Unsold Television Pilots: 1955-1989

743 Pages·2015·3.09 MB·English

by  Lee Goldberg

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real
persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2015 Adventures in Television
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 151159067X
ISBN 13: 9781511590679
Adventures in Television, Inc.
PO Box 8212
Calabasas, CA 91372
To Karen, Linda, and Tod…
and to Mom, who let me watch
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
Unsold Television Pilots 1955-1989 was the first compendium of its kind. I
began writing it when I was nine years old. By the time I finished it, I was in
my early twenties and was far enough along in my TV career that one of my
filmed, unsold pilots actually became an entry in this book (If You Knew
Sammy, a potential spin-off from Spenser: For Hire). I appreciated the irony.
It somehow seemed fitting.
The book was written in those dark ages when information couldn’t be
Googled….when research meant spending thousands of hours in libraries,
going through books, magazines, newspapers, and microfiches (remember
those?) and digging through dusty file cabinets.
At the time, unsold pilots were a mystery, and there was no single
resource for finding out information about them. This book became that
resource. And to my shock, and delight, the book became a sensation when it
was published, leading to scores of articles, national TV interviews, a
paperback abridgement (since republished as The Best TV Shows That Never
Were), and over the years not one, but two network TV specials, The
Greatest Shows You Never Saw (which I produced) on CBS in 1996 and The
Best TV Shows That Never Were (which I wrote and produced) on ABC in
2004. The biggest thrill for me, though, was sitting in the audience of The
Tonight Show with my wife Valerie while Johnny Carson, a certified TV
legend, held the book in his hand, talked about how much he liked it, and
then did a comedy bit based on it.
Over the years, readers have alerted me to mistakes in the book… the
most embarrassing of which were the inadvertent inclusion of a few pilots
that actually did sell and became series. Cringe. I’ve deleted those entries
from this edition but made note of them to preserve the integrity of the
original index (the pilots are listed by entry numbers, not page numbers).
I’ve also received hundreds of letters and emails from many attentive
readers, who corrected errors, gave me additional details on dozens of pilots
and alerted me to some unsold pilots that I’d missed (a few of which I’ve
added). I’d like to single out Barry I. Grauman and Bill Warren for their eagle
eyes and keen knowledge of television.
I’ve corrected most of the errors in the book (I say most, because I did
my best to get’em all but I’m sure I missed some) added some of the new
details, and added a few of the unsold pilots that I failed to discover the first
time around… but not all of them. Most of the other unsold pilots that I
missed have since been noted in TV reference books that followed mine over
the last twenty-five years.
Oh, who am I kidding? The truth is, I didn’t add much new stuff
because that would be the path to madness for me. I wouldn’t be able to stop
until I brought the book entirely up-to-date, adding all of the unsold pilots
produced since 1989.
I’ll share with you my dark secret. Since the day I finished this book,
I’ve continued to compile information for a follow-up edition and possible
new TV specials. I’ve transferred all my old VHS tapes of unsold pilots to
DVD…and I grab any new unsold pilots I can get my hands on or that I can
record off-the-air. I still clip, literally and virtually, every article that I see
about pilots-in-development. But in this age when it’s so easy to find
information on the web, when everything is databased (including, probably,
every word of this book), it becomes increasingly unlikely that I’ll ever write
a sequel to this book covering 1989-to-present.
And yet… I keep gathering the information. So why do I do it?
It could be because I’m mentally ill. Or maybe because it’s a habit that I
started when I was seven years old and I’ve never entirely grown up. I’m still
that kid inexplicably fascinated by all those lost pilots, those would-be TV
series that never were. And if you’re reading this book, I guess that you are,
too.
Lee Goldberg
May 1, 2015
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE
1989 EDITION
This book would not have been possible without the help of Gloria Edwards
of the Leo Burnett Agency–which has been reviewing pilots for its clients
since 1955 and graciously made its files available to me.
I am indebted to Ms. Edwards, Leonard Reeg and all the people who
have worked in the TV Program Department of the Leo Burnett Agency over
the years preparing those invaluable reports.
The information in this book is culled from the Leo Burnett reports,
network press releases, and personally conducted interviews, as well as
listings, reviews, and articles from the entertainment industry publications TV
Guide, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Electronic Media.
All the information in this book was cross-checked against previously
published material whenever possible. A bibliography of those works
follows. I’d like especially to thank authors Vincent Terrace, Alvin H. Marill,
James Robert Parish, Jeb Perry, and Larry James Gianakos for their definitive
works.
During the years it took to research and write this book, many people
shared their time, experience, guidance and patience with me – often more
than I deserved. A special thanks to Burl Barer, William Rabkin, Adam Gold,
Karen Bender, Stephen J. Cannell, Steven Bochco, Sherwood Schwartz, J.
Bret Garwood, Roy Huggins, Harry Ackerman, David Gerber, Kelly
Selvidge, Ron Givens, Janet Huck, Ron Alridge, David Klein, Richard
Mahler, Morrie Gelman, David McDonnell, Lloyd Friedman, Elisa Williams,
Megan Powell, Carol Fowler, Sean Hillier, Michael Carmack, and Peter
Biskind.
Lee Goldberg
Los Angeles
March 21, 1989