WLS Channel 7 - America 2100 (Complete Pilot, 1979)
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- Here's the full episode of another failed pilot, America 2100, which aired over WLS Channel 7. In its theme, it was a forerunner to such shows as Futurama, plus being in the vein of Woody Allen's comedy "Sleeper."
The premise (such as it is): Two down-on-their luck comedians, Chester Barnes (Jon Cutler) and Phil Keese (Mark King) are freezing to death in a Fargo, ND hotel, and in trying to keep warm, end up both asphyxiated to death and then cryogenically frozen - leading to a state of suspended animation for the next 120 years, after which they find themselves in outer space in a community controlled by a computer, MAX (Sid Caesar), in which children are assigned jobs at age 6; and dealing with Dr. Karen Harland (Karen Valentine, ex Room 222) who tries to orient them towards 22nd-century ways while they try to teach her about how life was in the 20th century.
Some commercial breaks are deleted.
Includes:
Station ID with Fahey Flynn previewing Eyewitness News at 10pm
Preemption notice for Laverne & Shirley, with clip thereof (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)
Prologue with setup of show premise, and opening titles with credits:
Executive Producers: Austin Kalish and Irma Kalish
Cut directly to Act I, with opening credits:
Produced By Gary Menteer
Written By Mark Rothman & Lowell Ganz
Directed By Joel Zwick
Commercial: Freshen-Up gum
Commercial: Ken-L Ration Tender Chunks dog food - with James Whitmore
Promos for Eight Is Enough for Wednesday at 8:00pm (7:00pm Central) and for Mork & Mindy and Laverne & Shirley beginning Thursday at 8:00pm (7:00pm Central) (voiceover by Ernie Anderson) (ending voiceover by Wally Parker)
Animated ABC ID with lower-third WLS ID
Act II, which sees Dr. Harland coaxed into fancy hoofing (and our boys escaping another pickle)
Ending credits (after main cast) with voiceover promo (by Wally Parker) for Eight Is Enough for Wednesday at 8:00pm (7:00pm Central) and for Mork & Mindy and Laverne & Shirley for Thursday starting at 8:00pm (7:00pm Central), and coming up - Three's Company:
Supervising Producer - Don Silverman
Associate Producer - Stephen Cragg
Director of Photography - Meredith Nicholson, A.S.C.
Art Director - John Vallone
Film Editor - Douglas Hines, A.C.E.
Unit Production Manager - Norm Gray
Assistant Director - Bob Graner
Second Assistant Director - Don Buccola
Set Decorator - Rich Reams
Technical Coordinator - Phil Perez
Script Supervisor - Dorothy Aldworth
Assistant to Austin & Irma Kalish - Nancy Rogow
Costumes Designed by Al Lehman
Women's Costumer - Justine Brady
Men's Costumer - Bob Campbell
Make-up - John M. Elliott
Hair Stylist - Charlene Johnson
Music Editor - Chips Swanson
Sound Editor - Bruce W. Schoengarth
Recorded by Glen Glenn Sound
Casting by The Ellison/Gartzman Company
Music by Jonathan Tunick
Copyright (C) MCMLXXIX by Paramount Pictures Corporation - All Rights Reserved
Arim Productions, Inc.
In Association With
Paramount Television - A Gulf + Western Company
ABC "Still the One!" promo with key stars including Dick Van Patten of Eight Is Enough, Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams of Laverne & Shirley, and Henry Winkler of Happy Days, up in the air in inflatable balloons (ending voiceover by Ernie Anderson)
This aired on local Chicago TV on Tuesday, July 24th 1979 during the 7:30pm to 8:00pm timeframe. [Trivia Note: The T.V. Show - another failed pilot, which was witness to the birth of the faux rock group Spinal Tap, aired later that same night.]
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The Museum of Classic Chicago Television's primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s and early 80s, primarily) recorded off of any and all Chicago TV channels; footage which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical purposes. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to DVD, and to view more of the 4,700+ (and counting) video clips available for viewing in our online archive, please visit us at:
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I have been searching for this for literally decades. I spent years just trying to get the title. Thank you so much for posting this!
*omg, i was too... i remember watching it on ABC7 when i was 9 years old... it was horrible, but hillarious...😆🤖⚡💊😵💫😵🛸
Thanks for posting this forgotten relic from the summer of 1979. I tuned in to it as a kid primarily because I liked Karen Valentine in those days. It's a nostalgic trip to watch this again even though the comedy is bad. There's a reason why most pilots never get picked up. This is probably what Mork & Mindy would have looked like without Robin Williams' improvisational genius.
I remember watching this pilot episode. I was 15 when this aired, and I was into watching Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century at the time as well. I had hoped that I would find a copy of this, but no luck. Now I find it on youtube and in the 21st century no less. I was disappointed that it was cancelled right after. Thanks for the posting.
I remember this unsold pilot very well. I must have been 11 or 12. Yet, I'm always happy when I can relive my youth and old memories with videos like this one. Thanks lots for posting!!
Thanks for posting--I've been searching for this for years! I had made an audio tape of the show when it aired and listened to it many times, but then lost the tape. I was beginning to wonder if my memory was faulty.
Finally! I remember this and it's stuck with me! I thought I was the only one that remembered it! Thank you so much for posting this!
How I remembered this show I'll never know! I was 8 when it aired, and now I'm 51 and finally thought, hey the internet should have the answer. And it did! 43 years I searched, sort of lol
Aw shit. I liked that show. Never saw this pilot.
