"BARBARA MANDRELL AND THE MANDRELL SISTERS

A Hit Can Be Bad for The Box Office

After Saul Ilson and I split up, Saul went on to become an executive at NBC in charge of Variety and Comedy. He was pitched a variety series starring Barbara Mandrell, a pint-sized dynamo of country music with such hits as "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool."

Saul did not buy the idea, but he was fascinated by the fact that Barbara had two pretty sisters, Louise and Irlene. Louise sang and played guitar. Irlene played drums in Barbara's band. Saul hired me to create a format for a weekly variety series. Perhaps, having had enormous success with two brothers, he thought we might replicate it with three sisters.

But there was a huge difference. The sisters were never an act. They never interacted on stage. Irlene had potential. She was cute, sort of a Goldie Hawn wannabe, but she had no voice. When the girls sang together, she merely mouthed the words and Barbara dubbed her voice.

They had no experience or talent for comedy. Where would the comedy come from? We found it in the two sisters dishing on their bossy big sister star. After performing together in a rousing opening number, we found Louise and Irlene in their dressing room making jokes about Barbara and family matters.

It worked! The show was a hit! We produced it with the glamor and glitz of The Country Music Awards. NBC ordered additional programs for that first season. But Barbara had a surprise for them--and us.

It turned out that she had reluctantly agreed to do a weekly TV show. She had studied the experiences of other music artists like Glen Campbell and Mac Davis, who had their own show on TV. When they went on TV their record sales immediately took off and so did attendance at their concerts. But after a while, they began to fall off. The public was getting them on TV for free every week, why pay for records and tickets? Going on TV could hype sales; staying on TV could kill your career. A hit TV series was bad for business.

Barbara mysteriously developed a very, very sore throat. She had a letter from her doctor advising against adding more shows to the production. To save her throat, she would not speak during rehearsals. We exchanged notes. She was laying the groundwork for getting out of weekly television.

When she refused to tape additional shows, NBC merely repeated the entire season. They had a hot property and they were going to get the most out of it,

Barbara, like most music divas, was used to being in charge. She did not take well to a producer pushing her around. Her father, Irby, who packed a pistol in the back of his belt when he came to the studio, complained to me that I was “too tough on Barbara”. When the show was renewed for a second season, I was not.

In the second season, the show continued to climb in the ratings. Then Barbara advised the network she could not do any more shows because of her failing health. It was actually due to the failing health of her box office.

"BARBARA MANDRELL AND THE MANDRELL SISTERS" went off the air in 1982. There has not been another variety show in prime time on any network since then.

Saturday Night Live has been running late night on Saturday for over 50 years. When they air repeats in prime time, they don't get an audience.

There was a time when upcoming comedians like Ray Romano and Jerry Seinfeld would have starred in their own variety show. Today hot stand- ups are cast as the lead in their own situation comedy.

Maybe the death of Variety has something to with You Tube. Any time you want, you can assemble your own variety show of clips of the greatest comedy, music and dance acts of today and yesterday from all over the world.

But Show Business is all about cycles. One day, inevitably, there will be a personality who can do comedy or sing and dance and can also talk to the folks at home as a welcome guest in their living room, the next Carol Burnet or Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin or Danny Kaye. When that personality comes along, Variety will be back.