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

A rare promo for the 1970's sitcom flop "Fay", which aired on the NBC Television Network, and starred Lee Grant. The sitcom was about a middle aged woman who after divorce, started a new job and starts dating. The program only lasted about 10 episodes, and to be fair it's easy to see some of the shows problems in this promo. Still, this looks more appealing than anything NBC has announced for the 2009-2010 TV season. This 3-minute promo is taken from a 35-minute promotional special from 1975.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• 1970's
• Sitcom
• 1970s
• Comedy
• 70s
• 70's
• Seventies
• Flop
• Flops
• Lee
• Grant
• NBC
• Television
• Network
• Short
• Lived
• Promo
• Promos
• 1975
• Commercial
• Failure
• Humor
• One
• Liners

[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)

[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.

[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.

[yogafan6500]

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

[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.

[defundthewar]

@gilgamess Stretch marks! Shocking! 

[gilgamess]

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

[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]

@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.

[dyinglikeflies]

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

[streetcornerjames]

too much acting