My Living Doll

Starring: Bob Cummings, Julie Newmar, Jack Mullaney, Doris Dowling
First Aired: September 27, 1964
Number of Seasons: 1
Estimated Production Cost: $500/week* My Living Doll was a unique sci-fi sitcom that kicked off in an unusual way. Most of the time, a major network show has a pilot request, but this wasn’t the case for My Living Doll. The show revoles around Dr. McDonald while he tries to help an Amazonian robot fit into regular society. They spend a lot of time evading the US military.

My Living Doll

Me and the Chimp

Starring:  Ted Bessell, Anita Gillette, Scott Kolden, Kami Cotler
First Aired: January 13, 1972
Number of Seasons: 1
Estimated Production Cost: $1 million* per episode

CBS learned very little from the Hathaways about how not to behave on television. Instead, they chose not to learn from the mistakes of others and instead produced a similar show in the 1970s called Me and the Chimp, which was a hit at the time. Starring Ted Bessell as dentist Mike Russell, the show followed a typical American family as they lived with Buttons, a former space chimp who had returned to Earth. The chimpanzee that starred in this CBS sitcom was actually owned by Lou Schumacher, an experienced animal expert who worked on the show. Thomas L. Miller and Garry Marshall came up with the idea for Me and the Chimp. It would be Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days that Marshall and Miller would become most known for, as they were significantly more successful and better written than their previous work on the show. As you might guess, Buttons was the cause of much mayhem in and around the Russell household, but the notion didn’t resonate with the intended audience. Instead, Buttons returned to his trainer, and Bessell went back to making television movies before directing The Tracey Ullman Show in 1989.

Me And The Chimp