Davis Rules: Cast Photo - Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries

Davis Rules aired from January 1991 until July 1992 on ABC and CBS.

Newly Appointed grammar school Pricipal Dwight Davis ( Randy Quaid), had disciplinary problems around the clock in this light comedy-at school with the kids and at home as a single dad with 3 rambunctious boys, Robbie ( Trevor Bullock), the oldest, Charlie ( Luke Edwards) and Ben (Nathan Watt), the youngest. The biggest kid of all, however, was Dwight's eccentric father Gunny ( Jonathan Winters) who lived with them and regularly dispensed outlandish advice. They all cheered Dwight on in his developing relationship with Cosmo (Patti Clarkson),an intelligent, offbeat new teacher at his school. Rigo ( Rigoberto Jiminez) was Robbie's teenage pal.

When Davis Rules moved to CBS in 1992 there were a number of changes in the cast. Robbie was away at college, Cosmo had left Seattle to become a nun, and Dwight's sister Gwen ( Bonnie Hunt), had moved in to help raise the family. Also living with the Davises was Skinner Buckley ( Vonni Ribisi), the 15 year old son of 2 of Dwight's college friends who were away doing research in South America.

The Executive Producers Of Davis Rules Were Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner.

A Review from USA TODAY

TV PREVIEW/ BY MATT ROUSH

Winters 'Rules' the show

Does the world really need another single-father family sitcom? No, no, a thousand times NO.

But Davis Rules has a grandfather and that changes everything.

Jonathan Winters rules Davis Rules, and what a treat to see scenes mercilessly stolen by a grown-up, not by the shrill nerdwinks of a pipsqueek like Family Matters' Steve Urkel.

As Grandpa " Gunny" Davis in an all-male household , Winters will deservedly get most of the attention in this show, punching each of his non sequitors with an eye-rolling , sheepish grimace . But everything else here is more agreeable than usual.

Agreeable, of course isn't enough to guarantee prime-time success these days , so ABC was smart to sign on Winters for his goony unpredictability.

The lousy title refers to the other star, rumpled and relaxed Randy Quaid as Dwight Davis, teacher made reluctant principal in Sunday's pilot, not made available for preview.

Anything but slick, Quaid's laid back appeal is matched by a comfortably messy home and three boys who are less obnoxious than usual. In Tuesday's episode he even gets an appealing love interest ( Patricia Clarkson), who is saddled with the name Cosmo.

Watching Winters kiss Cosmo's hand and rapturously mug " It's like a little porcelain mitt," is evidence enough that Davis Rules will fill the bill, even if short of a Roseanne-style smash.

An Article from USA TODAY
Published on January 25, 1991 ( My sister's 9th B-day)

Hitmakers use clout for sitcom debut

By Jefferson Graham
USA TODAY

HOLLYWOOD-Marcy Carsey and Tom Warner became multimillionaires in 1984 after they convinced NBC to give Bill Cosby another shot at a sitcom.

The Cosby Show brought NBC from third to first place in the ratings almost overnight, and established the production company that struck tv gold again in its next two outings , NBC's A Different World and ABC's Roseanne.

But getting the fourth hit has not been as easy. Chicken Soup and Grand, both high-profile flops, have taken some of the luster off Carsey-Werner's reputation as the most successful and powerful tv producers in Hollywood.

They are hoping Jonathan Winters and Randy Quaid can turn that around . They star in Davis Rules, which premieres Sunday on ABC after the Super Bowl, the most coveted debut spot in tv due to high game viewership. Of course, that airing is contingent upon events in the gulf war. Davis Rules will then air Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. EST/PST.

In Davis, Quaid plays a school principal , and Winters is his dad, who lives with his son and three grandsons.

" If the show is good, there is no better place to be than after the Super Bowl," says advertising time-buyer Paul Schulman. " This is the funniest pilot I've seen since Roseanne."

With three generations represented , " It's the ultimate family show," says ABC Entertainment President Bob Iger.

Carsey-Werner's specialty is shows about kids , family and education. All three elements are emphasized in Cosby, Roseanne, and A Different World. The producers are also known for building shows around comedians ( Cosby, Roseanne, Jackie Mason.)

Carsey and Werner know how to get great time slots. Chicken Soup aired after Roseanne, and Grand played after Cheers. They also know how to keep good time periods.

" NBC can't move A Different World from Thursday because they gave ( Carsey-Werner) a guaranteed time-slot," says CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky. Guaranteed time-slots -in which new shows are placed in can't-lose time-slot after hits-are "the latest thing powerful producers are asking for."

The principals of the company, both former ABC-TV executives who helped develop hits like Mork and Mindy and Soap, like to be in total control.

They are among the last of what seems to be a dying breed-an independent TV production company with no ties to a studio or major corporation.

And unlike most TV producers, who-because of the tremendous dollars at stake miss no opportunity to promote their product , Carsey, 44, and Werner, 39, are press shy.

