The Meredith Baxter specials

[wiseguy182]

I didn't find out about these until recently. There has been a little discussion about these, but not a whole heck of a lot and it was mostly years and years ago.

in any event, these were 3 specials that were sort of the precursor to UM, called "Missing...Have You Seen This Person?" and were focused solely on missing persons. These were also produced by Cosgrove/Meurer.

They were hosted by Meredith Baxter, whom you may know as Elyse Keaton on Family Ties, one of the most popular shows of the 80's. These specials aired in the mid 80's (I believe '85 and '86) and were at the height of Family Ties' popularity. Meredith has also been a regular on such shows as Family, and The Faculty, and is also well known as a t.v. movie actress. She hosted the specials with her then-husband David.

One of the cases was that of Laura Bradbury, whom was at a camping site with her family. She went into the restrooms with her brother, but she never came out. She was found dead sometime later. Ricky Schroeder was her cousin and appeared on the program. One of my regular trading partners also used to live down the street from her.

I also managed to find a few other cases I think were profiled. I provided links to their Charley Project cases. Unfortunately, these people are still missing to this day.

Cherrie Ann Mahan
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/...n_cherrie.html

Some additional information I was able to find out about Cherrie Ann Mahan: There were reportedly a half dozen or so sightings of her in the immediate area after she disappeared, including one from one of her relatives who didn't know she was missing at the time.

Kim Sue Leggett
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/l/leggett_kim.html

also, an 84 year old woman who disappeared on her way to the supermarket in New York. And a mentally retartded youth who disappeared from 2 friends in the same area. Unfortunately, I don't have any additional information.

If anyone has any additional information about this series, I would love to hear it. I did find out that a good number of the missing people profiled were found not long after, and it may have been for that reason that they got the ball rolling on UM. Something interesting to consider.

I also understand President Reagan appeared on one of the programs.

[unsolved88]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2403232/

The IMDB has it listed as a single one-hour TV special aired April 29, 1985.

[wiseguy182]

thank you, i had seen the imdb page a few days ago. I'm pretty sure there were 3 specials. Imdb does have a tendency to be off on episode counts some times.

[dynoguy88]

Rick Schroeder's cousin was Laura Bradbury. Laura Burbank was killed by David Harry Fisher in 1970.

We had a semi-thread about this several years back...

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/...t=89136&page=2

[crystaldawn]

I would love to see these specials! I have a feeling they're going to be very hard to find. I did find a few more names listed they profiled via some Ebay auctions of press photos of David and Meredith for the show. One is a picture of them holding a photo of missing child Equilla Hodrick. Another shows a picture of them posing with Debbie and Cathy Caruson and their mother Janet Hicks. Apparently Janet Hicks was searching for her daughters and they were reunited right after the broadcast.

Also found these:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=1201,4577805

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1...y-missing-sets

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-04-..._1_baby-sitter

[1990 UM fan]

wasn't Cherrie on a milk carton once like Etan Patz was? I know I have seen/heard her case before.

[wiseguy182]

wow, great find CD, thanks!

Interestingly, the first special aired on the same night NBC re-ran "Adam", the story of John and Reve Walsh and their son, who was tragically murdered in 1981.

[nohwheregirl]

It's amazing the impression this program made on so many of us, as it's been discussed here a few times. I was pretty small when it aired, but I distinctly remembered Meredith Baxter because I adored her as the mom on Family Ties. It may have contributed to my interest in shows like UM.

[wiseguy182]

in with my mail yesterday was a advertisement that featured a "Have you seen me?" missing notice for Cherrie Ann Mahan. I was definitiely surprised -- glad to see some exposure after all these years.

[DarkDante]

Man I would love to see these surface somewhere although the off chance that somebody recorded them would have to be pretty slim. Then again, I'm still in awe after all these years that someone had the foresight to preserve the early UM specials although in those cases they had several opportunities to record them as all the specials were rebroadcast.

One question I had was how much this show resembled what we would come to know as UM and in reading one of the articles it does seem like it was the prototype for UM with the hallmark reenactments already in place. One article mentions during the course of one special they profiled nine cases which would be extraordinarily high for UM. So I'm guessing that these specials if they ever surface may actually resembled the Farina episodes of UM with more of a fast pace to them when compared to the classic UM we're all familiar with.

