Speaker 1: It was you, Kristen. I watched a lot of TV
Speaker 1: growing up. When I was nine, I memorized the TV guide.
Speaker 1: When my brother Lawrence told Missus Barnett across the street
Speaker 1: that he had a younger brother, she didn't believe him.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. That's how little
Speaker 1: I went outside. I learned early on that the television
Speaker 1: universe is divided into hour long dramas I Trusted You,
Speaker 1: and half hour sitcoms. Everybody on dramas, death is a
Speaker 1: fact of life. Consider that, over the course of the
Speaker 1: six seasons of The Sopranos, ninety two characters died.
Speaker 2: You shot him in his pat naked no chance to run,
Speaker 2: I swear to god.
Speaker 1: It's even grizzlier on Game of Thrones, where characters have
Speaker 1: a seventy chance of getting killed off.
Speaker 2: Reds.
Speaker 1: But today we're talking about something far more mysterious, something
Speaker 1: that's haunted me ever since my childhood basement dwelling days,
Speaker 1: something that just shouldn't happen. I'm Morocca, and this is mobituaries,
Speaker 1: this mobid sitcom depths and disappearances. I brought in an
Speaker 1: expert to help me investigate the phenomenon of sitcom deaths
Speaker 1: and disappearances.
Speaker 3: I'm Alan Sepenwall, chief TV critic for Rolling Stone. I've
Speaker 3: been writing about TV since the nineties when there were
Speaker 3: like five channels, and now there's you know, five hundred
Speaker 3: different scripted shows on TV right now.
Speaker 1: I'm not the first person to say, but there's too
Speaker 1: much TV.
Speaker 3: There really is, you know, and it's good to hear,
Speaker 3: like people who are not TV critics say that.
Speaker 1: And also, the Western world's fertility rates are really low,
Speaker 1: so there's just not enough people to.
Speaker 2: Watch these shows.
Speaker 3: You know, who's going to watch Longmeyer. I don't have
Speaker 3: time to do it. And I'm sure it's a fine show,
Speaker 3: but there's so many other.
Speaker 1: Things, so many it's like when you hear about how
Speaker 1: big the universe actually is and it starts to hurt.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And like the Netflix interface alone, it's like you you
Speaker 3: could spend like the length of a movie looking for
Speaker 3: a movie.
Speaker 1: Our topic here is sitcom depths and disappearances, one of
Speaker 1: the great mysteries. So I actually died once on TV.
Speaker 1: It was not on a sitcom. It was on an
Speaker 1: hour long drama on Law and Order, Criminal Intent. I
Speaker 1: played a gossip column. It's named T K. Richmond. They
Speaker 1: even gave me a fedora to wear. I've never ever
Speaker 1: watched this, I promise you. I swear I've never seen this,
Speaker 1: and I thought I would watch it with an esteemed
Speaker 1: television critic for the first time. So, Alen, if you
Speaker 1: join me for this, here we go.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Oh God, that hat doesn't really work on me. Elliott, Elliott,
Speaker 1: calm down. There's nothing that says these pictures have to
Speaker 1: run in.
Speaker 2: My column blackmail photos.
Speaker 1: We're in a car now. It's not a bribe, it's
Speaker 1: an opportunity. This is going to be the hot new place.
Speaker 2: This the pictures go away, right right?
Speaker 1: I do have a little integrity.
Speaker 2: Did you just blow up? The hell was that?
Speaker 1: I just blew up?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Do they show my charred remains?
Speaker 2: Oh no?
Speaker 1: Oh my hat?
Speaker 2: The hat survives. That's good.
Speaker 1: What do you think did I pass as a New
Speaker 1: York Post gossip reporter?
Speaker 2: I mean your look was very sweet, smell of success.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you. I love any Tony Curtis comparison. Okay,
Speaker 1: So lots of people die in our long dramas. I think,
Speaker 1: actually that's right, that's the main ingredient. Somebody has to
Speaker 1: die in every law and order, and there have been
Speaker 1: three thousand of them. But for someone to die or
Speaker 1: disappear on a sitcom, it's much different.
Speaker 3: Why Because sitcom's, in theory, are meant to be a
Speaker 3: little bit lighter, more relatable, more relaxing. It's You're going
Speaker 3: to spend some happy time laughing at, you know, someone
Speaker 3: tripping over the couch, or forgetting to pick up the
Speaker 3: groceries or something relatively simple.
Speaker 2: Death is not that.
Speaker 1: In other words, sitcom audiences don't want characters to die,
Speaker 1: which is why in some rare cases the characters have
Speaker 1: just disappeared without any explanation, a syndrome given its own name.
Speaker 3: Cunningham syndrome. There was Chuck Cunningham, the third Cunningham child
Speaker 3: on Happy Days, the eldest Cunningham child, who was in
Speaker 3: the show for two seasons and then was never heard
Speaker 3: from or mentioned again.
Speaker 1: And who was Chuck Cunningham? You said the third child,
Speaker 1: But I'm glad you corrected yourself and said the eldest,
Speaker 1: because he was the first child.
Speaker 3: Not that Howard and Marian acted like he was particularly special.
