''Friends and Lovers'' (also known as ''Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers'') is an American

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

starring

Paul Sand Paul Sand (born March 5, 1932) is an American actor and comedian. Background Sand was born Pablo Sanchez in Santa Monica, California, in 1932, the son of Ernest Rivera Sanchez, an aerospace tool designer, and Sonia Borodiansky (aka Sonia Stone) ...

which centers on a musician in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, and his personal relationships. It was Sand's only starring role in a television series. The show aired from September 14, 1974, to January 4, 1975.McNeil, Alex, ''Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming From 1948 to the Present'', New York: Penguin Books, 1996, pp. 305–306.Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh, ''The Complete Directory to Prime-Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946–Present, Sixth Edition'', New York: Ballantine Books, 1995, , p. 804.

Cast

: Robert Dreyfuss *

Michael Pataki Michael Pataki (January 16, 1938 – April 15, 2010) was an American actor. Early life Pataki was born in Youngstown, Ohio. His parents were Hungarians. He was the youngest of three children - one older brother and one older sister. He atten ...

: Charlie Dreyfuss *

Penny Marshall Carole Penny MarshallBorn Carole Penny Marshall in 1943, as per ''My Mother Was Nuts, a Memoir'', p. 10; . Copyright 2012 (October 15, 1943 – December 17, 2018) was an American actress, director and producer. She is known for her role as ...

: Janice Dreyfuss * Dick Wesson: Jack Riordan *

Steve Landesberg Stephen Landesberg (November 23, 1936December 20, 2010) was an American actor and comedian known for his role as the erudite, unflappable police detective Arthur P. Dietrich on the ABC sitcom ''Barney Miller'', for which he was nominated for th ...

: Fred Meyerbach *

Craig Richard Nelson Craig Richard Nelson (born September 17, 1947) is an American actor in theater, film and television. Life and career Nelson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and grew up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He studie ...

: Mason Woodruff * Jack Gilford: Ben Dreyfuss *

Jan Miner Jan Miner (October 15, 1917 – February 15, 2004) was an American actress best known for her role as the character "Madge", the manicurist in Palmolive dish-washing detergent television commercials beginning in the 1960s. Biography Early life ...

: Marge Dreyfuss

Synopsis

Robert Dreyfuss is a young bachelor and

double-bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

player who returns to Boston after living in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, for three years and wins a job playing with the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...

. He is a romantic who falls in love easily with the women he meets, but he has little luck with them because he is shy, passive, dour-faced, and tends to say the wrong things at the wrong time. In sharp contrast, his older brother Charlie is aggressive, loud, physically fit, and athletic. Charlie is protective of Robert, while Charlie's affection-starved wife Janice constantly mocks Robert for his romantic failures, and Robert often gets caught in the middle of the arguments to which Charlie and Janice are prone. Charlie and Janice have a three-year-old son named Brendan who is mentioned in the first episode, but Brendan never appears in the show and is never discussed in any other episode. Ben and Marge are Robert's and Charlie's parents.Leszczak, Bob, ''Single Season Sitcoms, 1948–1979'', Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Publishers, Inc., 2012.
. In the orchestra, Robert makes friends with an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist, Fred Meyerbach, who has a strained relationship with his father. They must deal with the young, sarcastic, and overweight conductor, Mason Woodruff, and the antagonistic orchestra manager, Jack Riordan.

Production

Paul Sand was a rising star – he had won a

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

and received good reviews for his appearances on ''

The Carol Burnett Show ''The Carol Burnett Show'' is an American variety/sketch comedy television show that originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 279 episodes, and again with nine episodes in fall 1991. It starred Carol Burnett, Harvey ...

'' and ''

The Mary Tyler Moore Show ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (also known simply as ''Mary Tyler Moore'') is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns and starring actress Mary Tyler Moore. The show originally aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977. Moor ...

'' – when

MTM Enterprises MTM Enterprises (also known as MTM Productions) was an American independent production company established in 1969 by Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker to produce ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' for CBS. The name for the productio ...

decided to give him his own situation comedy in 1974. In order to give the show the maximum possible exposure to new viewers,

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

aired ''Friends and Lovers'' on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. between two blockbuster hit situation comedies, ''

All in the Family ''All in the Family'' is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS for nine seasons, from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. Afterwards, it was continued with the spin-off series '' Archie Bunker's Place'', which picked up where ''All in ...

'' at 8:00 p.m. and ''

'' at 9:00 p.m. – arguably the best time slot for a new series in the autumn of 1974. The show also received much publicity, touted as the "sleeper" hit of the fall 1974 season.

