Aired: 1979-80
DAD: Larry Alder (McLean Stevenson) / Divorced
DAD’S JOB: Radio Host
KIDS: Diane(Donna Wilkes, then Krista Errickson) (16), Ruthie (Kim Richards) (13)
WHERE’S MOM?: Divorced – played (occasionally) by Shelley Fabares
STAND-IN “MOM”: Leona Wilson (Ruth Brown)
The third series in the downward, post-M*A*S*H spiral of McLean Stevenson, it wasn’t much different than Frasier with two little girls at home.
NBC tried propping up the ratings of this saggy show with crossover cast appearances from another TV Single Dad show: Diff’rent Strokes. The storyline was that Larry was an Army buddy of Strokes’s Phil Drummond. Wacky hijinks, unfortunately, did not ensue.
Kim Richards was in her second role as the TV Single Daughter of a TV Single Dad. Her first role was in Nanny & the Professor.
It’s interesting to note that Shelley Fabares plays the ex-wife of a TV Single Dad — In the Nineties, she would play a character who marries a TV Single Dad; namely, the title character on Coach!