The Partridge Family is an American musical
television sitcom series starring
Shirley Jones and featuring
David Cassidy.
Jones is a widowed mother, and Cassidy plays the oldest of her five
children who embark on a music career.
It ran from September 25, 1970,
until March 23, 1974, on the
ABC network as part of a Friday-night lineup, and had subsequent runs in
syndication.
The family was loosely based on the real-life musical family
The Cowsills, a popular band in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Premise
The Partridge Family, season 1
In the
pilot episode, a group of musical siblings in the fictitious city of San Pueblo, California (said to be "40 miles from
Napa County" in episode 24,
A Partridge By Any Other Name)
convinces their widowed mother, bank teller Shirley Partridge, to help
them out by singing as they record a pop song in their garage.
Through
the efforts of precocious 10-year-old Danny they find a manager, Reuben
Kincaid, who helps make the song a
Top 40 hit.
After more persuading, Shirley agrees that the family can go on tour.
They acquire an old
school bus, a 1957
Chevrolet Series 6800
Superior, for touring, paint it with
Mondrian-inspired patterns, and head to
Las Vegas, Nevada for their first live gig at
Caesars Palace.
Subsequent episodes usually feature the band performing in various
venues or in their garage.
The shows often contrast suburban life with
the adventures of a show-business family on the road. After the first
season, more of the show's action takes place in their hometown than on
tour.
Background
Created for television by
Bernard Slade, the series' executive producer was Bob Claver.
The show was inspired by and loosely based on
The Cowsills,
[1]
a family pop music group that was famous in the late 1960s.
In the
show's early development, the Cowsill children were considered by the
producers, but because the Cowsills were not trained actors and were too
old for the roles as scripted, Slade and Claver abandoned that idea.
[2]
Shirley Jones had already been signed as mother Shirley Partridge and star of the show.
The pilot was filmed in December 1969.
It differs from the version
that aired in 1970. In the unaired pilot, Shirley's name is "Connie" and
she has a boyfriend played by Jones' real-life husband at the time,
Jack Cassidy, father of
David Cassidy.
Laurie mentions her late father once getting drunk at a Christmas
party, and the family has a different address. This unaired pilot is
unavailable on home video.
Shortly after the series ended, scriptwriter Roberta Tatum launched a
lawsuit against Screen Gems concerning the creation of the show.
Tatum
claimed that she had submitted a similar premise to Screen Gems prior to
1970 called
Baker's Half-Dozen.
The matter was resolved out of court, with Tatum receiving a reported $150,000 from Screen Gems.
[3]
The Partridge Family, season 1
Cast and characters
- Shirley Jones as Shirley Partridge: vocals, keyboards, tambourine, percussion
- David Cassidy as Keith Partridge: lead vocals, rhythm guitar, electric lead guitars, banjo
- Susan Dey as Laurie Partridge: vocals, harmony, piano, Hammond organ, percussion
- Danny Bonaduce as Danny Partridge: vocals, bass guitar
- Jeremy Gelbwaks as Chris Partridge (season 1): vocals, drums
- Brian Forster as Chris Partridge (seasons 2–4): vocals, drums
- Suzanne Crough as Tracy Partridge: tambourine, percussion
- Dave Madden as Reuben Kincaid: band manager
- Ricky Segall as Ricky Stevens (season 4): singer
Notable guest stars
During its four-season run, many actors made guest appearances on the show. Some of them were known at the time, such as
Morey Amsterdam,
John Astin,
Carl Ballantine,
Edgar Buchanan,
Dick Clark (who later hosted
The Other Half from 2001 to 2003 with Danny Bonaduce),
Jackie Coogan,
Howard Cosell,
Jodie Foster,
Ned Glass,
James Gregory,
Margaret Hamilton,
Pat Harrington, Jr.,
Arte Johnson,
Harvey Lembeck,
Harry Morgan,
Slim Pickens,
Richard Pryor,
Barbara Rhoades,
William Schallert,
Nita Talbot,
Larry Wilcox,
Dick Wilson, and
William Windom.
Others would later become famous in other roles, such as
Meredith Baxter,
Richard Bull,
Bert Convy,
Farrah Fawcett,
Norman Fell,
Tony Geary,
Louis Gossett, Jr.,
Harold Gould,
Jackie Earle Haley,
Mark Hamill,
Ann Jillian,
Gordon Jump,
Cheryl Ladd,
William Lucking,
Stuart Margolin,
Richard Mulligan,
Michael Ontkean,
Noam Pitlik,
Annette O'Toole,
Charlotte Rae,
Rob Reiner,
Jack Riley,
Jaclyn Smith,
Vic Tayback,
Nancy Walker, and
Frank Welker.
