“Happy Days” are here again. So are “One Day at a Time,” "Murphy Brown," "Knots Landing," "Growing Pains" and "Newhart."
It’s all courtesy of the TODAY Show, which brings the casts of these classic television shows together again beginning on Saturday, Feb. 23, and continuing through Friday, Feb. 29.
The series, called “Together Again,” begins on Saturday with the cast of “Growing Pains,” which ran from 1985-92 and followed the life of the Seaver family, headed by Alan Thicke as Long Island psychiatrist and stay-at-home dad Dr. Jason Seaver.
Thicke will be among the cast members who will be interviewed by Amy Robach on Weekend Today along with Kirk Cameron, who played the family troublemaker, Mike; Tracey Gold, who was Carol, the family honor student; Jeremy Miller, who played Ben; and Joanna Kerns, who played Maggie Malone-Seaver, journalist and mother.
On Sunday, the cast of “Newhart” will reunite for the first time since the series ended its nine-year run in 1990. Bob Newhart, who played Dick Loudon, the laconic self-help book author who moved to Vermont and bought the Stratford Inn, heads the group. Also returning are Julia Duffy, the spoiled rich girl who gave new meaning to “dumb blonde” as maid Stephanie Vanderkellen; Peter Scolari, who played Michael Harris, the small-town TV producer who marries Stephanie; and William Sanderson, Tony Papenfuss and John Voldstad, better known as Larry, his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl. Mary Frann, who played Loudon’s wife, Joanna, died in 1998, and Tom Poston, who played the slow-witted handyman George Utley died in 2007.
On Monday’s TODAY Show, it will be Richie Cunningham, the Fonz, Mr. C., Mrs. C., Joanie, Ralph Malph and Potsie (Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, Tom Bosley, Marion Ross, Erin Moran, Don Most and Anson Williams, respectively), bringing “Happy Days” to New York 24 years after the show ended its 11-year run in 1984.
Re-creating the innocent days of the 1950s and early 1960s, the show made a star of Winkler and brought Howard back to stardom after his first success as a child actor playing Opie on “The Andy Griffith Show.” It also introduced prime-time audiences to Robin Williams as Mork from the planet Ork and spawned the spin-off sitcoms “Mork and Mindy,” “Laverne and Shirley” and “Joanie Loves Chachi.”
On Tuesday “Together Again” takes it “One Day at a Time,” which ran for 10 years ending in 1984. Bonnie Franklin played Ann Romano, who divorced her husband and moved to Indianapolis to raise her teenage daughters, Julie and Barbara, played by Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli. Joining them for the live interview will be Pat Harrington, who played Dwayne Schneider, the building superintendent who was always showing up at the door and hitting on Ann.
The show was a sitcom, but it wasn’t all laughs, taking on such issues as teen suicide, birth control, premarital sex and sexual harassment.
On Wednesday, the archetypical woman of the ’90s, “Murphy Brown” is the featured show. Candice Bergen, who played the recovering-alcoholic television anchor and title character, will be reunited with cast members Faith Ford, Charles Kimbrough and Joe Regalbuto. Ford played Corky Sherwood, the ditzy former Miss America; Kimbrough was Jim Dial, the classic full-of-himself anchor; Regalbuto was the toupee-topped reporter.
“Murphy Brown” became a political issue during the 1992 presidential campaign when Brown had a baby without the benefit of having a husband. Vice President Dan Quayle used the plotline as an example of what was wrong with America, and the show mined it for laughs. The show ran from 1988-98.
The prime-time soap opera “Knots Landing” takes the stage on Thursday, with cast members Michele Lee, who starred as Karen Fairgate MacKenzie; Joan Van Ark, who reprised her role as Val Ewing in “Dallas” for the show; and Donna Mills, who played Abby Fairgate. “Knots Landing ran for 15 years, the second-longest running prime-time drama after “Gunsmoke,” before finally signing off in 1993.
Although the show was a spin-off of “Dallas,” its basic concept was taken from the Ingmar Berman film “Scenes from a Marriage.”
“Together Again” will conclude on Friday, Feb. 29, with the cast of a show that will be announced during the week.