The Sandy Duncan Show
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| Funny Face | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Created by | Carl Kleinschmitt |
| Starring | Sandy Duncan Valorie Armstrong Kathleen Freeman Henry Beckman Nita Talbot |
| Theme music composer | Dave Grusin Alan and Marilyn Bergman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company | Paramount Network Television |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | September 18 – December 11, 1971 |
Funny Face and The Sandy Duncan Show are two American
In the spring of 1971, after having appeared in numerous television commercials and having a great success on Broadway in the 1970 revival of The Boy Friend (which won her a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress In a Musical), Sandy Duncan's show business career was quickly ascending. She had just completed her first major motion picture - The Million Dollar Duck for Walt Disney and was about to start on her second film - the screen adaptation of the Neil Simon play Star Spangled Girl which was to be produced and released by Paramount Pictures. Duncan was also signed by Paramount to film a television pilot loosely based on the 1957 film musical Funny Face which they hoped would be picked up by CBS to be part of their 1971–1972 fall television schedule. A pilot was filmed in the spring of 1971 and CBS executives were very enthusiastic. As a result, Duncan was already being touted by the network as the brightest new star of the 1971 fall season.
Funny Face
In Funny Face, Sandy Stockton is a young
CBS announced that the series would return the following fall, thereby giving Duncan time to recover from her surgery, but also providing the network time to retool the program. In the spring of 1972, Duncan was nominated for an
The Sandy Duncan Show
| The Sandy Duncan Show | |
|---|---|
Pat Williams | |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production companies | Paramount Network Television, in association with Jefferson/Sultan Productions, Inc. |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | September 17 – December 31, 1972 |
When the series returned in the fall of 1972, it underwent a major renovation. This included renaming the program from Funny Face to The Sandy Duncan Show, as well as having new cast members, an additional producer, different writers, a slightly revised format, as well as filming it with three cameras in front of a live audience. In The Sandy Duncan Show, Sandy now worked for the advertising firm of Quinn & Cohen, where her supervisor was one of the partners, Bert Quinn (Tom Bosley); the other partner was Leonard Cohen (Alfie Wise). Two of her neighbors, Kay Fox (Marian Mercer) and Alex Lembeck (M. Emmet Walsh) were also close friends. Motorcycle police officer Alex constantly worried about Sandy's status as a single woman living alone, which he saw as being inherently dangerous; and as such, appointed himself as her chaperone/protector. Sandy had a very sweet and slightly naive nature and was prone to try to help anyone who she felt needed help, including total strangers, so Alex's fears were not totally misplaced.
Despite these changes, The Sandy Duncan Show was not successful. Although the critics generally liked Duncan, many of them did not find the show greatly improved or vastly different from Funny Face. Once again, television critic
Theme song and opening titles
Both Funny Face and The Sandy Duncan Show used the same theme song and opening titles. The opening titles consist of a photo album with pictures of Sandy Stockton as she was growing up from infancy to a young woman (presumably real-life photos of Duncan, used for the montage). Included were pictures of Sandy at various young ages; also pictures of her doing tap and ballet dancing; at various school functions; being a cheerleader for her high school; wearing her cap and gown, and posing by the Taylorville sign saying good bye as she was boarding her bus.
However, in The Sandy Duncan Show's opening, most of the pictures of a baby Sandy were eliminated, as there was now a second verse of the song, and that second verse was sung while showing Sandy on her bus trip from Taylorville to Los Angeles (which was actually footage of Duncan from her 1971 Paramount film '
Episodes
 | This section needs a plot summary. (August 2021) |
Funny Face
| No. | Title | Original air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "The Used Car" | September 18, 1971 |
| 2 | "A Lesson in Courage" | September 25, 1971 |
| 3 | "No Music, Maestro, Please?" | October 2, 1971 |
| 4 | "The Repairman Cheateth" | October 9, 1971 |
| 5 | "Drive? Who Said?" | October 16, 1971 |
| 6 | "A Star Is Born on a Stretcher" | October 23, 1971 |
| 7 | "The Marrying Kind" | October 30, 1971 |
| 8 | "What's in a Mouth" | November 6, 1971 |
| 9 | "Four Sided Triangle" | November 13, 1971 |
| 10 | "Don't Worry, I'll Manage" | November 20, 1971 |
| 11 | "A Crush on Sandy" | November 27, 1971 |
| 12 | "Captain Wonderful" | December 4, 1971 |
| 13 | "Pilot" | December 11, 1971 |
The Sandy Duncan Show
| No. | Title | Original air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Hooray for Harriet" | September 17, 1972 |
| 2 | "Richer Third" | September 24, 1972 |
| 3 | "For the Man Who Has Almost Anything" | October 8, 1972 |
| 4 | "The Importance of Being Ernestine" | October 15, 1972 |
| 5 | "Knock on Any Door" | October 22, 1972 |
| 6 | "Play It Again Samuelson" | November 5, 1972 |
| 7 | "The Seven Hour Itch" | November 12, 1972 |
| 8 | "Big Little Man" | November 19, 1972 |
| 9 | "Hold Your Hoarse" | November 26, 1972 |
| 10 | "Doctor New" | December 10, 1972 |
| 11 | "Write On" | December 17, 1972 |
| 12 | "From Rags to Riches to Rags" | December 24, 1972 |
| 13 | "Dream a Recurring Dream of Me" | December 31, 1972 |
References
- ^ O'Connor, John J. (September 23, 1972). "TV: C.B.S. Still Serious About Series Comedies". The New York Times.
External links
- Funny Face at IMDb
- The Sandy Duncan Show at IMDb
