“Betty, White Hot!” a series of periodic flashbacks to key moments in Betty White’s amazing television career, continues.
On September 16, 1995, Betty White briefly returned to Saturday night television in the ABC sitcom “Maybe This Time.”
The actress was a Saturday evening favorite on CBS’s “Mary Tyler Moore Show” in the ’70s and NBC’s “The Golden Girls” in the ’80s and ’90s.
On “Maybe This Time,” she played Shirley Wallace, a still-lusty five-time widow who lived with sensible daughter Julia (Marie Osmond), a recent divorcee, and Julia’s 12-year-old granddaughter Gracie (Ashley Johnson), above the family-owned coffeehouse.
Shirley was not unlike Sue Ann Nivens, White’s man-hungry “MTM” character: In the first episode of “Maybe This Time,” she dons a sex-fantasy costume to secure a favorable lease renewal from the coffeehouse’s dirty old coot of a landlord.
Critics declared White the best part of the show, which they otherwise despised.
“‘Maybe This Time’ is offensively routine,” wrote the Los Angeles Times’s Howard Rosenberg. “Osmond doesn’t offer much, nor does the entire premiere beyond the skilled veteran White, who could get through this kind of sitcom in her sleep. Unfortunately, so could viewers.”
He added that without White, “‘Maybe This Time’ would be maybe dead. Even with her – as always, White’s effortless way with mildly risque gags is a primer on comic timing – its pulse is weak.”
USA Today’s Matt Roush called White “always easy to watch even when sinking in colorless quicksand.”
The Washington Post’s Tom Shales – usually one of White’s champions – praised with faint damnation: “White is nothing if not the reliable pro, but ‘Maybe This Time’ is just weak enough to make her look kind of sorrowful, as if she simply cannot bear to be off television.”
ABC wasn’t happy with the show’s first pilot, so the network reshot it, adding Amy Hill – Margaret Cho’s sassy grandmother during the previous season’s “All-American Girl” – as bossy pawnshop owner Kay Ohara.
Other cast members included Craig Ferguson as Logan McDonough, a Scottish baker who worked for Julia and Shirley at the coffeehouse, and American standup comic Dane Cook, who joined the show midway through its run as Kyle, another employee.
The series was created and produced by sitcom veteran Michael Jacobs, who set it in the same “universe” as one of his other ABC series, “Boy Meets World;” in one “Maybe This Time” episode, Ben Savage and Rider Strong appeared as their “Boy Meets World” characters.
“Maybe This Time” debuted on September 15, 1995, with a special “preview” episode that aired after a “Step by Step” rerun in ABC’s “T.G.I.F.” lineup; “Maybe” was seen in about 11.7 million homes, ranking 21st for the week.
The series moved to its regular Saturday slot the next evening, dropping to 8.2 million homes and 49th place. ABC cancelled it in February 1996.
“Maybe This Time” was one of several short-lived ’90s sitcoms that featured White.
She reprised her most famous sitcom role, Rose Nylund, on “The Golden Palace,” a sequel to NBC’s “The Golden Girls” that CBS aired from 1992 to 1993.
In addition, White regularly guest starred during the abbreviated second season of CBS’s failed Bob Newhart vehicle, “Bob,” as Sylvia Schmidt, the owner of the greeting card company where Newhart’s character worked.
From 1999 until 2001, White portrayed mother-in-law Mitzi Stiles on “Ladies Man,” CBS’s attempt to turn British actor Alfred Molina into a sitcom star.
“Maybe This Time” may be little more than a footnote in White’s storied career, but the show did introduce her to Ferguson, who now hosts CBS’s “Late Late Show,” where White is a favorite guest.
The next “Betty, White Hot!” installment will be posted Saturday.
Also on TV
On September 16, 1995, ABC also aired “The Jeff Foxworthy Show” and the broadcast premiere of the 1992 flick “Encino Man;” CBS repeated “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and “Walker, Texas Ranger” episodes; Fox broadcast sitcoms “Martin” and “The Preston Episodes” and “America’s Most Wanted” and “Cops;” and NBC showed the premieres of the sitcoms “Brotherly Love,” a vehicle for Joey Lawrence and his brothers Matthew and Andy, and “Minor Adjustments,” which starred standup comic Rondell Sheridan, as well as the “75th Miss America Pageant,” which featured the crowning of Miss Oklahoma, Shawntel Smith.
The Record
During the week of September 10, 1995, the number ones were Patricia Cornwell’s “From Potter’s Field” (novel), “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio featuring L.V. (song) and “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” (movie). In Washington, President Clinton vowed to veto a Republican plan to gut Medicare.
Captions: “Maybe This Time” cast members, from left, Betty White, Ashley Johnson and Marie Osmond in a photograph from TV Guide’s September 16, 1995, fall preview issue (top, photographer unknown); ABC’s advertisement for the series premiere from the magazine’s September 9, 1995, edition (bottom).
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