Once upon a time in the land of broadcast network prime time television there existed an abundance of good old-fashioned situation comedies with 24-minute storylines and active laugh tracks from start to finish – sometimes canned – and sometimes ‘recorded LIVE in front of a studio audience’.
The start of the 1978-1979 television season contained no less than 25 such half-hour sitcoms on the three networks at the time, and that season had 9 sitcoms occupy the TOP 10 spots in the ratings.
Sitcoms totally ruled the roost back then, but not every single one was a smash. Here’s a flop – one of the biggest of its generation. It lasted a mere 8 episodes during the Spring of 1979. It was a blatant rip-off of the box office smash “Saturday Night Fever” starring song-and-dance man David Naughton in John Travolta’s role as a disco dancer by night – and an ice cream parlor man by day. Critics trashed this show from the very start, and viewers had enough of disco music in the movies and on the radio. It just didn’t make sense to watch a disco sitcom on TV. Perhaps the most entertaining part of this show was its extended opening theme song and credits that stretched out over the course of nearly two whole minutes ! After the show was cancelled its standard-length theme song became a gold-certified TOP 5 disco smash on the radio.
Check it out – it’s the original opening theme song and credits for “Makin’ It” !
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