She's the Sheriff

She's the Sheriff
Main title screen
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Dan Guntzelman Steve Marshall
Written by	Cheryl Alu Gene Braunstein Bobby Fine Dan Guntzelman Lawrence H. Hartstein Juliet Law Packer Steve Marshall Mark Miller Marty Nadler Barry O'Brien Bob Perlow Richard Rossner Mark Rothman
Directed by	David Grossman Gary Menteer Lee Miller Russ Petranto Alan Rafkin Doug Smart Howard Storm
Starring	Suzanne Somers George Wyner Pat Carroll Nicky Rose Taliesin Jaffe Lou Richards Guich Koock Leonard Lightfoot
Theme music composer	Bruce Miller
Composer(s)	Bruce Miller
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	44 (plus unaired pilot)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Mark Rothman
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production company(s)	Lorimar Productions
Broadcast
Original channel	Syndication
Original run	September 19, 1987 (1987-09-19) – April 1, 1989 (1989-04-01)

She's the Sheriff is an American sitcom that aired in syndication from September 19, 1987 to April 1, 1989. Produced by Lorimar Television, the series marked the return of Suzanne Somers to television for the first time since she left her famous role as Chrissy Snow on ABC's Three's Company.

In 2002, She's the Sheriff was ranked #44 on TV Guide's "50 Worst TV Shows of All Time".^[1]

Synopsis

Somers stars as Hildy Granger, a young wife suddenly widowed with two children to support. Her employment worries end when the Commissioner of Lakes County, Nevada (near Lake Tahoe), offers to appoint her sheriff, the job held by her husband until his untimely death. Hildy accepts the position and is immediately forced to handle the daily problems of both locals and tourists, with extra trouble created by the four deputies on her staff. In addition, Hildy has regular battles with work colleague Max Rubin, who doesn't feel Hildy should be in the job.

Cast and characters

• George Wyner co-stars as Deputy Max Rubin, indignant that he has been passed over for the job of Sheriff.
• Pat Carroll portrays Gussie Holt, Hildy's mother, and part-time writer.
• Lou Richards co-stars as Deputy Dennis Putnam, a naive man who takes things too literally.
• Guich Koock co-stars as Deputy Hugh Mulcahy, a man admired for his intelligence.
• Leonard Lightfoot co-stars as Deputy Alvin Wiggins who tries to be a voice of reason.
• Taliesin Jaffe and Nicky Rose portray Hildy's son Kenny and daughter Allison, respectively.

Episode list

Season 1: 1987–88

Season 2: 1988–89

Original pilot

The series had its origins in the 1982 CBS sitcom pilot Cass Malloy. Creators Dan Guntzelman and Steve Marshall pitched exactly the same format to CBS as what later made it to the air in syndication as She's the Sheriff: that of a late sheriff's wife taking over her husband's job, and the challenges she faced as a woman in a male-oriented environment. Annie Potts was originally cast as the titular Cass Malloy, but she was soon dropped during development in favor of Caroline McWilliams, who was in search of a starring vehicle after leaving the hit ABC series Benson. The pilot was shot and greenlit by CBS, and aired as a one-off on July 21, 1982. The pilot did not perform to CBS' expectations, and thus was not picked up as a series.

George Wyner and Lou Richards appeared in both Cass Malloy and She's the Sheriff, but in the CBS pilot, their characters' surnames were different. Wyner played Deputy Max Rosenkrantz, who had hoped to fill the shoes of deceased Sheriff Big Jim Malloy, but who was now miffed about being passed over in favor of Malloy's wife. Richards played Deputy Dennis Little in the pilot. The cast also featured Glynn Turman as Officer Woodrow Freeman, whose character very well served as the basis for Leonard Lightfoot's Alvin Wiggins in She's the Sheriff; Dick Butkus as Officer Alvin Dimsky; Murphy Dunne as Adam Barrett; and Dianne Kay (in her first project after Eight is Enough) as Tina Marie Nelson.

Sheriff Cass Malloy had three kids in the original pilot: teenager Colleen (Amanda Wyss), preteen Nona (Heather Hobbs) and the youngest, "Little Big" Jim (Corey Feldman). While She's the Sheriff was set in Lakes County, Nevada, Cass Malloy was situated in Burr County, Indiana.

Guntzelman and Marshall would find success as producers a few years later with ABC's Growing Pains, which prompted them to revisit the Cass Malloy teleplay in hopes of finally getting it on the air as a series. Lorimar-Telepictures took interest in a revised version of the script, and greenlighted a series order in 1987 for the then-burgeoning first-run syndication market.

Production

David Goldsmith and Arthur Silver were the executive producers, Marty Nadler was producer, Wenda Fong was co-producer, and Lisa Lewis was associate producer.

Syndication

She's the Sheriff was part of NBC's much-hyped "Prime Time Begins at 7:30" campaign, in which the network's owned-and-operated stations would run first-run sitcoms in the 7:30-8 pm time slot to counterprogram competing stations' game shows, sitcom reruns and other offerings. This experiment was short lived, however, and although She's the Sheriff was renewed for a second season, it was moved to a weekend timeslot.

References

External links

• She's the Sheriff at the Internet Movie Database
• She's the Sheriff at TV.com