Sitcom Deaths and Disappearances

Characters on sitcoms aren't supposed to die. So when they do, it's never less than weird. Mo examines some of the most infamous sitcom deaths and disappearances with Henry Winkler, Sandy Duncan and Alan Sepinwall.Learn more about the Mobituaries book: http://bit.ly/MobituariesBook

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
It was you, Kristin, who shot you up. I watched
a lot of TV growing up. When I was nine,
I memorized the TV guide When my brother Lawrence told

(00:22):
Missus Barnett across the street that he had a younger brother.
She didn't believe him. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
That's how little I went outside. I learned early on
that the television universe is divided into hour long dramas
I Trusted You, I Trusted You, and half hour sitcoms.

(00:49):
On dramas, death is a fact of life. Consider that,
over the course of the six seasons of The Sopranos,
ninety two characters died. You shot him at his bad
naked no chance to run, I swear gun. It's even
grizzlier on Game of Thrones, where characters have a seventy

(01:11):
percent chance of getting killed off and the records. But
today we're talking about something far more mysterious, something that's
haunted me ever since my childhood basement dwelling days, something
that just shouldn't happen. I'm Morocca and this is mobituaries.

(01:36):
This mobit sitcom depths and disappearances. I've brought in an

(02:00):
expert to help me investigate the phenomenon of sitcom depths
and disappearances. I'm Alan Sepinwall, chief TV critic for Rolling Stone.
I've been writing about TV since the nineties when there
were like five channels, and now there's you know, five
hundred different scripted shows on TV right now. I'm not
the first person to say, but there's too much TV.

(02:21):
There really is, you know, and it's good to hear,
like people who are not TV critics say that. And also,
the Western world's fertility rates are really low, so there's
just not enough people to watch these shows. You know,
who's going to watch Longmeyer. I don't have time to
do it. And I'm sure it's a fine show, but
there's so many other things, so many It's like when
you hear about how big the universe actually is and

(02:43):
it starts to hurt. Oh my god. And like the
Netflix interface alone, it's like you you could spend like
the length of a movie looking for a movie. Our
topic here is sitcom depths and disappearances. One of the
great mysteries. So I actually died once on TV. It
was not on a sitcom. It was on an hour
long drama on law and Order, criminal intent. I played

(03:04):
a gossip column. It's named t K. Richmond. They even
gave me a Fedora to wear. I've never ever watched this,
I promise you. I swear I've never seen this, and
I thought I would watch it with an esteemed television
critic for the first time. So Helen, if if you
join me for this, here we go. Okay, let's do it.
Oh God, that hat doesn't really work on me. Elliott, Elliott,

(03:28):
calm down. There's nothing that says that these pictures have
to run in my column, blackmail photos. We're in a
car now. It's not a bribe, it's an opportunity. This
is going to be the hot new place. The pictures
go away, right right. I do have a little integrity.

(03:48):
Did you just blow up? How was that? I just
blew up? Oh? Do they show my charred remains? Oh no?
Oh my hat? The hat survives. So that's good. What
do you think did I pass as a New York
Post gossip reporter? I mean your look was very sweet

(04:10):
smell of success. Well, thank you. I love any Tony
Curtis comparison. Okay, So lots of people die in hour
long dramas. I think, Actually, that's right. That's the main ingredients.
Somebody has to die in every law and order, and
there've been three thousand of them. But for someone to
die or disappear on a sitcom is much different. Why

(04:30):
Because sitcom's, in theory, are meant to be a little
bit lighter, more relatable, more relaxing. It's you're going to
spend some happy time laughing at, you know, someone tripping
over the couch, or forgetting to pick up the groceries
or something relatively simple. Death is not that. In other words,
sitcom audiences don't want characters to die, which is why

(04:51):
in some rare cases the characters have just disappeared without
any explanation, a syndrome given its own name, Cunningham syndrome.
Happy There was Chuck Cunningham, the third Cunningham child on
Happy Days, the eldest Cunningham child, who was in the
show for two seasons and then was never heard from

(05:13):
or mentioned again. Anna, who was Chuck Cunningham? You said
the third child, But I'm glad you corrected yourself and
said the eldest, because he was the first child. Not
that Howard or Marion acted like he was particularly special.
I mean he lived in the apartment above the garage
before funds. He did. He was usually when you saw
him either carrying a basketball or eating food, or possibly both.

