Didn't the show get retitled "Laverne" when shirl left

[SitcomFan]

did the show get retitled Laverne. because in syndication it says Laverne & Shirley

[Morky]

Originally posted by SitcomFan:
did the show get retitled Laverne. because in syndication it says Laverne & Shirley

No. It was always called Laverne & Shirley even after Shirley left. They probably figured the show was going to get cancelled anyway because the ratings were so low, so why change the title? Or they hoped if it got picked up again, they might settle their differences with Cindy Williams by that time and she'd be back, or they could have found a new actress to play shirley.

[Morky]

Originally posted by Morky:
No. It was always called Laverne & Shirley even after Shirley left. They probably figured the show was going to get cancelled anyway because the ratings were so low, so why change the title? Or they hoped if it got picked up again, they might settle their differences with Cindy Williams by that time and she'd be back, or they could have found a new actress to play shirley.

By the way, I remember very the show still still being called L&S because I thought at the time it was very weird for it to be called that when there was no Shirley.

[Sean Snow]

Actually, it didn't lose TOO many viewers. It was in the Top 25 that season, though it was #25, and the season before it was #21.

Also, the Laverne thing can be partly blamed on Nick...on their website, they said that it was 'retitled simpiliy 'Laverne''

[callmetootie]

It's kinda funny in a way because ratings were in the top 20 for the first half of the last season...when Lenny left, the series slipped into the top 50.

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Andrew Carden

[Kristina]

In my opinion the show went downhill when Shirley left, it's just not "Laverne & Shirley" with-out her!

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Blair: I’m an adult

Jo: Oh sure, most adults I know stomp their feet when they don’t get Chinese food!
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Tootie: I'm finding out who I am, I'm black.
Jo: No kiddin'?
Blair: We thought you were Suzanne Somers!
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[callmetootie]

In a way, it seemed as though episodes had other girls tag along with Laverne like:

The Death Row episodes was that blonde girl played by Larraine Newman.

The Jinxed episode was the psychic played by Carol Kane.

The Playboy Show had the bunny-singer played by Carrie Fisher.

Window On Main Street, Mice Of Men, How's Your Sister, and Councilman DeFazio was with Rhonda Lee played by Leslie Easterbrook.

The Fashion Show with that lady played by Anjelica Houston.

The Baby Show was with SGT Plout played by Vicki Lawrence.

I think that the producers wanted to cash in on celebrities and past geust stars to get good ratings. These were the ratings for all of the episodes:

Window On Main Street: #2
The Note: #3
Lost In Spacesuits: #5
The Playboy Show: #6
Death Row Part 1: #12
Death Row Part 2: #12
Jinxed: #18
Of Mice Of Men: #17
The Gymnast: #26
The Monastary Show: #63
Defective Ballet: #51
The Baby Show: #18
Rock N Roll Show: #41
The Fashion Show: #45
Short On Time: #6
Ghost Story: #70
Please Don't Feed The Buzzards: #60
How's Your Sister: #59
Do The Carmine: #53
Councilman Defazio: #41
Here Today, Hair Tomorrow: #34

As you see...ratings weren't horrible..but they were acceptable to me.



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Andrew Carden

[Morky]

Originally posted by callmetootie:
In a way, it seemed as though episodes had other girls tag along with Laverne like:

The Death Row episodes was that blonde girl played by Larraine Newman.

The Jinxed episode was the psychic played by Carol Kane.

The Playboy Show had the bunny-singer played by Carrie Fisher.

Window On Main Street, Mice Of Men, How's Your Sister, and Councilman DeFazio was with Rhonda Lee played by Leslie Easterbrook.

The Fashion Show with that lady played by Anjelica Houston.

The Baby Show was with SGT Plout played by Vicki Lawrence.

