 This is the SF Productions podcast network The golden gut from the pop culture bunker. I'm Indy and I'm Mark You can check out our audio podcast how I got my wife to read comics on iTunes or on our website SF podcast network comm So as summer runs out we can look forward To new fall TV shows With all the choices and options today fall premieres are becoming an antiquated concept really yes Just like the reason they were created which was to sell new cars because back then that's when all the new cars came out Which doesn't happen. Yeah, but back in the 1970s. You only really had three choices ABC NBC CBS It's a lot easier. Absolutely and one man led all three networks Not at the same time. No saving to and almost bankrupting the other Fred Silverman He was known as the man with a golden gut for his unerring ability to green light hit shows. Yes He started in TV at Chicago's WGN in 1959 after working in the mail room at ABC He didn't have mail rooms anymore. No, I'm surely know his master's thesis from the Ohio State University on ABC programming over ten years got him noticed at CBS where he took over daytime programming Now TV at the time was handled in day parts Morning afternoon evening late night. This was way before syndication really. Oh, absolutely So keep in mind that at least when he was with the networks He didn't actually produce shows But he greenlit them and actually helped to create them. So he had an enormous impact on what made it to pilots in 1969 again at this point he is Daytime programming which includes Saturday morning. Okay, so he greenlit scooby-doo for Saturday morning And in fact the Fred Jones character in scooby-doo is named for Fred Silverman He was given control of all programming at CBS in 1970 and then led the infamous rural purge So goodbye The idea was that CBS was number one in the ratings But demographers came in and sold them and advertisers on the idea that you needed the right people Not just the most people watching your shows So CBS viewers were older and more rural So they weren't good for the advertisers. They didn't have as much money to spend and they were older So they were less pliable in terms of changing their ways, right So Silverman canceled in quick order Green Acres Mayberry RFD, He-Ha, Beverly Hillbillies, Lassie, Family Affair, My Three Sons, and Hogan's Heroes Not sure how that got in there. Well Family Affair doesn't really fit with the whole rural thing either No, no So this opened up so many spots all at once that they were forced at CBS to take chances on some new concepts for shows Those shows were all in the family MASH and the Mary Tyler Moore show all of which revitalized the network And were arguably much better shows and more socially relevant shows than what was canceled Right, but they were a little more risky than what they were doing at the time Silverman was a big fan of spin-offs Then he was the one who really popularized the spin-off idea So at CBS we got Maud, the Jeffersons, and Good Times all of which came from all in the family And Rhoda and Phyllis both came from Mary Tyler Moore show Actually the Bob Newhart show really almost fits in as a spin-off because it was the same writing team as the Mary Tyler Moore show right Silverman also brought back game shows to daytime after they had disappeared in the late 60s after the scandal Well, this is this long after the scandal, but they just kind of faded away in the late 60s So he resurrected a show called The Price is Right which had done fairly well for years Bill Cullen with Bill Cullen And of course that's The Price is Right that's still running over 40 years later. Yeah Silverman also ended the practice of recycling old videotapes Now so Much of what we know as 60s television is only around because of the filmed shows The ones that were videotaped were mostly lost because it was cheaper to record over those shows to take the same tape And just record over it. Did he ever say why he ended that did he say he wanted to keep the old shows? He wanted to he thought there would be a use for him. He was he he somehow saw in the future There would be a need. Yeah, but nobody else saw I was like, ah, forget that, you know, then we got to store them Boy, yeah, so in 1975 he was lured over to abc with a big paycheck ABC had been the number three network since its inception in the 50s Partly due to our moratorium on new stations in the early 50s when they were trying to figure out the How color tv was going to work the fcc said no more Uh, uh new licenses for stations and since nbc and cbs already were in there And they had wrapped up those stations then they were exclusive for like two years and that was a That was a a crucial two years abc was always behind so silverman took this show that was failing called happy days And turned it into a juggernaut that launched multiple spin-offs Again more spin-offs laverne and surly morgan mendy, uh, joni loves cha chi which wasn't quite so popular right, but