The 20 Biggest Mess-Ups/Mistakes in CBS History

[Mario500]

Originally Posted by simmytbone

also, CBS cancelling Fat Albert in 1984, but then when they moved it to syndication the same year that Cos began his 8 year reign on The Cosby Show and CBS would lose its #1 spot during the 2nd half of the 80's to NBC and as for Fat Albert, when the show moved to syndication, this was Filmation's Way of cashing in on the success of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and it failed (even though they introduced us to Legal Eagle), plus I didn't like how they made Rudy's character for vicious and Russell too mean, especially against Rudy

What "Legal Eagle"?

The Late Lou Scheimer was born in Pittsburgh while Mr. Cosby was born in Philly and the late Norm Prescott was born in Boston

(wonders about why this group of text was part of the message to which I had responded)

[simmytbone]

Originally Posted by Mario500

What "Legal Eagle"?

You don't remember Legal Eagle?

Legal Eagle is a show watched by the Junkyard Gang, involving a crime-fighting cartoon bird and two lazy, klutzy squirrel underlings, Moe and Gabby. Like the Brown Hornet, the moral of each episode would touch upon the premise of the regular episode.

Legal Eagle himself was heavily prone to mixing witticisms together, and would do it several times in each episode.

Here's an episode entitled Read Baby Read and there's a segment with Legal Eagle from the syndicated years

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7mqsqk

[Mario500]

Originally Posted by simmytbone

You don't remember Legal Eagle?

Legal Eagle is a show watched by the Junkyard Gang, involving a crime-fighting cartoon bird and two lazy, klutzy squirrel underlings, Moe and Gabby. Like the Brown Hornet, the moral of each episode would touch upon the premise of the regular episode.

Legal Eagle himself was heavily prone to mixing witticisms together, and would do it several times in each episode.

Here's an episode entitled Read Baby Read and there's a segment with Legal Eagle from the syndicated years

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7mqsqk

(does not remember having heard of (or seen) the "Legal Eagle" described in this message prior to having read the message; remembers having heard the words "legal" and "eagle" being said together in what I had believed to been references unrelated to the one described in the message prior to having read the message)

[TVSCREEN2015]

CBS changing Major Dad's time slot. The show was doing well in it's Monday night timeslot with the ratings climbing with each season #39, #21, #9. The show peaked in season 3 ranking in the top ten nielsen. Then for it's fourth season, CBS moved the show to Friday nights where the ratings took a massive nosedive to #69 in the ratings. The show was cancelled at the end of it's fourth season.

[Jamey Greek]

Putting The Price is Right special.on Thursday nights against The Cosby Show and Family Ties.

- speaking of The Price is Right according to Adam Nedeff's Game Shows FAQ, In 1990, CBS attempted to counter-program ABC's Primetime game show block of Super Jeopardy! And Monopoly with a Primetime version of PIR. The problem was they failed to give Mark Goodson advance notice for him and his staff to prepare and he told them so.

[Jamey Greek]

Originally Posted by TMC

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...k/LiveActionTV

• CBS notoriously did this to an entire genre of television programs. From 1970-72, in what would later be called "The Rural Purge", the network cancelled most of their sitcoms and dramas focusing on country life or country folks living in the city. Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mayberry RFD, Lassie, and Hee Haw were among the shows that got their pink slips during this period, as well as The Ed Sullivan Show; Pat Buttram (Mr. Haney on Green Acres) famously said 1971 was "the year CBS killed everything with a tree in it". Networks began to move away from rural settings to more modern shows set in suburbia and aimed at a younger demographic, such as The Brady Bunch over at ABC. In CBS' defense, their new shows such as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mash, The Bob Newhart Show, Maude, Good Times, One Day At A Time, and The Jeffersons were all successful, often wildly so, with critics and audiences.
  