Speaker 3: I mean he lived in the apartment above the garage
Speaker 3: before Fonsie did. He was usually when you saw him
Speaker 3: either carrying a basketball or eating food, or possibly both.
Speaker 1: I got to go to basketball practice.
Speaker 2: He was not really a prominent part of the show.
Speaker 3: And then a couple of years in the producers decided
Speaker 3: we don't need another Cunningham and we want Fonzie to
Speaker 3: live above the garage, and so Chuck disappeared and never
Speaker 3: came back.
Speaker 1: You're right, the basketball and the sand, which were his
Speaker 1: chief accessories. I mean, that's the thing we remember from him, Suck.
Speaker 2: I've told you not to dribble in the house, all right, dad.
Speaker 2: Do we remember anything about him really?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 1: I think we remember that he disappeared.
Speaker 3: Yes, But when that's the most memorable thing about you,
Speaker 3: that sort of speaks to why they were willing to
Speaker 3: get rid of him in the first place.
Speaker 1: Good point, good, But well, do you think the fix
Speaker 1: was in for him? Did it feel like vultures were
Speaker 1: circling over him during those first two seasons?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean he started getting less and less to do,
Speaker 3: and that was a show that was obviously going through
Speaker 3: a lot of behind the scenes transformations over those first
Speaker 3: couple of years. Is that right, Yeah, Phonzie's a relatively
Speaker 3: minor character when you start watching the show on Fox.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't even allow him to wear the black leather
Speaker 3: jacket when he was on the motorcycle because the network
Speaker 3: feared that he looked too much like a hoodlum and
Speaker 3: the audience wouldn't want to watch that. And once they
Speaker 3: decided to beef up Phonsie's role, and you have shifted
Speaker 3: from a single campsit come shot on film to a
Speaker 3: multicam shot in front of an audience.
Speaker 2: Bye Bye, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So I talked to Henry Winkler and I asked him
Speaker 1: did Chuck have to disappear? And here's what he said.
Speaker 6: They did not have room in the writing for the
Speaker 6: older brother because the fawns became the older brother. Everything
Speaker 6: that you would go to the older brother for, Richie
Speaker 6: went to the fawns for Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you had to choose between who you
Speaker 3: were going to get advice from about girls, about cars,
Speaker 3: about being cool, about being anything, why would you not
Speaker 3: go to Arthur Fonzarelli.
Speaker 6: All right, now, listen up girl, one time, one time
Speaker 6: movie line, right up, pick kissed the funds for a buck?
Speaker 1: That's a bog in any brite right exactly, And so
Speaker 1: Gary Marshall, the creator of Happy Days, was obviously great
Speaker 1: at what he did. So he makes the calculation that
Speaker 1: if this character disappears, the audience will be fine with it,
Speaker 1: something that I asked Henry about.
Speaker 6: Only years later did I ask Gary what happened?
Speaker 1: And he explained to me, Hey, what did he say?
Speaker 6: It was the older brother, and I didn't know how
Speaker 6: to write for him, and then did write for you,
Speaker 6: and we had to let him go, and then it
Speaker 6: was a terrible well thing. He went upstairs, he never
Speaker 6: came down.
Speaker 1: And Gary understood that the audience would accept that.
Speaker 6: Gary understood television was so well or well enough to
Speaker 6: know that if you've got this problem and you write
Speaker 6: him out, you don't make a big deal out of
Speaker 6: getting rid of the character. It will be like slime.
Speaker 6: You can poke a hole in this slime and it
Speaker 6: closes in on itself and becomes whole again.
Speaker 1: So Alan was Henry right about this.
Speaker 2: Mostly obviously, people still brought it up.
Speaker 3: They bring it up all the time, and especially whenever
Speaker 3: in the later seasons Howard and Marion would make a
Speaker 3: reference to their two children. In the very last episode
Speaker 3: of the series, Jony and Chachi get married, and Howard
Speaker 3: makes a toast, you know, talking about all the happy
Speaker 3: days that he.
Speaker 2: And Marion have had, and he says, but we've had
Speaker 2: the joy of raising two wonderful kids.
Speaker 3: And I was, you know, nerdy enough even at that
Speaker 3: age to say what about Chuck?
Speaker 1: I mean, harsh Henry told me he gets asked all
Speaker 1: the time about Chuck's fate.
Speaker 6: Oh a million times, Hey, what happened to Chuck? Nobody
Speaker 6: is really interested, and they just love the question, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm so sorry, but it's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no one actually cares about Chuck. It's literally
Speaker 3: just the fact that they pretended he didn't exist. I
Speaker 3: think if they'd said Chuck moved away, Chuck goes to Seattle.
Speaker 1: Exactly, he could have just become an off stage character
Speaker 1: that they refer to occasionally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, not all families are so
Speaker 3: tight knit that they're always around and always need each
Speaker 3: other's business. You know, even if Chuck did' have a
Speaker 3: falling out, maybe he just had a full life of
Speaker 3: his own far far away from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: So for Phonsie to live, Chuck had to die. Yes,
Speaker 1: the sitcom universe is even harsher than the Law and
Speaker 1: Order Criminal Intent universe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's.
Speaker 3: Just like because he's not even dead, he's he's.
