Posts Tagged ‘Miller-Boyett’

Which Intro Is Cheesier? A Partial TGIF Flashback

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, February 26, 2010 - 2 Comments

There are some things that are never going to come back. One of those things is the Miller-Boyett main title, a minute and a half of newly-filmed (no clips) footage of the cast mugging, playing, running, and above all, doing a big awkward smile-and-shrug when it’s time for their credit. The only network that has that kind of time for a main title is HBO, and there has been no word of plans to hire Jesse Frederick or take their casts out to a grassy field for some on-camera frolicking.

Anyway, we all know the Miller-Boyett biggies – Full House, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, The Hogan Family – and some of us even know a few of the lesser-known ones like Joanie Loves Chachi and Angie. But then there are the shows nobody remembers or should remember. But the main titles live on; so of their two flop shows from 1990, which one has the more epically cheesy intro?

Was it the TGIF bomb Going Places, whose Jesse Frederick theme I previously used for my “30 Rock Re-tooled by Miller-Boyett” video?

Or was it the Gregory Harrison star vehicle The Family Man, one of the team’s few CBS productions? Note that, in a revolutionary change, the Jesse Frederick/Bennett Salvay theme song is an instrumental. I can’t listen to it without thinking that Mr. Frederick must be longing to put lyrics to it and croak out a vocal.

The lack of lyrics and volleyball-playing Heather Locklear makes the Family Man intro far duller, but I think the weakish special effects on the model airplane, plus the scene of Gregory doing his job as a fireman, may give the CBS show the edge in cheesiness. Though when it comes to the final epic shot of the cast enjoying the sheer awesomeness of their lives — an M-B staple — I think Going Places‘ sailboat may even beat out Larry and Balki going to the theatre. I mean, they probably weren’t going to see anything good.

  • LOST, Produced In Association With Bickley-Warren Productions

    By Jaime Weinman - Friday, June 19, 2009 at 1:17 PM - 2 Comments

    Thanks to Muffin MacGuffin for pointing out these three YouTube videos representing three different main titles for a heartwarming family sitcom called Lost. The creator of these videos is understandably fascinated by the formula of TGIF/Miller-Boyett title sequences: an uplifting Jesse Frederick theme song set to footage of the entire cast horsing around, having fun doing stuff together, and smiling when it’s their turn for a credit. But he does it much better and more accurately than my re-tooled 30 Rock video.

    Season 1, “Lost in a Full House“:

    Season 2, “The dream got broken, seemed like all was LOST…”:

    Season 3, “Family Matters Even When You’re Lost” (I love the episode where the Urkel-bot kills everyone on the island. Oh, that Urkel-bot. It’s always getting into Continue…

  • 30 ROCK In its Re-Tooled Form

    By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 12:52 PM - 7 Comments

    Just to follow up on my last post with the most pointless YouTube video ever, here’s what I think 30 Rock might be like if it were taken over by new producers and re-tooled (including a more Urkel-like emphasis on Kenneth). The video mostly has clips from two episodes, “Sandwich Day” and the second season finale; if I’d gone through every episode I probably could have found more appropriate clips — what this kind of sequence really needs, apart from the Jesse Frederick theme song, is a scene where the whole cast goes on some outing and has fun together — but I didn’t wanna.

    [vodpod id=Groupvideo.2558873&w=560&h=340&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

  • The 20th Anniversary Of the Most Awesomest TV Contract Dispute Ever

    By Jaime Weinman - Friday, November 28, 2008 at 5:21 PM - 12 Comments

    Actually, the anniversary was in September (and technically it’s only the anniversary of the end of the dispute), but what the heck. Everybody loves a good story about TV actors getting fired or walking out — see “Caruso, David.” But though there have been many such stories, few of them compare in scale and impact to what happened in 1987 and concluded with a successful lawsuit in September 1988, a story that is still interesting and relevant (even though the show itself is neither interesting nor relevant). Before we get to the story, though, here’s a reminder of how it ended, courtesy of CNN Headline News in its golden age:

    And yet, within this story there’s a surprising amount to learn about the balance of power between actors and producers in TV. And it’s just a fun story to tell, so here it is, as far as I understand it.

    In the summer of 1985, NBC announced that they were making a sitcom for Valerie Harper, who had not done a regular TV series since the cancellation of Rhoda. The show was not part of the 1985 fall schedule, but NBC ordered it as a possible mid-season replacement, presumably realizing that with the new smash success of The Cosby Show (which had just completed its first season) it was going to need a lot more comedies, stat.

    The producers of the new show were Tom Miller and Bob Boyett, which seemed like an odd mix with Valerie Harper and NBC. Nearly all their previous productions had been for ABC, and they specialized in broad, sophomoric shows, whereas NBC was trying to sell itself as the home of more high-class comedy. But Miller-Boyett benefited from the same fortuitous circumstances as Chuck Lorre and a few other comedy producers benefit from today: they were among the only comedy producers available at a time when the demand for comedy unexpectedly shot up. The sitcom was “dead” in the early-to-mid ’80s, and most of the leading sitcom producers had already disbanded or gone into something else. Miller-Boyett, who had left Continue…

From Macleans