And Karen Valentine was always a childhood crush.
"America 2100" was up against the second half of a documentary ("Blacks in America") on CBS and the second half of a drama/anthology series, "The Runaways" on NBC. It finished #16 in the ratings that week, nestled in-between "Happy Days" (#13) and "Three's Company" (#1!). But the pilot didn't sell.
It's amazing that after 120 years, they never aged or needed a haircut.
Or shave
They were frozen
To bad it didn't become a series. I would have watched.
It was a head of it's time, so to speak. ✨
Hey, Oct. 16, 2100... my 135th birthday! I hope my retirement savings can last that long.
Futrureama is one of my favorites of all time, I'm stunned that I haven't heard of this!
That opening shot of the back street - wasn't that area later used for the "Police Squad!" TV series?
The show's composer, Jonathan Tunick, was a renowned orchestrator of Broadway shows (mostly notably his signature settings of the music of Stephen Sondheim); this screwball sit-com seems something of a departure for him. As for the show itself, it is one of those singular anomalies remembered, it seems, by only a handful of people of a certain age (somewhere in the 10-17 bracket) whose craving in the 70s for ANYTHING futuristic and who had the luck of having 'nothing to do' in July 1979 and were drawn by the week of ads leading up to the broadcast to watch the show. I recall seeing the ads and recognizing it was a sit-com but still coming away from it - even at 12 - disappointed, thinking there would be more to it (by this I mean more sets and more stock footage of futuristic cities cribbed from other films and shows). Ultimately it was one of those things you weren't even sure actually existed: even if you had the guts to mention it, no one seemed to know what you were talking about. Maybe it was all false memory. But no: here, here is the proof. Geek moment: correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that building outside Valentine's apartment Sandman Headquarters from 'Logan's Run'? (not the short-lived series - which I believe was a CBS show - but the MGM film). I remember thinking that then, as now...check out the scene where Jessica arrives at Logan's apartment via 'the (sex) circuit' - the view out the window is a dead ringer, except the building is somewhat more distant.
Can't imagine that the 22nd Century still smacks of the 1970's. Guess Futurama had to have gotten its inspiration somewhere.
I knew I didn't make this up. I remember watching this but can't find it in any lists of failed pilots or rare TV.
26:12- The "Second Assistant Director', Don Buccola, was originally the director of the syndicated series, "CELEBRITY BOWLING".
I remember this, sort of a low grade Sleeper.
I actually remember this. Perhaps it was the inspiration for Futurama, who knows? Did have some elements of Woody Allen's Sleeper as well. A guy from the past tries to challenge the authoritarian state they live in. If this show had been picked up, I wonder if that's the direction it would have taken. I guess we'll never know.
Too bad this didn't become a series.
Poor Karen Valentine. After the less-than-memorable "Room 222", it was one busted pilot after another. At least she got good ratings with this one (was shown in between "Happy Days" and "Three's Company").
Thanks to everyone who posts these great old unsold pilots. I'll take these over the Norman Lear trash any day.
Karen Valentine did lots of things she had a pretty good tv career. She did lots of made for tv movies, Love Boat, Love American Style etc. Also, Room 222 was a popular series. It ran for 5 years and KV won an Emmy for it.
I guess this 1970's TV show did know the future, after all. Ranger Bob is from 1989 MTV"s Remote control.
I searched for this after going through an old TV Guide I picked up with "BJ and the Bear" on the cover! Very Funny! Could make for a great premise even today! Man, I had it bad for Karen Valentine! Remember "Room 222"!
I'm another one who remembers this. Practically remember every word Karen Valentine said.
When it got to the "you got to do what you are told you are designated" I stopped watching. Fun being a teen ager.
The "future" still looks like 1979 to me. That sunken living room!
Who knows, perhaps that "sunken living room" made a comeback by 2100. LOL
This was not a bad pilot - perhaps ABC was looking for a Scifi comedy that might be matched with "Mork and Mindy"?
ABC matched "Mork & Mindy" with "The Associates" (lawyer comedy) and then "Benson" ("Soap" spinoff), so I don't think that was the reason. They had better sitcom pilots that year that they also didn't order to series.
I don’t ever remember this as a kid.
Karen Valentine. Can't be bad. Kinda tastes like Futurama, though.
I suppose it was ahead of its time in that respect.
From writers of Laverne & Shirley and The Odd Couple.
Boy that Freshen Up commercial didn't age well with the Native American community. heh
Find the commercial interesting about Laverne and Shirley’s terrible mine to Thursday’s. Wonder why this move failed.
Too bad that person didn't also tape the Spinal Tap show. Granted, I would have been more interested in the sci-fi show myself, if I'd been old enough in 1979 (I was just a year old), but it would have been interesting for posterity to have the other show too.
How stupid was that, the " star " of the show and the star of the commercial have the same name...and neither is human.
I guess I missed this show, but then, everything about it says flimsy. Flimsy concept, flimsy writing, and flimsy sets and costumes. I remember Austin and Irma Kalish as creators/producers of other tv shows, but I can't think of which ones off hand. Different Strokes?
This is about on par with a lot of mid-late 70s tv, and with everyone referencing Futurama I have to think this might have worked better as an animated series. Too bad audiences wouldn't have bought that concept either.
Who did Max's Jewish voice?
I thought it was Sid Caesar.
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