRED 1964
  • Marilyn’s latest date Jack runs for his life when he sees Herman, so consequently she begins to feel depressed that she hasn’t found a man. Marilyn and his wife Phoebe (Joan Marshall) think that Marilyn is an ugly duckling and that she’ll never get married and get out of the house. Grandpa decides to help by creating a love potion in his dungeon. Happy Derman is Eddie. NOTE: This is the 13-minute color pilot footage used to pitch the series to CBS. 4/13/20

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VALERIE – SEASON 1 – NBC

Created by Charlie Hauck

Theme song: “Together Through the Years” written by Charles Fox and Stephen Geyer, and performed by Roberta Flack 

NOTE: The series was titled “Valerie” for the first two seasons, then re-tooled and titled “Valerie’s Family” for the third season, and finally “The Hogan Family” for the final three seasons. 

• 001. Old Enough – 3/1/1986
  • Valerie Hogan (Valerie Harper) is a wife and mother living in Chicago suburb Oak Park, Illinois, with her husband Michael (Josh Taylor), who, as an airline pilot is often absent from the house, and their sons, 16-year-old David (Jason Bateman), and twin 12-year-olds Willie (Danny Ponce) and Mark (Jeremy Licht). One morning as Michael is heading out for a flight to Japan, Valerie finds herself introducing her entire family to a repairman named Bob (William Schilling) who has come to fix the refrigerator and winds up breaking the freezer. Mark is diligently trying to get his homework done, while Willie is more of a slacker. David keeps asking incessantly if he can borrow the car over the weekend. When Willie spills syrup at the table and it gets all over David’s pants, Valerie is forced to wash them. Michael’s sister Caroline (Francine Tacker) stops over for a visit, and while they are chatting, Valerie finds a note in David’s pocket from an older woman named Lisa Straub (Lisa Sutton). Valerie confronts David about this, and he admits that he is seeing a twenty-four-year-old. Valerie immediately demands that he stop seeing her, causing him to storm off in rebellion. She reconsiders and agrees to have Lisa over for lunch, mostly so she can serve all of the food that she had to remove from the freezer. Valerie finds Lisa to be annoying and stupid, and after their lunch, she again forbids David to see her. David avows that she can’t stop him, and she agrees that physically she can’t, but tells him that if he defies her, things will never be the same between them. On the night of the date, Valerie lets him have the car keys as promised, and he goes to see her. He arrives at Lisa’s apartment late with a speech at the ready. He fumbles through talking about gray areas of relationships, before finally telling her that he has to break up because his mother won’t let him see her. David returns home and delivers the good news to Valerie. She is thrilled with his mature decision and tells him he can have his own keys to the car… to which he tells her that he’s already made a set. 2/27/21

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SEASON 1 – ABC

Created by Neal Marlens and Carol Black

Theme Song: “With a Little Help from My Friends” written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by Joe Cocker

• 001. Pilot – 1/31/1988
  • Kevin Arnold (voice of Arye Gross) narrates the recollection of his younger self (Fred Savage) as he gets ready to enter school and Robert F. Kennedy Junior High in 1968, and his life in the suburbs of Anytown, USA. His father Jack (Dan Lauria) is a manager at the defense contractor NORCOM, and his mother Norma (Alley Mills) stays at home. Kevin has an older brother named Wayne (Jason Hervey) and an older hippie sister named Karen (Olivia d’Abo). He has been friends with neighbors Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano) and Gwendolyn “Winnie” Cooper (Danica McKellar) since early childhood. Winnie’s older brother Brian (Bentley Mitchum), who was the idol of the neighborhood kids and often defended Kevin when Wayne would pick on him, is sent to Vietnam. Kevin starts his first day at the new school at the bus stop, where he sees Winnie dressed in a cut outfit and is stunned by his feelings for her. At lunch that day, Winnie joins him and Paul at the table elevating his hopes that he might achieve some popularity by being her friend. However Wayne quickly squashes that by embarrassing him and teasing him about his crush on Winnie, causing him to declare that he doesn’t even like her and storm out of the lunchroom. He is stopped at the door by Mr. Diperna (Raye Birk), who says he cannot leave the lunchroom with his apple. In his anger, Kevin throws the apple back into the lunchroom, prompting him to be marched to the principal’s office where his parents are summoned to pick him up. Kevin dreads what will happen to him when he gets home, but upon arrival, they are all met at the door by Karen and Wayne who announce that Brian Cooper had been killed in Vietnam. Kevin takes a solo walk to the climbing tree in Harper’s Woods and finds Winnie there. He effortlessly comforts her in her grief by hugging her and sharing their first kiss. Robert Picardo is Coach Cutlip, the physical education teacher. Linda Hoy is Mrs. Ritvo, Kevin’s homeroom teacher. Sean Faro is the mean greaser with the locker next to Kevin. Dah-ve Chodan is the hot girl by his locker. Donnie Jeffcoat is Eric Antonio, and Jacqueline Square is Gail Aslaynian. NOTE: Daniel Stern took over the role as narrator Kevin in the next episode. He then recorded the narration for the syndicated and DVD versions of this episode. 2/28/21

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SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Nat Hiken. 

