Production
The pilot was videotaped in September 1977. CBS picked the pilot up as a mid-season replacement, going into production at the CBS Studio Center lot in November 1977, for airing from January to April 1978.
In the book Funny You Should Ask: Oral Histories of Classic Sitcom Storytellers by Scott Lewellen, Lila Garrett created the show to address the social issue of the time of black males not being able to get jobs to provide for their families. Many had abandoned their families because of it and in this case, the lead character did abandon his family, but once he found work and got his act together, he came back, hence the name of the show. In the show, the mother had a great government job at the Pentagon and lived in a nice apartment. At the time of casting Wilson had just completed Sanford and Son and Nicholas was a hot commodity. Garrett saw the chemistry between the two. Nicholas said in a summer 1978 edition of Jet Magazine that she was surprised at the cancellation of the series despite decent ratings.
Garrett stated the show was cancelled due to Norman Lear wanting Good Times to come back for another season and told CBS that he would create them another show in exchange for it.
Everybody Loves Raymond is an American television sitcom created by Philip Rosenthal that aired on CBS from September 13, 1996, to May 16, 2005, with a total of 210 episodes spanning nine seasons. It was produced by Where's Lunch and Worldwide Pants Incorporated, in association with HBO Independent Productions. The cast members were Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts, Peter Boyle, Madylin Sweeten, and Monica Horan. Most episodes of the nine-season series were filmed in front of a live studio audience.
Sanford and Son is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977. It was based on the British sitcom Steptoe and Son, which initially aired on BBC1 in the United Kingdom from 1962 to 1974.
John Carroll O'Connor was an American actor whose television career spanned over four decades. He found widespread fame as Archie Bunker, the main character in the CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971–1979) and its continuation, Archie Bunker's Place (1979–1983). He later starred in the NBC/CBS television crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995), where he played the role of police chief William "Bill" Gillespie. In the late 1990s, he played Gus Stemple, the father of Jamie Buchman on Mad About You. In 1996, O'Connor was ranked number 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. He won five Emmys and one Golden Globe Award.
Brad H. Gerstenfeld, known professionally as Brad Garrett, is an American stand-up comedian and actor.
Grady Demond Wilson is an American actor and author. He played Lamont Sanford, the son of Fred Sanford on the NBC sitcom Sanford and Son (1972–77). He also portrayed Oscar Madison on The New Odd Couple (1982–83) and appeared in the film Me and the Kid (1993).
Helen Maxine Reddy was an Australian-American singer, actress, television host, and activist. Born in Melbourne to a show business family, Reddy started her career as an entertainer at age four. She sang on radio and television and won a talent contest on the television program Bandstand in 1966; her prize was a ticket to New York City and a record audition, which was unsuccessful. After a short and unsuccessful singing career in New York, she eventually moved to Chicago, and subsequently, Los Angeles, where she made her debut singles "One Way Ticket" and "I Believe in Music" in 1968 and 1970, respectively. The B-side of the latter single, "I Don't Know How to Love Him", reached number eight on the pop chart of the Canadian magazine RPM. She was signed to Capitol Records a year later.
The Three Degrees is an American female vocal group formed circa 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although 16 women have been members over the years, the group has always been a trio. The current line-up consists of Helen Scott, Valerie Holiday, and Freddi Poole. The group were particularly successful in the UK, achieving 13 Top 50 hit singles between 1974 and 1985.
A Different World is an American sitcom television series and a spin-off of The Cosby Show. It aired for six seasons on NBC from September 24, 1987, to July 9, 1993. The series originally centered on Denise Huxtable and the life of students at Hillman College, a fictional historically black college in Virginia. It was inspired by student life at historically black colleges and universities.
Moesha is an American television sitcom that aired on UPN from January 23, 1996, to May 14, 2001. The series stars R&B singer Brandy as Moesha Denise Mitchell, an African-American teenager living with her upper middle class family in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was originally ordered as a pilot for CBS' 1995–1996 television season but was declined by the network. It was then later picked up by UPN, which aired it as a mid-season replacement. It went on to become the biggest success for the nascent network and one of the greatest hits over the course of the network's entire run. The series was a joint production for UPN by Regan Jon Productions, Saradipity Productions, and Jump at the Sun Productions in association with Big Ticket Television.