Speaker 2: No longer in this reality. It's sad.
Speaker 1: Well, Alan, As I'm sure you know, the Internet is
Speaker 1: replete with theories about what happened to Chuck, so of
Speaker 1: course I had to run some of these by Henry
Speaker 1: Confirmer Denies. See these widely circulated theories among fans about
Speaker 1: what happened to Chuck Cunningham. One he died in Vietnam. No,
Speaker 1: still in his bedroom. Yes, this is a serious one.
Speaker 1: Was gay and disowned by his family because it was
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 6: Ooh no, I don't think he would have been disowned
Speaker 6: by the Cunninghams. I think that Missus C for sure
Speaker 6: would have embraced him.
Speaker 1: Would mister C really been okay with that?
Speaker 6: Mister C was very busy with hammers. Remember he owned
Speaker 6: a hardware store that was like always on the brink.
Speaker 1: Right right, okay, So he was otherwise occupied, So Missus
Speaker 1: C would have handled this, okay. Gary Marshall always told
Speaker 1: people that Chuck Cunningham got a basketball scholarship in Mongolia.
Speaker 6: That sounds really right.
Speaker 1: And the sad truth is, I think we're all used
Speaker 1: to sort of pretending that someone who has existed doesn't
Speaker 1: exist anymore.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, I've done that.
Speaker 1: We go to a very dark place, but it's true.
Speaker 1: We've all had an older relative tell us, don't talk
Speaker 1: about that person. That person doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's these family feuds and suddenly we don't talk
Speaker 3: about this on to anymore. Yeah, I mean, Chuck could
Speaker 3: have done something really awful. The Cunninghams are a very decent,
Speaker 3: you know, apple pie kind of family.
Speaker 2: Chuck could have been a deviant.
Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, that last episode of Joni and
Speaker 1: Chochi getting married that led to the spinoff.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, the spinoff was in the middle of the show.
Speaker 3: It was it really Yes, they left Happy Days for
Speaker 3: like maybe half a year, maybe more to go do
Speaker 3: Joni Loves Chochi, which is the worst theme song in
Speaker 3: the history of television.
Speaker 1: Right, I actually like Joni Loves Chauci. I always thought
Speaker 1: that it would be fun if there was yet another
Speaker 1: spinoff where Jonie moves to the shore and opens a
Speaker 1: little store where she sells knick knacks and bobbles, and
Speaker 1: it would be.
Speaker 2: Called Jony loves Choch Keys.
Speaker 1: God, I'm so glad. I love that you got it, No,
Speaker 1: whatever gets it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And now we take a moment to remember another dearly
Speaker 1: departed sitcom character, Judy Winslow, who spent four seasons on
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties hit sitcom Family Matters. Family Matters told
Speaker 1: a story of a working class family in Chicago with
Speaker 1: three kids. Judy was the youngest.
Speaker 5: Hi, this is Jamie Foxworth and most people might know
Speaker 5: me as Judy Winslow from the television show Family Matters.
Speaker 1: Jamie Foxworth started playing Judy when she was just a
Speaker 1: middle schooler. Judy was the sassy little girl with a
Speaker 1: quick wit and shark one liners what I'm.
Speaker 7: Cold and I'm cracked dolessly.
Speaker 1: But over time Jamie started to notice that Judy wasn't
Speaker 1: being given as much sass to throw around.
Speaker 5: I was getting less and less screen time, and it
Speaker 5: was always like Judy goes up to her room, Like
Speaker 5: I would literally be down, you know, in a living
Speaker 5: room with everybody else, and I would say, okay, guys,
Speaker 5: and the next thing you know, Judy's right up the steps.
Speaker 1: Just like the fawns in Happy days, Family Matters had
Speaker 1: found its star a pesky next door neighbor in suspenders
Speaker 1: and thick, grimmed glasses.
Speaker 2: Either the le at your service.
Speaker 1: That's right, Berkle, because his unstoppable rise would mean the
Speaker 1: sad decline of Judy Winslow. Yes, you did, Erkle. It
Speaker 1: was during the taping of what would be her final
Speaker 1: episode that Jamie noticed people acting strangely.
Speaker 5: I do remember just the cast just coming up to
Speaker 5: me and like giving me so much love and hugs
Speaker 5: and affection, and I was like, what's going on here?
Speaker 5: You guys like it? Why is everybody acting so weird?
Speaker 1: She remembers that Reginald Belle Johnson, who played her father
Speaker 1: on the show, was particularly emotional.
Speaker 5: He was literally on his knees and he was in tears,
Speaker 5: and I just remember looking at him like, dude, what
Speaker 5: is going on?
Speaker 1: On February twenty sixth, nineteen ninety three, as fans, well,
Speaker 1: remember Grandma Winslow got married. Judy was a flower girl.
Speaker 1: She walked down the aisle and was never seen again.
Speaker 5: To this day, everyone asked me the same question, what
Speaker 5: happened to you?
Speaker 1: How could they just leave the daughter off?
Speaker 5: And I'm like, hey, you gotta ask those producers.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think they thought that people would just forget, and
Speaker 5: nobody forgot.
