A rare un-aired Larry Gelbart pilot

UPDATE:  UNFORTUNATELY, THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN.  I invite you to scroll up or down and read other posts.   Sorry about that.

Few people know that Larry Gelbart wrote the first pilot of THREE'S COMPANY. Actually, the first American adaptation of the British series. Imagine the THREE'S COMPANY you know but with smarter jokes and different girls.   I don't know why they decided to completely throw out his script once they recast but they did.   Actually, there were three THREE'S COMPANY pilots.  Ritter and Joyce DeWitt were in the second but with a different blonde.  She was replaced by Suzanne Sommers and the rest is dubious history.   John Ritter, Norman Fell, and Audra Lindley were in all three versions as was that insipid theme song.  (I know I'm going to get a bunch of irate readers commenting that I'm crazy and that the theme was great, but I'm standing my ground on this one.)

Ironically, there was a period of time when MASH was on Tuesday nights up against THREE'S COMPANY and TC killed it in the ratings.  It was only when CBS moved MASH to Monday nights at 9:00 did the show really take off.   David Isaacs and I were very relieved.  We were the head writers then and it was reassuring to know the show faltered in the ratings due to the competition and not us.   We didn't want to be known as the writing team that killed MASH.

Although Larry never got a created by or developed by credit he did receive a nice royalty for every episode. 

I don't know how this re-surfaced after so many years but it's worth taking a look.  Enjoy a look into the alternate universe.