The Partridge Family, season 3
Country singer
Johnny Cash made a
cameo appearance in the pilot episode.
Ray Bolger played Shirley's father in three episodes, and
Rosemary DeCamp played Shirley's mother in four episodes.
[4][5]
Then-Governor
Ronald Reagan's daughter,
Maureen Reagan, was also featured in one episode. Future
Charlie's Angels stars,
Jaclyn Smith,
Farrah Fawcett and
Cheryl Ladd all made guest appearances on separate episodes.
Bobby Sherman
appeared in episode 25 (the last episode of the first season) as
struggling songwriter Bobby Conway; this episode led into a short-lived
spinoff series on
ABC,
Getting Together, starring Sherman and Wes Stern as Bobby Conway's business partner Lionel Poindexter.
Episodes
Shirley Jones and Ricky Segall, season 4
Production
At the end of the first season, Jeremy Gelbwaks' family moved out of
the Los Angeles area, and the part of Chris was recast with actor
Brian Forster.
According to David Cassidy, Gelbwaks "had a personality conflict with every person in the cast and the producers".
[6]
A dog named "Simone" was featured in the first season, but was phased
out during the second season. At the beginning of the fourth season, a
four-year-old neighbor named Ricky Stevens (Ricky Segall) was featured
and would sing a children's song during each episode, but was dropped
mid-season.
Music
Led by music producer
Wes Farrell, a group of hired studio musicians (informally referred to as the
Wrecking Crew)
actually created the Partridge Family's sound.
The harmonious
background vocalists were brothers John and Tom Bahler, Jackie Ward, and
Ron Hicklin (initially the
Ron Hicklin Singers).
David Cassidy was originally to
lip sync
with the rest of the cast, but he convinced Farrell just weeks into
production that he could sing and was allowed to join the studio
ensemble as the lead singer.
[7]
The Partridge Family Theme, shown over opening credits, underwent
more than one incarnation. Season 1 episodes feature the song "When
We're Singin'", which was replaced in subsequent seasons with "C'mon Get
Happy".
"Five of us, and Mom working all day,
we knew we could help her if our music would pay,
Danny got Reuben to sell our song, and it really
came together when Mom sang along..." (from "When We're Singin'")
Later, when the new version appeared, it featured new lyrics sung to
the "When We're Singin'" tune. With the new chorus finalized, "C'mon Get
Happy" showcased the new verse:
"We had a dream, we'd go travelin' together,
We'd spread a little lovin' then we'd keep movin' on.
Somethin' always happens whenever we're together
We get a happy feelin' when we're singing a song..." (from "C'Mon Get Happy")
David Cassidy Rolling Stone interview
In the midst of his rise to fame, David Cassidy soon felt stifled by
the show and trapped by the mass hysteria surrounding his every move.
[8]
In May 1972, he appeared nude on the cover of
Rolling Stone magazine in a cropped
Annie Leibovitz photo.
He used the article to get away from his squeaky clean image.
[9]
Amongst other things, the article mentions Cassidy was riding around New York in the back of a car "
stoned and drunk."
[10]
Broadcast history
For its final season, ABC moved the show from its 8:30 pm Friday
night slot (where it rated first in its timeslot) to Saturday at 8:00 pm
(opposite CBS' top-rated
All in the Family, with which it could not compete successfully). After 96 episodes and eight Partridge Family albums, ABC canceled the show.
Ratings
(Households with TV: 62,100,000)
- 1970–1971: No. 26 The Partridge Family ABC Estimated Audience 11,899,800
- 1971–1972: No. 16 The Partridge Family ABC Estimated Audience 14,034,600
- 1972–1973: No. 19 The Partridge Family ABC Estimated Audience 13,348,800
- 1973–1974: Not in the Top 30
Syndication
Nickelodeon featured a run of
The Partridge Family from 1993 to 1994 as part of its
Nick at Nite
lineup.
The network used interviews and commercials featuring cast
members, and created a new version of the bus for promotion.
The show
also aired at various times on
Fox Family,
Ion Television, and
Hallmark Channel.
As of January 2011, it airs on
Antenna TV.
The cast was reunited in the 1990s on
The Arsenio Hall Show and
The Danny Bonaduce Show and were featured on
E! True Hollywood Story,
Biography and VH1's
Behind The Music.
When the digital subchannel Antenna TV premiered in January 2011,
The Partridge Family became one of its offerings through the network's distribution agreement with
Sony Pictures Television (parent company and successor of series producer
Screen Gems).
[11][12][13][14]
Source: Wikipedia.org
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