Speaker 1: The character of Judy was survived by her older brother
Speaker 1: and sister, her mother and father. Okay, as weird as
Speaker 1: a character disappearing into the ether may be, there's another
Speaker 1: occurrence which is equally disorienting. An actor who suddenly disappears
Speaker 1: replaced by another actor in the same role. This first
Speaker 1: famously happened on the nineteen sixties hit fantasy sitcom Bewitched, when,
Speaker 1: after five successful seasons, the show's leading man underwent a
Speaker 1: casting change, giving rise to what would become known in
Speaker 1: TV lore as the two Darren's. I caught up with
Speaker 1: Lila Garrett, who wrote for Bewitched and experienced the ripples
Speaker 1: of the Darren effect firsthand.
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Lyla Garrett, and I'm a writer and a
Speaker 4: producer and a director. Some people think of me as
Speaker 4: a legend. I don't enjoy thinking of myself that way.
Speaker 1: Well, Llilah, I would say that you're a legend.
Speaker 4: I know, I know it's a heavy burden, but I'm
Speaker 4: willing to carry it.
Speaker 1: Lylah wrote for top scripted shows like Get Smart and
Speaker 1: All in the Family and the Lucy Show at a
Speaker 1: time when women were rarely seen in a writer's room.
Speaker 1: She's got two Emmys and a Writer's Guild Award to
Speaker 1: show for it, But out of the more than thirty
Speaker 1: shows she's written for, it's not hard for her to
Speaker 1: name her favorite.
Speaker 4: There is no show that I have ever done that
Speaker 4: I enjoyed more than Bewitched, and I enjoyed every minute
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 1: Bewitched was a big hit in the nineteen sixties into
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. It was about a young, happy couple
Speaker 1: housewife Samantha played by Elizabeth Montgomery and at executive husband
Speaker 1: Darren originally played by Dick Yorke. The only problem on.
Speaker 3: Their honeymoon night, she tells him that there's something that
Speaker 3: she's kept secret from him.
Speaker 2: She is a witch.
Speaker 3: And rather than be excited about the possibility of having
Speaker 3: this utiful wife who can also perform magic and do
Speaker 3: anything for him, Darren Stevens decides that he you know,
Speaker 3: he's a man, gosh darn it, and he does not
Speaker 3: want his wife doing magic. And the eternal struggle of
Speaker 3: the show is all these magical hijunks happening in the background.
Speaker 2: Much to Darren's frustration.
Speaker 1: Which means that Darren Stephens's character is essential, Yes.
Speaker 3: Because he is always exasperated by what happens.
Speaker 1: Come on here and face me.
Speaker 4: Yes, you've been sticking that magic nose of yours where
Speaker 4: it doesn't belong.
Speaker 2: Again, don't quite to deny it, all right, I won't.
Speaker 1: Come on, Sam, don't make me drag it out of you.
Speaker 2: Just you admit it.
Speaker 1: Dick York was really good. Yeah, he's very good to me.
Speaker 1: He's sort of Jim Carrey good.
Speaker 3: Yes, he's very expressive, very just sort of a memorable
Speaker 3: vocal comic, even to extent physical comic.
Speaker 1: He had a great face. Yeah, I mean real plastic.
Speaker 1: I would say a rubber face. Rubber Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: go anywhere, you know.
Speaker 4: Every expression of his was wonderful and clear, and he's funny.
Speaker 3: His responses to everything that was happening around him drove
Speaker 3: a lot of comedy on the show. Samantha, despite having
Speaker 3: the magic powers, she's the straight man on the show.
Speaker 3: He's the one having the fun because he can't believe
Speaker 3: what's going on around him.
Speaker 2: What little favor I asked you to do? And what
Speaker 2: do you do?
Speaker 7: You wegle that beak of yours and really caused problem.
Speaker 4: He was spectacular, and he was a spectacular man.
Speaker 1: As great as he was in the role, Dick Yorke
Speaker 1: had a secret. Well.
Speaker 4: We first noticed the problems with Dick Yorke really in
Speaker 4: the second year. Suddenly he couldn't make it for the
Speaker 4: show that we were writing. And at first it just
Speaker 4: seemed as though he may have had the flu and
Speaker 4: so on. But when it became a habit, we recognized
Speaker 4: that there was a real problem there, and ultimately we
Speaker 4: found out what that problem was.
Speaker 1: York had sustained a serious back injury on the set
Speaker 1: of the nineteen fifty nine Western. They came to Cordura.
Speaker 1: Acting became harder and harder for him, and then practically
Speaker 1: intolerable some scenes and bewitched. He could only do sitting
Speaker 1: or lying down. He took medication to manage the pain
Speaker 1: and ultimately became dependent. Dick York started missing shows so
Speaker 1: often the writers had to create what they called non
Speaker 1: Darren shows. On these episodes, the writers would render Darren
Speaker 1: invisible for most of the half hour, often via witchcraft.
Speaker 1: With Darren out of the picture, they leaned on Samantha's
Speaker 1: colorful relatives to fill out the episode.
Speaker 4: There was Uncle Arthur, who was played by Paul in
Speaker 4: one of the World's Greatest comics.
Speaker 1: One morning I shot a line in my pajamas, Now
Speaker 1: what he was doing in my jogas? And then there
Speaker 1: was in Dora played by Agnes Moorehead.