  Essentially, this bookends NBC's cancellation of Star Trek — Nielsen's demographic breakdowns of a show's ratings had become more specific between 1969 and 1971, thus if Trek's early demise (good demos but low overall ratings) was the before, the 1971 CBS Rural Purge (of shows with good overall numbers but lousy 18-to-49 ones) was the after.

• Similarly, in 1979 CBS canned Wonder Woman and The Amazing Spider-Man while never going forward on the Doctor Strange and Captain America pilots...not because their ratings were poor, but because CBS didn't want to be seen as "The Super Hero Network". Only The Incredible Hulk survived.

• The CBS Prime Time Soap 2000 Malibu Road was canned after just six episodes... but not over ratings, which were quite fine — it was because Aaron Spelling didn't want it competing against another of his shows.

• American Gothic premiered at 10:00 PM on Fridays, a fairly-good timeslot. There was plenty of press, promotions, a lot of hype. The show aired, got rave reviews from critics and fans alike...and then, for no apparent reason, scheduling issues began cropping up. Whether the executives in charge at CBS changed and wished to do away with the success of their predecessors (though CBS was transitioning from the disastrous cheapskate Tisch era of the network to Westinghouse ownership; the final-year Tisch era had left a FOX-lite schedule with post-NFL transition disasters such as an Andrew Dice Clay sitcom where he plays a family man, Bless This House, and Central Park West with the new owners), didn't understand how good a thing they had, or didn't understand the show at all, all sorts of problems began plaguing the show. It would be preempted; there would be no episode shown, something else randomly stuck on in its place with no explanation; there would be gaps of several weeks between new episodes, sometimes filled by reruns but usually not; episodes were shown out of order, or never aired at all. Then, without warning, the show was completely yanked from the line-up and vanished for many months. Granted, the show was unusual, not for everyone, and very different from most of CBS' usual fare, but with so many praising it for its daring and disturbing nature, you'd think they'd have gotten a clue. Luckily, the creators knew long enough ahead of time that the plug was being pulled and managed to wrap up the main plot points, but even these final episodes were withheld for a long time before being suddenly plunked on TV one right after another as a three-hour movie "event".

• Central Park West is an interesting case. The show was originally a way for CBS to bounce back after their disastrous 1994-95 season. The network threw their entire marketing clout behind the show, which was touted as the hottest and sexiest drama to ever air on a network, and bolstered it with a massive advertising campaign - huge banners on buildings, bus advertisements, commercials, you name it. For a reason only known to the executives, CPW's first two episodes were scheduled against anniversary episodes of the two biggest prime time soap operas airing at that time (Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place). It also had to deal with the big affiliate shuffle in the wake of the FOX/NFL deal, where the new CBS stations just wanted to make sure viewers knew where they were on the dial first before getting into things such as network promotion. The show was trounced in the ratings, which would've led to its cancellation had CBS not already invested so much money into the program (roughly $13-15 million for the first season alone).
  
  The show was continually pre-empted, aired on different days (which led to its being trounced by Party of Five) and then taken off the network while the show was Retooled. When it came back, half the cast was gone and the show's theme was changed to a Dynasty-esque clone. However, it didn't last even a handful of episodes before CBS pulled the plug for good.

• When Due South first premiered on CBS in 1994, it produced higher-than-expected ratings for the network (and for the CTV network in Canada). Because one of the CBS executives who endorsed the series was fired, the show was canceled. Then, after CBS' Fall lineup became DOA, the show was brought back again. After several months of beating Friends(!), the show was canned once more. This came after a press release praising the show's critical acclaim. It's a good thing the series was then picked up by Canadian and foreign investors.

• The US Eleventh Hour had consistently good ratings, but was cancelled by CBS because it essentially didn't get the ratings of its lead-in CSI.

• Family Matters, at the very end of its run, was a victim of this. After declining ratings, the series was silently moved from ABC to CBS for its last season, where ratings became almost non-existent. Adding insult to injury, the final episodes aired during Summer 1998 (when TV viewership was typically down due to between-season reruns) and the Grand Finale received little promotion or recognition from CBS. The fact that it aired just a couple months after the Seinfeld finale probably didn't help matters.
  