(05:36):
I gotta go to basketball practice. He was not really
a prominent part of the show. And then a couple
of years in the producers decided we don't need another
Cunningham and we want Funzy to live above the garage,
and so Chuck disappeared and never came back. You write
the basketball in the sandwich or his chief accessories. I mean,
that's the thing we remember from him, Chuck, I've told
you not to dribble in the house, all right, Dad.

(06:02):
Do we remember anything about him really? Well? I think
we remember that he disappeared. Yes, But when that's the
most memorable thing about you, that sort of speaks to
why they were willing to get rid of him in
the first place. Good point, good, Well, do you think
the fix was in for him? Did it feel like
vultures were circling over him during those first two seasons? Well,
I mean he started getting less and less to do,
and that was a show that was obviously going through

(06:24):
a lot of behind the scenes transformations over those first
couple of years. Is that right? Yeah, Fonnzi's a relatively
minor character when you start watching the show. They wouldn't
even allow him to wear the black leather jacket when
he was on the motorcycle because the network feared that
he looked too much like a hoodlum and the audience
wouldn't want to watch that. And once they decided to

(06:46):
beef up Fonzie's role, and you have shift it from
a single camp sitcom shot on film to a multicam
shot in front of an audience. Bye Bye, Chuck. So
I talked to Henry Winkler and I asked him did
Chuck have to disappear? And here's what he said. They
did not have room in the writing for the older
brother because the fawns became the older brother. Everything that

(07:11):
you would go to the older brother for, Richie went
to the fawns for Yeah. I mean, if you had
to choose between who you were going to get advice
from about girls, about cars, about being cool, about being anything,
why would you not go to Arthur Fonzarelli. All right, now,
this is en up girl. One time, one time, Molly
Line might not pick kiss the fonds. That's a bogging
at any right right exactly, And so Gary Marshall, the

(07:34):
creator of Happy Days, it was obviously great at what
he did. So he makes the calculation that if this
character disappears, the audience will be fine with it, something
that I asked Henry about. Only years later did I
ask Gary what happened? And he explained to me, Hey,
what did he say? It was the older brother and
I didn't know how to write for him, and then

(07:55):
the right for you, and we had to let him go,
and there was a terror. Well the thing he went upstairs.
He never a game down, and Gary understood that the
audience would accept that. Gary understood television was so well
or well enough to know that if you've got this
problem and you write him out, you don't make a

(08:17):
big deal out of getting rid of the character. It
will be like slime. You can poke a hole in
the slime and it closes in on itself and becomes
whole again. So Alan was Henry right about this. Mostly obviously,
people still brought it up. They bring it up all
the time, and especially whenever in the later seasons Howard

(08:39):
or Marion would make a reference to their two children.
In the very last episode of the series, Joni and
Chachi get married, and Howard makes a toast, you know,
talking about all the happy days that he and Marion
have had, and he says, but we've had the joy
of raising two wonderful kids. And I was nerdy enough
even at that age to say, what about Chuck? I mean,

(09:01):
harsh Henry told me he gets asked all the time
about Chuck's fate. Oh a million times, Hey, what happened
to Chuck? Nobody is really interested, and they just love
the question, do you know. I'm so sorry, but it's true. Yeah, No,
no one actually cares about Chuck. It's literally just the
fact that they pretended he didn't exist. I think if

(09:22):
they'd said Chuck moved away, Chuck goes to Seattle exactly,
he could have just become an offstage character that they
refer to occasionally. Yeah, I mean, you know, not all
families are so tight knit that they're always around and
always in each other's business. You know. Even if Chuck
didn't never falling out, maybe he just had a full
life of his own far far away from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
So for Phonsie to live, Chuck had to die. Yes,

