Vote for the Next Television Obscurities Article

It’s that time again. Time to vote for the first Television Obscurities article to be published in April. I write two new articles each month, one voted on by visitors to this site and one chosen by me. This month, I’ll be writing an article on 90 Bristol Court and another article on an as-of-yet undetermined show or topic. Here are the choices for April of 2009:

Cancelled Before They Aired – [Working title.] There are thousands of television programs that came close to getting on the air, making it to pilot stage or even getting a slot on a preliminary network schedule. But there have only been a handful of shows that were ordered to series, had several episodes ready to go, and were cancelled before they premiered. Read about Snip, Mister Dugan, Manchester Prep, Fearless and more.

“Nancy” – This sitcom ran for all of 17 episodes during the 1970-1971 season. Renne Jarrett starred as Nancy Smith, the daughter of the President of the United States of America who, in the first episode, falls for Adam Hudson, a veterinarian. The two are forced to carry on their romance under the watchful eyes of Nancy’s ever-present guardian, Adam’s uncle, secret service agents and the news media. The series was created by Sidney Sheldon.

Save Our Show Campaigns Prior to Star Trek – Everyone knows how Star Trek was saved from cancellation by fan letters. The very first example of viewers successfully staging a “save our show” campaign may have occurred in 1951, however, with a CBS kid’s show. It wasn’t just network shows that elicited responses from viewers. In 1959, for example, viewers wrote to station WNTA in support of The Play of the Week. Learn about successful and failed “save our show” campaigns before 1967.

Writing to the Networks in the Sixties – Learn all about how ABC, CBS and NBC handled viewer mail in the 1960s. Who was writing, what did they want and what did the networks think?