  It's also an example of an actress getting screwed over by the network. Jaimee Foxworth was inexplicably written off after Season 4 after demanding more money and a larger role for her part. The rest, they say, is history.

• Gilligan's Island, despite having decent ratings, was cancelled because one CBS executive hated the premise and wanted to give its timeslot to Gunsmoke, which was the show that originally was going to be cancelled. Luckily for James Arness, the exec's wife was a fan of the western show.
  
  This came back to bite the network on the ass. Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of the show, was so angry at CBS that he vowed not to work for it again. The next show he created ran on ABC, which you may be familiar with.
  Arguably, both sides got something out of this. Gunsmoke ran for 20 seasons, more than twice the running time of Gilligan/BB combined. However, Brady and Gilligan became two of the most syndicated shows of all time. Alongside spin-offs, reunion movies, and the 1990s Brady films that were a good-natured parody and deconstruction of the series, in the long run Gilligan/Brady have been much more successful.

• The success of The Jeffersons notwithstanding, CBS still chose to cancel it two weeks after the end of Season 12 (the longest run of any Norman Lear sitcom), leaving Sherman Hemsley to find out in his morning newspaper. They didn't even get to shoot a farewell episode, leaving it to the Series Finale of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to provide the needed closure, when Louise and George buy the house.

• When Jericho got canceled the first time, CBS decided not to announce its impending doom until after the cliffhanger season finale aired (it made the nuts all the more necessary).
  
  The only consolation prize from all of this was that the writers were prepared for an either-or situation (two different endings, both filmed) and that CBS informed them of their cancellation before airing the series finale. Notice how networks now are giving more of their serial dramas (and their fans) ample warning of likely cancellation before their season finale airs to give writers some time to wrap up major storylines. The Jericho fans may have been a major influence in this change, which would make this seem like a bittersweet victory for fans of quality TV storytelling.

• The very short-lived 2012 lawyer series Made In Jersey was cancelled after only two episodes. A shame, since it had set out to undo some of the damage wreaked on the state's reputation by Jersey Shore by having the Jersey girl be the heroine instead of the butt of jokes, and by portraying New Jersey and its citizens in a favorable light instead of as cartoonish stereotypes. The New Jerseyans in the series were refreshingly portrayed as being just as noble as their brethren in New York, a nice change of pace from the usual Jersey-bashing fare put on TV by Hollywood and the New York media.
  
  What really killed this one was the awful reviews and the Friday Night Death Slot. The show basically being a tourism ad for New Jersey only made things worse.

• CBS screwed over The New Adventures of Old Christine in its last season by cancelling it despite it being their highest-rated show on Wednesday nights (it was pulling in 8 million viewers on average).

• The short-lived series Now And Again was dropped into a Friday Night Death Slot with no lead-in whatsoever, despite its unique premise and high budget. While it initially did well (even defeating Chris Carter's lauded Harsh Realm in the ratings wars), CBS suddenly started to cut back on promoting the show in the spring and the ratings dropped as a result. According to cast members who spoke at conventions that summer, rumor has it that the show was being set up to fail due to internal politics and the CBS/Paramount/Viacom merger.

• Unforgettable had Top 20 ratings and was first in its timeslot, but got almost no buzz at all and didn't do better than what The Good Wife did the previous season, so it was canceled at the end of the season...only to be Un-Canceled for a Summer run in 2013 upon CBS realizing Lifetime and TNT were kicking the tires of the show to bring it (and CBS "It Girl" Poppy Montgomery) to their network. The replacement show, the Period Piece Vegas, did no better and also ended up canceled for being popular, but not among anyone under 50.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...sternAnimation

• CBS screwed over its own cartoon lineup in 1994 with budget cuts, so it could have a live-action line-up to compete with TNBC (note that CBS was third place —even fourth sometimes— in ratings back then). It was really bad in the case of Garfield and Friends which was still going strong in the ratings after seven seasons, the show's creators were so outraged by the poor treatment that they decided to end the show rather then letting it suffer from budget cutbacks. For unknown reasons the planned live-action block never materialized, with a revamped cartoon block taking over.

