This Andy Griffith Flop Makes The Headmaster Look Like a Hit

[icecream]

Andy starred in The Headmaster with Jerry Van Dyke shortly after The Andy Griffith Show had ended on 1970. It was not a success getting cancelled after one season. But The Headmaster at least lasted 13 episodes. A decade later in 1980 The Yeagers, also starring Andy Griffith, was a disaster getting pulled after just two episodes, with two episodes left unaired. I had never heard of The Yeagers until now when reading the tribute blog where Kevin Brophy was one of the stars who died this year. Set in the mountains it was billed as a modern day Bonanza. Strangely The Yeagers is not even listed in my primetime directory, which is usually good about including the flops that aired in primetime on US TV.

https://www.metv.com/stories/the-yea...pisode-tv-flop

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by icecream

Andy starred in The Headmaster with Jerry Van Dyke shortly after The Andy Griffith Show had ended on 1970. It was not a success getting cancelled after one season. But The Headmaster at least lasted 13 episodes. A decade later in 1980 The Yeagers, also starring Andy Griffith, was a disaster getting pulled after just two episodes, with two episodes left unaired. I had never heard of The Yeagers until now when reading the tribute blog where Kevin Brophy was one of the stars who died this year. Set in the mountains it was billed as a modern day Bonanza. Strangely The Yeagers is not even listed in my primetime directory, which is usually good about including the flops that aired in primetime on US TV.

https://www.metv.com/stories/the-yea...pisode-tv-flop

I don't have a listing for it in the book I own. I thought it might have fallen into the special presentation category (like Goober and the Trucker's Paradise) but it doesn't. I looked at the TV Guide issues covering the series and it is not listed as a special, in fact the first episode got the "Debut" designation. I never heard or read anything about the show.

Andy was working on Salvage 1 for almost the entire year 1979 so how does he wind up in an new series right at the end of the 79-80 season, doesn't make sense. He must have been a late add to the cast, so some entity must have wanted the lead part recast. Whatever happened the network must have felt the results were not good upon viewing the episodes already filmed. It was scheduled just as the summer rerun season began almost burning off the episodes. There were no ads in the TV Guide to help promote the show, the sneak preview column didn't mention it and it didn't even get a close up box.

[TJ]

There was a cast photo uploaded to our photo galleries. That's how I became aware of it.

Andy Griffith's OTHER TV roles