Mr. Dugan
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Mr. Dugan was a projected U.S. sitcom about a black congressman that was cancelled before it ever aired in 1979.
Early in 1978, when producer Norman Lear felt his long-running comedy Maude was getting stale, decided to enliven things by moving the show to Washington, D.C. and making the title character a congresswoman. After two episodes in this new setting, star Beatrice Arthur decided not to continue, and the show abruptly left the air.
Lear, however, still believed in the pursuit of the concept, and filmed a new pilot tiled "Onward And Upward" with essentially the same script and cast -- except with John Amos (as a black former pro football star running for Congress) replacing Arthur. Creative differences between Amos (who had co-starred in Lear's Good Times) and the producers led to Amos bowing out; the show was renamed "Mr. Dooley" and finally "Mr. Dugan." Cleavon Little (best known as the sheriff in the classic comedy Blazing Saddles) was hired as the title character, a fledgling black congressman. The supporting cast, however, remained the same.
Mr. Dugan had been scheduled for a March 11, 1979, premiere, and was heavily promoted by its network, CBS. But a special screening for real black congressmen proved to be an unmitigated disaster; many found the show "demeaning" and threatened a boycott of CBS if the program aired. So Lear pulled the plug on Mr. Dugan, saying "we have not yet totally fulfilled our intention for the series."
Undaunted, Lear reworked the project yet again, finally coming up with "Hanging In," the story of Lou Harper, a former pro football star who becomes president of fictional Braddock College. Ironically, Bill Macy (who had played Maude's husband) resurfaced as the star of the version that finally did air, in August 1979. Most of the supporting cast (including sitcom vets Maggie Gallagher and Nedra Volz) had appeared in all four versions of the pilot, and doubtless knew their lines well by this point.
After all this travail and turmoil, Hanging In lasted just four weeks, leaving the air after its August 29, 1979 broadcast. How this show came about is an interesting example of "Murphy's Law".
