I was just thinking...were they nuts to put this opposite "All in the Family" the last year? I tend to think it was just an excuse to try not to tell them the show was done with, so lets just watch it slowly die in the ratings...anyone?

Indeed. When a show is moved to Saturday nights, especially against a hot show like AITF, that usually means they've given up on it.

Although the show held more magic as a kid for me than as an adult I still like it kinda. But I must say the Partridge Family was rather weird from the get go. And David Cassidy's life in real life was even weirder than that of Keith Partridge. Read his C'mon Get Happy book (now out of print get at a library). He took dope and so on. But remember it is a recollecion of his life decades after (many of) the events in it took place. It may not be 100% accurate.

I think initially the idea was to bring in new life to the show, as David Cassidy was clearly on his way out. How they came up with the idea of "Ricky" I will never know, but I guess they were concerned with demographics and numbers and they went ahead and did it based on the fact that a lot of young kids watched the show. By September though, maybe after actually watching some of the episodes, they realized the show was as good as dead, and moved it to Saturday anyways.
Personally I'd rather they had just ended it there. Maybe it was because I was now in the ninth grade, or maybe it was just that embarrassing, but I could no longer defend the Partridge Family at that point. Our favorite show had gone from totally cool to embarrasingly cute. Talk about Jumping the Shark!

They were nuts all right.

That seemed like a very bad move, to put it on opposite of All In The Family. The Partridge Family attracted mostly teenagers while All In The Family attracted a wider age group. And All In The Family dealt with so many current issues of the time that it was bound to draw in more viewers.

I'm guessing that by that point, they saw the writing on the wall, and knew that the show was pretty much done for anyway.

First they really threw the Partridge Family under the bus by airing it opposite All in the Family. But then they tried to revive the show by introducing Ricky Segall as the kid singing star sensation. Ricky's voice swept the country by storm and helped the ratings to some degree - just notice how the Partridge Family cast smiled whenever he sang - but it was just no match for All in the Family.

Yes anything on against AITF spells the kiss of death.

I'd more or less lost track of the Partirdges by the last season, although I was a fan for the first 2 1/2. I've also enjoyed an occasional look in synidcation. What I'd like to know is why they saw fit to make it one of many one parent families. Instead of having a widowed Mrs. Partirdge, and the middle-aged guy being a hired manager who was their friend afer a while, it might have been a healthier situation if there'd been a Mr. Partidge who was also his own family's manager.

That seemed like a very bad move, to put it on opposite of All In The Family. The Partridge Family attracted mostly teenagers while All In The Family attracted a wider age group. And All In The Family dealt with so many current issues of the time that it was bound to draw in more viewers.


Yeah, at first I was going to say that the two shows had totally different demographic audiences, but on second thought, back in those days, most homes had one t.v. - sometimes a 2nd portable. Therefore, if mom and dad controlled what was watched, AITF would have won out for sure.

Remember, there were also no VCRS, TVos, etc. so you could only watch the one show per t.v.

^ Thats true! Most homes only had one tv in the late 60's & early 70's, and vcr's hadn't came out yet.

Perhaps ABC was having trouble with that time slot because of it and the best thing is to put one of their most popular shows under a rival network's show.


There's no use in gripping about it. Every show has its endtime.


Plus David was gonna quit anyhow and it ran a good amount of time.

There was a little show on NBC called Emergency sandwiched in between AITF and Partridge family. Oh, Wow! :crazy:

So what?