Speaker 2: Duwood is already a practical.
Speaker 4: Joe who was Samantha's mischievous and kind of playfully vicious mother.
Speaker 1: But there was only so much slack the secondary characters
Speaker 1: could pick up. Eventually, dick York was hospitalized and left
Speaker 1: the show. So dick Yorke was gone. But what to
Speaker 1: do about the character of Darren if.
Speaker 3: She can't divorce him? The whole structure of the show
Speaker 3: is based on this marriage, So what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: They really can't get divorced because even years later, when
Speaker 1: they wanted to make Mary Tyler Morris character Mary Richards
Speaker 1: a divorced woman, that alone was scandalous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're certainly not going to divorce a beloved
Speaker 3: couple in the middle of the show.
Speaker 4: We couldn't possibly kill off the first Darren because he
Speaker 4: was part of the concept of the show.
Speaker 2: This was a love affair.
Speaker 4: And then someone who looked a lot like Dick York
Speaker 4: was cast as Darren and that was Dick's Sargeant.
Speaker 3: So Dick Sergeant replaces Dick York and they just acted
Speaker 3: like it was the same Darn the whole time.
Speaker 1: But let's face it, you never forget your first Darren.
Speaker 1: This one wasn't the same, especially his connection to Samantha.
Speaker 4: Honey, your beautiful, sweet, clever, adorable and I love you madly.
Speaker 2: It works well, it doesn't work on me, but I
Speaker 2: love you.
Speaker 1: Did they lack chemistry? Elizabeth Montgomery with the second Darren
Speaker 1: with Dick Sergeant, Yes.
Speaker 4: I had to use the word luck, but the chemistry
Speaker 4: was different. Chemistry is chemistry. With Dick's Sergeant, you felt
Speaker 4: as though, oh, let her use magic.
Speaker 1: Who cares?
Speaker 4: Darren the first was in much more agony and anxiety
Speaker 4: than Darren the second.
Speaker 1: Just listen to how the new Darren says his wife's name.
Speaker 1: Now listen to Darren classic.
Speaker 4: And Dick's Sergeant would have been more appropriately cast as
Speaker 4: the head of a detective agency. And he's a good actors,
Speaker 4: nothing wrong with them, but he wasn't right for the
Speaker 4: part of Darren, and that hurt the show.
Speaker 1: So did that change, which he had to do in
Speaker 1: the writer's room.
Speaker 4: Well, we've got Darren number two in less trouble because
Speaker 4: he didn't handle it as vulnerably as Darren number one did,
Speaker 4: and therefore it wasn't fun, you know, and he became
Speaker 4: more of an observer than a participant. It never captured
Speaker 4: the same magic. No one ever denied that, and it
Speaker 4: did kind of shake us all up.
Speaker 1: And once again it was that zany cast of secondary
Speaker 1: characters to the rescue and Dora, Uncle Arthur help me
Speaker 1: out here.
Speaker 3: Allen doctor Bombay played by Bernard Fox. Alice Ghostly came
Speaker 3: in as as Morelda. There was a lot of sort
Speaker 3: of ancillary magical characters who had to pick up the
Speaker 3: slack that Dick Sergeant was leaving them. You could basically
Speaker 3: do anything accept stories about the Stevens marriage, because that
Speaker 3: ceased to be interesting almost immediately after Dicky Yorke left
Speaker 3: and Dix Sergent came in.
Speaker 1: These were all great satellite characters, but without that core.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's like here's a bunch of great
Speaker 3: side dishes that we now have to serve as your entree.
Speaker 1: The Insergent's first season as Darren, the show's ratings dropped
Speaker 1: from number twelve to number twenty four. The following season,
Speaker 1: it fell off the ratings cliff and was canceled. This
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the first or last time a major character
Speaker 1: had had a casting change mid run. The Darren handoff
Speaker 1: may be the most remembered mid run casting change on
Speaker 1: a television show, but this kind of thing has happened
Speaker 1: on more than a few beloved sitcoms.
Speaker 3: I mean, the most famous one I think since then
Speaker 3: is Aunt viv on The Fresh Prince of bel Air,
Speaker 3: when Janet Hubert Whitten got replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid,
Speaker 3: and I think it was because she and Will Smith.
Speaker 2: Did not get along.
Speaker 3: And then with Roseanne, Yes, Roseanne, they replaced one Becky
Speaker 3: with another because Lacy Gorrenson, I think, wanted to go
Speaker 3: off to college, and so Sarah Chalk came in and
Speaker 3: after a certain point they were rotating back and forth.
Speaker 3: After Gorenson started acting again. And then on the revival,
Speaker 3: Gorrenson's playing Becky, but Sarah Chalk played another part.
Speaker 1: Right, and they were very witty about it. Back in
Speaker 1: the nineties, we're talking about the original run of Roseanne.
Speaker 1: There was even a scene I think where they're watching
Speaker 1: Bewitched and they're commenting on the two different Darrens instead
Speaker 1: of making an inside joke, a self referential joke.
Speaker 4: I cannot believe that they replaced that Darren.
Speaker 2: Well, I like the second Darren much better.
