Pruittes of southhampton   Kid's TV Commercials Snoop Sisters on DVD “Carol Fractured Fairy Tales on DVD “Probe
TV Shows on DVD
Commercials on DVD
TV Show ReviewsTV on DVD Reviews
Christmas DVDs
TV DVDs & TV Books

TVparty is Classic TV on the internet!

Pruitts of Southhampton

 

Phyllis Diller ShowsPeter Sampson writes:
"Do you remember a show called The Phyllis Diller Show? What happened to it? I loved it as a kid, but it didn't last very long."

Uh, it went off the air...

The Phyllis Diller Show started the season as The Pruitts of Southampton debuting on September 6, 1966. This show was an ABC sitcom at a time when practically every new series the network put on the air bombed.

"When I was 12," Phyllis Diller once said, "I looked myself in the mirror and said, 'Honey, you're going to have to settle for inner beauty'."

Phyllis DillerHer unusual look didn't stop her from rising through the comedy clubs and into the big rooms of Vegas. Next came a few television appearances and a co-starring role with Bob Hope in two of his successful mid-sixties films. Phyllis Diller was the Rosanne of her day, with one big exception - Phyllis never had a hit series.

'The Pruitts of Southampton' was the story of widowed Phyllis Pruitt, a Long Island socialite who suddenly finds she is flat broke because of unpaid back taxes.

Because of her position in society, the government felt she was 'too big to fail,' so to speak, and allowed her to keep up appearances.

Phyllis Diller photoLeft with only the mansion (actually the exquisit Biltmore House in Asheville, NC, America's largest home, now a major tourist destination) and her Rolls Royce, poor unprepared Phyllis is forced to deal with the real world (and her kitchen appliances) for the very first time.

 

Phyllis Diller in THe Pruittes of SouthhamptonCo-starring Pam Freeman and Lisa Loring as Phyllis' daughters; Grady Sutton (hilarious supporting player in many great W.C.Fields and Mae West movies during the 1930s and '40s) as the butler Sturges who remains to help the hapless housewife; Gypsy Rose Lee as nosy neighbor Regina Wentworth, and Richard Deacon (bald-headed 'Mel' on The Dick Van Dyke Show) as Mr. Baldwin, the unsympathetic IRS agent.

Despite the success of Diller's movies like 'Boy Did I Get A Wrong Number', the series debuted with poor initial ratings. ABC decided that the 'Pruitts of Southhampton' concept was a good one, but the series needed some overhauling.

On January 13th the sitcom was retooled with Marty Ingels, John Astin (The Addams Family), and Billy DeWolfe joining the cast as boarders in the Pruitt mansion.

Typical plot: Phyllis tries to hock the family heirlooms but runs afoul of the IRS in doing so.

The new format was as unsuccessful in the ratings as the first attempt so this very funny series was cancelled with the September 1, 1967 episode.

One year later, in September of 1968, Phyllis Diller tried television again, this time with a variety show called "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show" co-starring Norm Crosby and Rip Taylor. The ratings weren't so beautiful and the show was off the air before Christmas and that was pretty much it for Phyllis Diller's attempts to get a television series off the ground.


Phyllis Diller on TV Thanks to Michael Thom
for the audio capture!

"The Pruitts Of Southampton was actually not a bad show, despite its oft-sited designation as one the greatest TV Turkeys of all time.

"It was on opposite the mighty Red Skelton Hour on CBS and NBC Tuesday Night At The Movies, which was still a big deal back then. ABC wasn't, and this show paid the price. But whatever you think of it, "The Pruitts" had one the best theme songs in the history of the medium.

"It was so good that, 30 years later, I remember every word. It started with Phyllis Diller (PD) skipping/dancing/singing through the mansion, sweeping past Uncle Ned, played by Reginald Gardiner (RG), and the ubiquitous unseen TV theme-song chorus. Tune by Vic Mizzy (The Addams Family, Green Acres)

"And this is how it went:

Phyllis Diller in concertPD: Howcha do howcha do, howcha do my dear
What a LOVELY surprise, nice to see you here.

RG: All the bills have been long over due my dear.

PD: File them under I.O.U...
Howcha do, howcha do, Well HELLO, it's you!
Like my beads, like my dress?
Aren't they marvy-poo?
They belong to the internal revenue.
And they got us eating stew.

CHORUS: The Pruitts of Southampton,
Live like the richest folk,
But what the folk don't know is that
The Pruitts are flat broke!

PD: Howcha do, howcha do, howcha do, my dear

RG: We are out of champagne, and I'm stuck, my dear.

PD: Ask the butler to lend you a buck, my dear.
Howcha do, howcha do, howcha do...

"It's not quite the same without the tune, but you get the idea. It was a great song, but not one of Ms. Diller's favorite memories. In a radio interview with me some years ago, she refused to discuss the show at all, dismissing it with a simple "Oh, THAT thing", and made it clear I should change the topic. I did. But I'd sure love to hear her sing that wonderful old theme one more time. Not to mention see the running gag of the teabag with the patch sewn into it. As Phyllis herself might say, "Fang's" for the memories!"

