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<blockquote data-quote="Daniel Avery" data-source="post: 417007" data-attributes="member: 27">Oh, there was a lot of changes made to the characters in order to make Mama&#039;s Family a thing.&nbsp; In the CB sketches, these characters (Eunice, her husband Ed and her &quot;mama&quot;) were thoroughly unlikeable and spent most of their time going out of their way to make each other miserable.&nbsp; The sketches were funny, but not in a pleasant, sitcom-y way.&nbsp; We got amusement from them insulting each other and tearing one another down; there was little to no &quot;heart&quot; behind the interactions.&nbsp; So in order to make a more traditional sitcom using those highly flawed characters....well, there had to be some major &quot;smoothing over,&quot; mostly to the new lead/title character, who had been a supporting player in the sketches (Burnett&#039;s Eunice had been the main character on her show, obviously).&nbsp; So &quot;mama&quot; got a name (Thelma Harper) and her rough edges were smoothed over as the series progressed as [USER=5079]@Crimson[/USER] mentions.&nbsp; I felt this was a conceit to the idea that producers likely felt that a lead in a sitcom had to be likeable.&nbsp; As we saw in the AbFab example, this is not necessarily the case.&nbsp; NBC produced two seasons of MF, then cancelled it.&nbsp; They re-ran the show at some point afterward and the reruns scored decent ratings, encouraging a syndicator to revive the cancelled series a few years later.&nbsp; Joe Hamilton, the producer behind it had been Carol&#039;s producer on the variety show and had been married to her.&nbsp; When they divorced he got &quot;custody&quot; of the intellectual property* of the series, so he resumed producer duties even if CB/Eunice was no longer going to guest-star for obvious reasons.&nbsp; It was likely this break between the Hamiltons that encouraged the further shift of the series away from that snippy, hateful tone of the original and toward typical slapstick comedy.&nbsp; The syndicated years were highly rated and financially successful from what I read, encouraging syndicators to revive other cancelled series to sell to TV stations directly rather than offering via networks.&nbsp; They only ended the show because contracts were up and some of the cast and crew wanted to move on, not because it fell in ratings.* [USER=5079]@Crimson[/USER] will likely get a chuckle out of MF and the word &quot;intellectual&quot; being used in the same sentence.&nbsp; You&#039;re welcome.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Daniel Avery, post: 417007, member: 27"] Oh, there was a lot of changes made to the characters in order to make [I]Mama's Family[/I] a thing. In the CB sketches, these characters (Eunice, her husband Ed and her "mama") were thoroughly unlikeable and spent most of their time going out of their way to make each other miserable. The sketches were funny, but not in a pleasant, sitcom-y way. We got amusement from them insulting each other and tearing one another down; there was little to no "heart" behind the interactions. So in order to make a more traditional sitcom using those highly flawed characters....well, there had to be some major "smoothing over," mostly to the new lead/title character, who had been a supporting player in the sketches (Burnett's Eunice had been the main character on her show, obviously). So "mama" got a name (Thelma Harper) and her rough edges were smoothed over as the series progressed as [USER=5079]@Crimson[/USER] mentions. I felt this was a conceit to the idea that producers likely felt that a lead in a sitcom had to be likeable. As we saw in the AbFab example, this is not necessarily the case. NBC produced two seasons of MF, then cancelled it. They re-ran the show at some point afterward and the reruns scored decent ratings, encouraging a syndicator to revive the cancelled series a few years later. Joe Hamilton, the producer behind it had been Carol's producer on the variety show and had been married to her. When they divorced he got "custody" of the intellectual property* of the series, so he resumed producer duties even if CB/Eunice was no longer going to guest-star for obvious reasons. It was likely this break between the Hamiltons that encouraged the further shift of the series away from that snippy, hateful tone of the original and toward typical slapstick comedy. The syndicated years were highly rated and financially successful from what I read, encouraging syndicators to revive other cancelled series to sell to TV stations directly rather than offering via networks. They only ended the show because contracts were up and some of the cast and crew wanted to move on, not because it fell in ratings. * [USER=5079]@Crimson[/USER] will likely get a chuckle out of MF and the word "intellectual" being used in the same sentence. You're welcome. [/QUOTE]

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