Eight Is Enough

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Eight is Enough

The cast of Eight Is Enough at Christmastime.

Top row (left to right):
Kay, Van Patten, Goodeve, and Walters.
Middle row: Richardson, Needham, and Buckley.
Bottom row: Rich, O'Grady, and Aames.
Format Comedy/Drama
Created by Lee Rich, Philip Capice, and Lee Mendelson
Directed by Gary Adelson
Starring Dick Van Patten
Diana Hyland
Betty Buckley
Grant Goodeve
Lani O'Grady
Laurie Walters
Susan Richardson
Dianne Kay
Connie Needham
Willie Aames
Adam Rich
Composer(s) John Beal
Alexander Courage
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of seasons 5
No. of episodes 112
Production
Running time 60 minutes
(48 minutes without commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run March 15, 1977 – August 29, 1981

Eight Is Enough was an American television comedy-drama series which ran on ABC from March 15, 1977 until August 29, 1981. The show was modeled after syndicated newspaper columnist Tom Braden, a real-life father with eight children, who wrote a book with the same name. The series was rare in that it was one of the few hour-long television series to use a laugh track.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The show is centered around a Sacramento, California family with eight children (from oldest to youngest: David, Mary, Joanie, Susan, Nancy, Elizabeth, Tommy, and Nicholas). The father Tom Bradford (Dick Van Patten) was a newspaper columnist for the fictional Sacramento Register. His wife Joan (Diana Hyland) took care of the children. Hyland was only in four episodes before falling ill; she was written out for the remainder of the first season. Hyland died only 12 days after the first episode aired, and the second season began in the fall of 1977 with the revelation that Tom had become a widower.

Tom fell in love with Sandra Sue "Abby" Abbott (played by Betty Buckley), a schoolteacher who came to the house to tutor one of his children. They were married in one of Eight Is Enough's special TV-movie broadcasts in November 1977. These two-hour television events usually occurred during sweeps periods and routinely grabbed viewing figures as high as a forty television share.[citation needed]

In another TV-movie event in September 1979, two of the children (David and Susan) were married off in a special double wedding extravaganza. As the show went on, Abby got her Ph.D. in education and started a job counseling students at the local high school.

[edit] Production details

After the end of the show's fifth season, production costs and declining ratings caused the show to be canceled, along with seven other shows that season (Eight Is Enough seemed to grab the most headlines, as the press had a field day with ABC's choice to bring "eight shows in" and kick "eight shows out."). Reunion movies were broadcast in 1987 and 1989.

The series jumpstarted acting careers for a select few of the "eight" and cemented teen idol status for Grant Goodeve, who played David (although Mark Hamill had originally been cast as "David"), Willie Aames, who played Tommy, and Ralph Macchio, who played cousin Jeremy later in the series. Aames would go on to star with Scott Baio in Charles in Charge. Goodeve started a minor singing career, due to his rendition of the theme "Eight Is Enough to Fill Our Lives With Love." Macchio would gain the most fame in feature films such as The Karate Kid and its numeraled (numbers II and III) sequels, as well as My Cousin Vinny.

The series had two reunion movies on NBC: "An Eight Is Enough Reunion" on October 18, 1987 where Mary Frann replaced Betty Buckley as Abby and "An Eight Is Enough Wedding" in 1989 with Sandy Faison in the Abby role. Buckley had been filming the movie "Frantic" with Harrison Ford during the filming of the first movie.

Episodes aired on FX when the network began in 1994 but haven't been on cable since, except for a 50th Anniversary Warner Bros. marathon on TV Land in 2005.

[edit] Cast

The ages of the children are given alongside their character names; these are their ages in the first episode in 1977.

[edit] Core cast members

[edit] Recurring cast members

  • Brian Patrick Clarke - Merle "The Pearl" Stockwell (1979–1981)
  • Jennifer Darling - Donna (1978–1981)
  • Henderson Forsythe - Big Bud
  • Janis Paige - Vivian "Auntie V" Bradford
  • Michael Goodrow - Ernie Fields (1979–1981)
  • James Karen - Eliot Randolph
  • Ralph Macchio - Jeremy Andretti (1980–1981)
  • Joan Prather - Janet McArthur Bradford (1977–1981)
  • Michael Thoma - Dr. Greg Maxwell (1977–1979)

[edit] Guest stars

[edit] International

In Spain, "Eight Is Enough" was aired also in the 1980s. RTVE (public network) aired all the seasons under the title "Con Ocho Basta" (the Spanish translation) in Friday's evening time.

In Italy, Eight Is Enough was aired in the 1980s. RAI public networks aired the first season under the title Otto Bastano in 1978 [1], the correct Italian translation. All seasons were aired later, on Retequattro, a commercial network from Fininvest (now Mediaset), under the title La Famiglia Bradford. The Italian version doesn't provide a laugh track. Also, the French version, "Huit, ça suffit!" was a big success in the '80s both in France and French Canada.

[edit] References

  1. ^ TV Sorrisi e Canzoni # 33, 1978

[edit] External links