I was watching the David Hasselhoff Story on E!, and I saw that he started his carrer in this show called Semi-Tough. I guess it was based on the 1978 movie, and the show only lasted ofr like 3 episodes. Does anyone recall this short-lived sitcom?
Three years after a feature film based on a novel by Dan Jenkins had been in theatres, someone got the idea to adaptSemi-Tough into a sitcom, ignorant of the fact that sitcoms built around sports usually have short shelf-lives (i.e. Bad News Bears, Ball Four).
The small screen Semi-Tough was no exception. In fact, if IMDB is to be believed, the cast was overhauled after four episodes! Sad to say, there is no Wikipedia entry for the show, just the movie, which starred Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Bert Convy.
The TV version started with Bruce McGill (ex-Delta House) and David Hasselhoff (The Young & The Restless) in the roles originated by Kristofferson & Reynolds, respectively. Erstwhile game show host Jim McKrell (ex-Celebrity Sweepstakes) was one of the few, if not the only one, who crossed over from the movie, which was one of his first acting jobs after Sweepstakes ended its NBC run in 1976. Ed Peck, a recurring antagonist on Happy Days, and Markie Post, in one of her first acting roles, were in the supporting cast.
After a month, McGill & Hasselhoff were gone. Douglas Barr, who'd later work with Post on The Fall Guy opposite Lee Majors, replaced McGill. Per IMDB, it was a quick fix that went nowhere, as ABC cancelled the show after that one week.
Didn't see the movie or the show, so there won't be a rating. Gilmore Box serves up the intro, when McGill & Hasselhoff were the stars:
Here's one that you and I talked about when you were on my podcast, but someone wanted to know what it was like working on the TV series adaptation of Semi-Tough with David Hasselhoff.
Holy cow! Like anybody can remember that. Those were the blur years! [Laughs.] But I'll tell you what it was like: it was my first experience with multi-camera, and it was a bit horrifying to me, because they had this staff of... Well, they're all called producers, but they're writers, right? And these producers / writers, when you do run-throughs, whether it's funny or not, they'd just do this awful fake cackle laugh at their own jokes and the jokes that are supposed to be funny. So in a way they're telling you where you're supposed to be funny, and in a way they're fulfilling the "you give me three jokes a page" criteria or whatever.
But I loved being picked to play the Burt Reynolds part! And that was the last time I really trained so hard that I would throw up at the end of workouts. Because I didn't have much time to turn into a football player, but I was young enough and I was still pretty much in my leftover fitness from my last semester of college, where I took fencing, gymnastics, and badminton. Oh, and physics. I had to have a solid subject. [Laughs.]
But I was working on this show, and I was appalled, in a way, because I was coming right out of New York theater and Shakespeare, where the text is pretty good, and new plays by "serious" new playwrights at the Public Theater. So this kind of process was just cringeworthy to me. And...do you remember who Bubba Smith was?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Well, Bubba Smith was in this, and it was one of his first acting gigs. I think he'd done Miller Lite beer commercials, but not much else. But Bubba's a Texas guy, 6'8" defensive player. So we're doing one of the scenes that all of the football players are all in, in the locker room. And this director was getting much too complicated when he was trying to direct Bubba, and Bubba just looked at him. And the guy was... I mean, if he had ten ways to say it, he picked the least easily understandable, especially for a non-actor. So he kept saying it, and Bubba was just, like, 'What the ****'s that guy talking about?"
And I said, "Oh, look, Bubba, he just wants you to get up, walk over to the locker, and before you open the door to the locker, say your line and then open the door." "Is that all he said?" "That's basically all he's saying, yeah." And he went, "Well, ****, I can do that." So he did it. And the next time a director - the same director - started to direct Bubba, Bubba just put his big hand over my head with his finger pointing at me and said, "Talk to my man." So from then on, they'd tell me what they wanted from Bubba, and I'd tell Bubba what to do. He was a good friend. I really liked him a lot. He was a good guy. And, you know, being from Texas... It was a good relationship.
Now, Hasselhoff, "The Hoff," whose checkered past we all know about, and God bless him... We put our football stuff on, and I had big ol' kilt-wearing calves, and the other guys are all football players...and David Hasselhoff has bird legs. And some of these guys were NFL players, and others were guys who didn't quite make the NFL but played in college, and they were like [Shouting.] "Hey, man, look at them bird legs! Look like a stork! Look at them legs!" And he had the tightest football pants they could, and they still wobbled around the knee where they're supposed to grab tight. And David... They were just merciless!
Well, they weren't merciless, but they weren't treating him like the star of the show that he thought he should be treated as. And he just didn't have a sense of humor about it. And he finally, almost tearfully, said, "Man, you gotta stop! You guys gotta stop that, man! You gotta stop!" He didn't sob. But he was on the verge of tears, I swear. And I just thought, "Holy cow..." Of course, it was early in his days of substance "visits." So I think there were other issues going on there besides the fact that his legs were skinny. I just said, 'Man, I'd love to be shaped like you! Shut up!" Anyway, it was a great experience, in that we didn't shoot all of them, but they had to pay me for all of them.
Actually, that is great.
It had the same problem that the TV series version of Animal House had, which was that they bought this raunchy comedy, and then they put the adaptation on at 8 p.m. in the days when television had to be pretty clean at 8 p.m. And that's what happened with Delta House, too. The reason the things were fun was because they had raunch in them...and you couldn't do raunch at 8 p.m.! I think that was on ABC, and they were as buttoned-down as any of the networks were. Maybe the most so. But you couldn't do the jokes that made it a hit, so...it wasn't a great artistic experience.
But it was my first significant payday, because I was strictly single-shot feature films and stage up until then. Also, that was the first time I ever experienced that pay-or-play thing where, whether they shoot it or not, they paid me. I was, like, "Holy cow, I've got to pay attention to this!" [Laughs.] Oh, and my mother really liked that there was a picture of David and me in a football stance, one which she kept around. Because I had that big moustache and '70s long hair and was in very good physical shape. So I remember that she liked that. She always found no fault with my work, but she really liked it better when I didn't cuss or shoot anybody or get shot. Which would be understandable for my mother. So, anyway, that’s what I remember about that show.
I also noticed that Ed Peck was in the show, who I always remember from when he used to square off against the Fonz on Happy Days.
Yes, he was. I can still remember Ed Peck pointing to his head and going, "Farmland." Like he had nothing between his ears. [Laughs.] He was a nice fella, too.
03-31-2001, 04:55 PM
Does anybody remember the show, Semi-Tough?