Despite repeated requests, Carsey and Werner declined to be interviewed for this article. Their publicist, David Brokaw, said today's story should be about one of the stars-Winters or Quaid. If USA TODAY would agree to run a personal piece today, said Brokaw, the producers would agree to speak for a future article.

Their shows Roseanne, World and Cosby , are the Nos. 3, 4, and 5 shows in TV, respectively , following Cheers and 60 Minutes.And Carsey and Werner share with other Hollywood moguls a love for exercising their power.

Last spring when they were in negotiations with NBC to bring The Cosby Show back for a seventh season, the Los Angeles Times reported that the producers asked for a $100 million bonus just to re-sign with the network. Included in the deal was an agreement that Different World would remain on Thursdays at 8:30 and that Grand had to be renewed.

Carsey and Werner-whose Cosby and Different World are both up for renewal again this spring-are reported to have received $2 million an episode for Cosby this season, more than double what any network pays for any sitcom. And this is on top of the $575 million that Carsey, Werner, Bill Cosby and syndicator Viacom pulled in for syndicated reruns of The Cosby Show.

The backlash from the Cosby negotiations and envy from competitors over the Grand deal, raised the question of greed.

In a December conversation with USA TODAY , Carsey was clearly stung by such talk. " This company is not about greed. It's convenient for the networks to say that about us, but it's just not true."

" Sure we wanted to have Grand renewed. NBC offered us blind commitments for future-series but we turned them down. Because we believed in the show. We thought it was different and kicky."

Carsey also discounted the talk of her company's clout. " If we had the clout they said we do, Chicken Soup and Grand, wouldn't have been canceled."

Carsey and Wener produce Diferent World, Roseanne, and Davis at the MTM Enterprises studio lot , where a staff cook serves healthy meals for company employees every day . ( The Cosby Show is produced in New York City.)

Unlike producers like Steven Bochco or Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who create and write their shows , Carsey and Werner operate more like movie producers. They match talent. They hire producers to create, write and produce , and leave them alone.

While they have spent a lot of time at Davis Rules , they are not a daily presence at their other programs.

Tales of strife have emanated from the Roseanne set for the past two seasons , but " I never see them," says Tom Arnold, producer of Roseanne and husband of its star.

The show, in its third season is being run by its third executive producer.

Arnold, also a writer on the sitcom ,says he and Barr deal with Werner. " We don't see much of Marcy."

( Wener, the managing partner of the San Diego Padres made the ill-fated request to have Barr sing the National Anthem last summer.)

That said, getting Davis-formerly The Principal and Spiral Bound -to prime time has not been easy.First presented to ABC last spring-without Quaid-for the fall, the network passed, but OK'd it as a midseason series.

At one point, when ABC had a sudden opening on Tuesdays, there was talk of getting Davis Rules on for September. But Carsey-Werner requested more time.

" We all felt there was no reason to rush it," says Iger. " Time could only be a benefit."

The producers-who scrapped Roseanne's pilot at the last minute to shoot a new one -have spent the last several weeks reshooting Sunday's episode, which was shot last September. They won't let TV critics see that show in advance for review.

Carsey and Werner are doing all they can to get a Wonder Years or an A-Team hit out of the Super Bowl berth-both shows successfully premiered after the game-and not the reception that quickly canceled Grand Slam last year.

