Temperature's Rising aired from September 1972 until August 1974 on ABC.
ABC evidently had a good deal of faith in this medical comedy, trying three different casts and formats in two years before finally giving up!
For the first season, the show was set at Capital General Hospital in Washington, D.C., presided over by no-nonsense chief of surgery, Dr. Vincent Campanelli ( Jamed Whitmore) and his all-nonsense staff. The latter consisted of: prankster Jerry Noland ( Cleavon Little), a free-swinging product of the ghetto and the hospital's chief bookie; sexy young nurse Annie Carlisle ( Joan Van Ark); her mischievous companion Mildred MacInerny ( Reva Rose), Student Nurse Ellen Turner ( Nancy Fox) ,and Dr. David Amherst ( David Bailey), the handsome love interest of practically every female in the place! There were also the patients: the old codger who liked to drag-race in his wheelchair, the paranoid young man who wanted his medication pre-tasted and then slipped under the door, etc...
The program returned for its second season re-titled The New Temperatures Rising Show, with new producers and almost completely recast. Capital General was now a private hospital, run by penny-pinching Dr. Paul Mercy ( played by Paul Lynde) and owned by his meddlesome mother, Martha ( Sudie Bond), who was permanently in residence and who kept calling her son via a beeper on his belt. Miss Tillis ( Barbara Cason) was the efficient accountant, and Dr. Axton ( Jeff Morrow), the cheerfully fraudulent surgeon who had recently published two books, Profit in Healing and Malpractice and Its Defense. Only intern Jerry Noland remained from the first season.
The second version of Temperatures Rising was no more successful than the first, however, and lasted only through mid-season. Apparently, viewers did not appreciate seeing doctors as the butt of comedy. The show did come back for another short run in the summer of 1974, with more new episodes, and still more changes in cast and plot. This time the meddling mother was gone, and Dr. Mercy ran the place with the help of his sister, Edwina ( Alice Ghostley). Intern Jerry Noland was back, along with a couple new nurses.
The third time was not the charm, however. Temperatures Rising was finally cancelled once and for all after the summer of 1974 run.
Here is Cleavon Little's Obituary from The New York Times
Cleavon Little, Award-Winning Actor, Dies at 53
By GLENN COLLINS
Published: October 23, 1992
Cleavon Little, the actor best remembered for his role as a black sheriff hired to save a redneck town in Mel Brooks's 1974 comedy "Blazing Saddles," died yesterday at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He was 53 years old.
He died of colon cancer, said David C. Pollick, his publicity agent in Los Angeles.
Mr. Little also won the Tony Award for best actor in a musical in 1970, when he starred in "Purlie." More recently, he co-starred with Judd Hirsch in "I'm Not Rappaport," Herb Gardner's 1986 play about two irascible octogenarians who meet on a bench in Central Park.
"He called me Wednesday to say goodbye," Mr. Hirsch said yesterday in an interview. He and Mr. Little were together in the show for three years on Broadway and on tour. "We teased each other for years in 'Rappaport,' and I said to him, 'You have to get well so we can tour again.' He was a wonderful actor and a classy man, and I so regret we couldn't have made another tour."
Mr. Little was born in Chickasha, Okla., on June 1, 1939. He was a 1965 graduate of San Diego College and a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan. He made early stage appearances at the La Jolla Playhouse in California, and moved to the New York stage, appearing through the years in such Off Broadway productions as "MacBird!," "Keyboard," "The Resurrection of Lady Lester" and "The Great McDaddy" as well as "Scuba Duba," a production in which he and Mr. Hirsch first acted together in 1967. He made his Broadway debut in 1968 in "Jimmy Shine."
That same year he also played a hip Hamlet in the New York Shakespeare Festival production. His other Broadway credits included "Narrow Road to the Deep North" (1972) and "All Over Town" (1974).
Mr. Little starred in the television series "Temperature's Rising," "Baghdad Cafe" and "True Colors," and made many television films, among them "Separate but Equal" opposite Sidney Poitier. He won an Emmy Award as a guest star in Mr. Hirsch's series "Dear John."
In addition to "Blazing Saddles," Mr. Little appeared in more than a dozen films, including "Arthur 2 on the Rocks," "Toy Soldiers," "Cotton Comes to Harlem," "Vanishing Point" and "Once Bitten."
He is survived by a daughter, Adia Millett-Little of Los Angeles; his father, Malchi Little, and stepmother, Ruby Little, both of San Diego; two sisters, Rosemarie Martin and DeEtta West, and two brothers, Everett and Roy Little, all of Los Angeles.
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