Speaker 1: There is something to learn from the case of the
Speaker 1: two Darren's right about how a show really can be
Speaker 1: affected the whole show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and obviously I understand no one wanted to stop
Speaker 3: the money train, but it did fundamentally transform once they
Speaker 3: had a lesser Darren come in and they had to
Speaker 3: figure things out from there.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 1: By the way, I remember a Curby Your Enthusiasm episode
Speaker 1: where they're talking about the two Darrens, and either Larry
Speaker 1: or maybe Jerry Seinfeld was actually guesting on it said,
Speaker 1: no one wants to be a second Darren.
Speaker 3: I'd forgotten you mentioned that untill now, isn't it When
Speaker 3: Larry winds up having to replace Jason Alexander as George
Speaker 3: when they're making the pilot and Bewitched.
Speaker 1: Nobody liked that second Darren. I didn't care for the
Speaker 1: second d but you bought it.
Speaker 2: But it's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel a little bit badly for the
Speaker 1: dearly departed, Dick Sergeant, that he's become what's the word
Speaker 1: that he's defined that now that he's that, he's yeah,
Speaker 1: anyway that he represents that.
Speaker 3: Look, being the second Darren was very lucrative for Dick's sergeant.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sure he would rather be that than
Speaker 3: to have not had a primetime TV job for those
Speaker 3: final seasons of a Witch.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great point. That's a great point. Being
Speaker 1: a second Darren is, yeah, is a lot better than
Speaker 1: not being a Darren at all. There, thank you exactly.
Speaker 1: Can you please embroider that on a pillow for me.
Speaker 2: I'll work on it.
Speaker 1: For all their differences, Dick York and Dick Sargeant had
Speaker 1: something in common beyond that role they played on TV.
Speaker 1: They both led exemplary post Darren lives. In nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: Dick Sargeant, at age sixty one, came out until his
Speaker 1: death a year later, he advocated for gay rights, with
Speaker 1: his friend and TV wife, the wonderful Elizabeth Montgomery right
Speaker 1: by his side. Dick Yorke couldn't find much acting work
Speaker 1: after Bewitched and ended up poor, living off of his
Speaker 1: pension check. All the more remarkable then that He and
Speaker 1: his wife Joan dedicated their remaining years to helping the
Speaker 1: homeless by collecting and handing out food, clothes, and bedding.
Speaker 1: Dick York died on February twentieth, nineteen ninety two. Less
Speaker 1: than two years later, Dick Sargent died on July eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. Two. Darren's both pretty good eggs. All right, Allan,
Speaker 1: Now we're transitioning to a whole other class of sitcom death,
Speaker 1: the death of a character as part of the plot,
Speaker 1: especially jarring when that character is the title character.
Speaker 3: Oh rip, Valerie suggest.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 3: Valerie Harper, beloved star, co star of The Mary Tyler
Speaker 3: Moore Show, star of Rhoda just beloved TV icon In
Speaker 3: the mid to late eighties, she had a comeback a
Speaker 3: new family sitcom called Valerie. She played the mom to
Speaker 3: three kids, one of them played by Jason Bateman. The
Speaker 3: husband was an airline pilot, so he wasn't around very much,
Speaker 3: and it was just here's you know, Valerie Harper in
Speaker 3: the next phase of her career.
Speaker 2: Sit The show ran two seasons.
Speaker 3: At the end of the second season, Valerie Harper said, Hey,
Speaker 3: I would like more money. I'm not being paid enough.
Speaker 3: My name is in the title. I feel I should
Speaker 3: be compensated more, and instead the studio said, no, we
Speaker 3: can do the show without you. The audience seems to
Speaker 3: like the kids better anyway, and so rather than pay
Speaker 3: her what she wanted, they wrote her out of the show.
Speaker 3: They killed off the character. They brought in Sandy Duncan
Speaker 3: as her husband's sister, I think to move in as
Speaker 3: sort of the surrogate mom of the kids. The dad
Speaker 3: was around slightly more, and for a season or two
Speaker 3: they changed the title to Valerie's Family, and then eventually
Speaker 3: with a subtitle, yes, Valerie's Family colon the Hogan's.
Speaker 1: Sort of like Twelfth Night, What you Will or Rambo
Speaker 1: First Blood Part two.
Speaker 3: Yes, And then within a year or so it just
Speaker 3: became the Hogan Family and references to their you know,
Speaker 3: late great mother went the way of Chuck Cunningham.
Speaker 1: They completely disappeared. So it was the Hogan Family, Nay,
Speaker 1: Valerie's Family, the Hogan's Nay Gary correct a lot of
Speaker 1: as they say, iterations, why is this so funny?
Speaker 3: It's just again, because you can do death on certain sitcoms.
Speaker 3: Certain shows are equipped for it because they have kind
Speaker 3: of a level of gravitas, or because they do the
Speaker 3: death in such a ridiculous way, like when Chuckles the
Speaker 3: clown dies on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Either way,
Speaker 3: you can sort of work death into a sitcom field.
