Fathers and Sons (1986)

Debuting April 6, 1986. NBC, 7/6pm Central

Merlin Olson stars in this wholesome Sunday family hour sitcom as Buddy Landau, small construction business owner who unofficially assistant coaches various sports teams at his son’s elementary school. Additional characters were wife Ellen (Kelly Sanders), chunky son Lanny who lacks athletic talent (Jason Late), intellectual Matt (Ina Fried, billed as Ian Fried), young operator Sean (Andre Gower in his second TV series), and tiny spitfire Brandon (Hakeem Abdul-Samad, billed simply as Hakeem). Matt’s dad Dr. Richard Bolen (Nicholas Guest) also starred.

In the debut episode, “The Ironman”, Buddy encourages paraplegic student Evan (Harley Scott) to try out for the wrestling team. But when Evan doesn’t make the team, Buddy enlists the aid of professional wrestler The Ironman (Tony Longo) to encourage him. Meanwhile, Buddy’s plans to put Lanny on a diet doesn’t work out. In “We’ll Always Have the Mall”, Lanny’s parents find he has discovered girls when he asks one on a date…unfortunately, on the same day he had made plans with his dad to attend a basketball game. The pilot (possibly titled “Father’s Day”) aired on April 20 as the third episode. Here Buddy takes everyone on a father/son camping trip to the beach, where Sean tries to convince his father (Rick Nelson) not to get a divorce. (It was listed as a rerun, as the pilot had already aired the prior summer and is not included in online episode listings.) In “Desperately Seeking Einstein”, it’s time for the father-son science fair, but Sean’s father won’t take the time to help him. The final episode was “Which Championship Season?” where Buddy relives his glory days with old football buddy Mad Dog (John Matuszak). But when he attempts to help the school basketball team become winners, his new coaching methods threaten his relationship with the boys – especially his own son.

Yes, it was Merlin Olsen returning in yet another NBC series, following his roles on Little House on the Prairie and Father Murphy. The former LA Rams defensive tackle was also appearing as a sportscaster for NBC’s Sunday NFL broadcasts. A one-hour pilot episode had been offered to NBC in the spring of 1985, but they reportedly didn’t like ‘the feel of it’ and passed. Olsen wrote it off, thinking that was the end of it, but NBC suggested changing up the format into a half-hour show. It is not clear whether a new pilot was filmed, or the show was edited down to a half hour. Either way, the now half-hour pilot was aired on June 16 following The Cosby Show as part of a Father’s Day-themed schedule and was seen by 12.2 million TV households, tying with Kate & Allie and Newhart for 17th place in the weekly Nielsens.

As described in the press, the aired pilot was about two boys who were best friends and their very different fathers, played by Olsen and Rick Nelson. This makes it likely that the story structure was somewhat different than what was seen in later episodes, and that Nelson would possibly be a series regular. Vincent Terrace lists the pilot separately in his book on Experimental Television and calls the subsequent four episodes a reworking of the half-hour pilot. As I’ve never seen the pilot episode surface, and information on this series is very thin, it is hard to say how different this original story was. It was described as ‘unsold’ when it aired, and NBC’s decision to order four episodes of the series evidently came in early December. Filming on the four episodes started on January 27.

However, the show was held until very late in mid-season simply due to a lack of room on the hit-heavy schedule that year as NBC had finally reached number one status with half of the top 30 shows airing on the Peacock network. When it finally debuted in April, it was slotted early Sunday evenings opposite 60 Minutes in the FCC-regulated ‘family hour’ at 6/7pm Central. Punky Brewster was shifted to a half-hour later, and the aging Silver Spoons was given a rest. The following week, things were switched around and Fathers and Sons followed Punky, leading into Amazing Stories.

The series was created by Nick Arnold and Michael Zinberg. Arnold had been a writer for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show as well as on seasons two and three of Welcome Back, Kotter. Zinberg was mainly a producer/director known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show. Arnold’s credits fizzle out after 1990, but Zinberg went on to produce Quantum Leap, JAG, and Rizzoli & Isles. As Olsen noted to the press at the time, Fathers and Sons was “not a punchline every 30 seconds kind of comedy” and was more slice-of-family-life. “I’m the dad who’s around when they need somebody. I remember in my own childhood you didn’t worry about playing on the lawn. You could tear it up. You could always find some cookies in the house. That’s the kind of home we have in this series.”

The series was filmed single-camera style on location mainly at Portole Junior High School in Tarzana, California. The saccharine-sweet theme song containing the hook “love’s a little you…love’s a little me” seems to have been composed by Patrick Williams, although with no closing credits to examine, we just have to go by what IMDB says. 11-year-old Ina Fried got third billing, Fried had been in Rocky III (1982) and had just appeared as “Wesley’s Friend” in that infamous episode of Mr. Belvedere.

“How’s it going?”

“Well, I got AIDS. But other than that, I’m doing pretty good.”

Fried became an award-winning technology journalist, writing for outlets like CNET and Axios for the last 25 years. 12-year-old Andre Gower had acted since age 6 and had appeared in a stint on Days of Our Lives in 1980, followed by a series role on Baby Makes Five. Following Fathers and Sons, his next series was opposite George C. Scott on Fox series Mr. President. You’ll also likely recognize him as Sean, leader of The Monster Squad (1987). Soon to be 11-year-old Hakeem had single or recurring appearances on shows like Gimme a Break!, Diff’rent Strokes, Frank’s Place, Webster, and Amen, as well as feature films Wildcats (1986) and Ernest Goes to Camp (1987). Jason Late had made his debut in feature film Splash (1984) at age 9. Filling the role of young Freddy (John Candy’s character), he and his mother were flown first class to the filming location in the Bahamas. He also appeared in Vice Versa (1988), but apart from Fathers and Sons was in surprisingly little else in this era. Like most child actors, he also did commercials; the list I found mentioned Commodore Computers, J.C. Penny, and this one for Cracklin’ Oat Bran cereal.

Interestingly, Jeremy Miller had also been offered a role on the series, which he turned down in favor of the other series he had just been offered: Growing Pains.

But when the fall schedule was announced on May 14, Fathers and Sons was listed as cancelled. Incredibly, I do find limited reruns of the show in the summer of 1989, seemingly packaged in one-hour chunks on local stations in northeast and Midwest states. Apart from that, it was reduced to mentions in trivia questions and remains one of the scores of series from this era that are all but forgotten. A home recording of the premiere episode from YouTube channel @ntsecrets surfaced a year ago, unfortunately, it cuts off two-thirds of the way through. David Gideon has the show intro from what seems to be a completely different recording.