What would have prevented The Partridge Family from Jumping The Shark

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Originally Posted by EricPost

I don't even know why Cassidy wanted the part. Halfway through the first season you could tell he didn't want to be there and was phoning it in. Only Jones, Danny Bonaduce and Dave Madden any real talent acting wise.

And then only Bonaduce and Madden were OK when they were playing off each other. This meant that all the comedy in the sitcom had to come from those two basically, as Jones, well a good actress was merely OK for comedy roles.

The producers were trying to get Rick Springfield in to replace Cassidy in year three (he looked a lot like him) but I've never been clear if he would take the role of Keith or simply play another character.

This is what I found on the old Jump the Shark site:

Like most kids back then, I was surprised but not too disturbed by the Chris switch--"Bewitched" had sort of prepared us for this possibility. But the show most definitely jumped the Jaws of Doom when Ricky Segall hit the scene--oh, our ears! And how on earth could the producers chose him as a recurring character when underrated Nita Talbot (a true comedy goddess) was right under their noses? She'd have been perfect as a Foxy Older Woman neighbor with designs on Keith; that, and installing the Williams Twins as Laurie's live-in love slaves might have saved the show. Also heard that Rick Springfield would have been an Aussie exchange-student character (replacing Keith) if the show had gone on another year. Darn that Ricky!

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Originally Posted by Donthe2nd

I don't think anything could have kept the show going beyond the 4th season. David Cassidy was burned out and ready to quit, Danny was outgrowing his cuteness, and the younger kids Chris and Tracy were not developed enough to replace him. Ricky was just the straw that broke the camel's back, but even without him the show could not have lasted much longer than it did.

Also some of the plots in Season 4 were not very good when you really begin to think too much about them. Take for instance the "Keith and Lauriebelle" episode. For starters, if Laurie has to pose as Keith's date, then wouldn't that right away become problematic since they presumably, go to the same high school? So how did Keith's friends at the party not recognize her? Even stranger (well besides the fact that Keith and Laurie, who are brother and sister have to pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend) is how Shirley now has to pretend she's Lauriebelle's (Laurie's alter ego for the episode) Southern mother.

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Originally Posted by EricPost

I don't even know why Cassidy wanted the part. Halfway through the first season you could tell he didn't want to be there and was phoning it in. Only Jones, Danny Bonaduce and Dave Madden any real talent acting wise.

And then only Bonaduce and Madden were OK when they were playing off each other. This meant that all the comedy in the sitcom had to come from those two basically, as Jones, well a good actress was merely OK for comedy roles.

The producers were trying to get Rick Springfield in to replace Cassidy in year three (he looked a lot like him) but I've never been clear if he would take the role of Keith or simply play another character.

This is what Shirley Jones said in her book:

Jack, was extremely jealous that David was in The Partridge Family with me.

To be fair to Jack, he said from the start that he thought David was taking a wrong career path, that he’d be far better off taking singing and acting lessons and working on Broadway instead. I didn’t necessarily agree with Jack, but as a stepmother, I always tried to remain outside of the arguments between Jack and David.

I had top billing in the show, which aired on Friday nights at 8:30 p.m. The initial plan had been that I would be the band’s lead singer on the show, but then Ruth Aarons suggested David for the part of Keith Partridge and informed the producers that he could sing and play instruments, as well, and would be terrific singing all the songs, which were happy-go-lucky, light, and positive.

Once the producers heard David sing and play, they decided that he was perfect and would make a wonderful lead singer for the band. I was happy for him.

I had a strong sense that the show would be a hit. It was new and funny and the music was good, and David had a chance to make it as a teen idol. The music wasn’t my thing, but I felt that it could succeed with the kids of this new generation.

By the third season of The Partridge Family, David had become the rock star of the century, but that wasn’t making him happy.

He became disgusted with singing what he termed “bubblegum songs” and wanted to go on to bigger and better things and sing hard-rock music in earnest, much in the style of his heroes Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.

So he decided to leave the show. If he had asked my advice, I would have told him to be happy with what he’d got, because that was my philosophy of life. (Besides which, I hated hard-rock music.) But he didn’t discuss the subject with me and decided to leave the show.

There was no replacement for him because David was the show. We were all sad, but we were also aware that it was just a matter of time before the show was canceled anyway.

March 23, 1974, was the last broadcast of The Partridge Family. I was sad to see the show end. If it hadn’t been canceled, I would have been happy to carry on playing Shirley Partridge for another four years. For me and all the rest of the cast, this was the end of an era. Just after the wrap party, David took Susan Dey out for dinner. As he said afterward, he fondly imagined that they would stay friends forever.

After dinner, the two of them went for a drive together and reminisced about how they’d first met when she was an inexperienced actress, and they both started crying. Afterward, David put Susan in touch with Ruth Aarons, who became her manager, and also with Lenny Hirshan, his agent at William Morris, who became Susan’s agent. For a few years after the show ended, David and Susan stayed friends.