The Paul Lynde Show and The New Temperatures Rising
In 1972, Lynde starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom, The Paul Lynde Show, playing an uptight attorney and father at odds with his liberal-minded son-in-law. The series was a contractual fulfillment to ABC in place of a final season of Bewitched.
The series starred Lynde as Paul Simms, the father of a family that consisted of his wife Martha (Elizabeth Allen) and daughters Barbara (Jane Actman) and Sally (Pamelyn Ferdin). It also starred John Calvin as Barbara's husband, Howie, and Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara as Howie's parents. Critics perceived the show as derivative of All in the Family, then television's most-popular primetime program, although many admitted the writing was top notch and the sexual connotations gave it an extra bit of spice. For his role in the series, Lynde was nominated for a Best Actor Golden Globe.
Scheduled opposite the first half of the Top 30 hit The Carol Burnett Show on CBS and the Top 20 hit Adam-12 on NBC, the series garnered low ratings and was canceled after one season (26 episodes).
Media reports at the time about ABC programs indicated that research showed viewers liked another ABC show, Temperatures Rising but disliked James Whitmore, whereas viewers liked Paul Lynde but not The Paul Lynde Show. Therefore, the network and producer William Asher decided to fire Whitmore and combine the positive elements of both series. Lynde was "transferred" to Temperatures Rising for the 1973-74 season. The trick did not work and the ratings for The New Temperatures Rising sank within weeks of the premiere.
Due to plummeting ratings, the network cancelled the show mid-season, its time slot taken by a mid-season replacement, the long-running Happy Days. ABC resuscitated it - with still more changes in cast (most notably, Alice Ghostley replaced Sudie Bond in the role of Paul's sister Edwina) and premise - in the summer of 1974, when it ran for two months. Neither actor's presence in the cast helped the show's flagging ratings and this series, too, was not renewed and was replaced permanently by Happy Days.
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