The Karen Valentine Program Opening Credits
Here are the opening and closing credits to an unsold sitcom pilot called The Karen Valentine Program. A few seconds are missing:
I featured Karen Valentine’s 1975 ABC drama series, simply titled Karen, in a Show Spotlight last month. Barry I. Grauman was kind enough to contribute some comments about an earlier, unsold pilot starring Karen Valentine that ABC turned down in 1974. It was called The Karen Valentine Program and, according to its entry in the UCLA Film & Television Archive, was shown on television. If it did, I haven’t find any record of it in television listings.
In a January 24th, 1974 article, The Chicago Tribune reported that Valentine would be shooting the pilot for The Karen Valentine Program, in which she would star as a recently divorced woman looking for work, in February [1]. On May 10th, The Los Angeles Times reported that The Karen Valentine Program would debut in January of 1975 [2]. But on June 10th, Aaron Gold revealed in The Chicago Tribune that Valentine had just been signed by Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds to star in a pilot for a potential mid-season replacement, noting that it would be her “third try at a series” [3].
Thus, it appears the turnaround between The Karen Valentine Program and what would become Karen (apparently originally titled The Karen Valentine Show) was relatively quick. Karen ran for all of thirteen weeks between January and May of 1975. For the record, Valentine’s first sitcom pilot was called The Karen Valentine Show and was produced 1973. Her character was the assistant to a wacky public relations specialist played by Charles Nelson Reilly. It aired on Monday, May 12st, 1973 as part of a two-hour “Comedy Trio” block featuring two other unsold pilots: The Barbara Eden Show (with Barbara Eden and Joe Flynn) and Catch-22 (with Richard Dreyfuss and Dana Elcar).
Works Cited:
2 “Karen Valentine to Star in Series.” Los Angeles Times. 10 May 1974: E34.
3 Gold, Aaron. “Tower Ticker.” Chicago Tribune. 10 Jun. 1974: B12.
Related:
August 17th, 2009 at 1:50AM
I’m VERY happy a print of this pilot exists [reading about it in Lee Goldberg's book was interesting, but to actually SEE some of it is exhilarating!]. Note the similarities to “THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW”’s opening and closing titles here (this is definitely the closing credits); as I’ve previously mentioned, creator/writer/producers David Davis & Lorenzo Music were Mary’s producers during her first two seasons, and 20th Century-Fox and ABC expected them to create the same “magic” for Karen. For all her attractiveness and talent, though, Karen simply wasn’t “Mary Tyler Moore” (who COULD replicate her??), with the result that this pilot was discarded in favor of a different one conceived and produced by Gene Reynolds and Larry Gelbart- that flopped, anyway.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:07AM
I forgot to mention that UCLA also has a copy of the 1973 pilot for The Karen Valentine Show in addition to The Karen Valentine Program from 1974. And it has 11 of the 13 episodes of Karen from 1975.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:37AM
If ABC wanted a ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ like show why didn’t they buy the THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW when they had the chance
August 17th, 2009 at 7:33PM
I’ve uploaded a new version of the opening/closing credits with better audio.
August 18th, 2009 at 1:26AM
Because Mary created her series specifically for CBS, ‘Cee Jay’, as part of her “development deal” with the network. Once it became successful after 1971, the other networks eventually wanted a series “just like hers” [and Doris Day radically altered her CBS series that year in order to make her character more of a fashion-plate version of "Mary Richards"]. But 20th Century-Fox was “lucky” in securing the services of Davis & Music for Karen’s pilot- who better to conceive and produce a “Mary-ish series” than the ones who were originally involved IN it?- or UNlucky, as it was ultimately rejected by the network.
I appreciate your “upgrading” the rare closing credits, ‘RG’ [which also served as the "opening title", up to the director's credit at :44].
August 26th, 2009 at 12:55PM
I just noticed that this show was directed by Peter Bonerz (Jerry on the Bob Newhart Show), I guess the rule about being on a show on one network and actig in a show on another network didn’t apply to working behind the camera.
September 11th, 2009 at 11:32PM
This was probably Peter’s first attempt at directing a situation comedy, which utlitmately led to a career (as did Jerry Paris, who also portrayed a dentist on another celebrated, well-respected sitcom, who ALSO became the series’ leading director during its last four seasons) behind the camera, where he’s more often occupied these days.