Does anybody remember this show?

[Schmo]

Wayne Rogers may have been a jerk, but I think he ended up making more money from business investments than he did from acting. I remember him appearing on some TV program about investing in his later years.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Schmo

According to Wikipedia, Lynn Redgrave was fired.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Calls_(TV_series)

Wayne Rogers apparently, had a lot of pull and even got executive producer Jerry Davis fired and replaced with his own personal manager, Arthur Gregory. Gregory, as it turns out, also represented Lynn Redgrave, but when it came time for contract renegotiations, he withdrew from managing her.

Wayne and Lynn also shared an agent at William Morris, Freddie Westheimer. But Westheimer announced that he would only fight for Wayne's interest and assigned a junior level agent to represent her. That agent proved to be ineffective, so Redgrave fired the agency and enlisted her husband, John Clark, to represent her. That being said, Lynn was frozen out of Wayne's circle and left out to dry.

[Schmo]

Originally Posted by TMC

Wayne Rogers apparently, had a lot of pull and even got executive producer Jerry Davis fired and replaced with his own personal manager, Arthur Gregory. Gregory, as it turns out, also represented Lynn Redgrave, but when it came time for contract renegotiations, he withdrew from managing her.

Wayne and Lynn also shared an agent at William Morris, Freddie Westheimer. But Westheimer announced that he would only fight for Wayne's interest and assigned a junior level agent to represent her. That agent proved to be ineffective, so Redgrave fired the agency and enlisted her husband, John Clark, to represent her. That being said, Lynn was frozen out of Wayne's circle and left out to dry.

Lynn definitely had a lot of tough breaks - being fired from “House Calls”, betrayed by her husband, and finally developing terminal cancer. If she had any consolation, it was that few people wanted to watch the series without her as a cast member.

[TMC]

Top 10 most popular shows that did not have actually have a cultural zeitgeist impact

5. House Calls (CBS, 1979–1982)

Wayne Rogers’ post-MASH* vehicle actually cracked the Top 10 — and is almost entirely unknown today. Internal disputes with co-star Lynn Redgrave derailed it early. Its ratings suggest hit status; its absence from cultural memory suggests otherwise. Few even recall that it existed.

5. House Calls (CBS, 1979–1982)

The Paradox of a Vanished Hit

A spinoff of the 1978 Walter Matthau–Glenda Jackson movie of the same name, House Calls was conceived as a light workplace/romantic dramedy set in a California hospital — a formula that seemed tailor-made for late-1970s network audiences. It starred Wayne Rogers, fresh off his breakout as “Trapper John” on MASH*, and Lynn Redgrave, an acclaimed film actress making the leap to television.

The show’s ratings were impressive from the start:

• Season 1 (1979–80): #14 overall in Nielsen ratings
  
• Season 2 (1980–81): #8 overall — higher than Taxi, Barney Miller, or Diff’rent Strokes that year
  
• Season 3 (1981–82): #23 overall

Yet almost no one talks about House Calls today.

There are no DVD releases, no streaming availability, and almost no syndication record — rare even for a Top 10 network show of its era. It didn’t generate quotable lines, breakout stars, or critical conversation, and it lacked the satirical or cultural hook of contemporary hits like Soap or MASH*.

The show’s downfall began with a behind-the-scenes dispute: Lynn Redgrave was fired after the second season following a conflict with producers (reportedly over her insistence on bringing her infant to set to breastfeed). She was replaced by Sharon Gless, but the show never recovered creatively or in public perception. Ratings slid, and House Calls was quietly canceled in 1982.

In hindsight, House Calls is a perfect case study of a “statistical hit” that left no cultural legacy. Its success owed more to network scheduling and star familiarity than to distinctive creative identity. Once canceled, it vanished — not because it was bad, but because it had no afterlife in syndication, pop references, or nostalgia TV.

Despite ranking alongside some of the biggest hits of its era, House Calls is now so obscure that even serious TV historians sometimes overlook it entirely.

Cultural Footprint: Minimal.
Legacy: Proof that even a Top 10 hit can disappear without a trace.