Kim Fields Morgan is an American actress and director. She first gained fame as a child actress on the television series Good Times (1978–1979), and rose to greater prominence for her role as Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey in the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1979–1981), as well as its spin-off The Facts of Life (1979–1988).
Johnny Brown was an American actor, comedian and singer. He was most famous for his role as building superintendent Nathan Bookman on the 1970s CBS sitcom, Good Times. Brown portrayed Bookman until the series was cancelled in 1979.
Alan Earle O'Day was an American singer-songwriter, best known for writing and singing "Undercover Angel," a million-selling Gold-certified American No. 1 hit in 1977. He also wrote songs for many other notable performers, such as 1974's Helen Reddy No. 1 hit "Angie Baby" and the Righteous Brothers' No. 3 Gold hit "Rock and Roll Heaven". In the 1980s he moved from pop music to television, co-writing nearly 100 songs for the Saturday morning Muppet Babies series, and in the 1990s he wrote and performed music on the National Geographic series Really Wild Animals. O'Day also collaborated with Tatsuro Yamashita on a series of popular songs in Japan including "Your Eyes", "Magic Ways", "Christmas Eve" and "Fragile".
Philip Rosenthal is an American television writer and producer who is the creator, writer, and executive producer of the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (1996–2005). In recent years, he has presented food and travel documentaries I'll Have What Phil's Having on PBS and Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix.
Tandem Productions, Inc. was a film and television production company that was founded in 1958 by television director Bud Yorkin and television writer/producer Norman Lear.
Sean Maguire is an English-American actor and singer who has been professionally making films, television shows and performing on stage for over 40 years. Originally from London, Maguire started his career at age five starring alongside Lord Olivier in A Voyage Round My Father. He then rose to fame at age ten when he was cast in the BBC drama Grange Hill in the role of "Tegs" Ratcliffe in which he remained until 1991. After leaving Grange Hill, Maguire played Aidan Brosnan in EastEnders.
Denise Fox is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Diane Parish. She made her first appearance on 11 May 2006 and temporarily left EastEnders in early 2008 to give birth to her second child. Her leave-taking had coincided with the departures of Matt Di Angelo, Phil Daniels and Kellie Shirley. She returned to Walford on 6 June 2008. This is Parish's second role in EastEnders, as she previously played singer Lola Christie in 1998.
Chelsea Fox is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Tiana Benjamin from 2006 to 2010, and then Zaraah Abrahams from 2020 onwards. Benjamin was cast in the role and she left her role in the Harry Potter film series to appear in the soap; she made her first appearance as Chelsea in episode 3147, broadcast on 5 May 2006, when she is introduced as part of the all-female Fox family alongside her mother, Denise Fox, and half-sister, Libby Fox. Benjamin announced her departure from the show in April 2010, and she left in episode 4047, broadcast on 5 August 2010. In October 2020, the character's return was announced alongside Abrahams' casting. Chelsea returns in episode 6188/6189, broadcast on 25 December 2020.
Denise Donna Nicholas is an American actress. Nicholas played high-school guidance counselor Liz McIntyre on the ABC comedy-drama series Room 222 and Councilwoman Harriet DeLong on the NBC/CBS drama series In the Heat of the Night.
Saving Shiloh is a 2006 American family drama film directed by Sandy Tung, based on the book of the same name written by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. It is the third and final film in the trilogy, whose other members are Shiloh and Shiloh Season.
Benidorm is a British sitcom written and created by Derren Litten and produced by Tiger Aspect for ITV that aired for ten series from 1 February 2007 until 2 May 2018. The series features an ensemble cast of holiday makers and staff at the Solana all-inclusive hotel in Benidorm, Spain over the course of a week each year.
