I remember the summer 1968 promotions for the upcoming fall TV shows that would start premiering for the most part in September, the ABC tag & promo theme for 1968 was very typical of the times, a slow, hip & romantic "Come this September - this is the place to be, hey - very special - this is the place to be, come this September - this is the place to be - on ABC, on ABC!" followed by a one minuet promotion for whatever they were promoting for that minute - the HCTB promo was a fast, sassy & raucous compilation of soundbites from the first three episodes all nicely edited together for it's ABC promotion - it was maybe the only show that upcoming new season that i couldn't wait to finally see. Initially, I was a little let down because from the first episode, it seemed to be made for girls - very mushy, not so snappy & sassy as advertised, but maybe because I was a budding homosexual, I was very interested in, of all people, "Lottie" (Joan Blondell) but mostly because I was very smitten with "Jeremy" (Bobby Sherman). I watched religiously every Wednesday that first season.
Over the first 15 episodes, there were noticeable changes made to the show, written out were "Big Swede & Essie" (Bo Svenson & Mitzi Hoag though she returned once or twice as someone else each time), their story line was never mentioned again, 2 minor characters became regulars "Captain Clancey" (Henry Beckman) & "Biddie Cloom" (SusanTolsky), Jeremy's endearing stutter was explained away, poorly recorded lyrics/vocals by the "New Establishment" were dubbed over the existing theme music - it did not mesh well, but girls, for some reason, loved it while most males preferred the excellent original instrumental version and one of the most exciting changes was (to me) the new screen stills of the characters edited into the new musical arrangement - originally "Jason", "Jeremy & Joshua", "Candy & Aaron" & "Lottie" - the new theme brought big changes - "Jason", "Jeremy", "Joshua & Candy", "Aaron", "Clancey & Biddie" and "Lottie"! That's how it stayed for the rest of the season and all of the second season. It was an enjoyable but not great hour of TV. As a kid back then, I did not pay much attention to the network statistics of the show, but did know that it killed CBS's former top 10 series "Daktari" (with help of course from NBC's top 15 series "The Virginian") - the former hit series was a early mid season cancellation, very embarrassing for any show whether it tanked from the get-go but most especially since it had been such a hit, regardless of that accomplishment, HCTB was never in the top 30 - but Bobby Sherman was on fire as a teen idol - it didn't make sense to me , until I got my first job/career in casting & later a producer during the 1980's, suddenly everything fell in place - I got all the gossip from the pro's that they were from back in the day - the first big challenge the show had was CBS & NBC were not interested in it, in fact, CBS wouldn't even watch the pilot, some executives from NBC recall watching half the pilot and walking out, ABC on the other hand, who had a good relationship with SCREEN-GEMS, liked it enough but asked them to get rid of Lottie, Big Swede & Essie, reedit the pilot and bring it back for our decision, it was hashed out that Lottie would be recast with a big name saving the character and it was argued that Swede & Essie would be gone by mid season. Finally, ABC agreed to pitch the series to their affiliates, nearly 25% refused to broadcast such filth but the remaining 75% were willing to give it a go - the main objection by the affiliates was that the real life events that the series was depicting were not sweet & innocent and in real life many facets went wrong in transferring the women to Seattle, including prostitution, death and missing women. When the credits for the opening were rearranged mid season, they added Henry & Susan but the sore spot to David Soul was Bobby Sherman being promoted to his own screen and he (David) being demoted to third screen with Bridget - he was not kind to BS for the duration of the show but always professional on set, in private, he ridiculed BS for being gay and didn't understand how he could become such a huge teen idol - all the teen magazines said everyone was friends and got along great. One of the #1 one questions week after week was who is BS dating, will he get married and so on, DS went on rages with his personnel friends and work mates over all the attention given to BS because "he's a fag - I don't get it!" This toxic animosity rolled over into the second season, everyone knew about it but the set was always professional, BS actually kept a fair distance from everyone, especially DS, if he was close/friendly with any cast mate it was Joan, the rest were always purely professional. When BS's teen idolism began to fade he married and had two sons, but DS was going to put an end to that facade and moved in on his wife (Patty), he won her over, married her then beat her. There is all kinds of little bits of trivia on the private life of BS and the hatred between BS & DS, about the show not doing as well as it could have but the bottom line is back in the day - it was a fine hour for kids, in spite of what was really happening on set or what had really happened to the real people who lived the real event it was based on. Enjoy! :)
Review of Here Come the Brides
