Why in the name of GOD is "Phyllis" not streaming ANYWHERE?

Bootleg I guess, but still.

YouTube

Here’s more Phyllis, Phyllis. Because you’re acting just like Phyllis, Phyllis.

Nobody wants to watch that shit except for freaks.

I'm proud to be the kind of FREAK who loves Phyllis, homophobic trump hillbilly at r4!!!

The youtube footage looks like the Zapruder film, or the PAtterson Gimlin film. We demand watchable Phyllis!

R5 isn’t bitter much.

Phyllis was not a likeable character on TMTMS, so why in heavens name did the producers think she'd make a great spinoff series?

Mary!

Didn't everyone associated MTM get their own show at some point?

Because nobody who would want to watch it is still alive.

Phyllis only lasted 2 seasons and wasn't as memorable as the other MTM spinoffs. They made so many changes in the second season (if it ain't broke don't fix it), including her famous hairstyle, that it killed the show.

I remember either Nick at Nite or TV Land or something similar, aired the show maybe a decade ago. The only thing memorable about it is it's theme song. The show never worked because Phyllis was written as somewhat unsympathetic and a minor antagonist to Mary. When they gave Phyllis her own show, they had to change the character and it it just didn't work.

I adore Phyllis.

Yeah, the theme song is really the only great part of the show.

R15 One of my all time favorite theme show songs- love it!!!

I thought one or two cast members died & the show died with them. Now I’m thinking of the grandmother on Mork & Mindy. And david ogden stiers was on the pilot episode of Charlies Angels as a more active Co-Bosley. And Boyd Gaines was Valarie Bertinelli’s husband on One Day At A Time. God make it stop!

Nobody served up sweetly vicious old-lady shade quite like Audrey Dexter.

Mother Dexter's wedding was very funny.

[quote]Didn't everyone associated MTM get their own show at some point?

"Murray" was my favorite show of the entire 1979 season!

She got her own show as consolation for Joan Collins fucking her husband.

You laugh, R20, but brother-in-Christ MacLeod began starring in The Love Boat in 1977, which was the most successful follow-up series that any player on MTMS ever had. He had the last laugh -- well, maybe not laugh because those were in short supply on TLB, but he had the last leering grin, anyway.

Say what you will, but those of us who saw the original know that "Phyllis & the Little People," the famous episode where Bess "wants to marry a boy whose parents are dwarfs" (one of whom is Billy Barty), is one of the funniest sitcom episodes of all time.

PHYLLIS: "Oh, Leo... I'm so depressed... Bess wants to marry a boy whose parents are dwarfs."

LEO: "Gee, I sure hope she finds one!"

R22, well, yes, all of the people in the show went on to have other shows -- they were, after all, tv actors, so would continue to work in tv. I think the original comment was more about the characters themselves getting *their own* shows.

TLB was of course not a spin off of MTM, and tbh it wasn't really even McLeod's show -- it was strictly an ensemble show and he really didn't even have much screen time, as opposed to MTM, Harper, Asner, or Leachman in their shows. I mean, the fucking cruise director had more screen time than he did!

It was a very funny show.

Many of the episodes were written by David Lloyd, who wrote the Chuckles episode of MTM.

R24, you right. The original source material for the “The Love Boat,” was a book by a cruise director obviously written from her point of view.

And where was MY spinoff?

Mother Dexter💓

Actually Sue Ann Nivens would have made the most interesting spin-off of all.

Betty White went on to do The Betty White Show, which also co starred Georgia Engel. Betty played a TV reporter.

MTM is one of those rare instances where all of the principal characters managed to sustain work after the show ended.

wow R30, I completely missed that

LOVE the opening credits of Phyllis. The way Cloris jumped on the trolley, kicking her leg out like a showgirl was so glamorous to a young gayling.

I always wanted to go to San Francisco just to do that!

Betty White IS [italic]Undercover Woman[/italic]

Someone's going to see it, OP.

But....

[quote] Phyllis only lasted 2 seasons

Three

Who was more dislikable, Sue Ann or Phyllis? Weren't they both kinda cunts?

It's not YOU

R35 TWO seasons. The first years is ranked #6 in the overall TV show ratings and in the second year it dropped to #40 and was cancelled.

R38 You are correct, I apologize. I thought it was a midseason replacement in '75 and had three, but I see it was only 2 full seasons.

i remember several ppl saying it was cursed b/c the mother in law actress died and the one woman was murdered

The series was a slaughterhouse for actors.

Barbara Colby (Julie) was murdered after the pilot, the actress playing Mother Dexter and the actor playing her husband died halfway through the second season, at the same time Jane Rose (Audrey) was diagnosed with cancer.

Cloris Leachman said she went to dinner with the president of CBS and told him, "Just cancel it."

That old bitch was UGLY!

R41 was that in her book?

The year before, the Rhoda show had spun off from the MTM Show, and the famous episode where Rhoda gets married was the #1 sitcom episode for the entire decade, and Phyllis had been the star of that episode. (The premise was that Rhoda FINALLY got married, to Joe Girard, and invited all her Minneapolis friends to Manhattan for the wedding, and Phyllis was supposed to pick her up and bring her to the wedding in her parents' apartment, but forgot--so the episode kept switching back and forth from Rhoda frantically racing through Manhattan in her bridal gown to get to the wedding, and Phyllis trying desperately to apologize to the wedding guests who were all disgusted with her). It was such a huge ratings success that it decided the CBS executives to spin off Phyllis to her own sitcom.

It was widely publicized before the first episode that it would involve Phyllis, after the death of her notoriously weird but never-seen husband Lars, trying to make it on her own her daughter Bess in San Francisco, and the premiere was the #1 show in the country that week because everyone wanted to see what had happened to Lars and how the incompetent Phyllis could make it on her own. The first several episodes following were also ratings gold: the show had a wonderful cast, including not only the very funny Cloris Leachman but the intensely likeable Lisa Gerritsen as her daughter Bess; Valerie Harper's funny and handsome real-life husband at the time Richard Schaal as Phyllis's idiotic co-worker Leo; Barbara Colby, who had been one of the best guest stars on The MTM Show, as Phyllis's boss at the photography studio; Jane Rose (who could be quite funny) as Lars's mother, Audrey; veteran character actor Henry Jones as Audrey's new husband, Judge Jonathan Dexter; and, in a real casting coup, the hilarious Judith Lowry as Jonathan's ancient mother, Mother Dexter.

But the show was cursed by insanely bad luck. Barbara Colby was randomly shot on the streets of Los Angeles after the third episode had been shot (they never caught the killers--they think it was just a completely random gang shooting). They recast her part quickly, but they couldn't really get a rhythm going for the work scenes without Colby (who had genuine comic talents), so they scrapped the work scenario and fired Dick Schaal, and made Phyllis work instead for the city of San Francisco. That didn't work very well either. The scenes with Phyllis at home with Judith Lowry were hilarious, and Jane Rose had a marvelous sense of comic timing, but both women were very old, and Lowry died at the end of the second season at age 86. Soon after Rose was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so they decided to pack the show in.

It was an odd show, given that whereas on most sitcoms of the time (like The MTM Show) the central character was sane and surrounded by crazy people, Phyllis always had to be the craziest person on her own show: the character had been written as too neurotic, brittle, and narcissistic to ever change believably. But the first few episodes are wonderful, and as good as almost anything The MTM Show ever did. And the character of Phyllis is pretty unforgettable.

[quote] Betty White went on to do The Betty White Show, which also co starred Georgia Engel. Betty played a TV reporter.

Actually, she played an actress in a crime show, a spoof of Angie Dickinson's Police Woman. John Hillerman (later of Magnum PI) also co-starred. It was awful and was canceled after half a season.

The spoof was called "Undercover Woman."

[quote] Barbara Colby was randomly shot on the streets of Los Angeles after the third episode had been shot (they never caught the killers--they think it was just a completely random gang shooting).

She was going through a divorce from Ethel Merman's son at the time. I always wondered if there was some sort of cover-up and the excuse of a random gang shooting.

Or if Ethel pulled the trigger herself!

I still got my health, so whadda I care!

What would Cloris Leachman’s portmanteau be if she were young? CloLea?

Many of the Mother Dexter jokes involved her scoring dick.

I thought the second season was much better. Mother Dexter was the sole good thing, besides Lisa Gerritsen's always excellent performance, in anything no matter how weak the material.

Barbara Colby who played a hooker on two MTM show episodes was shot to death (seems to be a random shooting or she was mistaken for someone else), and that God awful Richard Schaal that Valerie Harper kept forcing on us in the 70s

[quote]that God awful Richard Schaal that Valerie Harper kept forcing on us in the 70s

He was insanely hot to my juniorgay eyes.

R45 they once ran it on Comedy Central (I think) , and I watched an episode, or part of one...she was basically the SueAnn character with a much worse script, so in a way it was a spin-off — it was giving people what they had come to expect from Betty White.

It definitely was pretty bad but what stood out to me most was the Public Access level quality of the videotape — was there nothing left in the budget after they paid their actors?

Comedy Central ran Phyllis in the afternoons for a while, which is how I discovered it. I LOL'd at every episode and was quite impressed, considering how it has been historically revised to be a debacle. In reality, it ranked #6 for its first season.

It did get stronger as the show went on, although I understand why it was canceled—Lisa Gerritsen could barely land her lines, much less serve as a substitute for Mother Dexter and Audrey.

r55

Bullshit, Lisa was a fine actress.

It had two problems: Bad timeslot, and Phyllis was unlikeable. This is why when Vicki Lawrence took Mama she changed the character to be much more likable. Mama was an antagonistic pain in the ass in all but two sketches I can think of. (Mama's beau and the Ed goes to a massage parlor - she is normal and Eunice is nuts)

In "Network" the say Phyllis was one of the highest rated shows on TV. Was it? Then why'd it get cancelled?

Imagine if they had made a spin-off about Newman (the fat mailman) from Seinfeld. Same thing with Phyllis.

Mother Dexter had one of the funniest insults: first time I ever heard someone say (and land it so well): "Go suck an egg!"

Richard Schaal always seemed a drag in anything he was in; he was like an extremely unfunny Peter Bonerz but with straighter hair.

R26 I LOL'd at that obit....

" Saunders remained active and never lost interest in younger men, dancing, and writing. She was classy and refused to grow or act old."

[quote] Imagine if they had made a spin-off about Newman (the fat mailman) from Seinfeld. Same thing with Phyllis.

You may have something there. I loved the show Buffalo Bill but it was on life support the whole time, because Bill was such a dick. He was supposed to be one but people just didn’t like the star.

Okay, I watched the show back in the day and a couple of things, as you may or may not remember - one of the show's most popular yet controversial episodes was entitled "Bess, Is you a woman now?" - the story concerned Bess (Lisa Gerritson) going away for a ski weekend with a young man who was played by Leigh McCloskey. He was at the very peak of his masculine beauty at the time and I was IN HEAT for him. Now, does anyone remember the name of the episode (or it's number ie Season 1 Episode 1 for example) where the "B" plot was that Phyllis meets a guy at a bus stop who is very sad because of the fact he and his friends can't have their meeting at the VW Hall or someplace like that; Phyllis, thinking he is gay, offers for them to meet at her father in law's house. Upon arriving, he and his friends are not gay but NAZIS (in full SS regalia). They are ejected by her mother in law wielding a bayonet saying, "Get out of here, you are the ones who stomped over Julie Andrew's mountains in The Sound Of Music!" I LOVED that scene and have never been able to find info on that episode. Is anyone familiar enough with series to be able to help me out? Thanks '

In its first season, 1975-76, Phyllis aired on Monday nights at 8:30 p.m., before Rhoda at 8 p.m. and All in the Family at 9 p.m. and Maude at 9:30 p.m.

For its second season, Phyllis started off in the same Monday at 8:30 p.m. time slot, but in January it was moved to Sunday at 8:30 p.m. Rhoda at 8 p.m. was still its lead-in, but it aired opposite the Six Million Dollar Man on ABC, which finished at #7 in the ratings for the 1976-77 season.

Oppp, that should read "Phyllis aired on Monday nights at 8:30 p.m., BETWEEN Rhoda at 8 p.m. and All in the Family at 9 p.m. and Maude at 9:30 p.m."

It ranked #6 in its first season, R57.

It was #40 in its second season, and most of the supporting cast died or had cancer, so they shut it down.

In viewing some of the season 2 episodes that have been posted on YouTube (video quality is pretty bad though), I realized that Phyllis was working as an assistant to a San Francisco City Supervisor in 1977! I wonder how that storyline would have held up had the show not been canceled. Being that in 1978 (the very next year) was when Dan White, a San Francisco City Supervisor; went on a shooting spree and murdered Harvey Milk, a San Francisco City Supervisor and George Moscone, the Mayor of San Francisco. That show really was jinxed in some ways. How could they ever have worked that into the storyline?

R66 since she was working at a photography studio the season before she would have most likely just suddenly had a different job with no explanation. The shooting occurred 4 weeks into the season — If there were workplace heavy episodes already in the can they might have pulled or reworked some of them before air.

R59 - The go suck an egg line was said by Phyllis to a priest in the first episode. She has just learned Lars proposed to another woman before her.

I saw every episode and thought it was freaking hilarious.

The cast was sublime.

Burt Mustin who acted in hundreds of tv shows starting when he was already a senior citizen played his last role (some were released later) as Mother Dexter's husband in the hilarious wedding episode in season two. He died a few months later at ninety-two. Judith Lowry who played Mother Dexter died before that episode even aired, very shortly after it was filmed. Both were at the top of their game in this very funny episode.

The best joke in the series was the episode where Bess is engaged to a man whose parents are dwarves and Phyllis freaks out:

Phyllis: Bess wants to marry a boy whose parents are dwarves!

Leo: I hope she finds one.

THAT'S what I call COMEDY!

Does Cloris have gray hair in this show? It's not as gray as Jane Rose's but it still looks gray.

OP, I suggest you DEMAND to speak to a MANAGER!

Bess, you is an old woman now!

Olivia Colman for the Barbara Colby biopic!