This is an extremely, weirdly specific article. This weekend has got me thinking about real world adult-type problems, so I’m giving myself a distraction.
So ever since the 1950s, prime-time network series would look to a certain goal: Be popular and stay high in the ratings long enough to make 100 episodes or thereabouts. With 100 episodes, you could sell your show into syndication. (That’s how 5-times-a-week reruns of network series end up on local station schedules.)
Many series over the years have been deficit-financed, which means syndication can be like the production company’s Black Friday.
But what about a show that wants to get those old episodes out into syndication while continuing to produce new episodes for primetime viewing? Well, until the early 1980s production companies felt the need to adjust the title of series going into syndication while production of new episodes continued. For example, “Dragnet”–the original 1950’s version–was titled “Badge 714” in syndication. “The Bob Cummings Show” was “Love That Bob.” In the ’60’s “The Andy Griffith Show” got one of the odder alternate titles as “Andy of Mayberry”:
In the early 80’s, the title change thing faded away. The last of them seemed happy to just add a word or two to the original title– “Chips Patrol” for “CHiPS”, “Laverne and Shirley & Company”, and this one:
So why did these series have to change their titles for syndication? Well, the networks were concerned that people would misunderstand what was happening–that perhaps “Andy Griffith” had changed stations and was now producing 5 original episodes a week which aired at 2:30pm. No, really, that’s what they thought. So it had to be “Andy Of Mayberry”.
Or, in the case of my favorite syndication title, something so bizarre it sounds like the original title was translated into Japanese by a German, then back into English by a Frenchman. The original series: “Marcus Welby M.D.” The syndication title: “Robert Young, Family Doctor.” (Robert Young, if you were unaware, is the actor who played Marcus Welby, and is not in fact a family doctor.)
Using this unique bit of anti-logic, other series re-titled for syndication this way might be:
Raymond Burr, Portly Lawyer
Mary Tyler Moore, Spunky Associate Producer
Dick Van Dyke, Mystery-Solving Physician
Lucille Ball, Inept Secretary
Bob Newhart, Stammering Psychologist
Bob Newhart, Stammering Innkeeper
Angela Lansbury, Inquisitive Novelist
Peter Falk, Crumpled Detective