On Wednesdays, I look at shows that lasted one season or less. Today I am looking at 1970s flop The Betty White Show!
THE BETTY WHITE SHOW
Programming Details:
September 12, 1977 - January 9, 1978
14 episodes
CBS
Starring: Betty White, John Hillerman, Georgia Engel
Created by: Ed. Weinberger and Stan Daniels
Plot: Joyce Whitman (White) is an actress who lands a part on a cop show but finds out it's directed by her ex-husband, John Elliot (Hillerman). Joyce lives with her best friend and roommate, Mitzi (Engel).
Just months after the end of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, two of its stars teamed together in this show. Betty White and Georgia Engel were not intertwined much on Mary Tyler Moore so it's interesting to see them playing best friends here. White is a different character than Sue Ann Nivens. She's not nearly as vampy or sharp-tongued. But Engel is basically playing the same character. She does it well but she pretty much played a Georgette type character in everything she was in after Mary Tyler Moore and this is no exception. The pilot isn't a complete disaster because White and Engel are consumate pros and able to elevate mediocre material. Despite being a pretty blandly drawn character, White still manages to get a couple good lines off and can save almost any moment or scene.
The setting of a TV police show was pretty fitting in an era where police dramas made up a large portion of a network's drama slate. I found myself wishing there was a little more chemistry between White and Hillerman. I think the show could have been aided by having exes who still had a little heat for each other. It seems like the show was aiming for that but it plays like Hillerman can hardly tolerate White. In fact, Hillerman is one of the biggest problems in this pilot with a completely joyless performance.
CBS had high hopes for The Betty White Show. After all, she was an Emmy winning actress from an Emmy winning show. They gave it the high profile Monday 9pm slot that had been home to many of their all time biggest comedies. Just two seasons prior, there were four Top 10 hits airing from 8-10pm on CBS on Mondays (Rhoda, Phyllis, All in the Family, Maude). But the situation was much different in Fall 1977. The Betty White Show aired after another new show, Young Daniel Boone, and was followed by a declining Maude. Airing against Monday Night Football and a movie on NBC, it couldn't break through and forced CBS to re-examine its Monday lineup by bringing Top 10 hit M*A*S*H to the night, where it aired for the rest of its long run.
Although The Betty White Show came from MTM like so many other hits of the 1970s, it didn't have the same pristine look of an MTM show because it was filmed on videotape instead of film. I know that was a new technology then but boy the shows filmed on tape just don't look good. It also didn't have a large ensemble, which was so crucial to so many MTM hits. Of course the three main stars went on to have much success. Betty White struck it big with The Golden Girls in 1985 and has of course become a legend and everyone's favorite senior citizen. Georgia Engel continued to find steady screen and stage work until her death in 2019 while John Hillerman won an Emmy Award for Magnum P.I. and retired from acting in 1999. All the pieces were there for this show, it just didn't fit together.
Tomorrow: A look at the third season of Parks and Recreation!
Next Wednesday: A look at 1980s flop A Year in the Life!
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