Why wasn't Redd Foxx's revival show Sanford as good as Sanford and Son?!


Question: I know that Demond Wilson refused to come back to play Lamont because they wouldn't give him the money that he deserved but this show in my opinion was just as good as its predecessor. Okay, so Cal wasn't Lamont but he was still funny in his own way especially with the help of Fred. Adding Aunt Esther to the show should've made the ratings better because with her there were more jokes. I think this show could've ran for at least 4 seasons but those damn Nielsen ratings messed it up. They've done it to a lot of other shows that were good.


Answers: I know that Demond Wilson refused to come back to play Lamont because they wouldn't give him the money that he deserved but this show in my opinion was just as good as its predecessor. Okay, so Cal wasn't Lamont but he was still funny in his own way especially with the help of Fred. Adding Aunt Esther to the show should've made the ratings better because with her there were more jokes. I think this show could've ran for at least 4 seasons but those damn Nielsen ratings messed it up. They've done it to a lot of other shows that were good.

One of the main reasons "Sanford" got made at all was due to Redd Foxx's tax debts (NBC basically threw him a lifeline after he left "Sanford and Son" after its seventh season to start his own variety show on ABC; a retooled version, "The Sanford Arms" with the other series regulars and Teddy Wilson as the Sanford Arms' landlord who moved in Fred's house when he moved home to St. Louis, ran in the 1977-78 season and tanked) and NBC's desire to revive a popular series from the past to help get the network out of the ratings cellar--think the new "Knight Rider" for a recent example of this way of thinking.

Back to "Sanford"...the writing wasn't all that great (the focus of many of the episodes was the on-and-off relationship between Fred and new girlfriend Dee plus the scripts were often a bit off (sometime the stories felt like they were scavenged from rejected draft scripts from other Tandem Productions shows at the time [i.e "The Jeffersons"]...the episode where Fred has a real heart attack after years of "The Big One" is an example of how poor it was). On-and-off scheduling by NBC (and at one point on Saturday nights after "Diff'rent Strokes" as a mid-season fill-in) was no help either.



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