1970's Sitcom Flop: Rare Promo for "Fay" (1975, NBC)

[yogafan6500]

How shocking it was. This show is no Mary Tyler Moore show. 

[swampzoid]

none of the charactors really stopped out at you. the only halfway funny line was the coworker saying "i'd rather own it than lease it".

[defundthewar]

This could fly today. Just add more sex and bathroom jokes and hit the laugh track button.

[MattTheSaiyan]

@defundthewar They don't use laugh-tracks/fake audience laughter in sitcoms these days. Instead, these days they use incredibly poor, crappy, shaky camerawork in an attempt to make it look more "realistic" (even though there have been plenty of actual documentries that use the amazing, incredible invention known as a Tripod)

[defundthewar]

@MattTheSaiyan There are those sitcoms that like to have documentary-like characteristics, often with characters obnoxiously winking briefly into the camera (The Office, Modern Family) and some w/o the documentary effect (The Middle) that employ no audience and no laugh track. But yes, there's a ton of sitcoms that use heavy-handed reaction tracks, including guffaw, chuckle, applause, cute ("awwwwww"), disapproval, surprise. If you have a keen ear, you can spot them.

[gilgamess]

@defundthewar Actually, it was accused of having explicit material at the time.  They were asked to take out the controversial term, "stretch marks".

[defundthewar]

@gilgamess Stretch marks! Shocking!

[dyinglikeflies]

The show was very funny and intelligent. The husband however was horribly miscast.

[streetcornerjames]

too much acting

[juniordenby]

Anyone know the date on which Lee Grant appeared on the TONIGHT SHOW and

lambasted NBC?

[NitekMuscle]

Tje guy cast as her husband played a supporting role in the 1970's Cronenberg horror film "Shivers".

[altfactor]

The problem with "Fay" was that the show had somehat of an adult content level but was scheduled at 8:00 P.M. ET/PT, right in the middle of "family Viewing Hour", a ploy the networks were forced to go along with in the mid 1970's to stop criticism from groups about "adult" content in early evening.

Reportdely, several episodes were re-edited, but "Fay" wasn't typical "Family Hour Fare".

The "Family Hour" policy helped ABC go from third to first that season (1975-76).

[authoress1]

I never saw this show but would like to--Fay seems cool!:)

[wyattphx]

Lee Grant very famously appeared on The Tonight Show right after Fay was canceled and assailed the producers as mad programmers - she was very angry and nearly in tears.

[ghb61]

I disagree with those who think of this as a "Mary Tyler Moore Show" rip-off. Back then, if you wanted to have a show about a woman who was not married, your only choices were to have her single or divorced. That doesn't make it an MTM ripoff--who said her sitcom could be the only one to feature a single (or divorced) woman as the main character? "Fay" was a good show for the short time it was on. And Lee Grant was gorgeous!

[JTPolo101]

This was a very funny show . I think what caused it to be cancelled was more due to its schedule. I believe it was up against The Waltons which was a powerhouse back then. Plus I could see it being a little racy for the times.

The late Joe Silver played the ex husband. Fine character actor. I think they made him such an annoying lounge lizard type so it would be easier for Fay to want to go on without him.

Starting over after any divorce is hard , but getting rid of that jerk is no big loss

[TomatoeAssassin]

God, those suits! You could go blind and deaf wearing one of those damn things.

[tinypellets]

And presented here by the late great Lloyd Bridges -- an unmistakable voice!

[wannawatchu66]

@tinypellets Unmistakable, indeed. I distinctly remember his early and mid 70s Contac commercial voiceovers too.

[Pinky39559]

I think I remember seeing one or two episodes of the series as a teenager and thought it was okay .

[SuperCruiser72]

>>>>>>>>>>>"Still, this looks more appealing than anything NBC has announced for the 2009-2010 TV season."

No, it doesn't, you fuckin' idiot! You're absolutely dead wrong about that!

[msannomalley]

The guy at 1:00 needs to turn the volume down on that suit. Yikes!! LOL. :)

[Shotgunnova]

Did your girlfriend have cheeeerleading practice? Haha...I like that one.

[CaptChaos1981]

Between the dialogue, the characters, the bad acting, the checkered suit and the fact that this is basically a blatant rip-off of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", it is not hard to see how this thing got canceled.

[brtherjohn]

That's actor Kevin McCarthy, who was 61 when this aired! As of the of this posting he's a youthful 96!

[markantonymcwhorter]

fay...lovely fay...

[bisnagaboy]

It looks like an MTM wanna be, but I still would have watched it!

[heine71]

According to the Book of Lists in the list of 10 Outrageous Moments of Censorship: An episode of Fay delated a phrase "stretch marks" when it aired.

[saskwatcher]

The creator of the show, Susan Harris, when onto create Soap and Golden Girls among other shows. Fay had many elements similar to Golden Girls, in particular the Dorothy and Rose characters. Her Rose in this show is Lillian played by the devine Audra Lindley. It was a funny smart show airing at the worst possible time, against The Waltons on a network which had no hits at all that season. Didn't have a chance.

[saskwatcher]

@saskwatcher One more thing. Fay was an early Dorothy Zbornack and her husband Jack-Horribly miscast-was Dorothy/fay's lout of an ex-husband. Also, Fay was almost a little similar to a combo of Dorothy and also Blanche. Again, was murdered in the ratings and was the least watched show of the entire season. Bad, bad programming decision on a dying network.

[acidqueen69]

Seems like a mashup of 'Phyllis' and 'One Day At A Time.' I'd love to see more of this since I always liked Lee Grant.

[oceolot7]

@acidqueen69 It's funny you mention that because 'One Day' came out four months after 'Fay'. A producer for 'One Day' claimed the reason 'Fay' failed was that fellow divorcees couldn't sympathize with a glamourous character like Lee Grant. Don't know whether I buy that or not.

