Thursday, February 4, 2016

It Should've Been on a Saturday: Out of This World (1987)

Picture this if you can.

You've just turned 13. You attend a school for gifted children where your mother works. On the eve of your birthday, she begins asking if you've noticed anything different. Of course, you tell her no, but after midnight, things begin to change..........

Out of This World lasted four seasons in syndication, airing initially as part of a checkerboard package put together by MCA-TV, the then-parent company of Universal. While the title of this post files this under "It Should've Been on a Saturday", it did air on Saturdays in the home district. Not all of NBC's affiliates carried the show, you see. As memory serves, the Fox affiliate acquired the show, and moved it to Saturdays, ahead of the network Saturday block, which was just developing, around season 3.

Maureen Flannigan stars as Evie, who just turned 13, and discovered that the father she thought had abandoned her as a baby was actually from another world. Speaking of different worlds, Donna Pescow (ex-Angie) was cast as Evie's mom, who would eventually become Mayor as the series ended. Doug McClure (ex-The Virginian) played an ex-actor-turned-Mayor, as a sort of parody of then-President Ronald Reagan, whose final term was nearing its end during the 2nd season.

Edit, 6/13/22: Had to change the video. Let's move on to season 3 for "Cinderella Evie":



As I documented in an earlier post, Joe was from my neck of the woods, one of a rare breed to hit the big time coming from upstate New York. He'll be missed.

Out of This World gets a B-.

2 comments:

Silverstar said...

Where I lived, "Out of This World" aired as part of a syndicated package of shows with the tag line, "Prime time starts at 7:30". It was "Marblehead Manor" on Mondays, "She's the Sheriff" (starring Suzanne Somers) on Tuesdays, "You Can't Take it With You" (featuring Harry Morgan of M*A*S*H* fame and Richard Sanders, aka Les Nessman from WKRP) on Wednesdays, "Out of This World" on Thursdays and "We Got it Made" on Fridays. I'm pretty sure these shows were all failed NBC pilots that didn't quite make the network; I distinctly remember "Marblehead" being a reworked NBC summer pilot entitled "At Your Service" and "We Got it Made" had a brief stint on NBC before going into syndication. IIRC, OOTW lasted longer than any of the other shows on this block.

Really sad to hear about Joe Alaskey's passing. He was a funny guy and a true talent. Most of us probably remember him best as the voice of Plucky Duck from "Tiny Toon Adventures", but he had numerous other things, including OOTW. Joe also played 'The Neighbor' on the syndicated TV trivia game show "Couch Potatoes" starring Marc Summers.

hobbyfan said...

I posted "Couch Potatoes" not too long ago, and, as I noted earlier, "Out of This World" was part of the checkerboard you referenced, with "She's The Sheriff" the only other show returning for a 2nd season. The others will be covered over at The Land of Whatever in due course.

Just posting something from Tiny Toons or Plucky's solo series would've been nice, and maybe we'll come back to that another day.