A Review From Entertainment Weekly

Davis Rules

Reviewed by Ken Tucker

Most of the situation comedies that producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner have created over the past few years, including the new Davis Rules (ABC, Tuesdays, 8:30-9 p.m.), have followed the same formula: Take a well-known comedian who ( is not a major star, surround him or her with sympathetic, lovable costars, and work a lot of the comedian's trademark material and attitude into every script. Sometimes their formula has worked -as it has, spectacularly, with The Cosby Show and Roseanne-and sometimes it hasn't, as Jackie Mason's disastrous Chicken Soup proved. Sometimes even Carsey and Werner get tired of the formula: They attempted something new with Grand, which broke with the producers' tradition by casting Pamela Reed, an actress known primarily for drama, as its star. Kept alive for two seasons by NBC's very artificial respiration, Grand was a big, unfunny flop, and now Carsey and Werner have reverted to form. The ''Davis'' in Davis Rules refers to Randy Quaid, who plays an affable public school principal, but the real star of this show is Jonathan Winters, who appears as Quaid's father, ''Gunny'' Davis. Like Bill Cosby before The Cosby Show debuted in 1984, Winters arrives in sitcom land a faded star hoping to become hot again. If the first few episodes of Davis Rules are any indication, he's warming up fast. Winters became a legend with exactly the sort of comedy that's wrong for sitcoms- improvisational, stream-of-consciousness joking. In his late-'50s, early-' 60s prime, Winters would turn up on The Tonight Show or The Steve Allen Show, and he'd seem like an exploding genius. Vivid voices, surreal one- liners, and risque lunacy just seemed to burst out of him. But the decades went by and the variety-show format waned-including Winters' own two stabs at the format, The Jonathan Winters Show (1967-69) and The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters (1972-74). After that, the only place besides talk shows to showcase comic talent was in a sitcom. One unfortunate attempt to mainstream Winters' manic style was his 1981-82 season with Mork & Mindy. Winters was hired at the instigation of the show's star, Robin Williams, who idolized and had been profoundly influenced by him. The idea was that these two wild guys would spark instant laughs off each other. But Winters always looked pained and distracted, as if worried that he'd forget his next scripted line if he let loose with a spontaneous zinger. On Davis Rules, the 65-year-old Winters seems finally to have found the sitcom that will set him free. The show provides him with a good setting for his offbeat humor. As the elder statesman in a household with a single-parent son (Quaid) and three grandsons (Trevor Bullock, Luke Edwards, and Nathan , Witt), Winters is a sort of loopy, out-there version of William Frawley's Uncle Bub on the old My Three Sons. In the context of Mork & Mindy, Winters was just another wild element in a wild show; here, plopped down in a standard sitcom family, he stands out as the one character who can consistently break through the conventions of sitcom humor. Carsey and Werner hired him, Winters has said, ''because I was going to be able to do some off-the-wall stuff, and then get back to the script.'' So far, that seems to be just what he's doing. It helps, too, that Winters' costar is such a suitable choice. Quaid was capable of his own aggressive comic lunacy during his 1985-86 stint on Saturday Night Live and in the National Lampoon's Vacation movies; as Dwight Davis, however, he's surprisingly, charmingly low-key. Perhaps realizing that the best way to play along with Winters is to lie back, Quaid delivers his lines in a low, soothing voice and makes the most of his gentle smile. Equally good is Patricia Clarkson (Tune in Tomorrow, Rocket Gibraltar) as Quaid's girlfriend. In a recent episode, when Winters kissed her hand and remarked dreamily that it was ''so smooth, like a little porcelain mitt,'' Clarkson's reaction was perfect: a tricky combination of charmed swoon and utter bafflement. Much less good are Quaid's sons, all of whom are whining wisenheimers. Hey, Carsey-Werner, get these kids some personalities-and some manners! Winters, though, has been consistently pleasurable. ''What's for breakfast, Grandpa?'' asked one of the young whiners in a recent episode. ''Gopher paws in a sort of light cream sauce,'' replied Winters quickly, his little raisin eyes dancing. That's the kind of psychedelic stuff you'll never hear on Full House, unless someone puts LSD in Bob Saget's milk. B+

(Posted:02/22/91)

An Article from The New York Times

CBS Buys Show From ABC
By BILL CARTER
Published: November 19, 1991

CBS announced yesterday that it would add to its prime-time schedule a comedy series that had been the property of another network, ABC, until last week.

CBS acquired the rights to the series, "Davis Rules," after ABC agreed to its producers' request that it relinquish its rights to the show. Other shows have switched networks, but only after being canceled.

Peter Tortorici, the executive vice president for programming for CBS, said the move reflected the enormous financial pressures the networks are feeling. "With everything that is going on in television right now," he said, "it makes absolutely no sense to waste a program that you can't fit on your schedule when somebody else wants it."

ABC showed "Davis Rules," a comedy about a high school principal, starring Randy Quaid and Jonathan Winters, for several weeks last spring. Then it bought the right to use the show as backup this fall. If one of its other comedies failed, ABC planned to put "Davis Rules" in its place. But the show did not find a place on ABC's schedule. A Companion Piece

CBS plans to use "Davis Rules" as a companion comedy to "Brooklyn Bridge," for which it has high hopes, Mr. Tortorici said. "We have been desperate to find something compatible to go with 'Brooklyn Bridge,' " he said. "Then we got this fortuitous phone call last Friday.'

The call came from the "Davis Rules" production company, Carsey-Werner, which also produces NBC's "Cosby Show" and ABC's "Roseanne." Stuart Glickman, the chief executive of Carsey-Werner, said the company had decided to try to place "Davis Rules" on CBS because it realized it would be a perfect companion piece for "Brooklyn Bridge."

"We had no place to go on ABC," Mr. Glickman added. "Their comedies were working. So we decided to ask them if they would release us so we could try to sell the show somewhere else. They made a gutsy call. They said yes."

Mr. Glickman said the deal came together very quickly. CBS has agreed to pay for the episodes that ABC had already paid Carsey-Werner to produce. Eleven new episodes have already been completed. The first episode on CBS is to be broadcast on Jan. 1.

Robert A. Iger, the president of ABC Entertainment, issued a statement yesterday saying only that Carsey-Werner had requested the release and ABC had agreed.

Mr. Tortorici praised ABC's decision, saying: "Give ABC credit. In the past, if a network didn't have a place for a show, they would pocket-veto it, just let it die rather than give it to someone."

For more on Davis Rules go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_Rules

To go to Jonathan Winter's Official Home Page go to www.jonathanwinters.com/