A Year at the Top Wasn't Tops

When Late Night With David Letterman premiered in 1982, the only one on the show I didn’t know was Letterman. I never saw his daytime show. I knew Bill Wendell’s voice from the Garry Moore version of To Tell the Truth.

Paul Shaffer I recognised from one of those sitcoms that I swear no one else watched. It was called A Year at the Top and co-starred Greg Evigan, and featured Nedra Volz as a stereotypical feisty old lady.

“You know, Yowp,” I said to myself. “You haven’t written about that show here. Why don’t you find a couple of old clippings about it?” “That I will,” I answered to myself.

The first clipping is an Associated Press story that appeared in newspapers starting in late December 1976.

Two old 'kids' reunited in 'A Year at the Top'
By BOB THOMAS
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The indefatigable Norman Lear has gone to the devil for his latest television comedy, reworking the Faustian legend in today's pop music field.
The half-hour is called "A Year at the Top," and that's what a trio of old-time entertainers sell their souls for. They are Vivian Blaine, Robert Alda and Phil Leeds. Their diabolical deal allows them to transform into a now young singing group that swiftly ascends to the top of the charts.
"A Year at the Top" evolved from a partnership of Lear's T.A.T. Communications Co. and Don Kirschner Productions. Music man Kirschner created the series with Woody Kling and supplies the music. Lear is executive producer; Darryl Hickman, producer.
The show debuts on CBS Jan. 19, and the first tapings are going on at the Lear compound in Metromedia Square. All of his series, from "All in the Family" to "Maude," headquarter at the local KTTV studio, owned and operated by Metromedia.
The star of "A Year at the Top" is Mickey Rooney, also an old-time entertainer, but one who decides against making the youthful comeback. The other day he was rehearsing a scene with his customary verve, playing with his "converted" partners, Greg Evigan, Paul Shaffer and Judith Cohen, who portray the young singing sensations.
“The format is terrific," said Alda, who was observing the rehearsal. "It has appeal to both the young and the middle aged. The young will get their kind of music from the three kids, and Mickey, Vivian, Phil and I will supply the music from our era. Plus some very funny situations.
"My only concern about doing the series was that I didn't appear opposite my son Alan on ‘M*A*S*H.’ But we're both on CBS, so that's no problem."
After the scene concluded, Rooney returned to his dressing room for a conference on how to punch up the comedy. He is wearing the stubble of a beard that he grew for "Pete's Dragon" at Disney. He conferred with a producer who looked familiar behind his own black beard.
"Imagine me working with Darryl Hickman after all these years!" Mickey said. "Why, we were kids together in 'Boys Town' back in 1940. Make it 1938."
"And I was reminded of 'Boys Town' the other day," said Hickman, a onetime child actor. "Mickey did a scene with the three young people in our show, and when he finished I noticed that all of them had tears running down their cheeks. I remembered watching Mickey do a scene in 'Boys Town' when I was 9 years old, and I was crying myself."
"Isn't this great, me and Darryl being back together?" Rooney said. "We've hardly seen each other since. I was busy getting married, and he was learning to be an executive."
"A Year at the Top" is Rooney's first TV series since the ill-fated "Mickey" of 15 years ago.
"It was on and off the air before you knew it," he said. "I pleaded with Selig Seligman of ABC not to call it 'Mickey' and not to give me three children, a Filipino houseboy and have me running a motel. I want to play a character who had had three or four wives and was in alimony trouble. You know, like Mickey Rooney. It's a great device to kid yourself, like Jack Benny always did.
"Then they scheduled the show opposite Jackie Gleason in his first season with 'The Honeymooners.’ Bombsville.”

When I read this story, I was confused. I realise I haven’t seen the show in almost a half century, but didn’t remember any of this. Robert Alda? Phil Leeds?

Well, here’s what happened. The show was taken off the schedule before it even got on the air.

Val Adams of the New York Daily News reported on Jan. 11, 1977 that, a week earlier, CBS said the premiere had been postponed a week, then announced the previous day that the show would be replaced. Lear was quoted in a network news release: “We have asked the CBS television network to allow ‘A Year at the Top’ to be shut down . . . for repairs and they have graciously granted us permission to do so. After alterations are made, we will be back in production in March for possible airing in the fall on CBS.”

Adams noted this was the second go-around for the concept. Lear had produced a pilot called Hereafter, which aired on NBC on November 27, 1975 (Thanksgiving). Josh Mostel played Nathan, the devil's youngest son, who agreed to transform three over-the-hill singers, played by Leeds, John J. Fox and Robert Donley, into a young rock group in exchange for their souls after a year of success. Blaine, Shaffer and Evigan were in this version, as well as Antonio Fargas and Don Cardino.

If the reason for Lear’s sudden decision to re-work the show is known, I haven’t been able to find it. However, let’s look at the “Eye on TV” column from the Newark Star-Ledger of Aug, 5, 1977, the day the show premiered.

