Hail To The Chief aired from April until July 1985 on ABC.
The President Of The United States was surrounded by a cabinet of crazies in this comedy about life in the White House under the first woman chief executive.Created by the creator of Soap ( Susan Harris), it used the same type of semi-serialized story lines as the earlier hit, and even some similar plots.Julia Mansfield ( Patty Duke), was the Madame President, who was confronted by such ongoing crisis as her husband Oliver's ( Ted Bessell's), inability to make love; a lunatic major threatening to start WW3; an equally lunatic Russian Premier Zolotov( Dick Shawn), on the hot line; the blackmailing of her husband by KGB head Ivan ( the premier's twin brother) after Oliver was caught in a compromising possition with sexy spy Darleen( Alexa Hamilton); Son Doug's impregnating of Gen. Stryker's( John Vernon's) daughter; and an attempt to impeach her by ranting Rev. Billy Joe ( Richard Paul), who maintained that Satan had put this woman in the White House.
Hawkes (Glynn Turman), was the sensible black Secretary Of State, who was often outshouted by National Security Advisor Luger ( Herschel Bernardi), and Gen Stryker. The President's 3 children were Tennis Pro Doug ( Ricky Paul Goldin), Lucy ( Quinn Cummings), who had the hots for Raoul, the butler( Chick Vennera), and little Willie ( Taliesin Jaffe); Lenore ( Maxine Stuart), was Julia's bedazzled mom, and Randy ( Joel Brooks), her gay chief secret service agent.
Raechel Donahue was the announcer.
This show was intended to resemble Susan Harris's previous hit Soap. Harris blamed the series demise on network interference; she told TV Guide that the finished product was a bad show that should have been canceled.
A Review From The New York Times
By Jack O'Connor
Published April 9, 1985
As for ''Hail to the Chief,'' there hasn't been anything so furiously wacky on prime-time television since ''Soap'' got a broad cross-sec tion of protest groups worked up almost a decade ago - even before the show went on air. Not surprisingly, both series come out of Witt/ Thomas/ Harris Productions. Susan Harris is the creator and writer. Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas are the producers. It is perhaps a sign of the times that ''Hail to the Chief,'' which goes several kinky steps beyond the outrageousness of ''Soap,'' is making its debut without so much as a raised eyebrow, even though the advertisments for the ''equal opportunity offender'' promise that you'll say, ''I thought they couldn't do that on TV.''
As to how a woman became President of the United States, don't ask. Just accept the fact that Julia Mansfield (Miss Duke) has one hand on the hot line to the Soviet Union, where Premiere Zolotov thinks she is just nifty, and is attempting to get a hammerlock on the loonies surrounding her. Her husband, Gen. Oliver Mansfield, is having an affair with a curvaceous Soviet agent who calls the White House with messages that, covered in peanut butter and jelly, she is waiting anxiously for him. Among the Presidential children are a daughter who is having an affair with the Latin- American butler and a young son who is having a problem with one of his Arab classmates.
Somewhere in all of this - much of it too tasteless to describe here - is a presumably serious, unfortunately hysterical effort to cut through what the producers perceive to be the pieties and pabulum of the current social and political scene. A sharp parody would not, in fact, be out of order. The problem with ''Hail to the Chief'' is that it more often leaves you wincing instead of laughing.
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