Rural Purge - Replacement Shows

Replacement Shows

Silverman replaced much of the cancelled programming in 1971 and 1972 with "relevant" fare. Following All in the Family were its many spinoffs including Maude and The Jeffersons. Following the success of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the series' production company MTM Productions would develop the popular The Bob Newhart Show. M*A*S*H was added to the network in 1972, remaining constantly in the top 15 of shows for the next 11 seasons.

An unusual side effect of the rural purge was the temporary demise of the laugh track. Most of the rural-oriented programs were filmed in the single-camera setup without a studio audience, with the canned laughter added by laugh-track proprietor Charley Douglass. The newer shows that came to television in the early 1970s were multiple-camera setups with live studio audiences, a trend that would become the norm throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Under Silverman's watch, game shows returned to the network's daytime schedule during this period, as well (unlike NBC or ABC, CBS had not carried a daytime game show since To Tell the Truth ended its run in 1968, instead opting for reruns of 1960s prime-time sitcoms such as The Lucy Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., both of which had left the air by that point). Among the first group of game shows in 1972 was a revival of The Price Is Right, which debuted in September 1972. Gambit and The Joker's Wild, the latter created by formerly disgraced game show producer and host Jack Barry, would also debut the same day and have relatively long runs.

Despite the relatively large number of "old guard" variety shows cancelled in the purge, Fred Silverman would actually continue to create new variety shows to replace the ones he cancelled; one of the first was The Sonny & Cher Show, which debuted in February 1971. Silverman would later commission Donny & Marie for ABC five years later. He would also, with far less success, commission The Brady Bunch Hour for ABC in 1976 and Pink Lady and Jeff and "The Susan Anton Show" for NBC in 1980, series that were extremely poorly received.