Ironically happy days was losing to another spin-off Good times over on cbs that silverman had brought put into place Silverman also began what was called jiggle tv Imagine that yeah women in skimpy outfits So that's where we we saw charlie's angels and love boat and fantasy island and bionic woman And the battle of the network stars So You got to look at this point in the history of television at the time You weren't even allowed to mention other network's names If you were a star on say an abc show and you went on johnny karson johnny would say the show was on another network That's a lot easier than now if you say it's on another network. You would never be able to find it. Exactly so the idea of battle the network stars is that a group of tv stars who are in In teams representing their networks So they actually had like logo cbs or abc or nbc logos in Events such as tug of war swimming obstacle courses With howard cosel doing the play by play There was no entertainment tonight. There was no internet. Obviously. There was no tmz So this was the first time we had seen these stars warts at all We either saw them in character on their show or on a talk show It was all very much pre-programmed. That's what they were gonna say. Yeah I really doubt agents would ever allow this today. That's why you'll never see battle the network stars again Oh, and apparently there was a no bra rule for the gals Well, because otherwise it wouldn't have been uh, I don't know. Yeah In abc daytime silverman put a new producer gloria monti in charge of of a failing Uh soap opera named general hospital and gave her 13 weeks to fix it. It's still on the air He was good at picking people. Yeah, he also borrowed A local morning tv show concept and created good morning america Under his reign abc went to number one for the first time ever And then in 1978 silverman attempted to trifecta and he moved nbc. I'm gonna save them now At this point it's unclear what happened. Maybe he lost his way Maybe the other execs were afraid of questioning him But things got weird at this point Silverman introduced some of the worst tv shows of all time in nbc Hello larry, which was mclean sievensons triumphant returned to television after mash Where he's the he is actually a spin-off of another show called different strokes And uh, he's like a dj Like a talk radio host with kids and wackiness ensues. Didn't really work out. No Pink lady and jeff now. I remember that I you know I think I watched that a few times. Yeah, so this comedian jeff altman and these two this Japanese pop duo named pink lady who spoke no english Yes, that's that's the operative point here did a variety show The girls said all their their speeches phonetically had no idea what they were saying It's very hard to do comedy when you have no idea what you're saying And then there was Super train So this was their love boat knockoff now. I really think super train could work So a nuclear powered train that went across the country in incredible speed And it included of course like a hot tub car and a disco car and And it was very much love boat absolutely because there were like several story lines and there was Here's your conductor and here's your porter and here's your you know Yeah, but without the scenery without the scenery. Yeah So to be fair He also introduced introduced at NBC different strokes as I mentioned facts of life Which is a spin-off of different strokes hill street blues And he got a young david letterman on the air in a morning show and then got him to agree to a holding deal After the morning show until they could figure out what to do with them Which was of course for him to do late night with david letterman right which You know which david just finished his run Decades and decades later He also committed to shows that became cheers and st. Elsewhere He also promoted brandon tartikov soon to succeed him And tartikov later created the must-see tv juggernaut of nbc in the 80s and 90s Silverman left the network in 1981 and started his own production company. Okay So now he's no longer picking out the show. He's creating them creating them. So Some of the shows he created as an independent producer matlock Jake and the fat man diagnosis murder father dialing mysteries and the perry mason tv movies He also created that terrible thick of the night Alan thick Late night talk show fiasco. Yeah, but regardless of that His impact on tv cannot be overstated TV is if you watched 70s television, you watched something that that's fred silverman had his handle And all the people who are creating tv today Watched that fred silverman era era and there's a lot of influence on tv today from that So no question. Um while you're not watching tv, though You can check out our audio podcast how I got my wave tree comics on itunes or on our website sfpodcastnetwork.com From the pop culture bunker. I'm indy and i'm mark. Thanks for watching and i'm off to watch battle the network stars