On this day, in 2002, the cover of Broadcasting & Cable Magazine featured this photograph:
The cover seems only to be justified by two sentences in the whole magazine. Here’s the first:
NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker is “very high” on a pilot starring Chevy Chase he describes as an updated My Three Sons, “only it’s my three daughters.”
And here’s the second:
Good Morning, Miami managed to last 39 episodes over two season. And there’s yet another attempt to make a sitcom from Animal House, nearly 25 years later (more here).
The Chevy Chase project doesn’t appear to have been picked up, but the pilot was shot. I know this, because one of the actors who appeared in it has posted this clip online.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AL21vDLsU
The only other mention of the show in B&C comes a month later.
A comedy with Chevy Chase also has a good shot at making the new lineup.
But that’s it.
Variety were reporting on the show in December of 2001, in their usual weird house-style.
Chevy Chase is going back to his comedy roots, teaming with former “Saturday Night Live” boss Lorne Michaels to develop a half-hour laffer for NBC.
Chase will star as a modern-day Fred MacMurray, playing father to three teenage daughters in a twist on the classic 1960s laffer “My Three Sons.” Rick Dresser and Tom Leopold (“Madigan Men”) will co-create and exec produce the NBC Studios/Broadway Video project.
Chase and Michaels are also expected to serve as exec producers on the potential skein, targeted for fall 2002. Deal for the project is still being hammered out, but NBC is expected to make a premium script commitment to the concept.
Best known for his “SNL” work and feature pics such as “Fletch,” “Caddyshack” and the “Vacation” series, Chase also hosted a short-lived Fox latenight talker. Last year, he developed a half-hour comedy through Artists Television Group.
So clearly Chase was trying to get a sitcom off the ground somewhere during this time.
Not for the first time either.
There’s an intriguing entry on his television credits list on Wikipedia which just says ‘Untitled Dan Aykroyd Project‘, listed as a pilot, with his character being called Adin A. Oss. Anyone know what this is?
The only Aykroyd TV project I can find is this:
At a press conference two weeks ago, Kim LeMasters, president, CBS Entertainment, acknowledged that his network’s comedy development in a number of instances was unsuccessful. For example, Eddie Murphy Television Enterprises’ pilot, Coming to America, which the network had high hopes for, failed to make the final cut. The network had commissioned a comedy pilot from actor -producer Dan Aykroyd, Mars: Base One, which also didn’t pan out.
(Broadcasting Magazine, 29th May 1989)
Lee Goldberg describes the pilot in his excellent book Unsold TV Pilots: The Greatest Shows You Never Saw:
The misadventures, a la The Jetsons, of a family adjusting to life on Mars, where they live next door to a Soviet technician and his American stripper wife. The 1988 Writers Guild strike forced production of the pilot – and any serious consideration of it for the network schedule – to be put on the back burner.
Just look at how many sitcom projects used to get developed:
