I'm a Big Girl Now, starring Diana Canova

I blame her fugly daughter and the boring workplace setting (a think tank in DC). They changed it, without explanation, to a newspaper office midseason, IIRC.

Also Witt-Thomas-Harris were doing that show, Soap and Benson simultaneously, which ruined Soap - the fourth and final season was lousy.

Yes!! I remember this show. I loved Diana Canovas

She belongs in the Hollywood nepotism thread.

Lots of ugly people in that cast.

What a depressing theme song!

This was a piece of shit.

Now you wanna laugh? Try listening to her mother's radio show.

WHET

The reboot stars Amy Schumer:

I’m a big broad now

The little girl on that show died young.

Of shame and embarrassment

The title of the show was fucking awful. What were they thinking?

Susan Harris, rise from your chronic fatigue syndrome bed, and tell us!

Martin Short is such a QUEEN.

I had forgotten about THROB!

Throb — featuring Diana Canova on the opening theme — introduced the world to Jane Leeves, later of Frasier, and big-dicked, prematurely dead Paul Walker.

Diana Canova dated Steve Landesburg for a while back in the day...next to Joyce DeWitt and Ray Buktenica they were small potatoes, but I liked them as a couple.

Also, I remember THROB was a syndicated series and used to play in Chicago at 6 or 6:30pm on Saturdays, really a terrible timeslot. However, looking at its opening credits there were like 45 people in the cast, can't imagine what the budget could have been for a show in first run syndication to be able to pay that many players.

[quote]What a depressing theme song!

I was thinking that it was a bit unusual for a sitcom theme, esp. compared to the over the top singing of most themes songs at the time. Canova's voice is actually kind of pretty there. Not sure what they were thinking with her hair though, although I think she might have cut prior to leaving Soap. I don't remember the last season of Soap. Canova was basically the main female of her age group and a big part of her family. Who filled that void when she left?

I haven't seen Throb! in years, but if I remember correctly, even though it was syndicated, it could actually be funny at times and there were worse comedies on the networks. Did not realize Paul Walker had been a child actor or that he played her son. I remember thinking the short 80's preppy was cute at a time when I was realizing that I thought men were cute i general.

[quote]Also, I remember THROB was a syndicated series and used to play in Chicago at 6 or 6:30pm on Saturdays

That's the time it also played in the Dallas/Fort Worth area where I grew up. We used to really enjoy it. (I also remember thinking Jonathan Prince was such a little hottie.) I think that was back during a time when first-run syndication shows were really hot -- Throb, Star Trek: TNG, Viper, V.I.P. (the Pam Anderson detective series), What A Country!, and Learning the Ropes (the Lyle Alzado sitcom) were all on during that time. Most aired on Saturday evenings and would repeat on Sundays.

Never knew Paul Walker was a child actor!

I never watched either “Throb” or “I’m a Big Girl Now”, but agree that the theme song to the latter is wretched. Diana Canova has always been a likable presence.

I remember seeing her mother Judy Canova on a genuinely funny episode of “Love Americans Style”, along with Bob Denver, George Lindsey and Stockard Channing!

Sorry, “Love American Style”, not “Americans”!

I remember "I'm A Big Girl Now" aired Friday nights on ABC. I used to go over my best friend's house every Friday night as a kid, and he was all excited about this show because it starred the actress from Soap. Even though we were only 11 or 12 years old at the time, he thought watching Soap was a big deal because it was an "adult" show. (I maybe saw Soap once or twice, but as a kid didn't get the humor, so wasn't really interested.) I think he thought "Big Girl" would be another comedy for adults that he could brag about watching, but after tuning in for a couple of weeks, it.... clearly wasn't a comedy for adults.

I do remember finding Rori King, the child actress in this, incredibly obnoxious, like a Quinn Cummings for TV. But now I feel badly seeing she died a few years ago.

I remember this. I loved Soap as a kid, so i watched the first episode, but I almost remember turning it off during the credits. And yes,m it was because of the depressing theme song and the creepy child.

I had never heard of "Throb." What an unintentionally hilarious name for a sitcom!