(09:45):
the sitcom universe is even harsher than the Law and
Order Criminal Intent universe. Yeah, I mean, it's just like
because he's not even dead, He's no longer in this reality.
It's sad. Well, Alan, as I'm sure you know, the
Internet is replete with theories about what happened to Chuck,
So of course I had to run some of these
by Henry confirm or deny some of these widely circulated

(10:07):
theories among fans about what happened to Chuck Cunningham. One
he died in Vietnam. No, still in his bedroom. Yes,
this is a serious one. Was gay and disowned by
his family because it was the nineteen fifties. Oh no,
I don't think he would have been disowned by the Cunningham's.
I think that Missus C for sure would have embraced him.

(10:30):
Would mister C really been okay with that? Mister C
was very busy with hammers. Remember he owned a hardware
store that was like always on the brink, right right, okay,
So he was otherwise occupied, So Missus C would have
handled this, okay. Gary Marshall always told people that Chuck
Cunningham got a basketball scholarship in Mongolia. That sounds really right,

(10:54):
And the sad truth is I think we're all used
to sort of pretending that someone who has existed doesn't
exist anymore. Yep, yep, I I've done that. Had we
go to a very dark place. But it's true. We've
all had an older relative tell us, don't talk about
that person. That person doesn't exist anymore. Yes, there's these

(11:15):
family feuds and suddenly we don't talk about this aunt anymore. Yeah.
I mean, Chuck could have done something really awful. The
Cunningham's are a very decent, you know, apple pie kind
of family. Chuck could have been a deviant. Oh. By
the way, that last episode of Jonie and Chocci getting
married that led to the spinoff, No, no, no, the
spinoff was in the middle of the show. It wasn't

(11:35):
really Yes, they left Happy Days for like maybe half
a year maybe more to go do Jonie Loves Chocci,
which is the worst theme song in the history of television, right.
I actually liked Joni Loves Chocci. I always thought there
it would be fun. And there as yet another spinoff
where Jonie moves to the shore and opens a little

(11:57):
store where she sells knick knacks and bobbles, and it
would be called Jonas I'm so glad. I love that
you got it. You know what ever gets it? Oh
my god. And now we take a moment to remember

(12:28):
another dearly departed sitcom character, Judy Winslow, who spent four
seasons on the nineteen nineties hit sitcom Family Matters. Family
Matters told a story of a working class family in
Chicago with three kids. Judy was the youngest. Hi, this
is Jamie Foxworth, and most people might know me as

(12:49):
Judy Winslow from the television show Family Matters. Jamie Foxworth
started playing Judy when she was just a middle schooler.
Judy was the sassy little girl with a quick wit
and shark one liners what I'm called and I'm Craig lessively.
But over time Jamie started to notice that Judy wasn't

(13:12):
being given as much sass to throw around. I was
getting less and less screen time. And it was always
like Judy goes up to her room, Like I would
literally be down, you know, in the live room with
everybody else, and I would say, okay, guys, and the
next thing you know, Judy's right up the steps, just
like the fawns in Happy Days. Family Matters had found

(13:32):
its star, a pesky next door neighbor in suspenders and thick,
grimmed glasses speaker the latter service. That's right, Erkele, because
his unstoppable rise would mean the sad decline of Judy Winslow. Yes,
you did, Erkele. It was during the taping of what

(13:54):
would be her final episode that Jamie noticed people acting strangely.
I do remember just the cast just coming up to
me and like giving me so much love and hugs
and affection, and I was like, what's going on here
are you guys? Like why is everybody acting so weird?
She remembers that Reginald vell Johnson, who played her father
on the show, was particularly emotional. He was literally on

(14:16):
his knees and he was in tears, and I just
remember looking at him like, dude, what is going on?
On February twenty six, nineteen ninety three, as fans, well,
remember Grandma Winslow got married. Judy was a flower girl.
She walked down the aisle and was never seen again.

(14:38):
To this day, everyone asked me the same question, what
happened to you? How could they just leave the daughter off?
And I'm like, hey, you gotta ask those producers I don't.
I don't know. I think they thought that people would
just forget, and nobody forgot. The character of Judy was
survived by her older brother and sister, her mother and
father rcle Okay, as weird as a character disappearing into

(15:11):
the either, maybe there's another occurrence which is equally disorienting,
an actor who suddenly disappears replaced by another actor in
the same role. This first famously happened on the nineteen
sixties hit fantasy sitcom Bewitched, when, after five successful seasons,
the show's leading man underwent a casting change, giving rise

(15:33):
to what would become known in TV lore as the
two Darren's. I caught up with Lila Garrett, who wrote
for Bewitched and experienced the ripples of the Darren effect firsthand. Hi,
I'm Lila Garrett, and I'm a writer and a producer

(15:53):
and a director. Some people think of me as a legend.
I don't enjoy thinking of myself that way. Lilah, I
would say that you're a legend. I know, I know
it's a heavy burden, but I'm willing to courage. Lilah
wrote for top scripted shows like Get Smart and All
in the Family and the Lucy Show at a time

(16:15):
when women were rarely seen in a writer's room. She's
got two Emmys and a Writer's Guild Award to show
for it, but out of the more than thirty shows
she's written for, it's not hard for her to name
her favorite. There is no show that I have ever
done that I enjoyed more than Bewitched, and I enjoyed
every minute of it. Bewitched was a big hit in

(16:36):
the nineteen sixties into the nineteen seventies. It was about
a young, happy couple housewife Samantha played by Elizabeth Montgomery
and ad executive husband Darren originally played by Dick Yorke.
The only problem on their honeymoon night, she tells him
that there's something that she's kept secret from him. She
is a witch. And rather than be excited about the

(16:58):
possibility of having this vitiful wife who can also perform
magic and do anything for him, Darren Stevens decides that
he you know, he's a man, Gosh Darnett, and he
does not want his wife doing magic. And the eternal
struggle of the show is all these magical hijinks happening
in the background, much to Darren's frustration, which means that
Darren Stevens character is essential. Yes, because he is always

(17:21):
exasperated by what happens. Yes, you've been sticking that magic
nose of yours where it doesn't belong. Again, don't write
a deny it all right, I won't come on, Sam,
don't make me. Greg and Audio just Dick York was
really good. Yeah, he's very good to me. He's sort
of Jim Carry good. Yes, he's very expressive, very just

(17:45):
sort of a memorable vocal comic, even to extent physical comic.
He had a great face. Yeah, I mean real plastic.
I would say a rubber face. Rubber Yeah, it could
go anywhere. You know. Every expression of his was wonderful
and clear in this It's funny. His responses to everything
that was happening around him drove a lot of comedy

(18:05):
on the show. Samantha, despite having the magic powers, she's
the straight man on the show. He's the one having
the fun because he can't believe what's going on around him.
What a little favor I ask you to do? And
what do you do? You? We go that beak of
yours and really caused problem. He was spectacular and he
was a spectacular man. As great as he was in

(18:28):
the role, Dick York had a secret. Well. We first
noticed the problems with Dick York Brilliant the second year.
Suddenly he couldn't make it for the show that we
were writing. And at first it just seemed as though
he may have had the flu and so on. But
when it became a habit, we recognized that there was

(18:48):
a real problem there. Unultimately we found out what that
problem was. York had sustained a serious back injury on
the set of the nineteen fifty nine Western. They came
to Cordura. Acting became harder and harder for him, and
then practically intolerable some scenes and Bewitched. He could only

(19:09):
do sitting or lying down. He took medication to manage
the pain and ultimately became dependent. Dick Yorke started missing
shows so often the writers had to create what they
called non Darren shows. On these episodes, the writers would
render Darren invisible for most of the half hour, often

(19:31):
via witchcraft. With Darren out of the picture, they leaned
on Samantha's colorful relatives to fill out the episode. There
was Uncle Arthur, who was played by paul In one
of the world's greatest comics. One morning, I shot a
line in my pajamas, Now what he was doing in
my pa And then there was and Dora played by

(19:53):
Agnes Moorehead. Darwood is already a practical jew who was
Samantha's mischievous, kind of playfully vicious mother. But there was
only so much slack the secondary characters could pick up. Eventually,
Dick York was hospitalized and left the show. So Dick
York was gone. But what to do about the character

(20:15):
of Darren. She can't divorce him. The whole structure of
the show is based on this marriage, So what are
you gonna do? They really can't get divorced because even
years later, when they wanted to make Mary Tyler Morris
character Mary Richards a divorced woman, that alone was scandalous. Yeah,
and you're certainly not going to divorce a beloved couple
in the middle of the show. We couldn't possibly kill
off the first Darren because he was part of the

(20:38):
concept of the show. This was a love affair. And
then someone who looked a lot like Dick York was
cast as Darren, and that was Dick Sargeant. So Dick
Sargeant replaces Dick York and they just acted like it
was the same Darren the whole time. But let's face it,
you never forget your first Darren. This one wasn't the same,

(21:01):
especially his connection to Samantha. Honey, You're beautiful, sweet, clever, adorable,
and I love you madly. It works well, it doesn't
work on me, but I love you. Did they lack chemistry?
Elizabeth Montgomery with the second Darren was Dick Sargeant. Yes,
I had to use the word lack, but their chemistry

(21:23):
was different. Chemistry is chemistry. With Dick Sargeant, you felt
as though, oh, let her use magic. Who cares? Darren
the first was in much more agony and anxiety than
Darren the second. Just listen to how the new Darren
says his wife's name. Now listen to Darren classic. And

(21:52):
Dick Sargeant would have been more appropriately cast as ahead
of a detective agency. And he's a good actor, nothing
wrong with him, but he wasn't right for the part
of Darren, and that hurt the show. So did that
change what he had to do in the writer's room. Well,
we've got Darren number two in less trouble because he

(22:13):
didn't handle it as vulnerably as Darren number one did,
and therefore it wasn't fun, you know, and he became
more of an observer than a participant. It never captured
the same magic. No one ever denied that, and it
did kind of shake a slow up, and once again

(22:33):
it was that zany cast or secondary characters to the
rescue and Dora, Uncle Arthur helping out here Alan doctor
Bombay played by Bernard Fox. Alice Ghostly came in as
as Morelda. There was a lot of sort of ancillary
magical characters who had to pick up the slack that
Dick Sargent was leaving them. You could basically do anything
except stories about the Stevens marriage because that ceased to

(22:55):
be interesting almost immediately after Dicky York left in. Dick
Sargeant came in. These were all great satellite characters, but
without that core. Yeah, you know, it's like here's a
bunch of great side dishes that we now have to
serve as your entree, I mean, Sergeant's first season as Darren,
the show's ratings dropped from number twelve to number twenty four.

(23:16):
The following season, it fell off the ratings Cliff and
was canceled. This wouldn't be the first or last time
a major character had had a casting change mid run.
The Darren handoff may be the most remembered mid run

(23:39):
casting change on a television show, but this kind of
thing has happened on more than a few beloved sitcoms.
I mean, the most famous one I think since then
is Aunt viv on The Fresh Prince of bel Air,
when Janet Hubert Whitten got replaced by Daphne Maxwell read
and I think it was because she and Will Smith
did not get along. And then with Roseanne, Yes, Roseanne,

(24:02):
they replaced one Becky with another because Licy Gorenson I think,
wanted to go off to college, and so Sarah Chalk
came in and after a certain point they were rotating
back and forth. After Gorenson started acting again, and then
on the revival, Gorenson's playing Becky, but Sarah Chalk played
another part right, and they were very witty about it.
Back in the nineties, we're talking about the original run
of Roseanne. There was even a scene, I think, where

(24:23):
they're watching Bewitched and they're commenting on the two different Darrens.
Instead of making an inside joke, a self referential joke.
I cannot believe that they replaced that Darren. Well, I
like the second Darren much better. There is something to

(24:47):
learn from the case of the two Darrens, right about
how a show really can be affected the whole show. Yeah,
and obviously I understand no one wanted to stop the
money train, but it did fundamentally transform once they had
a lesser Darren come in and they had to figure
things out from there. Oh. By the way, I remember
a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where they're talking about the

(25:09):
two Darren's, and either Larry or maybe Jerry Seinfeld was
actually guesting on it said, no one wants to be
a second Darren. I'd forgotten you mentioned that until now,
isn't it when Larry winds up having to replace Jason
Alexander is George when they're making the pilot with two Darren's. Yeah, unbewitched.
Nobody liked that second Darren. I didn't care for the
second day bought it. That's right, right, but it's true.

(25:31):
I mean I feel a little bit badly for the
dearly departed Dick Sargeant that he's become. Um, what's the
word that he's defined that now that he's that, he's yeah,
anyway that he represents that. Look, being the second Darren
was very lucrative for Dick's argent. You know, I'm sure
he would rather be that than to have not had
a primetime TV job for those final seasons of a Witch. Well,

(25:53):
that's a great point. That's a great point. Being a
second Darren is yeah, is a lot better than not
being a Darren at all. There, thank you exactly. Can
you please embroider that on a pillow for me. I'll
work on it. For all their differences, Dick York and
Dick Sargeant had something in common beyond that role they

(26:14):
played on TV. They both led exemplary post Darren lives.
In nineteen ninety one, Dick Sargeant, at age sixty one,
came out until his death a year later, he advocated
for gay rights, with his friend and TV wife, the
wonderful Elizabeth Montgomery right by his side. Dick Yorke couldn't

(26:37):
find much acting work after Bewitched and ended up poor
living off of his pension check. All the more remarkable
then that he and his wife Joan dedicated their remaining
years to helping the homeless by collecting and handing out food, clothes,
and betting. Dick York died on February twentieth, nineteen ninety two.

(26:58):
Less than two years later, Dick Sargent died on July eighth,
nineteen ninety four. Two. Darren's both pretty good eggs. All right, Allan,
Now we're transitioning to a whole other class of sitcom death,

(27:22):
the death of a character as part of the plot,
especially jarring when that character is the title character. Oh
r I p Valerie sweet So Valerie Harper, beloved star,
co star of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, star of
Rhoda just beloved TV icon. In the middle late eighties,

(27:43):
she had a comeback new family sitcom called Valerie, where
she played the mom to three kids, one of them
played by Jason Bateman. The husband was an airline pilot,
so he wasn't around very much and it was just
here's you know, Valerie Harper in the next phase of
her career, sit Mom. The show ran two seasons. At
the end of the second season, Valerie Harper said, Hey,

(28:05):
I would like more money. I'm not being paid enough.
My name is in the title. I feel I should
be compensated more, and instead the studio said, no, we
can do the show without you. The audience seems to
like the kids better anyway, and so rather than pay
her what she wanted, they wrote her out of the show.
They killed off the character. They brought in Sandy Duncan

(28:25):
as her husband's sister, I think, to move in as
sort of the surrogate mom of the kids. The dad
was around slightly more, and for a season or two
they changed the title to Valerie's Family, and then eventually
it's a subtitle, yes, Valerie's Family colin the Hogans, sort
of like Twelfth Night, What you Will or Rambo First
Blood Party title. Yes, And then within a year or

(28:45):
so it just became the Hogan Family and references to
their late great mother went the way of Chuck Cunningham.
They completely disappeared. So it was the Hogan Family, Nay,
Valerie's Family, the Hogans, nay. Correct a lot of as
they say, iterations, why is this so funny? It's just again,

(29:06):
because you can do death on certain sitcom Certain shows
are equipped for it because they have kind of a
level of gravitas, or because they do the death in
such a ridiculous way like when Chuckles the clown dies
on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Either way, you can
sort of work death into a sitcom field. But this
was a very light and silly and superficial sitcom about
family life. And you know, am I going to get