It does bring up an interesting question though. Given that UM quickly followed on the heels of these specials, produced by the same creative team and aired on the same network was Meredith Baxter ever even considered as a potential host for UM before they decided to tap veteran actors well versed in crime stopper television shows?

I guessing given that Meredith Baxter was under contract to "Family Ties" at the time, a sitcom that was apparently very stingy about letting it's cast work on outside projects (Michael J. Fox apparently had to quite literally burn the midnight oil in order to shoot "Back To The Future") Baxter probably would've been a no go. However around the same time both Josh Taylor ("Valerie", "Days Of Our Lives") and Deidre Hall ("Days Of Our Lives", "Our House") were pulling double duty working on DOOL as well as their respective nighttime sitcoms. So it wasn't as if it would've been without precedent for an actor to pull double duty.

[wiseguy182]

^Perhaps some of the cases were quicky "special alert" type cases that ran a few minutes, mixed in with longer segments.

Meredith Baxter had been around the block for a while. Plus, this was the first time anything of this nature had been done before, so I don't know how they could find anyone with experience in it.

Deidre Hall was doing Our House in the fall of 86, an hour-long family drama. I recorded the full run of that a few years ago when it was airing on Inspiration, and was pleasantly surprised that they aired the episodes mostly unedited. The episodes were clocking in around 46:30, other networks probably would have hacked it to 40 minutes.

I also have the full run of The Hogan Family and its various aliases. Josh Taylor was an interesting case. He was essentially a non-entity on that show during the Valerie years as she pretty much wanted the show to be about her. (I'm not trying to knock her, especially with her life-threatening condition). He was a pilot, so he was away much of the time. Then when Valerie either quit or was fired (stories vary depending upon who you believe), Sandy Duncan came in and Josh Taylor become more of a figure on the show.

I had just recently learned that they had spent an entire month filming Back to the Future with Eric Stolz as Marty McFly before dropping him for Michael J. Fox. That fact may be well known though.

[70s show watcher]

i remember watching one of the specials when they first i remember one of the stories being about a little girl who went missing after she saw an ice cream truck wwent to get some ice cream and never came back

[nohwheregirl]

Originally Posted by DarkDante

Man I would love to see these surface somewhere although the off chance that somebody recorded them would have to be pretty slim. Then again, I'm still in awe after all these years that someone had the foresight to preserve the early UM specials although in those cases they had several opportunities to record them as all the specials were rebroadcast.

Every time I see this subject pop up I get excited b/c I think maybe someone has found them. I went looking around the forbidden site and IMDB and didn't come up with any leads.

There was also a crime call-in special hosted by Patrick Duffy (IIRC) that Dave Reichert discussed in his book about the Green River Killer. I never saw it, but I wonder if anyone has video of that special as well.

[DarkDante]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

I also have the full run of The Hogan Family and its various aliases. Josh Taylor was an interesting case. He was essentially a non-entity on that show during the Valerie years as she pretty much wanted the show to be about her. (I'm not trying to knock her, especially with her life-threatening condition). He was a pilot, so he was away much of the time. Then when Valerie either quit or was fired (stories vary depending upon who you believe), Sandy Duncan came in and Josh Taylor become more of a figure on the show.

I've heard a few variations of this over the years. The first being it was a joint decision between Harper and Miller-Boyett to feature Harper exclusively in the series (thus the show being of an eponymous nature). The reason being is the show was supposed to showcase the dynamic of a mother raising three sons virtually on her own which I think was somewhat of a novelty at the time. So instead of making Harper a single mother, they had her husband cast as a pilot which would explain his long sojourns from home.

Second explanation is that DOOL would only allow Josh Taylor to shoot so many episodes of "Valerie" due to his contract with them. Coincidentally around the time that Harper was let go form the series, Taylor's commitments to DOOL ended and he was allowed to fully engage the series at that point.

[DarkDante]

Originally Posted by nohwheregirl

Every time I see this subject pop up I get excited b/c I think maybe someone has found them. I went looking around the forbidden site and IMDB and didn't come up with any leads.

There was also a crime call-in special hosted by Patrick Duffy (IIRC) that Dave Reichert discussed in his book about the Green River Killer. I never saw it, but I wonder if anyone has video of that special as well.

If you really research into the topic, you'll find there have been a handful of interesting crime stopper shows that have aired over the years. I believe several years ago someone on the forums found evidence of a crime stopper show that was broadcast in the fifties which profiled criminals at large although no word if this show in any way resembled UM as I recall.