I think that the producers wanted to cash in on celebrities and past geust stars to get good ratings. These were the ratings for all of the episodes:

Window On Main Street: #2
The Note: #3
Lost In Spacesuits: #5
The Playboy Show: #6
Death Row Part 1: #12
Death Row Part 2: #12
Jinxed: #18
Of Mice Of Men: #17
The Gymnast: #26
The Monastary Show: #63
Defective Ballet: #51
The Baby Show: #18
Rock N Roll Show: #41
The Fashion Show: #45
Short On Time: #6
Ghost Story: #70
Please Don't Feed The Buzzards: #60
How's Your Sister: #59
Do The Carmine: #53
Councilman Defazio: #41
Here Today, Hair Tomorrow: #34

As you see...ratings weren't horrible..but they were acceptable to me.

The ratings weren't horrible? Back then, there were only three major networks. No Fox or WB. There were only about 70-75 shows on the air throughout the entirety of the season, and fewer at any given time. So for the show to fall to 60th or 70th place at that time, there wasn't much further for it to fall. The ratings were obviously declining and declining fast. They were definitely trending downward. That's why ABC pulled the plug. It was a mercy killing.

[Morky]

Originally posted by callmetootie:
Window On Main Street: #2
The Note: #3
Lost In Spacesuits: #5
The Playboy Show: #6
Death Row Part 1: #12
Death Row Part 2: #12
Jinxed: #18
Of Mice Of Men: #17
The Gymnast: #26
The Monastary Show: #63
Defective Ballet: #51
The Baby Show: #18
Rock N Roll Show: #41
The Fashion Show: #45
Short On Time: #6
Ghost Story: #70
Please Don't Feed The Buzzards: #60
How's Your Sister: #59
Do The Carmine: #53
Councilman Defazio: #41
Here Today, Hair Tomorrow: #34

Where did you find these ratings, by the way?

[callmetootie]

My friend Matt, who used to work at a comic book store became a member of the Neilson Media Research a while ago, and now knows the ratings of primetime shows from the 1960's to 1990's. He's older then me of course.

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Andrew Carden

[Sean Snow]

Well, one episode falling out of the Top 50s wasn't that bad...back then, they didn't cancel shows the moment they don't make the Top 30 like they do today. But it made NUMBER TWO! That's a GREAT RATING, especially w/o one of the MAIN cast members! So it performed REALLY well in it's last season...(BTW, there were more like 85 things on the Neilsons...and sometimes more for the week, like specials...and the bad ratings at the end may also be due to "The A-Team"....which also ended up hacking "Happy Days" to pieces.

[TV Guy]

I think, ultimately, you have to put these ratings in context. "L&S" aired on ABC's Tuesday night schedule, which at the time was traditionally ABC's strongest night of the week. For years, ABC's shows on this night ranked in the top 10. If L&S has ranked number 30 or 40 on one of ABC's weaker nights, like Thursday, the network would have been thrilled. But getting these ratings on a Tuesday was unacceptable, so the show was cancelled. Also, the ratings were pretty clearly trending down in the second half of the season, and I remember an ABC executive told the press that, creatively, the show was "played out".

Just a few years after "L&S" was cancelled, ABC was back in the top 10 on Tuesdays with "Who's the Boss" and "Growing Pains", which sent "The A-Team" packing to Friday night before it was ultimately cancelled.

[This message has been edited by TV Guy (edited 12-04-2001).]

[Sean Snow]

What I don't find fair about the ratings it got though was that "Happy Days" did about the same in the ratings (Though it prob. didn't fall out of the Top 50), and it got moved to "Laverne & Shirley"'s old spot in '83. They should've moved "Laverne & Shirley" to a safer time.....it could have lasted another season if it was put on at 9:30 PM....though "Riptide" would've murdered it at that time.