James L. Brooks James Lawrence Brooks (born May 9, 1940) is an American director, producer, screenwriter and co-founder of Gracie Films. His television and film work includes ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'', ''Taxi'', ''The Simpsons'', '' Broadcast News'', ''As G ...

and

Allan Burns Allan Pennington Burns (May 18, 1935January 30, 2021) was an American screenwriter and television producer. He was best known for co-creating and writing for the television sitcoms ''The Munsters'' and ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show''. Early life ...

created and were the executive producers of the show. Writers included

Linda Bloodworth-Thomason Linda Joyce Bloodworth-Thomason (born April 15, 1947) is an American writer, director, and television producer. She is best known for creating, writing, and producing several television series, most successfully with the series ''Designing Women'' ...

, Gordon Farr,

Lowell Ganz Lowell Ganz (born August 31, 1948 in New York City) is an American screenwriter, television writer, and television producer. He is the long-time writing partner of Babaloo Mandel. Ganz grew up in Queens, New York, attending Martin Van Buren High ...

, Steve Gordon, Andrew Johnson, Monica Mcgowan Johnson, Arnold Kane, Allan Leicht, Coleman Mitchell, Phil Mishkin, Geoffrey Neigher,

Mary Kay Place Mary Kay Place (born September 23, 1947) is an American actress, singer, director, and screenwriter. She is known for portraying Loretta Haggers on the television series ''Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman'', a role that won her the 1977 Primetime Emmy ...

, Steve Pritzker, and Bud Wiser. Episode directors were

Peter Bonerz Peter R Bonerz (, born August 6, 1938) is an American actor and director. Early life Bonerzwas born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Elfrieda (née Kern) and Christopher Bonerz. He grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he attended Marquette Uni ...

, Bob Claver, Tim Kiley, Robert Moore,

Alan Rafkin Alan Rafkin (born Alfred Irwin Rafkin; July 23, 1928 – August 6, 2001) was an American television director, director, television producer, producer, and actor for television. Biography Rafkin was born in New York City to Til and Victor R ...

, and

Jay Sandrich A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For example, the Eurasian m ...

. The show was filmed in color before a studio audience.

Episodes

Cancellation

Some critics expressed disappointment in ''Friends and Lovers'' – the ''

Boston Herald American The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Pulit ...

''s Anthony La Camera called it "a downright disappointment" and the ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

''s Percy Shain said it was "mundane and average, with few laughs" – but others gave it more favorable reviews. The premiere episode on September 14, 1974, was the 14th-most-watched show of the week, and during its run the show had good ratings – for example, a 36 share in early October 1974 – and was the 25th most-viewed television show of the season. However, its ratings paled in comparison to those of the shows before and after it; it lost viewers from ''All in the Family'', which had a 51 share in early October 1974, and network executives believed that it did not provide a good lead-in audience for ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'', viewership of which fell from previous seasons to a 39 share by early October 1974. Especially given the high hopes the network had had for the show, it was considered a ratings disappointment for its highly advantageous time slot and, in fact, one of the bigger disappointments of the fall 1974 season. CBS cancelled the show after only 15 episodes, the last of which was broadcast on January 4, 1975. Along with ''

The Texas Wheelers ''The Texas Wheelers'' is an American sitcom that aired in 1974 and 1975. The series, produced by MTM Enterprises, is about the cantankerous but lovable Zack Wheeler, a long-lost father who returned to raise his children Truckie, Doobie, Boo, and ...

'', ''Friends and Lovers'' was one of the first two MTM Enterprises shows ever to be cancelled. In January 1975, two weeks after it last aired, ''Friends and Lovers'' was replaced in its time slot by a new show, ''

The Jeffersons ''The Jeffersons'' is an American sitcom television series that was broadcast on CBS from January 18, 1975, to July 2, 1985, lasting 11 seasons and a total of List of The Jeffersons episodes, 253 episodes. ''The Jeffersons'' is one of the longe ...

''. A better fit for CBS's Saturday-evening line-up, ''The Jeffersons'' was a major hit which aired in first-run production for the next ten years.

References

Leszczak, Bob. ''Single Season Sitcoms, 1948–1979''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Publishers, Inc., 2012.
.

External links

* * {{MTM Enterprises CBS original programming 1974 American television series debuts 1975 American television series endings 1970s American sitcoms English-language television shows Television shows set in Boston Television series created by James L. Brooks Television series created by Allan Burns Television series by MTM Enterprises