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 ...
television series that aired on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
from January 18 to December 27, 1990. The series featured an
ensemble cast
In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17
Structure
In contrast t ...
Michael McKean
Michael John McKean (; born October 17, 1947) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, composer, singer, and musician known for various roles in film and television such as Lenny Kosnowski in ''Laverne & Shirley'', David St. Hubbins in ''T ...
Andrew Lauer
Andrew Michael Lauer (born June 19, 1965) (also known as ''Andy Lauer'') is an American feature and documentary filmmaker, actor, and social activist.
Lauer is the Founder President & CEO of ReelAid, a non-profit organization made up of filmmake ...
Joel Murray
Joel Murray (born April 17, 1963) is an American comedy actor. He is well known for his roles in the television series '' Mad Men'', ''Grand'', '' Love & War'', ''Dharma & Greg'', '' Still Standing'', and '' Shameless''. He has also appeared in ...
Michael Leeson
Michael Jon Leeson (died July 27, 2016) was an American screenwriter.
Filmography
*''Love, American Style'' (1972–1973) (TV)
*''All in the Family'' (1973) (TV)
*''The Partridge Family'' (1973–1974) (TV)
*'' The Odd Couple'' (1972–1974) ...
and executive produced by Leeson, Marcy Carsey and
Tom Werner
Thomas Charles Werner (born April 12, 1950) is an American television producer and businessman. Through his investment in Fenway Sports Group, he is currently chairman of both Liverpool Football Club and the Boston Red Sox.
Werner first became ...
.
Premise
''Grand'' was more of a
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...
of
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio drama ...
s than a traditional
situation comedy
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 new ...
and mocked conventions of soap opera. The series followed three interrelated families, from different social classes, in rural
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
: the
wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...
y Weldons, the
impoverished
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little
middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. C ...
Smithsons.
The Weldons were the wealthiest family in Grand, Pennsylvania. They owned the largest company, a
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
factory which was starting to fall on hard times due to declining sales, a situation that patriarch Harris Weldon ( John Randolph) blamed on Asian imports. In Weldon's household were his dimwitted son, Norris (
Joel Murray
Joel Murray (born April 17, 1963) is an American comedy actor. He is well known for his roles in the television series '' Mad Men'', ''Grand'', '' Love & War'', ''Dharma & Greg'', '' Still Standing'', and '' Shameless''. He has also appeared in ...
) and the acerbic butler, Desmond ( John Neville), whom Weldon kept despite his acid tongue as he had once been responsible for saving Weldon's life. Weldon's housekeeper Janice Pasetti ( Pamela Reed) barely scraped by on what Weldon paid her; she lived in a
mobile home
A mobile home (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) is a prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or on a trailer). U ...
with her daughter, Edda ( Sara Rue). In between these two extremes were Weldon's niece Carol Ann Smithson ( Bonnie Hunt) and her husband Tom (
Michael McKean
Michael John McKean (; born October 17, 1947) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, composer, singer, and musician known for various roles in film and television such as Lenny Kosnowski in ''Laverne & Shirley'', David St. Hubbins in ''T ...
), who was constantly hoping to improve his finances by returning to a position (he was fired by Weldon on his first day), preferably an executive one, at his wife's uncle's factory.
''Grand'' followed soap opera convention by featuring numerous
story arcs
A story arc (also narrative arc) is the chronological construction of plot in a novel or story. It can also mean an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, board games, vid ...
which carried through several episodes, most notably Harris' attempts in the first season to secure a date to take to a ceremony honoring him at
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built ...
, Janice's struggle to come to terms with her divorce while fending off the amorous attentions of police officer Wayne Kazmurski, Tom's attempts to first hide from Carol Ann the fact that he had a teenaged son from a previous marriage and then his attempts to integrate the son into their lives, and Harris allowing Desmond to believe that he was actually Norris's father, although Harris knew it was not true. The pseudo-soap-opera format was abandoned after the second episode of Season 2, but resumed in the series' final four episodes. A 26th episode was filmed but never aired.
This program was less successful than the somewhat similar ''
Soap
Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are us ...
'', which had also featured an acid-tongued butler and mocked many of the same soap opera conventions. ''Grand'' ran for two shortened seasons in 1990, with thirteen episodes from January to April and twelve more from October to December 1990, prior to its cancellation.
