The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Gertrude Berg

This series is the continuations of the radio series that began in 1929 as “The Rise of the Goldbergs”, changing the title to “The Goldbergs” in 1936 when it moved from NBC to CBS.

Theme song: “Serenade” by Enrico Toselli

The first two seasons of the series aired on CBS between January 17, 1949 and June 18, 1951 on Monday evenings. It is not known how many episodes aired during this period, but only 7 episodes from this era are known to exist, 6 of them from Season 1. All episodes in this list are numbered according to existing episodes only.

• 001. The Distinguished Guest – 8/29/1949
  • Jewish couple Molly and Jake Goldberg (Gertrude Berg, Philip Loeb) have just returned to their home in Bronx with their children Sammy (Larry Robinson) and Rosalie (Arlene “Fuzzy” McQuade) and their Uncle David Romaine (Eli Mintz). They have met a number of prestigious people at their resort “Pincus Pines” and were given a dog named Pinky that the owner claimed to be a thoroughbred. Molly recommends to her neighbors a real estate agent and attorney that were recommended to her at the resort by their proud parents. Jake has met a powerful businessman named Alex Wrightman who promises to make Jake a silent partner in his garment business. Wrightman is coming for dinner and Jake calls up Molly’s cousin J.B. Simon (Harry Lascoe), because Simon is also a big shot in the garment industry and Jake wants to impress him with his new acquaintance. Wrightman shows up and is called away to leave suddenly, seemingly after hearing Simon’s name…and borrowing some cash from the family. Molly and Jake then find out that the real estate agent and lawyer were actually only a rent collector and a student, and furthermore Pinky was only a mongrel. They realize everyone exaggerates at Pinkus Pines, including David who told folks that his son Sully was a specialist and professor, instead of just a doctor. However, when Simon shows up and sees a picture of Jake with Wrightman, he report that in fact is in fact a big shot and that Jake, who had almost lost faith in his new job, is as good as made. Molly makes her pitch to the audience for Sanka Coffee. 10/18/14

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SEASON 1 – CBS

The series was based on the British series Worst Week of My Life, which ran 2004-2006. A pilot was later filmed for Fox in 2005, also called Worst Week of My Life. 

Created by Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni as Worst Week of My Life, this American version developed by Matt Tarses

Theme music by David Schwartz

• 001. Pilot – 9/22/2008
  • Sam Briggs (Kyle Bornheimer) is getting ready to travel with his pregnant fiancé Melanie Clayton (Erinn Hayes) to visit her parents Dick (Kurtwood Smith) and Angela (Nancy Lenehan) and announce both the pregnancy and engagement during a family gathering for Dick’s 65th birthday. Sam thinks that the parents already hate him so is nervous about the trip. Sam has to attend a company party, so Melanie goes on ahead of him. While at the party, a drunk girl named Nicky (Tamara Mello) flirts with him while he tries to talk to Melanie on the phone. After he leaves the party, he sees Melanie trying to drive and getting into a minor accident. He throws her into a cab and then escorts her home. Along the way, she tries to kiss him and winds up throwing up on him in the car. The cab driver (Toshi Toda) throws them out of the cab, so he has to carry her and push her along in a garbage can in the rain back to her house. When he gets there, he jumps in her shower but cannot find any towels when he gets out. She wakes up and sees him naked and throws him out of the house naked. He is forced to wear a garbage bag and take a cab to the Claytons’ house. He arrives still wearing the garbage bag like a diaper, and when Dick answers the door, he has to ask him for $80 to pay the cab. He tries to explain what happened but says that he helped a male co-worker home rather than the girl who was flirting with him. He asks to use the restroom, but when the power goes off, he accidentally pees in the pot that is holding the goose that Angela is preparing for dinner. He also spills some as he tries to get it to where he can rinse it off, but some spills on the floor. Dick trips in the urine and hits his head on the floor. Dick refuses to go to see a doctor and heads off to a luncheon the next day. Angela shows Sam and Melanie the painting she had commissioned of Dick. On the street, Dick gets dizzy and collapses on the sidewalk outside Hewitt’s Funeral Home. The Undertaker Martin (Steve Rankin) calls home and talks to Sam while Melanie and Angela are out. Sam gets the impression that Dick is dead and tells the ladies that when they get home. Angela is furious with Sam since she thinks he died when he slipped on the urine. After Dick recovers and leave on his own, Sam goes down to identify the body with one of the morgue employees (Aziz Ansari). He positively identifies one of the corpses because Dick’s glasses were still sitting beside it. Neither Angela nor Melanie can bring themselves to call Melanie’s brother Adam (voice of Jay Malone) and tell him that his father is dead. He can’t get a good connection and ends up yelling it at the top of his lungs. Melanie sends David out to refill her mother’s valium prescription. In a rush, he gets in a head on collision with… Dick. Sam is thrilled to see that he is alive, but he is now unconscious, so Sam drags him in the house. Angela thinks he is dead and starts beating Sam. When Dick wakes up, Angela faints. Eventually the family talks it out, and they are fine. Sam calms down and wants to tell them about the baby and the engagement, but Melanie thinks that maybe Sam should do something nice to make it up to Dick. When the power goes out again, Sam sees this as a good chance to make things right. He goes down in the cellar with a candle. Although he gets the power back on, he accidentally sets the blanket covering the new painting on fire, covering the painting with soot. 10/3/23

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SEASON 1 – Fox

Created by Arthur Silver and Ron Leavitt

This series is a spinoff of the sitcom “Top of the Heap,” which was a backdoor spinoff of the sitcom “Married… with Children”

Theme song: “Vinnie & Bobby” performed by Jimmy Thrill Quill and Danny Harvey, music by Jonathan Wolff.

