Fred Sanford had a worthy opponent on screen in feisty Aunt Esther. The same can’t be said for the sitcoms that had the misfortune of being scheduled opposite Sanford and Son.
Sanford and Son premiered on NBC on Friday at 8:00 p.m. (ET) in January 1972 and was an instant smash hit, finishing 6th in that season’s Nielsen ratings. The presence of Sanford and Son was a blow to ABC’s third-season comedy, The Brady Bunch. Surviving its first two seasons with barely acceptable ratings, the family series was in the middle of its best season when Sanford and Son debuted. The Bradys benefitted from weak competition in the first half of the season (The Chicago Teddy Bears on CBS, The D.A. on NBC), and a popular series (The Partridge Family) following it. Both competing shows were cancelled at mid-season. CBS continued to struggle the rest of the season by scheduling the one-season David Janssen drama O’Hara, U.S. Treasury in the slot, while NBC easily won the timeslot with Sanford and Son.
Despite facing Sanford and Son for the second half of the season, The Brady Bunch finished a solid 31st place in the Nielsen ratings, by far the best finish of its five-year run. In addition to never being a bit hit in its original run, all of its primetime spinoffs (The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, The Brady Brides, The Bradys) were quick flops. However, the original version of the show gained legendary pop culture status in reruns and movies.
During the 1972-73 season, Sanford and Son grew even more popular, trailing only All in the Family in the ratings. The aging Brady Bunch dropped to 45th place while losing a couple of ratings points, and CBS failed to make a dent in Sanford and Son’s ratings with The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour or Mission: Impossible.
Sanford and Son vs. The Brady Bunch vs. Calucci’s Department
For fall 1973, Sanford and Son and The Brady Bunch returned to the Friday at 8:00 timeslot, with a new CBS competitor, Calucci’s Department, setting up a rare instance of three sitcoms going head to head to head.
Set in a New York City unemployment office and starring James Coco, the new comedy was created by Renee Taylor and Joe Bologna. The wife/husband team was on a hot streak, having been nominated for an Academy Award and a WGA Award for Lovers and Other Strangers, nominated for another WGA Award for Made For Each Other, and winning an Emmy for the comedy anthology Acts of Love and Other Comedies.
The critics raved about Calucci’s Department, which was the consensus favorite new comedy for the fall of 1973. The New York Times called it the funniest and most original comedy series since He & She, a highly praised but only one-season series from 1967-68.
Not that the competition was that fierce, as every sitcom that debuted that fall was gone by the following season. Unfortunately, CBS affiliates were not as effusive in their praise of the series, as it had difficulty getting clearances in many markets where it either aired in other timeslots or not at all.
When the season got underway, Sanford and Son continued to finish near the top of the ratings every week. The Brady Bunch, now without its lead-out, The Partridge Family—which was foolishly moved to Saturday and replaced by The Odd Couple, a series not compatible with its lead-in—saw its ratings continue to drop. Calucci’s Department was D.O.A., usually finishing dead last in the ratings.
Speculation began immediately about how long CBS would hold on to its critically acclaimed but ratings-starved comedy. CBS Programming Vice President Fred Silverman was a fan of the show, calling it “wonderfully executed” with terrific writing and great acting. He was successful in urging more affiliates to carry it, but the ratings didn’t budge.
Citing the low ratings, even in New York City, where the show was set and produced, Silverman reluctantly cancelled Calucci’s Department, and no new episodes were aired after the end of November. Silverman noted the ratings were so low that had the show not been popular with CBS execs, it would have been cancelled even earlier. CBS was having a successful season with few holes in its schedule. The extraordinarily low ratings ruined any chance of the show getting a different timeslot, as Silverman noted that moving the show to another night could adversely affect the ratings of surrounding shows. Calucci’s final overall rating was just 7.9, compared to Sanford and Son’s 27.6. Even the fading The Brady Bunch had more than twice as many viewers.
Creator/writer Renee Taylor thought the show didn’t receive a fair chance and speculated it would have done very well in a better timeslot, away from Sanford and Son. There was talk of reviving the show in a different format, airing in the less competitive summer, but Taylor and Bologna were not interested in altering the show, and those talks went nowhere.
At mid-season, CBS replaced Calucci’s Department with a half-hour western, Dirty Sally, a spinoff of Gunsmoke. Unlike Calucci’s Department, Dirty Sally was sampled and received surprisingly large ratings early on. The Brady Bunch continued to fade, even with a new popular series, The Six Million Dollar Man, following it. Executive Producer Sherwood Schwartz surely saw the writing on the wall as he used one episode of The Brady Bunch to make a backdoor pilot starring Ken Berry called “Kelly’s Kids.” The pilot didn’t sell, but was the basis for the short-lived 1986 sitcom Together We Stand.
During what would turn out to be its final six episodes, The Brady Bunch added another child to the series, the infamous Cousin Oliver. Nothing worked, and the series was cancelled at season’s end, finishing in 56th place.
After its solid start, Dirty Sally fell in the ratings and finished 43rd, not good enough to earn a second season but miles better than Calucci’s Department. While Calucci was followed by another flop, Roll Out, which had no chance with its anemic lead-in, Dirty Sally was the lead-in for the Maude spinoff Good Times, a quick ratings hit.
Despite finishing 3rd in the yearly ratings and being at its creative peak, it was a tumultuous season for Sanford and Son. Redd Foxx held out for several late-season episodes in a contract dispute, and scripts had to be reworked for Fred’s friend Grady to take his place in new episodes. Foxx would return the following season with his remaining holdout episodes sprinkled throughout the season. The show would continue to be a huge hit.
Winner: Sanford and Son
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