Cast
Main
* John Randolph as Harris Weldon
* Pamela Reed as Janice Pasetti
* Bonnie Hunt as Carol Ann Smithson (became Carol Ann Weldon in season 2)
*
Michael McKean
Michael John McKean (; born October 17, 1947) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, composer, singer, and musician known for various roles in film and television such as Lenny Kosnowski in ''Laverne & Shirley'', David St. Hubbins in ''T ...
as Tom Smithson (season 1 only)
* John Neville as Desmond
*
Joel Murray
Joel Murray (born April 17, 1963) is an American comedy actor. He is well known for his roles in the television series '' Mad Men'', ''Grand'', '' Love & War'', ''Dharma & Greg'', '' Still Standing'', and '' Shameless''. He has also appeared in ...
Andrew Lauer
Andrew Michael Lauer (born June 19, 1965) (also known as ''Andy Lauer'') is an American feature and documentary filmmaker, actor, and social activist.
Lauer is the Founder President & CEO of ReelAid, a non-profit organization made up of filmmake ...
as Wayne Kazmurski (season 1 only)
Recurring
*
Ed Marinaro
Ed Marinaro (born March 31, 1950) is an American actor and former NFL player. In 1971, he was a unanimous All-American and finished as a runner-up to Pat Sullivan for the Heisman Trophy, and from 2010 to 2011 starred in the football comedy s ...
as Eddie Pasetti
* P.J. Ochlan as Dustin Gladowski
*Jackey Vinson as Dylan Smithson
* Mark Moses as Richard Peyton
*
Shawn Phelan
Shawn Michael Phelan (January 7, 1975 – September 27, 1998) was an American television and film actor.
Early life and acting career
Phelan was born in Stoughton, Massachusetts, to Dan and Bonnie Phelan. He moved to Houston, Texas, with ...
The series at one time was being considered as a one-hour comedy series given the size of its cast.
By the time production began on the last episode of the first season,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
had still not committed to a second season. But, being a production of the network's leading producers Carsey, Werner and
Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric ...
, the series was renewed and given the prized Thursday 9:30pm slot. Believing the show would be cancelled, the final episode of the season was entitled "Blow Off," an apparent stab at NBC's indecision regarding the show. The episode concluded with the town of Grand being devastated by a tornado and the disappearance of the entire cast, save for Wayne.
However the show's ratings (finishing 15th among mid-season shows) proved to be high enough for NBC to finally order a second half-season (13 episodes). Unfortunately by the time the network executives made a decision, at least two cast members and several members of the production staff had already committed to other projects. The second season wrote-out the character of Tom Smithson as an illegal alien who had stolen $50,000 from a Texas Savings and Loan and used the tornado as a means to disappear when the FBI began to close in on him. The character of Wayne Kazmurski and all the recurring characters and their story lines with the exception of Eddie Pasetti were dropped with no explanation.
The reduction in cast and the sudden change in production staff and writers took the show in a dramatically different direction from Season 1. The first episode of the second season dealt with what became of Janice's ''trailer'', rather than answering questions about the characters who had disappeared, and the second episode wrapped up Tom Smithson's storyline. The premise of the show then changed from that of a complex comedy of manners to a simple situation comedy, indistinguishable from other sit-coms of the day. The series format abandoned the soap-opera style and half of the second season were standard, stand-alone situation comedy episodes. The result was a major decline in the overall quality of the series. Ratings steadily declined throughout the second season.
The final four episodes of ''Grand'' returned the show to its soap-opera format; however, instead of featuring identifiable, believable story arcs about the foibles of three economic classes, the arcs were outrageous, improbable stories featuring witchcraft, gangsters, a possible corporate takeover of the piano works, and Carol Ann's decision to adopt a teenager who was raised by wolves.
The series was cancelled after its 25th episode. A 26th episode was filmed, but has never aired.
Because ''Grand'' began its first season as a mid-season replacement and ended its second season without airing its final episode, it stands as one of the rare instances of a two-season series having aired its entire run within a single calendar year.
Episodes
Series overview
Season 1 (
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicis ...
)
Season 2 (
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicis ...