All's Fair

With All's Fair, Norman Lear tried to do for politics what he did to put down bigotry with All in the Family. Richard Crenna plays a 49 year old conservative newspaper columnist and author. Bernadette Peters plays a twenty-three-year-old politically liberal photographer.

I remember liking this series when it aired, and I just found a very few episodes of it on YouTube. I wish I could get the whole thing. My wife and I watched the first episode last night and laughed out loud more than we have in years except for watching reruns of Frasier ... and this is funnier than even Frasier.

Some critics claim the arguments between the leads were too much. I'd respond that most All in the Family episodes were nothing but one long argument also, and that series hit #1 and ran for years.

No, the problem All's Fair failed to overcome was scheduling. It simply couldn't compete with Monday Night Football to find an audience. It's lead in was Maude ... already a few years into its run, and another show with frequent and lasting antipathy between its characters. So I think "Maude fatigue" may have also held it back.

Try out the episodes on YouTube. You won't be disappointed.

This was one witty sitcom that was so avante-garde that depicted the total nuisances of people who were just very irritating characters to watch ran for one season when it aired on CBS-TV from September 20,1976 until April 30, 1977 producing 24 episodes. The seldom seen sitcom "All's Fair" really brought Broadway sensation Bernadette Peters into the spotlight in her very first television series,and to everyone's surprise,even the critics who really bardbombed this show,didn't even make the entire jump over the shark tank--it never even made it across-- just sink quickly to the bottom of the TV trash graveyard of lost shows,and it goes to show this was an prime example of shows that were incredibly over the top and so revolting to watch,it was never to be heard from again.

By the way,this was produced by Norman Lear,who was one of the biggest producers in the 1970's--the man who brought viewers "All In The Family","Maude","Sanford and Son","Good Times","One Day At A Time",and "The Jeffersons".

What can I say about this show? Let me described some of the adjectives to this show: For one it was way too acrimonious for its own good,and secondly,some of the characters on the show were just total idiots and repulsive nuances from which they came from since this show premiered in 1976-the year of the nation's 200 bicentennial celebration and the beginning of the Carter Administration. The show itself dealt with some of the major issues of the era,which to some was definely the big picture or situation in some of the episodes. But to say the least,the stars Bernadette Peters and Richard Crenna really became very successful in the careers in movies and television,especially Peters,whom before she came onto this show was a huge Broadway star,and in several theatrical feature films and not to mention a huge recording star........You also had in the short-lived series a very young Michael Keaton,who would go on to become a very successful star in the movies and not to mention one of the biggest powerplayers in Hollywood...... Oh yeah,it also had the great Lee Chamberlain("The Electric Company" & "All My Children"),and Jack Dodson("The Andy Griffith Show" & "Mayberry RFD"). Can you believe that the same people who produced this sitcom were behind some of the best sitcoms of the 70's? Bob Weiskopf was one of the writers who was behind the sitcoms "Maude",and "All In The Family",while Bob Claver and Hal Cooper were behind "Bewitched","The Partridge Family",and "I Dream Of Jeannie"? Very interesting.

After this fiasco,Peters returned to her Broadway and movies roots,but came back to prime-time television for a brief run on the short-lived "The New Carol Burnett Show",aka "Carol and Friends" in the early 90's, and did voiceovers for several animated cartoons including Steven Spielburg's animated hit "Animaniacs". As for Richard Crenna,her co-star went on to glory in the hugely successful "Rambo" films starring Sylvester Stallone. "All's Fair" was placed on CBS' prime time Monday night schedule where the powers that be thought it would be successful opposite ABC's Monday Night Football which clobbered it in the ratings.

This was a show critics did handstands over, all predicting this would become the biggest hit of the new season. CBS, in fact, gave the series a full-season commitment, based on creator Norman Lear's previous track record. Boy, were they all wrong. It failed to find an audience no matter what timeslot the network put it in.

The series, in a nutshell, was simply one more excuse for Lear to preach his tub-thumping, ivory-tower brand of liberalism. I'm a liberal, and I despised it. There is a story about a conservative TV critic who was always knocking Lear's shows, and it got under Lear's skin to the point that he hired the conservative critic away from his journalistic job, and he became a staff writer for "All's Fair." He reportedly was paid $600 a week to sit in and pitch script ideas for it, and his ideas were roundly ignored by Lear and his staff. The poor guy might as well have been making paper airplanes and throwing them about the office! What Lear really did was a legalized form of censorship-he used all the legal loopholes to suppress the critic's own views. All pretty despicable, coming from an outspoken opponent of censorship.

CBS had ratings problems with "All's Fair" from the beginning. It was losing its Nielsen audience to ABC's "Monday Night Football." Well, I'm no football fan-or even a sports fan of any kind-but I'll gladly take a football game over this crapola any old day.

But my final word to you is to forget you even heard of this series. Make like this whole review page never even existed. It'll never grow a cult following. Myself, I'm content to let it rot in permanent obscurity.

Bernadette Peters is a liberal photographer who espouses every liberal viewpoint out there in 1976. Richard Crenna is a conservative writer who espouses every conservative viewpoint that was out there in 1976. There are no nuances here, no "I agree with you on that point". They argue to the point of being shrill. Oh, and for some reason, in 1976 this show would have you believing conservatives are afraid to commit and liberals are not. In fact it is Peters' character trying to convince her future lover (Crenna) to commit to his middle aged girlfriend in the first episode. He cannot.

So on they go for the autumn of 1976 until spring 1977, arguing tirelessly, yet locked in the bonds of physical attraction and probably the attraction of verbal sparring. And after a few episodes of this it got old.

In the long run I think that this show helped Peters' career because she played her unlikeable character believably. I came here thinking I was the only person who remembered this old sitcom. I was surprised that reviewing this show was not virgin territory. Why do I remember it? Because when I was living in the dorm in college there was just one common TV set and the other girls wanted to watch this show.

Witty, clever and too acrimonious for it's own good!!!...These are the adjectives which best describe this avante-garde sitcom which depicted the nuances which irritated people, not necessarily the major issues and/or the overall big picture...You got the idea that the most heinous form of apathy commenced after the elections, not before!! Both Richard Crenna and Bernadette Peters may lay claim to having VERY Successful MOVIE AND TELEVISION CAREERS!!!.....These two stars were in a sharp and well developed comedy "ALL'S FAIR"...The bottom line on this Norman Lear sitcom, is that it made everyone a victim of their own political hypocrisy!!This show epitomized effective television programming!! Why? because it showed the biggest culprit to political stagnation to be inflated egos!! This was corrupt candor which effectuated the pejorative aspect of human behavior!! From the offset, ratings popularity for this series was dubious, they had it up against Monday Night Football!!! Wonderful political comedy!! The American public just did not think so!!! So it is a proverbial case of the director and producers being right, and the television audience being wrong!!! Not exactly a first in this instance, but the entertainment industry has to continually throw new concepts out!!!! Some make it, and of-course, some do not!! Disagreement with these findings which have a correlation to ratings success, are of course, inevitable!!