[JTPolo101]

This was a funny show. I do remember the "movie" Mantrap that they compiled from several episodes .

I also remember "The Montefuscos". probably because I had a big Italian family that got together every Sunday for dinner, and all the fights and everyone talking at once were so familiar *LOL*

[giles422]

Damn, what a good ass show. I remember watching it, and then POOF it was gone. That's how I fist saw Lee Grant

[dyinglikeflies]

This was a GOOD show. Intelligent and funny (though the guy cast as her husband was an awful choice).

[bbrothersun]

My feet on the ground/ Pick 'em up/ World is spinnin' round/ Where can it go/ Who can know/ Will I be wined and dined/ Looking for reasons why I must explode/ What's on my mind/ I've got to try to find that one of a kind that's me/ No time to be alone/ Coming into my own.

[CaliforniaGuy888]

Yes, I was thinking the same thing staytunedfor - I recall Jaye P. Morgan's great song that ...it had great lyrics..."ive got to try to find that one of a kind that's me..."....cute

[holden76]

I totally would have watched this in 1975 or any time.I have heard about this show,and odd that it won an emmy.

[Bay1981]

Oh my god, I have always wanted to see this show as I am a huge fan of Lee Grant and Susan Harris who created this show before Soap and The Golden Girls. I wonder if there is any way of seeing the series in it's entirety.

[tomovox]

Just viewing this preview of "Fay," which I kinda remember, I can tell you one thing that was a bit jarring: I could NEVER believe the incredibly HOT Lee Grant could have ever been married to the man who played her ex. Not to slight the actor (I've seen him in other things where he was great) but it just seemed too much of a typical piece of sitcom casting- all for the sake of "manufacturing" a comedic effect.

[kenjn60]

Love those 70's plaids!

[studebaker62]

One of the reasons why Fay flopped was that it was deemed as "too" racy, too feminist for the time. Lee Grant's Fay was assertive and seually liberated, and many of the NBC affiliates in the midwest were put off by a sitcom starring a woman who wanted to date different guys and wasn't looking for Mr. Right "right now".

Fay was simply ahead of her time for a prime time sitcom.

[studebaker62]

Excuse me, I should have written that NBC affiliates in the midwest were put off by the idea of a smart woman who wanted to date, be independent and expirience life.

If you'll recall, Marlo Thomas' "That Girl" was about a woman who had a steady date, and Mary Tyler Moore was about a sweet wholesome woman tackling life, but Mary Richards was a "good girl" whereas Fay said what was on her mind and strove to be INDPENDENT. It freaked out a lot of station mangers.

[tomovox]

You point out the problems facing the birth of a television show. "That Girl" faced problems just by the fact that Ann Marie would be on her own. I'm sure that as a concession, Donald Hollinger was there to add a bit of what the network would consider a "steadying influence." The character of Mary Richards was supposed to be a woman divorced, but again, the network felt the concept too daring. We can't fault those shows for being "too tame," instead, at least they laid the groundwork...

[frankd1965]

Lee Grant won an oscar for the film "Shampoo"

[staytunedfor]

Thanks so much for posting this! I still remember the theme song more than 30 years later and it was great to hear a bit of it (I want to say Jaye P. Morgan did the vocals). This was one of two series to debut in fall 1975 featuring single women in their (at least) 40's in San Francisco, the other being the much more popular (and familiar) "Phyllis," which I think was a show ahead of its time. From the preview, Fay looked like the cast was too big and it was trying to be too many things.

[fromthesidelines]

...and MCA/Universal, the series' producer, NEVER wasted one bit of footage from its failed series. Do you know what they did with "FAY"? They re-edited four episodes, WITH the laugh track intact, into an ersatz "movie", "Man Trouble", which received limited theatrical release overseas, then "dumped" into one of its "TV movie" packages (along with other "one-season wonders" reworked into "TV movies"). WCBS-TV in New York used to show "Man Trouble" late nights on weekends during the '80s...

[fromthesidelines]

This is from a "fall preview" (hosted by Lloyd Bridges) that wasn't shown on the network [note the 35 minute running time Matt mentioned]- it was seen by affiliate reps and others associated with the network at a special meeting the summer before the season actually began. "FAY" was scheduled on Thursdays at 8:30pm(et), right after "THE MONTEFUSCOS" {the working title for THAT one was "SUNDAY DINNER"}- both were yanked off after four weeks, and NBC's schedule that fall was a "basket case"....

[gli7utubeo]

Yep, this is fascinating; Lee Grant video is hard to find. I'd love to see longer versions of any of your fine material on the Internet Archive. It a treat seeing this rare footage; amazing actually.

[USAGiant]

No offense but this seems to be ripoff of Mary Tyler Moore show as 30's/40's single or divorcee woman.

[MattTheSaiyan]

That may explain it's short run.

[GaryW48]

@MattTheSaiyan It was!

[Neville6000]

My sentiments exactly.

[jehobden]

Actually her line near the end about wanting to be someone other than her husband's wife was used a few months later on "One Day at a Time". I recognized Audra Lindley as her sister, Ron Silver (I think) as her son-in-law, and Kevin McCarthy, who will be 96 next month, as her suitor.

[VintageTelevision863]

@USAGiant Yeah I agree

[joycollector]

Thank you SO MUCH for posting this! I love Lee Grant and it's IMPOSSIBLE to find episodes of this show!

[joebradio]

Ah yes, the NBC 1975 "Super Season" that wasn't so much ....

[garrisonskunk]

Are you (if you havent already) going to upload the whole 35 minute special?

[MattTheSaiyan]

I might upload the 35-minute special to the Internet Archive.