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IT’S IN MY CONTRACT

Fred MacMurray

In 1960, TV producers approached film star MacMurray with My Three Sons—a sitcom about a widower and his three sons. MacMurray liked the script and the concept, but he didn’t want to give up his movie career, and he figured that if he were on a weekly TV series, which shot around 30 episodes a year, he’d have no time left for films. Amazingly, the producers were willing to work around his schedule. During the 1960–72 run of the show, MacMurray would film all of his scenes for the entire year over a 65-day period. He was then free to make movies, which included The Apartment, The Absent-Minded Professor, its sequel Son of Flubber, and The Happiest Millionaire.

Richard Simmons once appeared as a dancing meatball in an Italian TV commercial.

SCANDAL ON THE SET

Laverne & Shirley stars Penny Marshall (Laverne) and Cindy Williams (Shirley) often clashed over minor things—such as which actress had more lines in an episode or the most square footage in her dressing room. As the series continued its seven-year run (1976–83), Williams became increasingly resentful of the power she felt Marshall wielded. (Marshall’s brother, Garry Marshall, had created the series.) The feud finally peaked in 1982, when Williams walked off the set, claiming that producers were using her real-life pregnancy to force her out. She filed a $20 million lawsuit that was later settled out of court. That also meant that the final season of Laverne & Shirley didn’t have Shirley in it.

In 11 years of operation (1995–2006), UPN never made a profit, and lost more than $1 billion.

ONLY ON TV

* If a woman is pregnant and suddenly stuck in a confined space (elevator, taxi, etc.), she’ll give birth immediately.

  * If a woman is pregnant and does make it to a hospital, it will take hours or even days to deliver the child, during which she will yell, scream, and hurl insults at the man “who did this to her.”

  * Kids who get caught lying or screwing up something up are not punished; they are praised for telling the truth.

  * Grandmas act “young”—they know the new slang, the famous people, and have dates lined up for every night of the week.

The most popular American show in Ukraine: ALF.