It's interesting that Canova was a single mother in both series. There was this period in the early 80s when there were all these terrible sitcoms about single parents, and they were all incredibly unfunny. Then "The Cosby Show" appeared and entirely revitalized the genre--not because it was in itself a good show, but because it showed there was still an appetite among the public for sitcoms.

George Aliceson Tipton must have been eating Susan Harris's snatch, because he got a lifetime gig doing theme songs for all the Witt-Thomas-Harris shows.

The themes with lyrics (I'm a Big Girl Now, Empty Nest, Nurses) were far inferior to the instrumentals (Soap, Benson). Although It's a Living was so OTT it worked. Golden Girls was fine, but a cover.

It Takes Two was another one-season wonder with a downer theme song that probably turned people off the show.

R20 “A Quinn Cummings for TV” is my new favorite phrase!

Except Quinn Cummings' claim to infamy is that her know-it-all character ruined Family when she joined the cast.

Diana Canova was almost likeable but her terrible acting was among many factors that ruined everything she was ever in. I wanted to like her...

She escaped from Scientology! I want to see a TV movie of that!

R25 = Jennifer Salt

This and It Takes Two needed much, MUCH peppier theme songs. I do like Diana's singing, though. She and Ted Wass actually appeared on Broadway in They're Playing Our Song, which must have been interesting.

Tipton wasn’t in the documentary about Harry Nilsson. Was their professional breakup that bad that he preferred writing sitcom themes and background music instead?

Susan Harris had nothing to do with [italic]It’s A Living[/italic]. It’s ironic that lasted longer than this.

Oh, don't split hairs, R30. It was a Witt-Thomas show and had all the W-T-H trademarks.

Now this was a theme that pulled you in and made you want to watch.

Like Diana Canova, Caroline McWilliams deserved better. I thought she was so cute.

[quote]Caroline McWilliams deserved better.

I did not mind Didi Conn (although I did not really care for the coupling of her and Pete), but I preferred Marcy and her friendship with Benson (he needed someone semi-sane to talk to). I wonder if she decided to leave or if it was the show's decision.

[quote] Caroline McWilliams deserved better. I thought she was so cute.

She got Michael Keaton. And then she died.

Inga Swenson was another Witt-Thomas-Harris favorite.

Kind of a shame Diana didn't come back to the Witt-Thomas-Harris fold. Hell, Jennifer Salt did a guest shot as Richard Mulligan's love interest on Empty Nest.

Patty Duke Astin's hair and her use of hairspray in r22's clip caused the hole in the ozone layer

So have they ever found a cause for chronic fatigue syndrome?

I also found Patty Duke (Astin)'s hair egregious in It Takes Two.

It was so large, but not large in the typical '80s way. It was ... lateral. Like, horizontally big.

People on the show said she was totally professional and her bipolar disorder was not evident at that time. But that hair was a huge red flag.

Don't know why but I'm really loving this thread.

"My Hair Was a Cry For Help: The Patty Duke Story"

[quote]Throb — featuring Diana Canova on the opening theme — introduced the world to Jane Leeves, later of Frasier, and big-dicked, prematurely dead Paul Walker.

I didn't realize they had swapped sons. I know I watched both seasons but I didn't notice a difference.

Seem to remember Diana Canova was one of the first celebrities to speak out about ScienTology. I believe her parents were into it deep. With a little retooling the series on this thread could have been on for years.

I loved her in "Heat" starring Robert Shayne Lewis Denero and Vail Bloom Kilmer from Vanderpump Rules as her boyfwend Jim Morrison.

Damn fine film !

How did Rori King die? She went on to be a psychotherapist.

I loved Diana Canova. The song was so dreary but pretty to sing on a sad day. I was a dramatic child.

Yeah, Diana read Scientology to filth in a 1993 article in Premiere.

[quote]Canova found the Scientologists straightforward in their desire for lucre. "The first time I walked in those doors, they said, 'Just give us all the money in your bank account. You'll get it back tenfold.'" When she joined, auditing prices were about $25. "It went up to about $175 in the early '80s," she recalls. "That was shocking to me. I was beginning to wonder, Is it really worth it? They're telling you, 'Don't spend $100 an hour on a shrink's couch, it'll ruin your mind.' Auditing is so much better?"