Theme music composed by John Strauss.

NOTE: The series was originally titled “You’ll Never Get Rich,” and was later referred to as “Sgt. Bilko” or “Bilko” in syndication. 

• 000. New Recruits aka Audition Pilot – UNAIRED 1955
  • At the Army base of Fort Baxter in Roseville, Kansas, Master Sergeant Ernest Bilko runs a very efficient operation of the motor pool of Company “B”, Third Platoon. In fact, he runs it so efficiently that he and his men, namely Corporal Rocco Barbella and Corporal Steve Henshaw (Jack Warden), have little to do other than engage in gambling and get-rich-quick schemes. The men try to milk their privates for every dollar they have. After Bilko is interrupted from his poker game to perform roll call, he tells his men that he lost his $250 bankroll to a trio of Master Sergeants. The men, knowing he’ll need a new bankroll, scatter. Bilko also gets a lecture form the Chaplain “Padre” Tom (Jimmy Little), who also shows him how the men likely cheated with a mirror behind him. Colonel John T. Hall is convinced by the chaplain that by assigning Bilko a new group of basic trainees, he won’t have the time to get involved with his schemes, and consequently, gambling on the base will go down. Most of Bilko’s platoon is transferred and the new recruits are moved in. One of the men, Private Higgins, the acting PFC of the squad, is looking to make the Army his career, so he balks at Bilko’s bending of the rules in order to get money out of this new crop of men. Bilko also has trouble getting money because the men have entrusted Higgins to hold their money for their next furlough. Bilko tries to think of ways to swindle the money, but when Higgins offers to have Bilko hold the money, and Bilko finds out that the Chaplain had told Higgins that Bilko was trustworthy, his conscience overtakes him and he then becomes protective of the money and refuses to use it for gambling. As much as Barbella and Henshaw try to convince him to use the money, and the fact that he deals himself four aces while mulling it over, he won’t budge. With the temptation so big, he finally returns the money to Higgins and tells him to watch it. Barbella and Henshaw stand guard of Higgins, while Bilko sleeps like a baby. NOTE: This is the pilot/audition film that is remade nearly word for word for the first episode. Most of the actors, although unknown and uncredited, are different with the notable exceptions of Phil Silvers and Harvey Lembeck. 2/28/21

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SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Whitney Blake and Allan Manings

Theme song: “One Day at a Time” written by Jeff and Nancy Barry

• 001. Ann’s Decision – 12/16/1975
  • Thirty-four year old Annie Romano (Bonnie Franklin), a newly divorced mother of two teenage daughters, moves herself and girls from Logansport, Indiana to Indianapolis, and gets an apartment and a job selling cosmetics. Her older daughter, the sixteen-year old Julie Cooper (Mackenzie Phillips) is attempting to arrange a camping trip with two other girls and three guys, and tries to get her mother’s quick approval to go. Annie doesn’t think it is a good idea and shuts it down quickly, leading to Julie storming off to her room. Her younger daughter Barbara Cooper (Valerie Bertinelli) is more congenial with her biggest current problem being the fact that she’s made the basketball team, but fears she won’t grow any longer. Annie also has to contend with her twenty-six year old lawyer David Kane (Richard Masur), whom she is casually dating but can’t see a future with because of their age gap, plus the building superintendent Dwayne Schneider (Pat Harrington, Jr.) who, despite being married, fancies himself a ladies man and is constantly hitting on Annie and letting himself in the apartment with his pass key. Julie emerges from her room and gives her mother an ultimatum that she will either let her go on the trip or she will return to her father Ed to live. Annie makes the quick decision to give Julie bus fare rather than be threatened. She quickly regrets it and calls Ed in a panic, after getting some advice from David that she should have at least sat down with Julie to discuss the matter. While she is talking to Ed, who is annoyed by there being two men in her apartment, Julie returns and tells her mother that she would miss her way too much to ever leave. Annie tells her that she still doesn’t want her going on the camping trip, but is going to allow it because she isn’t too sure of her decision. She also gives a speech to both girls about all of them sticking together through their mistakes. David offers to take all of the girls out to dinner, and Julie makes a phone call to her friend Trudy to tell her that despite the fight she put up, her mother wouldn’t allow her to go on the trip. 2/27/21

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