Speaker 3: But this was a very light and silly and superficial
Speaker 3: sitcom about family life. And you know, am I going
Speaker 3: to get my driver's light sinse or not? Am I
Speaker 3: going to have a date to the dance? And suddenly
Speaker 3: mom is dead because the actress had a salary dispute,
Speaker 3: And it's injecting this really somber tone into the show,
Speaker 3: which the show almost immediately wants to make you forget
Speaker 3: about because it's this unpleasant thing they've done where they have.
Speaker 2: To get rid of Valerie Harper because she was too expensive.
Speaker 1: And you make a good point that the form, the
Speaker 1: sitcom form, can sustain death. I mean all in the family. Yes,
Speaker 1: death is incredibly moving. No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's just puttering around the bar and in the
Speaker 3: house and you don't know what's going on, and then
Speaker 3: you realize at the end, no, Edith's gone. It's amazing
Speaker 3: the right show can pull it off. Cheers Frasier. Certain
Speaker 3: sitcoms are built for it. This one really wasn't and
Speaker 3: wasn't even interested in exploring it.
Speaker 1: So Sandy Duncan comes on in the third season. In
Speaker 1: the first episode of that season, they just make very
Speaker 1: passing reference to the death of Valerie in a car crash.
Speaker 3: Yes, Sandy Duncan has moved in the Dad is getting
Speaker 3: ready to go back to, you know, flying airlines again,
Speaker 3: and you know, life goes on.
Speaker 1: Old Dad spent six months since mom died, and I
Speaker 1: think it's time you got back in the air.
Speaker 2: Besides, we'll be fine. Yeah, you've got it Sandy on, So.
Speaker 1: They don't spend a lot of time warning her, and
Speaker 1: the father, who was always sort of a secondary character,
Speaker 1: is going back in the sky.
Speaker 2: Michael, you'll be back in a week.
Speaker 1: It's the first time I've left the boys since full
Speaker 1: automobile accident.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 7: You've done a terrific job. I just think it's time
Speaker 7: for everyone to get.
Speaker 1: On with their lives. I have to say I love
Speaker 1: Towards the end of the episode, Sandy Duncan, who is fabulous.
Speaker 1: She acknowledges Valerie Harper's character, but barely. I mean, let's
Speaker 1: say it's not exactly moving.
Speaker 2: I didn't make the.
Speaker 7: Decision to move here overnight.
Speaker 2: I thought long and hard about it.
Speaker 7: For a lot of reasons. My feelings for your father
Speaker 7: and your mother and you kids obligatory.
Speaker 1: But then that same season, only two episodes later, the
Speaker 1: family is rummaging through the attic when something super unsitcommy happens.
Speaker 1: Lamp to work.
Speaker 2: Mister wizard couldn't get that lamp to work? Come, let's go.
Speaker 1: Oh no, the lamp is sparking, And even that music
Speaker 1: is suddenly not sitcomy, right, I.
Speaker 2: Think it's meant to be dramatic.
Speaker 1: Right, it's got a little Laura More in there. They
Speaker 1: all head downstairs until the smell of smoke wakes and
Speaker 1: Sandy up and now they're actually really having to act. Yes,
Speaker 1: And now they're safely down on the front lawn as
Speaker 1: their house burns to the ground. This is very this
Speaker 1: is us. After the commercial break, we're back in sitcom land.
Speaker 7: How is you Dad?
Speaker 1: It's kind of it's kind of a weird mashup, right,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider that they've blown off Valeries to
Speaker 1: death in the season premiere, right.
Speaker 3: And it's and they're not even doing it in the episode.
Speaker 3: Sort of in the aftermath of her death, they decid,
Speaker 3: all right, well we're going to do We're going to
Speaker 3: come back at the start of the season. She's been
Speaker 3: dead six months, so we get to skip past the
Speaker 3: grief because grief is messy and awkward and not really.
Speaker 2: What we do. And then a couple of episodes.
Speaker 3: Later, oh, we'll burn down the attic, which will let
Speaker 3: us redesign the sets but also give you know, Jason
Speaker 3: Bateman a chance to play some grief.
Speaker 1: Now, it may interest you to know that I have
Speaker 1: talked to both Jason Bateman and Sandy Duncan separately about
Speaker 1: the Valerie situation, and they have the same recollection and
Speaker 1: it's the wrong recollection about how Valerie died. Really, they
Speaker 1: her burned her dead in the house, and then they
Speaker 1: shot the episode where we discover her and that was
Speaker 1: odd for half hour sitcomb. But wait then she died
Speaker 1: in a house fire. Yeah, and I'll fall apart crying.
Speaker 1: And it was a very special two part or moth.
Speaker 7: I was playing the aunt and I moved in to
Speaker 7: take care of the kids because I love sitcom and
Speaker 7: they're so funny. She burned down in a house, so
Speaker 7: it was a fire that ended that contract.
Speaker 1: They both think that she got burned in a big
Speaker 1: old house fire. Oh my god, Sandy was shocked when
Speaker 1: I said no, she had supposedly died in a car wreck.
Speaker 1: Here's the interesting thing. You both remember the original title
Speaker 1: character of the star Valerie having died in a house fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right now, I don't want to burst your bubble here,
Speaker 1: but she actually died in a car crash. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she run.
Speaker 7: Are you serious?
Speaker 1: Yep?