- Dan Haber
Toronto

Local Kid Shows / Movie Stars on TV / Saturday Morning Shows / Video Vault / TV Goodbyes / Fabulous Fifties / Unseen Scenes / Game Shows / Requested Forgotten TV Shows / The Super Sixties / More Modern TV Shows / The New * * Shows / 1980's Wrestling / TV Blog

TVparty is Classic TV on the internet!
Classic TV on the Internet!

TV's Embarrassing Moments / Action Shows of the Sixties / TVparty Mysteries and Scandals / Variety Shows of the 1970s / The Eighties / The Laugh Track / 1970's Hit Shows / Response to TVparty / Search the Site / Add Your Comments

REQUESTED CLASSIC
TV SHOWS!

The Virginian / Men From Shilo
The Girl with Something Extra
My World And Welcome To It
Nanny & The Professor
The Smith Family
Shazam!
The Sixth Sense
Camp Runamuck
Run Buddy Run
Pistols N Petticoats
The Young Rebels / Lawyers
The Texas Wheelers
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
My Living Doll / Favorite Martian
The Pruitts of Southhampton
Captain Nice & Mr. Terrific
The Ugliest Girl In Town
The Beverly Hillbillies
Saturday Night Live
Shindig! & Hullabaloo
The Mothers-in-Law
Then Came Bronson
Holmes and Yo-Yo

James Garner as Nichols
Playboy After Dark
A Touch of Grace
Blue Coronet
Second Hundred Years
The New People
McKeever and the Colonel
The Rockford Files
My Mother The Car
Get Christy Love
The Magician
The Persuaders
It's About Time
Reverend Ike
Family Affair
The Gong Show
He and She
Hootenanny
Honey West
Amanda's
Way Out
Bearcats
Quark
Shaft
Hank

Requested Forgotten television Shows!
Classic TV Commercials / 1950's TV / 1960's TV / Punk Book / / 1970's TV / Groucho vs William F Buckley / / TV Games / Honey Boo Boo / Lucy Shows / Classic Cars / John Wayne / Gene Roddenberry / Rockford Files / Sea Hunt / Superman on DVD / Toy Gun Ads / Flip Wilson Show / Big Blue Marble / Monty Hall / Carrascolendas / Mr. Dressup / Major Mudd / Chief Halftown / Baby Daphne / Sheriff John / Winchell & Mahoney / Fireball X-L5 / Mr. Wizard / Captain Noah / Thanksgiving Day Specials / Disney's First Christmas Special / Saturday Morning Cartoons / The Magic Garden / Amahl & the Night Visitors / Holiday Toy Commercials / Lucy & Desi's Last Christmas Show / Joey Heatherton / Fat Albert / The Virginian / Bewitched / Death of John Wayne / 1974 Saturday Mornings / Chuck McCann / Rudolph Collectables / Shrimpenstein / Local Popeye Shows / New Treasure Hunt / 1966 ABC TV Shows / 1967 TV Shows / 1968 TV Shows / Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes & Baby Doll / Fridays / TV Moms / Red Skelton / Star Wars / KISS / Lancelot Link / Saturday Morning Cartoons / The Magic Garden / Wonder Woman / Classic Comic Books / Andy Griffith / Cher / TV Shows on DVD / Outtakes & Bloopers / 1967 TV Shows / Romper Room / ABC Movie of the Week / The Goldbergs / Daws Butler Commercials / Saturday Morning Commercials / Captain Kangaroo / Chicago Local Kiddie Shows / Boston Local TV / Philly Local TV / NYC Local Kid Shows / Amos 'n' Andy / Electric Company / Bette Davis / Judy Garland / Christmas Specials / Redd Foxx / Good Times / Sitcom Houses / The Oldest Italianate Architecture in the United States / What's Happening! / Winky Dink & You / big brotherSonny & Cher / Smothers Brothers / Commercial Icons of the 1960s / Soupy Sales / The Carpenters / Route 66 / Bozo / The Carpenters Christmas Specials / Local Kid Shows / Death of TV's Superman / Wonderama / Sesame Street / Bob Hope Specials / Little Rascals / 1980's Retro Gay T-Shirts / 1980's TV Wrestling / Fess Parker / Howdy Doody / TV Blog / Lost In Space / Pinky Lee / 1980's LA Punk Rock / Alex Toth Book / TV Terrorists / Irwin Allen / The Untouchables / Carol Burnett Show / Batman TV Show / Green Hornet / Today Show History / Our Gang / Doris Day Show / 1970's Commercials For Women / Bill Cosby in the 1970s / The Golddiggers / Lola Falana / 1970s TV Shows / David Bowie on TV / Hudson Brothers / Jackie Gleason / Hollywood Squares / Match Game / Bob Keeshan / Gumby / The Flip Wilson Show / Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour / The Bobby Darin Show / The Richard Pryor Show / George Burns / Lucy's Lost Christmas Special / Classic Christmas Toy Commercials / Cricket On The Hearth / 1950's Holiday Shows / Amahl and the Night Visitors / A Christmas Carol on TV / The Yule Log / Celebrity Commercials / Rudolph / Movie Posters & More!

Classic TV Superman on DVD “The Soupy Sales Show on DVD The Fugitive on DVD cartoons on DVD Lancelot Link Secret Chimp on DVD Fractured Fairy Tales on DVD