(29:27):
my driver's lightnse or not? Am I going to have
a date to the dance? And suddenly mom is dead
because the actress had a salary dispute, And it's injecting
this really somber tone into the show, which the show
almost immediately wants to make you forget about because it's
this unpleasant thing they've done where they have to get
rid of Valerie Harper because she was too expensive. And
you make a good point that the form, the sitcom form,

(29:51):
can sustain death, I mean all in the family. Yes,
death is incredibly moving. No, yeah, she's just puttering around
the bar and in the house and you don't know
what's going on, and then you realize at the end, no,
Edith's gone. It's amazing the right show can pull it off.
Cheers Frasier. Certain sitcoms are built for it. This one
really wasn't, and wasn't even interested in exploring it. So

(30:13):
Sandy Duncan comes on in the third season. In the
first episode of that season, they just make very passing
reference to the death of Valerie in a car crash. Yes,
Sandy Duncan has moved in the Dad is getting ready
to go back, you know, flying airlines again, and you know,
life goes on. Oh well, Dad, it's been six months
since mom died, and I think it's time you got

(30:34):
back in the air. Besides, we'll be fine. Yeah, I've
got it, Sandy done. So they don't spend a lot
of time morning hard and the father, who was always
sort of a secondary character, is going back in the sky. Michael,
you'll be back in a week. It's the first time
I've left the boy since Bella's automobile accident. I know,

(30:54):
keep done a terrific job. I just think it's time
for everyone to get on with their lives. I have
to say I love Towards the end of the episode,
Sandy Duncan, who is fabulous. She acknowledges Valerie Harper's character,
but barely. I mean, let's just say it's not exactly moving.
I didn't make the decision to move here over nine.

(31:15):
I thought long and hard about it. So then why
did you for a lot of reasons, my feelings for
your father and your mother and you kids obligatory. But
then that same season, only two episodes later, the family
is rummaging through the attic when something super unsitcommy happens.

(31:35):
She can't get your lamp to work, mister wizard, couldn't
get that lamp to work? Well, let's go, Oh no,
the lamp is sparking, and even that music is suddenly
not sit commy, Right, I think I think it's meant
to be dramatic. Right, it's got a little Laura More
in there. Yeah, they all head downstairs to bad until

(31:59):
the smell of smoke wakes Aunt Sandia and now they're
actually really having to act. Yes, and now they're safely
down on the front lawn as their house burns to
the ground. This is very this is us And after

(32:20):
the commercial breakword back in sitcom Land, how is your Jake?
It's kind of it's kind of a weird mashup, right,
especially when you consider that they've blown off Valerie's death
in the season premiere, right, and it's and they're not
even doing it in the episode. Sort of in the
aftermath of her death. They decide, all right, well we're
gonna do We're gonna come back at the start of
the season. She's been dead six months, so we get

(32:43):
to skip past the grief because grief is messy and
awkward and not really what we do. And then a
couple of episodes later, oh, we'll burn down the attic,
which will let us redesign the sets but also give
Jason Bateman a chance to play some grief. Now, it
may interest you to know that I have talked to
both Jason Bateman and Sandy Duncan separately about the Valerie situation,

(33:05):
and they have the same recollection and it's the wrong
recollection about how Valerie died. Really, they burned her dead
in the house, and then they shot the episode where
we discover her and that was odd for half hour sitcom.
But wait that she died in a house fire. Yeah,
and I'll fall apart crying. And it was a very

(33:25):
special two part mo. I was playing the aunt and
I moved in to take care of the kids because
I love sitcom and they're so funny. She burned down
in a house, so it was a fire that ended
that contract. They both think that she got burned in
a big old house fire. Oh my god, Sandy was

(33:48):
shocked when I said no, she had supposedly died in
a car wreck. Here's the interesting thing. You both remember
the original title character of the star Valerie having died
in a house fire. Yeah, all right now, I don't
want to burst your bubble here, but she actually died
in a car crash. I don't know if she serious. Yep,
that is. You'd just dig to the truth, don't you.

