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It seems a tad strange that NBC has already aired its 50 anniversary salutes for Saturday Night Live, since the show didn’t actually go on the air until October 11, 1975, well into the 1975-76 season. Meanwhile, there are a number of memorable TV series that did debut in the middle of the 1974-75 network calendar. Some of these “winter replacement”–or “summer replacement”–programs went on to become long-running audience favorites. Others were gone in the blink of a network executive’s eye and exist now only as the answer to trivia questions. Let’s take a trip back to 1975, when viewers basically had but three channels (four, if you count PBS) for their prime time entertainment options, and see some of the other series marking their Golden Anniversary this year:
Baretta – Okay, this one’s a bit tricky. When star Tony Musante left the ABC cop series Toma after its 1973-74 debut season, the producers decided to overhaul the show, losing the entire cast and keeping just the concept of a big-city undercover detective who uses disguises in his work. Former Little Rascal-turned-In Cold Blood killer Robert Blake was tapped to play the renamed Tony Baretta. Accompanied by his pet cockatoo Fred and armed with the catchphrase “And dat’s the name of dat tune!,” Baretta was a hit for ABC, but after four seasons Blake–like Musante before him–tired of the series grind and left the show. Blake went on to play a two-fisted priest in NBC’s 1985 drama Helltown, then was tried for–and acquitted of–the 2001 murder of his second wife before he died in 2023. And dat’s the name of dat tune.
Barney Miller – Running for seven seasons on ABC, this cops-and-robbers sitcom chronicled the daily doings of the officers and detectives stationed at New York’s fictitious 12th Precinct. The rundown Lower Manhattan neighborhood seemed to attract more than its share of oddball lawbreakers and complainants. Hal Linden starred as precinct captain Miller, with Abe Vigoda, Ron Harris, Max Gail, Jack Soo, and Steve Landesberg among his men. The show originally going to alternate between Barney’s work life and home life, but the latter was slowly phased out, with his wife Liz (Barbara Barrie) relegated to occasional appearances. There was also a short-lived 1977-78 spin-off, Fish, starring Vigoda.
Grady – After being a featured regular on the hit NBC comedy Sanford and Son for four seasons (and serving as de facto co-star for several episodes when Redd Foxx walked off in a contract dispute), Whitman Mayo and his Grady Wilson character moved to this short-lived 1975 spinoff. Leaving the Sanfords’ Watts junkyard behind for L.A.’s more upscale Westwood neighborhood, Grady moved in his grown daughter Ellie (Carole Cole), her husband Hal (Joe Morton), and their two kids. Only nine of 10 filmed episodes were aired.
Hot l Baltimore – Based on Lanford Wilson’s award-winning play about a rundown residence hotel (the neon marquee sign’s “e” was burned out) in downtown Baltimore, this Norman Lear-produced sitcom was the first on ABC to have a “mature themes” disclaimer run at the start of the show. The colorful cast of regulars included a pair of prostitutes, a Black radical, a woman whose unbalanced grown son was never seen, and network TV’s first recurring gay couple. James Cromwell, Conchatta Ferrell, Al Freeman, Jr., Richard Masur, and Charlotte Rae headed the ensemble cast of the midseason entry, which hung out the “vacancy” sign after just 13 episodes.
The Jeffersons – Archie Bunker’s long-suffering neighbors George (Sherman Hemsley) and Louise (Isabel Sanford) made the move from a rowhouse in Queens to “a deluxe apartment in the sky” over Manhattan in the second spin-off (third if you count Good Times) from All in the Family. Making dry-cleaning mogul George’s notorious temper even hotter were the antics of his wisecracking maid Florence (Marla Gibbs), eccentric neighbor Mr. Bentley (Paul Benedict), and fellow residents Tom (Franklin Cover) and Helen (Roxie Roker) Willis, one of TV’s first interracial couples. The series, which took a sometimes hard look at racial attitudes in ’70s America, was an immediate hit for producer Norman Lear and CBS and was on the air for 11 seasons.
Karen – Hot off her co-starring role on the high school seriocomedy Room 222, Karen Valentine took center stage as Karen Angelo, an idealistic young activist working for a liberal D.C. lobbying group, in this 1975 ABC comedy that faced an uphill battle thanks to the country’s post-Watergate weariness of most things political. Veteran film curmudgeon Charles Lane and Dena Dietrich (best known as Mother Nature in ’70s Chiffon margarine commercials) played Valentine’s boss and co-worker. After 13 episodes, Valentine’s day in the spotlight was over.
Khan! – No, this was not a show about William Shatner yelling at Ricardo Montalban. Film/TV heavy Khigh Dhiegh, best known as the villainous Wo Fat in the original Hawaii Five-O, starred in the title role of a Chinese-American private detective who, aided by his son and daughter, solved cases in San Francisco. If it sounds a bit like an updating of the 1930s/’40s Charlie Chan film series, that’s probably not a coincidence. Only four of seven filmed episodes aired on CBS.
One Day at a Time – “This is it!” Well, this is actually another Norman Lear production created by break TV sitcom norms. Bonnie Franklin played newly divorced mother Ann Romano, who moves into an Indianapolis apartment to build a career of her own and raise her teenage daughters Julie (Mackenzie Phillips) and Barbara (Valerie Bertinelli). Stealing more than one scene was the series’ other main character, building handyman and would-be Casanova Dwayne Schneider (Pat Harrington, Jr.). The taboo-breaking, feminist-oriented show was a CBS mainstay for nine years.
Sunshine – Remember John Denver’s hit 1973 single “Sunshine on My Shoulders”? Well, it was used that same year as the theme song for a CBS telemovie, Sunshine. Cristina Raines and Cliff De Young played a young married couple with an infant girl who learn to cope after Raines is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Based on a true story and obviously inspired in part by 1970’s Love Story, the drama proved popular enough for NBC to greenlight a series which debuted in March of 1975. De Young reprised his role as struggling single dad/folk musician Sam, with Corey Fischer and Lost in Space alum Bill Mumy as his bandmates and Elizabeth Cheshire as daughter Jill. The show received good reviews, but was running opposite The Waltons and only lasted 13 episodes. There was, surprisingly, a 1977 reunion TV film, Sunshine Christmas.
S.W.A.T. – If M*A*S*H was the most popular four-letter acronym ’70s show, second place went to this Aaron Spelling production about the men of an LAPD Special Weapons And Tactics unit. Steve Forrest starred as squad leader Lt. “Hondo” Harrelson. Robert Urich, Rod Perry, Mark Shera, and James Coleman played the other members of the team, sent on the most dangerous of targets and defuse potentially explosive situations. While the ABC series was a ratings success (and its theme song a number one hit in 1976), outcries over S.W.A.T.’s excessive violence led to its cancellation after just two seasons. The squad’s adventures would, of course, live on in a 2003 feature film starring Samuel L. Jackson and a 2017 CBS reboot.