Speaker 7: That is you just dig to the truth, don't you.
Speaker 7: I had no idea, I swear. Do you think actors
Speaker 7: have just learned so many lines that they forget what
Speaker 7: they do? Are we just not too bright?
Speaker 1: I don't know. So, Sandy, here's my question. To get
Speaker 1: Valerie off the show? Did they have to have her
Speaker 1: character die? Well?
Speaker 7: I think because they had established this happy home life
Speaker 7: and happy marriage, there wasn't much of another way to
Speaker 7: exit her, do you know what I mean? They wouldn't
Speaker 7: have gotten a divorce, They didn't want her lying in
Speaker 7: a hospital with some incurable disease. So I think it
Speaker 7: was swift and to the point and got over it
Speaker 7: and went on.
Speaker 1: They had to kill her instantly instantly. It does seem
Speaker 1: like there's a blurrier line between comedies and traumas now
Speaker 1: so that now it's not as jarring or it can
Speaker 1: be treated in a more natural way. And also because
Speaker 1: Valerie's family, I mean, you know, by the way, when
Speaker 1: you watch about it, I mean it's just a terrible show.
Speaker 3: Sure, but you know, Jason Bateman was adorable and had
Speaker 3: great comic dimings, so that gets you eight.
Speaker 1: Seasons, right. And Sandy Duncan, I mean was terrific coming
Speaker 1: in yep. I mean she did what she needed to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people love Sandy Duncan. I think, you know, if.
Speaker 3: You were predisposed to watch that show because it was
Speaker 3: the Valerie Harper Show and they were now killing off
Speaker 3: Valerie Harper, you have to bring in someone who's supremely
Speaker 3: likable to get away with it, and Sandy Duncan definitely
Speaker 3: fits that.
Speaker 2: Bill.
Speaker 1: I'd like to end this episode talking once again about
Speaker 1: my own TV death on Law and Order. I just
Speaker 1: want to point out that I almost actually died in
Speaker 1: that role, really not because of the car crash, but
Speaker 1: because I was playing a chain smoking gossip columnist and
Speaker 1: because I'm a method actor, I prepared for the role
Speaker 1: by smoking lots of filterless cigarettes, and I mean lots,
Speaker 1: mind you, I'd smoked a couple of cigarettes in my
Speaker 1: life and I was a teenager, and that's it. So
Speaker 1: right before one of my scenes, I began throwing up,
Speaker 1: like truly projectile vomiting, and I just want to thank
Speaker 1: all these years later, I want to thank the crew
Speaker 1: of Law and Order Criminal Intent because as I was hurling,
Speaker 1: I kept thinking, all these people want to start laughing
Speaker 1: right now, and they're not laughing, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: just be able to say, like, it's okay, you can laugh,
Speaker 1: because this is a ridiculous situation.
Speaker 2: So here's my question.
Speaker 3: If you know, god forbid you had actually fallen to
Speaker 3: your death because of the reaction for the cigarettes, who
Speaker 3: would you have wanted to play that role in your stead?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: My god, Well, Sandy Duncan.
Speaker 2: Of course, come on, I mean, come on.
Speaker 1: I love Peter Pan, I love Wheat thins, I love
Speaker 1: I love Sandy Dunk.
Speaker 2: I love her on Scooby Doo, I love her.
Speaker 1: On Scooby Do. So I definitely would have wanted the
Speaker 1: Sandy Duncan playing me.
Speaker 3: No, that's an excellent choice.
Speaker 1: Alan Steppenwall, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Moh my absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1: In Heaven. Next time on Mobituaries, the Trailblazers whose paths
Speaker 1: were somehow erased, the forgotten forerunners.
Speaker 3: She's really the Rosa Parks of New York, and most
Speaker 3: New Yorkers, most Americans, have no idea.
Speaker 1: How much does this historical amnesia bother you? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's infuriating, It's absolutely infuriating. I certainly hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this mobit. Be sure to rate and review our podcast.
Speaker 1: You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and
Speaker 1: you can follow me on Twitter at morocca. You can
Speaker 1: subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts. For more
Speaker 1: great content and to watch my fiery death on Law
Speaker 1: and Order Criminal Intent, please go to mobituaries dot com.
Speaker 1: This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Kate mccauliffe. Our
Speaker 1: team of producers also includes Gideon Evans, Megan Marcus, Megan Dietrie,
Speaker 1: and me Moroka. It was engineered by David Herman, indispensable
Speaker 1: support from Genius Stenesky, Kira Wardlow, Richard rher and special
Speaker 1: thanks to Alan Seppenwall and Dan Dezoula. Our theme music
Speaker 1: was written by Daniel Hart and as always on dying
Speaker 1: thanks to Rand Morrison and John carp without whom Mobituaries
Speaker 1: couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast,
Speaker 1: may I invite you to check out Mobituaries the book.
Speaker 1: It's chock full of stories not in the podcast. Celebrities
Speaker 1: who put their butts on the line, sports teams that
Speaker 1: threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses,
Speaker 1: presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went caput. And dragons, Yes, dragons,
Speaker 1: you see. People used to believe the dragons were real
Speaker 1: until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the
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