MovieChat Forums > Love, American Style (1969) Discussion > What's the deal with all the pilot episo...

What's the deal with all the pilot episodes?

posted 9 years ago by flapdoodle64
2 replies | jump to latest

The Happy Days pilot aired here first, also 2 Hanna Barbera cartoon pilots (one of which became the series 'Wait Till Your Father Gets Home').

Did the producers put out a general offer to buy pilot films at cut rate so that producers could recoup costs so they to fill air time cheaply?

Or did guys like Gary Marshall (who produced Happy Days) just look around for places they might air an unsold pilot and then landed at this show? (Happy Days didn't sell originally...only after American Graffiti was released did Happy Days sell.)

What was the deal?

Also, where there other unsold pilots? I think I remember an episode where the central character was a preacher...in retrospect, that was prolly an unsold pilot film.

I wonder what the deal was.

[–] smallworldguy76 8 years ago

IMO, the same can be said for the segment, "Love and the Good Deal", which was originally a pilot for the "Barefoot In the Park" series. That segment with the preacher you described, "Love and the Young Unmarrieds" definitely looked like a pilot for a series.
RETRO FOREVER!

[–] roysfire 8 years ago

Basicly it was a win-win for both sides.... The producer sells his pilot film and hopes to recoup some of the money used to make it, and the LAS people got a mother segment for their show.