Save the family sitcoms, "Goodtime Girls" and "Blansky's Beauties" from being cancelled

by: Paramount Home Entertainment and CBS Television Distribution
recipient: Paramount Home Entertainment, CBS Television Distribution, Garry Marshall, Norman Gimbel, Charles Fox, Official Website of Marcia Lewis, Eddie Mekka, Scott Baio,

The reason why people should sign this petition is because they need to help Paramount Home Entertainment re-release the short-lived family sitcoms, entitled, "Goodtime Girls" and "Blansky's Beauties", so that other people can watch them. It's been 34 years since the family sitcom, "Goodtime Girls" went off the air, so here is the story behind the show:

Goodtime Girls
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Goodtime Girls
Genre sitcom
Created by Leonora Thuna
Developed by Thomas L. Miller
Edward K. Milkis
Robert L. Boyett
Starring Annie Potts
Lorna Patterson
Georgia Engel
Francine Tacker
Marcia Lewis
Merwin Goldsmith
Peter Scolari
Adrian Zmed
Sparky Marcus
Theme music composer Norman Gimbel
Charles Fox
Opening theme "When Everyone Cared"
Composer(s) Charles Fox
Country of origin USA
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 12 (1 unaired)
Production
Executive producer(s) Garry Marshall
Producer(s) Thomas L. Miller
Edward K. Milkis
Robert L. Boyett
Running time 30 minutes
Production company(s) Miller/Milkis/Boyett Productions, in association with Paramount Television
Distributor Paramount Television
CBS Paramount Television
CBS Television Distribution (current)
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run January 22, 1980 – August 29, 1980

Goodtime Girls is an American situation comedy which ran on ABC from January 22, 1980 until August 29, 1980. It was created by Leonora Thuna, and produced by Thomas L. Miller, Edward K. Milkis and Robert L. Boyett, in association with Garry Marshall's Henderson Productions and Paramount Television. It is a period piece comedy set during World War II, which was the producers' 1940s answer to their top 1950s-themed hits Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley.

Synopsis

Set in Washington, D.C. in 1942, Goodtime Girls told the story of four women who found themselves having to share a small attic apartment at the Coolidge Boarding House, due to a regional apartment shortage, which occurred as a result of women striking out on their own and supporting themselves during wartime. In the beginning, three of the girls--Edith Bedelmeyer (Annie Potts), Sioux City native Betty Crandall (Lorna Patterson), and Loretta Smoot (Georgia Engel)--had agreed to share space together in the attic at Coolidge. However, just when they thought things couldn't get more cramped, Camille Rittenhouse (Francine Tacker), a snobbish reporter who was covering a newspaper story on the apartment shortage, wound up being their fourth roommate when she herself lost her apartment and was in need of a new place. This didn't immediately sit well with the other women, not only because of the tight quarters barely accommodating four, but since Camille's holier-than-thou personality clashed with the others, especially with Edith, who became the unofficial leader of the group. The gang did learn to get along, as they grew closer in a time when a lot of emotional and moral support was needed for each other, with America working on "getting Uncle Sam out of a jam".

The ladies also had a lot of fun things to look forward to; despite the shortage of consumer goods, cars, and men, many soldiers and sailors on military leave passed through to romance them. Edith and Betty, who were younger and single, were most frequently sought after by these bachelors. Loretta was the middle-aged war bride, who was holding out hope for her husband's safe return. Then there were two resident single men in the building, macho hustler cabbie Frankie Millardo (Adrian Zmed), who lived downstairs with his buddy Benny Loman (Peter Scolari), a street performer whose pantomime, juggling and unicycle acts were part of the regular physical comedy and pratfalls seen in every episode. Frankie, who had been the one who drove Betty, Edith and Loretta to the boarding house, wants to prove himself by joining the military but is turned down because he has flat feet. Frankie and Benny often joined in the girls' escapades, escorting them around town and engaging in periodic jitterbug and big band dance sessions. With play came work: Edith was employed at the Office of Price Admissions, as mentioned, Camille was a newspaper reporter, Betty worked for the U.S. Secretary of War, and Loretta, at The Pentagon for bureaucrat General Culpepper (seen in guest appearances by Richard Stahl).

The boarding house was run by its namesakes, George and Irma Coolidge (Merwin Goldsmith and Marcia Lewis), a married couple who controlled their units very strictly. Also seen around was Skeeter (Sparky Marcus), a young boy who spent a lot of time with the Coolidges.
Scheduling