The waiting ends for 'A Year at the Top'
By JERRY KRUPNICK
What does it take to get a new television series on the air? Well, along with the usual ingredients—money, talent and guts—add in a heaping spoonful of patience and perseverance.
For nearly three years now, Norman Lear and Don Kirshner have been trying to get air time for a musical situation comedy straight out of "Faust" which they were calling "Second Chance."
At first, it was "penciled in" for the NBC lineup, only to be scratched at the last minute. Undaunted, they changed the premise slightly, changed the title to "A Year at the Top" and changed the network to CBS.
They were all set to go again this January. Air time was announced, the promotion hoopla was going full speed, everything was falling into place, when. . .
Kirshner and Lear sat down in a screening room and decided a week or so before opening night that what they had wrought was really all for naught. So they voluntarily yanked the series before it could be unreeled.
They have spent all spring and half a summer making changes in their godchild. This time out, they have gotten rid of more than half the cast and gotten rid of the original premise—a group of aging musicians trade their souls to the devil so that they can come back for a year as kid rock superstars. What they kept was the title, along with veteran Mickey Rooney and a pair of talented youngsters named Greg Evigan and Paul Shaffer.
Greg and Paul who?
Evigan, described by Kirshner as a combination Tom Jones-John Travolta, is a young New Jersey singer-musician from Englishtown who walked into Don's office, three years ago to audition and has been labeled for stardom ever since. Shaffer, whom Kirshner enthusiastically casts in the Elton John-Paul Simon mold, was the musical conductor of "Saturday Night Live" before joining the Kirshner-Lear camp.
The series has now been entirely restructured around them—it will make it or fail on their talents, their charisma, their luck. And they get their first crack at "A Year at the Top" tonight at 8 p.m. on Channel 2. This time, Kirshner and Lear feel that they've kept on trying and finally have gotten it right.
Apparently CBS feels that way too. Even though "A Year at the Top" is arriving nominally as a five-week summer replacement series, it is being kicked off with a one-hour opener, instead of its usual 30-minute format, and the word is that if the Nielsen numbers are big enough, the series could hang around for the fall.
The opener certainly has enough pluses going for it. Kirshner and Lear are right about their two new stars—Evigan in particular is destined to make it big, if not in this show, then somewhere else. He's got enough boyish charm and handsome looks to drive the teenyboppers gaga. Greg's a winner . . . and his partner Paul could also score in an oddball sort of a way.
Rooney, of course, is an old pro fr[o]m the word go. He makes it all look so easy.
Gabe Dell is another veteran in the cast who knows what character acting is all about. Unfortunately, his approach to the role of the devil's son disguised as a talent agent is a little too fey for our liking. It's a far cry from “The Dead End Kids.”
Priscilla Lopez, who was nominated for a Tony Award when she sang "What I Did For Love" in "A Chorus Line," shows up in the opener as Greg's girlfriend and she's absolutely lovely in a sad-eyed, Piaf-Garland way.
And Nedra Volz (she was grandpa's girlfriend in "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” is delightful in a continuing role as the boys' grandmother, who keeps an eye on their budding careers.
Oh yes, the plot. Gabe, as the son of the devil, has promised his old man two more souls. Mickey, meanwhile, arrives with the boys and Priscilla in tow. It seems they have written a musical which he wants to present on Broadway. Can Gabe put up the dough?
Gabe figures he's better off grabbing the two boys for the Hell of it and makes them a career offer they can't refuse. At the end of the first hour, they are on their way to big time stuff. Mickey and Priscilla, meanwhile, are giving their regards to Broadway after conning Gabe out of the front money for the show.
So much for the pluses. On the negative side, Priscilla Lopez is absolutely wasted in tonight's first installment. She's allowed to sing a few bars of harmony in one of the songs and that's about it. Her appearance is listed as that of a guest star and she probably won't be back for the rest of the initial series.
The same is true with Mickey. He is guesting also and won't continue as a regular, which is a pity. He and Gabe Dell play so well off each other and provide all of this musical sitcom's comedy. Kirshner and Lear, however, have opted for the youth market. An album by Greg and Paul is already in the works. Look out for fan clubs and lots and lots of hypo. If "A Year at the Top" is to get its chance, they reason, it will, be because their two young unknowns have caught the public's fancy.
If CBS doesn't buy the show, in fact, the producers are prepared to package it a la “MH2” and peddle it to independent stations. They feel their patience and perseverance is about to pay off. And they want it to last for more than “A Year at the Top."

A Year at the Top didn’t last a year. It barely lasted a month, and nowhere near the top. CBS jettisoned the show after five episodes.

1977 wasn’t the best year for Evigan. Lear must have liked him, as he was cast earlier that year in Lear’s soap opera/gender role satire All That Glitters, which vanished from syndication after about two months. He soon had more success, spending a couple of seasons starring opposite a chimp in B.J. and the Bear.

As mentioned, Shaffer went on to a side-kicking career reacting to Letterman, though one night on the show, Chris Elliott did an incredibly funny, not-too-exaggerated impersonation of Shaffer (similarly, Elliott’s father Bob, of Bob and Ray, did an equally cutting and accurate Arthur Godfrey) which was more like Shaffer than Shaffer. That wasn’t all. Shaffer proved himself to be a very fine musician and band-leader.

It turns out both Evigan and Shaffer had more than a year at the top. It just took a little time.