• Later on, in 1998, they had a block of Saturday Morning cartoons, The Early Show for two hours, then another two-hour cartoon block led off by Birdz. That show was the first to go, getting replaced in spring 1999 with a cartoon based on Fisher-Price's Rescue Heroes toys.

• And when it screwed over Kewlopolis, all DiC cartoons including Strawberry Shortcake got the short stick. While most of the shows have already ended production and fully aired at least once when Kewlopolis got cancelled, Strawberry Shortcake had just finished airing it's third season on Kewlpolis and was about to air Season 4, the final season, when it got the boot. Adding to the complication was the four-way lawsuit between American Greetings, DiC, Cookie Jar, and Moonscoop over the franchise' ownership. Luckily tho, the DVD releases did not stop- and it became the only way Americans could watch the fourth season, which only wrapped up in 2012, 5 years after the series finale aired in Europe!

Family Matters was planning on a tenth season and was planning on bringing Judy back even hiring a new actress to play her. But CBS already canned it and the sets were already destroyed.

As for The Jeffersons, it was after season 11.

[treky]

renewing MASH for 3 and a half more seasons after Radar left. 99.9% of those season 8-11 episodes are unwatchable.

[Jamey Greek]

-Agreeing to air Viacom's planned $64,000 Question revival on their own and operated stations only to pitch a fit when it went over their $25,000 limit on game shows.

[Jamey Greek]

Originally Posted by bmasters9

I remember when it was that, Crazy Like a Fox, and Trapper John, M.D. on Sundays (that was when CBS was with the NFC). Now, you don't get anything like that anymore after CBS' current AFC coverage.

How about when they bad a lineup of killer sitcoms?

[Jamey Greek]

-letting Brent Musberger go

-cheapening daytime wheel of fortune

[70s show watcher]

Originally Posted by cnnbcbs

Moving off Crazy Like A Fox, then cancelling it. The show did great in its Sunday timeslot with high retention from Murder She Wrote. Don't know what they had against it, it was a fun show. It was good counter-programming to all the movies at 9.

It was stupid to have three competing movie nights, might as well go to bed at 9. Luckilly Fox would provide an alternative to movies starting in '87.

I I agree I hated it back in the mid 80s and all through the 90s when there was nothing all the networks except movies and at least 3 out of every 4 sundays you would have to fish around on cable if you were ucky enough to have it to find something good to watch I had a nickname for the sunday night movie back then I called it old fogey theatre

[70s show watcher]

Originally Posted by 70s show watcher

I I agree I hated it back in the mid 80s and all through the 90s when there was nothing all the networks except movies and at least 3 out of every 4 sundays you would have to fish around on cable if you were ucky enough to have it to find something good to watch I had a nickname for the sunday night movie back then I called it old fogey theatre

I forgot to add that old fogey theatre was the cbs sunday night movie

[Jamey Greek]

-abruptly cancelling Cybill Cybill Shepard later alleged that Les Moonves retaliated by cancelling it because she refused his advances.

[icecream]

Cancelling Close to Home at the end of season 2. It did well often building on Ghost Whisperer's lead-in. Fridays at 9:00 had multiple flops after that. Was Jennifer Finnigan another one of Les's victims?

Scorpion was a smash hit as the Mondays at 9:00 anchor. Moving Scorpion to 10:00 at the start of season 3 was a dumb move.

[TMC]

In a 2000 NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers, the Chargers led it 17-16 with 2 minutes left, looking to get their first win of the season. And then, CBS stopped showing the game everywhere, including Kansas City and San Diego, leaving tons of fans upset and wondering how it ended. It's yet another sequel to the Heidi Game controversy. This is the story behind the NFL on CBS and their broadcasting screwup.