The Alphabet network, who was nervous about the darker comedic overtones within ‘Nobody’s Perfect’, extended their 4-episode order of ‘Detective School’ to 13-episodes and rushed the series back into production, and gave it the Saturday slot behind ‘The Ropers’ (a late switch that missed the press deadlines for all the fall preview television listings).

On Saturday nights, ‘Detective School’ did OK numbers, averaging a 13.0HH for its 10-episode run behind ‘The Ropers’ 14.3HH during the 1979-80 fall season, but it was ultimately replaced by ‘A New Kind of Family’ in December, which did worse (11.6HH). ABC then re-jigged again, moving ‘The Ropers’ to Saturdays at 8:30 pm out of ‘One in a Million’ where it did a 14.7 average, and then in the spring, ABC tried out ‘Goodtime Girls’ on Saturdays at 8:30 pm (11.3HH) out of ‘Angie’ (10.3HH).

In the summer of 1980, ABC gave the Saturday 8-9 pm slot over to ’240-Robert’ which averaged a 10.6HH for its summer run.

When ABC finally got around to burning off their 8-episode order of ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ in the summer of 1980 (Thursdays at 9:30 pm from June 26 to August 28 out of ‘Barney Miller’ at 9 pm), the series averaged a 13.8HH, ranking in the upper quartile of series that got a summer tryout that season, edging out ‘Semi Tough’ (13.7HH) which it replaced in the Thursday 9:30 pm slot.

This is a long way of saying that ABC’s misgivings about the series were not shared by viewers as ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ out-rated all of its Saturday replacements (except ‘The Ropers’), and it seems to be better remembered than its replacements too (again, excepting ‘The Ropers’). I was a big fan of ‘Barney Miller’, and enjoyed ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ too, remembering its very off-beat Inspector Clouseau-ish brand of humour and the quirky comedy of Mr. Ron Moody.

It is one series truly worthy of a DVD release someday.

I explained that in its early days, Nickelodeon used to be commercial-free and programmed alot of English and Canadian shows. The one in question, “INTO THE LABYRINTH” starred Ron Moody and a some unknown child actors in a tale that is so convoluted that onlyTHE TOMORROW PEOPLE could probably sort it out!

However, the basic premise was that the kids were in the caves and it was a labyrinth and they were supposed to walk through the walls and go into different time periods and collect objects that would combine into a power source for these wizards to do battle with one another.

Ron Moody had just finished “HART OF THE YARD” aka “NOBODY’S PERFECT” which was absolutely NOT well-received. In fact, it ranks as one of the few series to be cancelled BEFORE it was even aired! It was listed in the 1979 TV Guide Fall Preview but yanked from the schedule after it went to press.

“INTO THE LABYRINTH” ran for three series. The budget apparently was less than even the cheapest episode of Doctor Who back in the 70′s. According to my English friend, it was embarassingly bad.