The ratings for that night was as follows for the 82-83 Season, and L&S did OK:
1st: "Three's Company" 9:00 PM #06
2nd: "9 to 5" 9:30 PM #15
3rd: "Hart to Hart" 10:00 PM #17
4th: "Laverne & Shirley" 8:30 PM #25
5th: "Happy Days" 8:00 PM #28

(BTW, a funny thing is that all these shows were gone by 1984! An entire traditional lineup gone, after "Three's Company" was on there from 1977-1984, "Laverne & Shirley" From 1976-1979 and 1980-1983, "9 to 5" was only on for a full season from 82-83,
Hart to Hart" was on from 1980-1984 on Tuesdays, don't know bout 'Days' though)

Tuesdays were already going down in the ratings...and there was some favoritism on ABC's part, at least to "Happy Days", even though "Laverne & Shirley" usually placed better then it.

[TV Guy]

You really have to put those rankings into context, rather than just looking at the number alone. #25 is OK if you've always been around #25 or lower, but it isn't OK when you were #2 just a few seasons earlier (the same way that #15 isn't considered good when you're following the #1 show). And the overall-season ranking masks the show's bigger problems, since the ratings fell sharply during the second half of the year when it when up against "The A-Team". The feeling was that the show was creatively played out -- it had already lost two major characters (Shirley and Lenny). Also, Penny Marshall was making noise about only wanting to do another season if production moved from Los Angeles to New York, which would have forced everyone else to move, too.

"Happy Days" was getting roughly the same ratings, but there was a feeling that there might be a little juice left in it with the return of Scott Baio and Erin Moran to the show full-time, so it got another season. And a move probably wasn't seriously considered, since "Laverne and Shirley" never did as well in the ratings when it wasn't following "Happy Days". ABC tried it out on both Mondays and Thursdays during the 79-80 season (when it was more popular and creatively stronger), and the ratings fell off. It's rare to see a veteran show get moved to a "protected" timeslot following a stronger show, which is probably why a move to the 9:30 slot didn't happen. Much better to use your strong lead-in to at least try to launch a new show rather than prop up an aging one that doesn't have much life left, at least to the networks' way of thinking.

As much as I liked "L&S", "Happy Days" and "Three's Company", none of them ended too soon, and probably stayed on a year or two too long. All three finally ended within a year of each other. ABC ended up rebuilding the entire Tuesday night schedule, and within two years, it had hit shows on Tuesday again, so ultimately it was a pretty good move.

[Sean Snow]

Yeah, all the shows were played out by 1984.....I think ABC might have regretted some of it's decision in the '84-'85 season, when almost all (Except "Who's the Boss?") shows on Tuesdays were cancelled. But ABC helped bring down L&S when they moved it....Thursdays were an OKAY night in the late '70s, but "Laverne & Shirley" still didn't do all that well.

All three shows were plauged with major cast changes. "Happy Days" lost Ron Howard & Donny Most, "Three's Company" lost Suzanne Somers, Norman Fell, Audra Lindley, and Jenilee Harrison, and "Laverne & Shirley" lost Cindy Williams, Betty Garrett, and only had Michael McKean from time to time. These shows had a lot of trouble....and do you notice how the memories are reversed from the actual ratings? "Three's Company" kept the best ratings during it's run (Though Never Making It To No. 1), only falling out of the Top 15 in 1983-1984, "Laverne & Shirley" and "Happy Days" had almost the same history-they were both BIG, but then crashed and burned.

And let's not forget what ABC put on at 8:00 PM in 1983-1984: "Just Our Luck", a show that bombed BIG, and affected the ratings for "Happy Days" the few weeks it was on.

I'm actually surprised they didn't keep '3s' for another year instead of taking a spinoff of it....'3s' still had some ratings power, scoring 15, 15, and 22, but then ratings took a dive when "Riptide" ripped a hole in it's ratings, making '3s' fall to an unheard of at the time #56 (Which Was It's Lowest Ever)

In the case of "Laverne & Shirley", there was no avoiding it's cancellation. I've heard that Penny Marshall and David L. Landers didn't want to do the show anymore, and it would've been missing Eddie Mekka if it lived another year.