(34:10):
I had no idea, I swear. Do you think actors
are just learned so many lines that they forget what
they do? Are we just not too bright? I don't know. So, Sandy,
here's my question. To get Valerie off the show? Did
they have to have her character die? Well? I think
because they had established this happy home life and happy marriage,

(34:32):
there wasn't much of another way to exit her, do
you know what I mean? They wouldn't have gotten a divorce,
They didn't want her lying in a hospital with some
incurable disease. So I think it was swift and to
the point and got over it and went on. They
had to kill her instantly instantly. It does seem like
there's a blurrier line between comedies and traumas now so

(34:54):
that now it's not as jarring or it can be
treated in a more natural And also because Valerie's family.
I mean, you know, by the way, when you watch
about it, I mean it's just a terrible show, sure,
but you know, Jason Bateman was adorable and had great
comic timing, so that gets you eight seasons, right. And

(35:14):
Sandy Duncan, I mean was terrific coming in. Yep. I
mean she did what she needed to do. Yeah, people
love Sandy Duncan. I think, you know, if you were
predisposed to watch that show because it was the Valerie
Harper Show and they were now killing off Valerie Harper,
you have to bring in someone who's supremely likable to
get away with it, and Sandy Duncan definitely fits that. Bill.
I'd like to end this episode talking once again about

(35:37):
my own TV death on Law and Order. I just
want to point out that I almost actually died in
that role, really not because of the car crash, but
because I was playing a chain smoking gossip columnist and
because I'm a method actor, I prepared for the role
by smoking lots of filterless cigarettes. And I mean lots,

(35:57):
mind you, I'd smoked a couple of cigarettes in my life.
I was a teenager, and that's it. So right before
one of my scenes, I began throwing up, like truly
projectile vomiting, and I just want to thank all these
years later, I want to thank the crew of Law
and Order Criminal Intent, because as I was hurling, I
kept thinking, all these people want to start laughing right now,

(36:19):
and they're not laughing, and I wanted to just be
able to say, like, it's okay, you can laugh, because
this is a ridiculous situation. So here's my question. If
you know, God forbid you had actually fallen to your
death because of the reaction for the cigarettes, who would
you have wanted to play that role in your stead? Oh?
My god, Well, Sandy Duncan, of course. I mean, come on,

(36:48):
I love Peter Pan, I love wheat thins, I love
Sandy Dunk, love Run Scooby Doo. I love Run Scooby Doo.
So I definitely would have wanted Sandy Duncan playing me. No,
that's an excellent choice. Alan Steppenwall, thank you so much.
Mo my absolute pleasure. I feel heaven every moment. Next

(37:38):
time on Mobituaries, the trailblazers whose paths were somehow erased,
the forgotten forerunners. She's really the Rosa Parks of New York,
and most New Yorkers, most Americans, have no idea. How
much does this historical amnesia bother you? I mean, it's infuriating,
It's absolutely infuriating. I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobid

(38:04):
be sure to rate and review our podcast. You can
also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can
follow me on Twitter at Morocca. You can subscribe to
Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts. For more great content
and to watch my fiery death on Law and Order
Criminal Intent, please go to mobituaries dot com. This episode

(38:27):
of Mobituaries was produced by Kate mccauliffe. Our team of
producers also includes Gideon Evans, Meghan Marcus, Meghan Dietree, and
me Morocca. It was engineered by David Herman, indispensable support
from Genie Staneski, Kira Wardlow, Richard Rohr, and special thanks
to Alan Seppenwall and Dan Dzula. Our theme music was

(38:51):
written by Daniel Hart and as always, undying thanks to
Rand Morrison and John carp without whom Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi,

(39:18):
It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I
invite you to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock
full of stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put
their butts on the line, sports teams that threw in
the towel for good, forgotten fashions, Defunct diagnoses presidential candidacies

(39:39):
that cratered whole countries that went could put and dragons, Yes, dragons,
you see. People used to believe the dragons will reel
until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the
Book from any online bookseller or stop by your local
bookstore and look for me when I come to your city.
To our information and lots more at mulbituaries dot com.

(40:02):
M