• 001. Full Heap – 5/30/1992
  • Chicago resident Vinnie Verducci (Matt LeBlanc) has moved into a new apartment alone and taken a job in construction that his childhood friend Bobby Grazzo (Robert Torti). His seventeen-year-old neighbor Mona Mullins (Joey Lauren Adams) has had a longtime crush on Vinnie, but he refuses to date her since she is only seventeen. To celebrate his new job, she gives him a calendar with swimsuit photos of her, with her eighteenth birthday circled. Mona questions whether Bobby is paying rent to Vinnie, and the more Vinnie thinks about it, the more he does in fact want some rent money since he’s been staying there for weeks. Vinnie has also started attending night school at Dick Butkis Community College. Over at the construction site, Bobby introduces Vinnie to all of his co-workers, the heavyset Billy Belli (John Pinette) and the mumbling Jim Wotowski (Mike Genovese). Most of the construction workers are just sitting around and have to deal with the owners Carey (Carey Engel) and Carol Carricarol (Carol Rosenthal). Carol thinks Carey is too wimpy, so she fires everyone. Vinnie is able to sweet talk the Carricarols that the house is like a pregnant woman, and they shouldn’t abandon the project when they’re so close to labor. When Bobby invites the co-workers including all of Jim’s kids, and they make Vinnie watch Beverly Hills 90210 rather than the game, Vinnie decides to insist on rent from Bobby. When he again balks at paying his share, Billy offers to move in and pay rent. This causes a very short-lived fight between Bobby and Billy. Since this means that Bobby will have to move out, he finally comes through and pays the rent. Meanwhile, a giant guy (Jeff Hochendoner) and a little girl (Anndi McAfee) both punch Vinnie and warn him not to date their sister Vernoica, even though it was actually Bobby who had gone out with her. Later, Vinnie and Bobby hit on two French girls at a bar, but Vinnie nearly tricks Vinnie into chasing them out the door when they have merely moved seats. 9/25/23

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SEASON 1 – NBC

Created by Irving Brecher

NOTE: This series is a spin-off from the radio series of the same name which aired on the Blue Network (later ABC) from 1944-45, and then on NBC from 1945-1951, with William Bendix in the title role. Bendix also starred in a film of the same title in 1949, and consequently could not star in the first season of the series because of his contract with RKO Radio Pictures. In 1948 two ‘live television test programs’ were aired, the first with Herb Vigran (April 13), the second with Buddy Gray (April 20). 

• 001. Tonsils – 10/4/1949
  • Chester A. Riley (Jackie Gleason), a wing riveter for Cunningham Aircraft plant in western Los Angeles, California, visits Dr. Harvey (Harry Harvey) when he chokes on a fish bone, only to find out that he actually needs his tonsils removed. He sullenly heads home and breaks the news to his wife Peg (Rosemary DeCamp), son Junior (Lanny Rees), and daughter Babs (Gloria Winters). Riley is scared to death of the operation and discusses it with his friend and next-door neighbor Jim Gillis (Sid Tomack), who suggest that he speak to Mrs. Bennett (Marlo Dwyer), who had recently had her tonsils taken out. Mrs. Bennett mistakenly thinks that Riley’s wife will be having a baby, so Riley is confused by her description of the ‘tonsils’. Before leaving for the hospital, Riley reads his will to his family, confessing that he has stashed away $15 in the radio. In the hospital the nurse (Marie Blake) sedates him and he falls asleep, but Dr. Harvey has to delay the operation. When his family greets him in the waiting room, Riley thinks the operation is over and initially complains of the pain, but then realizes that it was painless. He freaks out again when the doctor shows up and tells him that he is now going to now operate. Dian Fauntelle is Mrs. Bennett’s maid Matilda. 9/21/16

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SEASON 1 – NBC

Theme song: “Thank You for Being a Friend” written by Andrew Gold and sung by Cynthia Fee

• 001. The Engagement (aka The Pilot) – 9/14/1985
  • Substitute teacher and brassy divorcee Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) and obtuse widow Rose Nylund (Betty White) live as tenants in the Miami, Florida home of man-hungry southern belle widow Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan). In their employ is a live-in gay cook named Coco (Charles Levin). Rose, who misses her husband Charlie and now works at a grief counseling center, fears that Blanche is going to accept the proposal of her boyfriend Harry (Frank Aletter) after finally being happy in her arrangement. Meanwhile Dorothy’s mother Sophia, who has had a stroke and no longer has any filter on what she says, finds herself homeless when her nursing home burns down, and comes to stay with the ladies as well. Blanche accepts the proposal, but Rose has a strong suspicion about Harry and minutes before the wedding tries to tell Blanche, but Dorothy stops her. As they wait for Harry to show up for the wedding, and officer (Meshach Taylor) arrives and tells them that Harry has been arrested for bigamy. After a week of mourning, Blanche realizes that her friends have made her happy again. As they head out to celebrate, Sophia heads out for a date at the dog track. F. William Parker is the minister. NOTE: This is the only appearance of Coco. 9/20/16

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