The Duck Factory is a 1984 NBC television series produced by MTM Enterprises that is perhaps most notable for being Jim Carrey's first lead role in a Hollywood production. The show was co-created by Allan Burns. The premiere episode introduces Skip Tarkenton, a somewhat naive and optimistic young man who has come to Hollywood looking for a job as a cartoonist. When he arrives at a low-budget animation company called Buddy Winkler Productions, he finds out Buddy Winkler has just died, and the company desperately needs new blood. So Skip gets an animation job at the firm, which is nicknamed "The Duck Factory" as their main cartoon is "The Dippy Duck Show". Other Duck Factory employees seen regularly on the show were man-of-a-thousand-cartoon voices Wally Wooster; comedy writer Marty Fenneman; artists Brooks Carmichael and Roland Culp, editor Andrea Lewin, and business manager Aggie Aylesworth. Buddy Winkler Productions was now owned by his young, ditzy widow, Mrs Sheree Winkler, who had been married to Buddy for all of three weeks before his death. The Duck Factory lasted thirteen episodes; it premiered April 12, 1984. The show initially aired at 9:30 on Thursday nights, directly after Cheers, and replaced Buffalo Bill on NBC's schedule. Jay Tarses, an actor on The Duck Factory, had been the co-creator and executive producer of Buffalo Bill, which had its final network telecast on Thursday, April 5, 1984.
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Payne is an American television series, patterned after the British program Fawlty Towers. It starred American actor John Larroquette, who portrayed assistant district attorney Dan Fielding on the American television program Night Court. Larroquette was also an executive producer for the series. Payne was a mid-season replacement on CBS and aired in March and April 1999. The show also starred JoBeth Williams, Julie Benz and Rick Batalla. Despite fairly positive reception, and receiving the blessing of John Cleese, who agreed to take a recurring role if the show was renewed, Payne was quickly cancelled. Nine episodes were filmed; eight were aired. The show is not available on DVD.
Take a Letter, Mr Jones was a short-lived 1981 British sitcom produced by Southern Television for ITV. It ran for a single series of six episodes. Graham Jones works as personal secretary to female executive Joan Warner within a London-based multinational corporation called 8-Star. Although he ably assists her in their busy office, Graham often helps Joan with her equally hectic domestic arrangements as she is a single mother to seven-year-old Lucy.
Joel, his cynical best friend, Nick, and easy-going little brother, Jamie, are contemporary cavemen who live in the suburban south and simply want to be treated like ordinary thirty-something guys. Despite their attempts at assimilation, Nick doesn't believe mainstream society will ever completely accept them, Jamie seems to take it all in stride and Joel straddles the middle, torn between his friends, his more traditional values and his loving fiancée.
Follows a fictionalized version of the life of American rock musician Chris Isaak. The show portrays Isaak and his band members as everyday people with everyday problems.
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Quintuplets is a quirky ensemble comedy about the trials and tribulations of two parents raising 15-year-old quintuplets in a three-bedroom home.
An unwitting city slicker is made the marshal of a lawless town in this absurdist Western that pokes gentle but clever fun at the genre's stock plots and characters. Best of the West is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from September 1981 through August 1982.
Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen) is a recovering alcoholic who returns to the fictional newsmagazine FYI for the first time following a stay at the Betty Ford Clinic residential treatment center. Over 40 and single, she is sharp tongued and hard as nails. In her profession, she is considered one of the boys, having shattered many glass ceilings encountered during her career. Dominating the FYI news magazine, she is portrayed as one of America's hardest-hitting (though not the warmest or more sympathetic) media personalities.
Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 British sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 film of the same name from ITC Entertainment, with almost completely different characters and plot, although one or two of the original actors returned in different roles. As the Apocalypse nears, US President Johnny Cyclops tries to run a reelection campaign whilst also dealing with the Russians, a deposed Shah needing to be hidden, and a new weapon called a 'quark' bomb.
Deal was a 2005 television pilot by Is or Isn't Productions as part of a two-year development deal for NBC. The comedy series was based on the life of Annie Duke, a professional poker player.
Comedy about a Pinner solictor who falls for a woman half his age.
The Mistress is a British sitcom that aired on BBC2 from 1985 to 1987. Starring Felicity Kendal and Jane Asher, it was written by Carla Lane. The Mistress features Kendal playing Maxine, a young florist who is having an affair with a married man, whose wife was played by Jane Asher. It was disliked by some viewers, who were unhappy at seeing Felicity Kendal, who was best known as the innocent Barbara Good, playing a woman sleeping with someone else's husband.
Teachers Only is an NBC television sitcom centered around the faculty of a high school; in the first season the school was Millard Fillmore High in Los Angeles, but in the second it is Woodrow Wilson High in New York with a changed cast. In both seasons Norman Fell played Principal Ben Cooper, but Lynn Redgrave's character, Diana Swanson, who had been an English teacher in the first season, became a guidance counselor in the second season. Redgrave and Fell were already established names when this show aired, but two of the supporting stars in the second season, Jean Smart would go on, three years later, to play her best known role, that of interior design studio receptionist Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the long running show, Designing Women. Also, Jean's co-star Teresa Ganzel became well known for her many game show appearances in the 1980s as well as her appearance in the comedic miniseries, Fresno. This show ran for only two seasons, in 1982 and 1983.
Louise, Adam and Lestor are good friends. They meet up in each other's flats or in a coffee bar to drink and discuss life, love and sex.
Ginger-Nell Hollyhock is a single and lonely hairdresser who lives in Kansas City, Missouri during the Great Depression year of 1933. When Ginger-Nell places classified ads in the local newspapers, she recruits a group of wacky relatives - a con-man husband, Fast Eddie Murtaugh; a tap-dancing daughter, Anna Marie Hollyhock; a son who wanted to fly like a bird, Junior Hollyhock; and a tottering old blind grandfather, Grandpa Hollyhock - all of whom come to live together for the laughs.
The Gertrude Berg Show is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from October 4, 1961 to April 5, 1962. The series centers on Sarah Green, played by Gertrude Berg, a 62-year-old widow who enrolls to college.
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Reggie is the story of Reggie Potter, a 47-year-old executive of Fun Time Ice Cream Desserts headquartered in Little Neck, Long Island, who confronts middle age through Walter Mitty-like fantasies. It is an American sitcom television series that aired on ABC from August 2 until September 1, 1983. Based on the British sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
Tall Hopes is a short-lived summer comedy series that aired on CBS in 1993. It centers on a smart 14-year-old black kid named Ernest Harris struggling to get as much family attention as his 16-year-old brother, Chester, a high school basketball star.
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13 episodes • 1984
| # | Episode | Air Date | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Goodbye Buddy, Hello Skip | Apr 12, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 2 | Filling Buddy's Shoes | Apr 19, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 3 | The Annies | Apr 26, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 4 | No Good Deed | May 3, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 5 | The Way We Weren't | May 10, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 6 | Can We Talk? | May 17, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 7 | The Education of Mrs. Winkler | May 24, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 8 | Ordinary People, Too | Jun 6, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 9 | It Didn't Happen One Night | Jun 13, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 10 | The Duck Stops Here | Jun 20, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 11 | The Children's Half Hour | Jun 27, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 12 | You Always Love the One You Hurt | Jul 4, 1984 | 0.0 |
| 13 | Call Me Responsible | Jul 11, 1984 | 0.0 |