The Stockard Channing Show was a Syndication network sitcom series created by Nick Arnold & Eric Cohen, starring Stockard Channing in the lead role.
The show aired from March 24 to July 12, 1980, lasting for one season & 13 episodes.It was produced by Little Bear Productions and Columbia Pictures Television.
Plot[]
The series centered on Susan Goodenow, a recently divorced woman who worked as a consumer reporter for a local TV show in Los Angeles, California called "The Big Rip Off."
The plots often revolved around Susan's attempts to expose corporations who were swindling consumers as she wore various disguises and underwent different personas.
Cast[]
- Stockard Channing as Susan Goodenow
- Ron Silver as Brad Gabriel
- Sydney Goldsmith as Earline Cunningham
- Max Showalter as Gus Clyde
- Jack Somack as Mr. Kramer
- Bruce Baum as Alf Serenity
Production[]
After wowing audiences in "Grease" and "The Cheap Detective", Syndication sets their sights on making Stockard Channing into a TV star.
Channing and her then-husband, producer David Debin, were offered ownership and creative control of a movie and television series.
The result were the 1979 made-for-TV movie "Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neil Story" and the short-lived series "Stockard Channing in Just Friends".
In March 1980, Channing returned in "The Stockard Channing Show" which (like "Just Friends") debuted as a mid-season replacement.
"I felt last year I became the workhorse, and had to push the show along," Channing told the Associated Press in 1980. "In doing this season, I didn't feel I desperately had to do anything to keep the show moving."
Although it was a completely different show, there was certainly familiar ground, beginning with the opening theme song (the same on both series).
Stockard's character was again named Susan (Susan was Channing's legal first name; her last name in the series was "Goodenow" as opposed to "Hughes" in the previous) and her apartment was simply redressed.
In "Just Friends", Susan was in a failing marriage; for this series, she is fully divorced. Sydney Goldsmith was retained as Susan's flighty friend/neighbor, now renamed Earline. In addition to the on-screen similarities, many crew members from "Just Friends" were also retained.
Cancellation[]
"The Stockard Channing Show" aired at 8:30 P.M. ET (along with "WKRP in Cincinnati", "M*A*S*H" and "Flo") in the Monday night lineup.
After the show ended, Stockard Channing would not star in another sitcom until "Out of Practice" in 2005.
DVD release[]
The complete series was released on DVD in 2006 by the Canadian company Visual Entertainment paired with 10 of the 13 episodes of Channing's previous series, Stockard Channing in Just Friends. The first episode of The Stockard Channing Show appears at the end of the first disc.
External links[]
The Stockard Channing Show on IMDb- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stockard_Channing_Show