Goodtime Girls premiered in January 1980 on Tuesday nights, immediately following Happy Days, of which this series, unlike others produced by Garry Marshall and Miller/Milkis/Boyett, was not spun off from or in any ways connected to, storyline-wise. ABC kept the show on through the end of February sweeps, but then pulled it off the schedule for over a month until it returned in April, when it then aired for three consecutive weeks in a Saturday 8:30/7:30c slot. The show was then taken off again, and since it garnered small audiences during both these runs, the network officially cancelled the show during May 1980 upfronts. Five more original episodes turned up on Fridays at 8:30/7:30c that August, leading up to the final produced episode's broadcast on August 29, 1980. The series' third episode ("Night and Day") was the only one that ABC chose not to air during its run, for unexplained reasons.
Episode list
Episode # Episode title Original airdate
1-1 "George Gets Drafted" (pilot) January 22, 1980
1-2 "Too Many Fiances" January 29, 1980
1-3 "Night and Day" unaired
1-4 "Frankie and Edith Were Lovers" February 12, 1980
1-5 "Growing Pains" April 12, 1980
1-6 "Loose Lips" April 19, 1980
1-7 "Edith Dates A War Hero" April 26, 1980
1-8 "Loretta's Dilemma" August 1, 1980
1-9 "Internal Injury" August 8, 1980
1-10 "The Show Must Go On" August 15, 1980
1-11 "Who's Benny?" August 22, 1980
1-12 "Sing 'Til It Hurts" August 29, 1980
Notes

Marcia Lewis (Irma Coolidge) had previously worked with Garry Marshall on his short-lived 1978 sitcom Who's Watching the Kids, while Peter Scolari (Benny Loman) would ultimately go on to work with Miller, Milkis and Boyett on their separate venture, Bosom Buddies, on ABC in the fall of 1980. Adrian Zmed (Frankie Millardo) would later gain more fame as Officer Vince Romano on the series T.J. Hooker on ABC and later CBS. He would also host the show Dance Fever.

Lorna Patterson (Betty Crandall) worked with Francine Tacker (Camille Rittenhouse), who was married to the man Lorna herself would later marry, actor Robert Ginty.

Francine Tacker originally was Elizabeth Logan in the TV adaptation of the novel and movie, The Paper Chase, and would later be the second of three actresses (Morgan Fairchild and Priscilla Beaulieu Presley would be the others) who played Jenna Wade on the series, Dallas. Patterson would gain later fame in the TV adaptation of the movie Private Benjamin, playing the title role of Judy Benjamin, the role played in the movie by Goldie Hawn.

Georgia Engel (Loretta Smoot) was already well-established from her being well known as Georgette Baxter from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, while Annie Potts (Edith Bedelmeyer) would later achieve fame with the movie Ghostbusters, where she played Janine Melnitz, her long-running role of pragmatic interior designer Mary Jo Shively in the comedy, Designing Women and her role of Mary Elizabeth Sims on the Lifetime drama Any Day Now.

Providing further synergy between the family of Marshall-produced shows, actors from Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, respectively, guest starred on Goodtime Girls. Scott Baio appeared in one episode as Edith's younger brother who decided to enlist for the war. Michael McKean guest starred in another as a war veteran who was recovering in a local Washington, D.C., hospital after losing his legs in battle.
References

Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows

GOODTIME GIRLS 1980 Sitcom ANNIE POTTS GEORGIA ENGEL ADRIAN ZMED

"Goodtime Girls" (1980) Closing Credits (FIXED)

GOODTIME GIRLS Opening Theme 1980 Sitcom ANNIE POTTS ADRIAN ZMED

Goodtime Girls (1980 Closing Sequence with Paramount TV 1986 Logo)

It's been 37 years since the family sitcom, "Blansky's Beauties" went off the air, so here is the story behind the show:

Blansky's Beauties
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Question book-new.svg
This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. (March 2014)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2014)
Blansky's Beauties
Genre Sitcom
Directed by Garry Marshall
Jerry Paris
Starring Nancy Walker
Caren Kaye
Eddie Mekka
Scott Baio
Pat Morita
Blackjack
Opening theme "I Want It All" by Cyndi Grecco
Composer(s) Charles Fox
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 13
Production
Executive producer(s) Garry Marshall
Edward K. Milkis
Thomas L. Miller
Producer(s) Nick Abdo
Bruce Johnson
Garry Marshall
Running time 30 minutes
Production company(s) Miller-Milkis Productions
Paramount Network Television
Distributor CBS Television Distribution
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run February 12 – June 27, 1977
Chronology
Related shows Laverne & Shirley
Mork & Mindy
Who's Watching the Kids
Out of the Blue
Joanie Loves Chachi

Blansky's Beauties is an American sitcom which aired on the ABC network in 1977. The main character of the series was introduced in an episode of Happy Days, and the show is thus a spin-off, although The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present doesn't include the series in its list of prime time spin-offs.[1]

Synopsis
Question book-new.svg
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2014)

Nancy Walker played Howard Cunningham's visiting cousin Nancy Blansky from Las Vegas on the February 4, 1977, episode of Happy Days. Blansky's Beauties premiered the following week, on February 12, 1977.

Nancy Blansky (Walker) was a long-time Las Vegas showbiz vet (since the 1950s) and current den mother to a bevy of beautiful Las Vegas showgirls. In addition to keeping order in the chaotic apartment complex where they all lived, Nancy staged the girls' big numbers at the Oasis Hotel. Although the Happy Days episode on which Nancy first appeared took place in the early '60s, Blansky's Beauties itself was set in (then) present-day 1977.

