Over in his weblog, my pal Daniel Frank notes…
Mark Evanier discusses the factors that will determine whether John Ritter's show will continue. Evanier left out how the Burns and Allen TV show went through four Harry Mortons, the next-door neighbor. The most famous transition was between Fred Clark and Larry Keating, Mortons number three and four respectively. George Burns interrupts a scene with Clark. He introduces Keating to the audience and explains that he will now be playing the role of Harry Morton. Clark and Keating shake hands; Clark leaves and Keating continues with the scene.
Actually, I think I may have led the discussion awry by dragging in times when one actor went elsewhere and another simply took his place. There's something about a performer dying that puts such changes into another category. It seems to mandate that the character be eliminated and not merely recast. And then it would seem awkward and perhaps disrespectful to merely drop all reference to the departed character, so they usually declare him deceased or say he's moved away.
Either way, it reminds viewers that the real actor, for whom they perhaps had some affection or at least familiarity, is dead. So they have to mourn a second time, and a little genuine grief (or at least, discomfort) invades the otherwise-safe fictional environment. In the realm of comic books, people have even gotten upset when a favorite fictional character has been "killed." It's like, "Why did we need that sadness in our lives?"
I remember that on the original Hollywood Squares game show, they had this situation: When panelist Wally Cox died, there were many episodes taped with him that had yet to air. It would have been ludicrous to not broadcast those shows. Not only would it have been a silly waste of resources but it would have been, in effect, destroying Cox's final work. But game shows — then, more than now — maintain the generally-unspoken fiction that they're live or almost live.
There was the feeling, perhaps correct, that audiences would get confused watching and go, "Hey, I thought Wally Cox had died. What's going on here?" so the producers superimposed the words, "pre-recorded" on the screen whenever Cox was in a solo shot. This clarified things for the more befuddled viewers but reminded all that they were watching a dead person. A lot of people wrote in and said, "You shouldn't air this. Have you no respect for the deceased?" The outpouring was so emotional that later, when Cliff (Charley Weaver) Arquette passed away, the Squares people handled it differently…and still got a lot of that kind of mail.
One presumes the complainers weren't objecting to the broadcast of a television program containing a person who'd passed on. No one writes in and says it's wrong to show I Love Lucy since Lucy, Desi, Bill and Viv have all joined the choir invisibule. But in the context of something current, it unnerved some people. A lot of them said, in effect, "Hey, we watch that kind of TV show to forget about death. If we want that, we'll watch the news."
When a show kills off a major character like McLean Stevenson's on M*A*S*H or John Amos's on Good Times, such sentiments are voiced. Even though no one actually died, there's always mail that says, "I'm still getting over my father's death. Why did you have to put me through another round of mourning?" It's not the cast change that bothers people. It's the issue of death. They get enough of it in real life, they say. Why have it when it isn't necessary?
I don't think that's a terrible question. Sometimes, as in M*A*S*H, killing a major character may be a sound creative decision. M*A*S*H, after all, was about war and it would have been hokey if no one died or if only day players died. I think on Good Times, Amos quit and for a time, the character was simply away, working on an Alaskan pipeline or something. Finally though, the producers felt that making it a show about a family with a deceased father was a better idea than what they had and they explained the absence that way.
Both of these were elective deaths and the actors involved had not died so there was no loss of real human life attached. Fictional characters were dead, not McLean and John. Still, a lot of viewers felt they'd been put through unnecessary emotion. If and when they announce on John Ritter's show that his character died in a car crash or whatever, some of America is going to sit there and really cry for John Ritter…again.
In my earlier discussion of what they'll do, I left out a couple of questions which one hopes the show's writers are given the chance to ask: Will the show work as a show about a family where the father has just died unexpectedly? Would it work better as a show where the father has just been transferred to Greenland so we never see him again? Assuming ABC isn't ready to give up on the series, there's already economic pressure on the show runners to decide they can keep it flying without that character.
They'll probably decide it's a worthy challenge and try, but it won't be the same as saying, "Hey, folks! Here's a new Harry Morton." (Actually, I sometimes wish we had George Burns on every TV show to break the fourth wall, tell us what's going on, and do things like introduce the new actor. But I guess it would just upset people by reminding them that George Burns was dead.)