[quote]"There was always pressure to get other celebrities in," agrees Canova. "Once I got a call from this guy at Celebrity Centre at 6 in the morning. He says, 'Diana, you've got to get over here to the hospital, Freddie Prinze has just shot himself.' I used to date Freddie. This guy is freaking out. 'You got to come over, and you got to get me in to see Freddie. If I can get in to see Freddie, I can save his life. I'll tell him to get back into his body.' That was such a weird thing to me, the ultimate dissemination. Wouldn't it have been a coup--Scientology saves Freddie Prinze?"

Deborah Baltzell had just come off a year long run on the series "I'm A Big Girl Now" when she died on October 24 1981 at age 25 apparently from a heart attack.

r47, heart attack? la droga? Very sad to hear.

Who was that foxy woman Sheree North?

DL Heaven: Diana Canova meets Little Eugene.

Sheree North was a superb dancer.

You people must all be fucking 80 years old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And somehow, I adore you.

Miss Canova was in the 1995 Roundabout COMPANY......

Last thing I recall seeing Diana in was that Meryl/Renee movie where Meryl is dying of cancer and Diana is one of her 'Mini' friends. She looked good.

Dee Dee and Mama........

Can any designers precisely identify the exact Witt-Thomas-Harris credits font used in Soap, Benson, IABGN, Golden Girls, It Takes Two, etc.?

It will inevitably be referenced a zillion more times here.

R33, she left to do "Cass Malloy," which seemed like a sure thing because it was overseen by two WKRP in Cincinnati producers. And featured DL favorite Dianne Kay!

But it was not picked up ... so it was reworked into "She's the Sheriff" for Suzanne Somers five years later. And Caroline McWilliams collected unemployment.

Priscilla Barnes was the second choice for that show, R56. Somehow Suzanne must’ve gotten wind of that and maneuvered her way into it.

Didn't she have a show with the hot for a minute Adrian Zmed?

Her first mistake was cutting her hair.

Absolutely one of my top 5 sitcom theme songs. I also love It’s A Living.

R59, please give us your top 5.

Her mother was so fuckin' funny. Listen to her OTR shows. Judy Canova is so funny, her daughter is pretty much straight man material.

As for Quinn Cummings, I like her as a grown up. She wrote some books and runs a website/blog.

I loved it when she was talking about being a parent and someone asked to see a photo of her daughter, Quinn said "Sorry, but I'm barely famous, and she isn't famous at all, there's no reason to show her picture."

At least she has a grasp on reality.

Canova sang the theme to Throb. She really had an incredible voice.

She also sang "La Cucaracha" in The First Nudie Musical.

I only remember I’m A Big Girl Now from when it showed up in syndication in the mid-late 80s. That theme song is odd - not terrible exactly but certainly not fitting for a sitcom. Sounds more like a song from a supporting character in a musical. I always thought it was Maureen McGovern singing.

Diana Canova is a vocal coach, or was about 10 years ago, when my niece was her student. She had a lovely home in Fairfield County, CT.

Not a feather in Susan Harris' cap......

I don't really get the "sitcom theme songs must be perky" thing. They've always come in different forms and a lot of the less jovial ones were among my favorites. Case in point:

Rori King was traumatized on set and her experiences with this show pushed her into pursuing a career as an analyst.

She was desperate for Danny Thomas's approval and day after day he would only tell her, "Not yet."

Then after a week's long battle with constipation, her mother made her drink a mixture of grape and cabbage juice.

Poor Rori nearly blew out the commode. We're talking a mixture of runny stool mixed with rock hard bloodied turds.

When Danny heard the commotion, he rushed into the ladies room and inspected the vile mixture still wafting its foul odor from the pot. He turned to Rori with a huge smile and proclaimed, "Congratulations. You're a big girl now!"

Rori never again felt such accomplishment.

Was there a provision in Danny Thomas’s contract regarding glass tables of any kind?