Emilio (Johnny Desmond), the maître d', was Nancy's boyfriend. To help Nancy defray costs of her apartment, Ethel Akalino (known as Sunshine) (Lynda Goodfriend) and Bambi (Caren Kaye) shared it with her, along with her nephews Joey DeLuca (Eddie Mekka), a choreographer, and leering, 12-year-old ("going on 28"), Anthony DeLuca (Scott Baio). Anthony was forever trying to impress Bambi, who much to his chagrin treated him like a kid brother, as did almost all of Nancy's girls. Also sharing Nancy's apartment was a huge Great Dane named Blackjack who was shown in the opening credits playing blackjack.
Links to parent show and other spin-offs
Question book-new.svg
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2014)

Eddie Mekka's character Joey DeLuca was a younger cousin to Carmine Ragusa, Mekka's 1950s-era character on Laverne & Shirley. During production of Blansky's Beauties, Mekka continued in his starring roles on both series, a rare occurrence of one actor assuming two regular scripted roles, in two different primetime series, at the same time. The series' star, Nancy Walker, had just finished several seasons of the same situation in which she had co-starred simultaneously in both McMillan & Wife and Rhoda, while also maintaining her ongoing role as diner waitress Rosie, the spokesman for Bounty paper towels, which she continued during Blansky's Beauties.

In episode 1 ("Blansky's Biking Beauty") Joey introduced Nancy Blansky to stunt motorcyclist Pinky Tuscadero (Roz Kelly) who was instantly hired for Nancy's stage show. Pinky wore the same outfit as her Happy Days episodes, though her hair was now in a '70s style shag cut. She looked as though she had not aged in 20 years.

The show also implied a link to then-ongoing show Laverne & Shirley; in the episode "Nancy Remembers Laverne," Nancy recalls working with a clumsy girl named Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall's character on Laverne & Shirley) back around 1957. She discovered that, despite her clumsiness, Laverne was a great dancer and Nancy offered her a job on the spot, which Laverne declined.

Pat Morita, after the failure of his series Mr. T and Tina, was added to the cast as Arnold, the character he originated on Happy Days. As with Pinky Tuscadero, he seemed not to have aged in 20 years' time. Here he ran a coffee shop, whereas in Happy Days, he owned the diner. Morita would re-join the cast of Happy Days five years later, while his replacement on that series, Al Molinaro, would repeat Morita's career move at that time by joining another Happy Days spin-off, Joanie Loves Chachi.

After the end of Blansky's Beauties, Lynda Goodfriend and Scott Baio would join the cast of Happy Days at the start of the 1977-78 season. Goodfriend and Baio, along with their Blansky's Beauties co-stars Caren Kaye, Shirley Kirkes and Elaine Bolton, would appear in a similarly-plotted pilot, Legs, for NBC in 1978, using different character names. This project would be revised further and appear on the network as Who's Watching the Kids in the fall of that year, lasting half a season.

Garry Marshall; creator of Blansky's Beauties and the aforementioned Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and Joanie Loves Chachi, et al.; had a recurring role as Nancy's employer, the enigmatic Mr. Smith.
Cast
Question book-new.svg
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2014)

Nancy Walker as Nancy Blansky
Caren Kaye as Bambi Benton
Lynda Goodfriend as Ethel "Sunshine" Akalino (actress later moved back to Happy Days as Lori Beth)
Johnny Desmond as Emilio
Eddie Mekka as Joey DeLuca (actor simultaneously on Laverne & Shirley as Joey's cousin, Carmine Ragusa)
Scott Baio as Anthony DeLuca (actor later moved to Happy Days as Chachi Arcola)
George Pentecost as Horace "Stubbs" Wilmington
Taaffe O'Connell as Hillary S. Prentiss
Rhonda Bates as Arkansas
Bond Gideon as Lovely Carson
Gerri Reddick as Jackie Outlaw
Shirley Kirkes as Gladys "Cochise" Littlefeather
Antoinette Yuskis as Sylvia Silver
Jill Owens as Misty Karamazov
Elaine Bolton as Bridget Muldoon
Pat Morita as Arnold (actor and character returned to Happy Days where character originated)
Garry Marshall as "Mr. Big"

Episode list
Question book-new.svg
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2014)
Episode # Episode Title Original Airdate
1 "Blansky's Biking Beauty" February 12, 1977
2 "Blansky for the Defense" February 19, 1977
3 "Nancy's Cover-Up" February 26, 1977
4 "Nancy's Magic Moment" March 12, 1977
5 "Nancy Goes Sheik" March 19, 1977
6 "Anthony Falls in Love" March 26, 1977
7 "Nancy Meets Francie" April 2, 1977
8 "Nancy Remembers Laverne" April 9, 1977
9 "Nancy Meets Pa Bates" April 16, 1977
10 "My Nephew's Debut" April 30, 1977
11 "Dear Nancy..." May 21, 1977
12 "To Nancy with Love" June 7, 1977
13 "Nancy Breaks a Leg" June 27, 1977
References

Brooks, Tim (2007). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present (Ninth Edition). Ballantine Books. pp. 1707–1709. ISBN 978-0-345-49773-4.

External links

Blansky's Beauties at the Internet Movie Database
Blansky's Beauties at TV.com