Left to right: Mackenzie Phillips, Bonnie Franklin,
Pat Harrington and Valerie Bertinelli
December 16, 1975: One Day at a Time premieres on CBS, a new creation of All In the Family producer Norman Lear. Bonnie Franklin stars as Ann Romano, a mother of 2 teenage daughters, picking up and starting over in Indianapolis after her divorce.
To give you an idea of how big this was: Franklin was a real-life divorced woman (but no kids, only stepchildren after remarrying), playing a divorced woman with 2 teenage daughters, and this was just 5 years after CBS gave Mary Tyler Moore, divorced with a child in real life, a show with her own name on it, but wouldn't let her play a divorced woman without kids.
The theme song, "This Is It," was written by legendary songwriter Jeff Barry and his wife at the time, Nancy Barry. (Jeff had long since divorced Ellie Greenwich.) Polly Cutter sang it.
The Romano apartment was said to be at 1344 Hartford Drive, a fictional address. Indianapolis was chosen because it was a big enough city to be recognized, but not one of the usual TV show locations, such as New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. (In 1977, Dan Wakefield created the show James at 15, selecting Boston for the same reason. Unlike Indianapolis, Boston would go on to become a popular location for TV show settings.)
Ann Romano begins the show newly divorced from Ed Cooper (Joseph Campanella), moving from Logansport, Indiana to Indianapolis with daughters Julie (Mackenzie Phillips, daughter of John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas) and Barbara (Valerie Bertinelli). They move into an apartment building where the superintendent is Dwayne Schneider (Pat Harrington, who was usually credited as "Pat Harrington Jr." prior to this). At first, Schneider tries to romance Ann, who's not interested. Once he understands it's not going to happen, he takes a kind of guardian role for the Romanos.
In Season 1, Ann dated her divorce lawyer, David Kane (Richard Masur). This confused me as a boy, since I thought he was playing her ex-husband, and I wondered why they were getting back together. This impression further deepened when they broke up at the end of the season.
In Season 2, Mary Louise Wilson played Ginny Wroblicki, a cocktail waitress who lives in the same building, and becomes Ann's best friend. But Wilson didn't like what the show was doing with her character, and left after just the one season.
In Season 3, Shelley Fabares was introduced as Francine Webster, a work rival of Ann's. They eventually settled their differences, and opened their own advertising agency. Fabares' real-life aunt was actress Nanette Fabray (she kept the pronunciation, but not the spelling), and she was already a recurring character, Ann's mother, Katherine Romano.
In Season 5, Julie begins dating Max Horvath (Michael Lembeck), a flight attendant, who calls Ann "Shorty." (Franklin was 5-foot-3.) But Phillips' growing drug problem led to her being fired. As Season 6 began, it was explained that Julie and Max had gotten married. Phillips checked into drug rehab, with the irony that the recovery movement's theme is, literally, "One day at a time."
Ann begins dating Nick Handris (Ron Rifkin), who has a teenage son, Alex (Glenn Scarpelli). The character was definitely brought in to fill Julie's void, but was probably also brought in because CBS wanted to compete with ABC's success with the Chachi character on Happy Days. After just 1 season, Rifkin left the show. The writers explained that Nick had died in a car crash, and Ann took Alex in as a foster child.
In Season 7, Barbara, by now in college, begins dating Mark Royer (Boyd Gaines), a dental student. Phillips was briefly brought back, and Julie and Max became the parents of a daughter, Annie. But, again, Phillips' substance abuse issues got in the way. She appeared briefly in Season 9, and that was it.
By the start of Season 8, CBS' WKRP in Cincinnati had run its course, so Howard Hesseman became available to play Mark's father, Sam Royer. At the end of that season, Barbara married Mark, and Ann married Sam. Season 9 showed Barbara and Mark living in their own apartment, and the previous one was just Ann and Sam, as Alex had left, and it just wasn't the same.
The final episode aired on May 28, 1984. Ann moved to London for a job, and Schneider moved to Florida to take care of family (intended as a backdoor pilot that wasn't picked up), leaving Barbara and Julie, and their husbands, to each raise their 1st child.
Three castmembers were panelists on CBS' game show Match Game: Harrington had already been one before the show started, and Franklin and Bertinelli followed. At the age of 18 1/2, Bertinelli became the youngest panelist in the show's history. When it was revived on ABC in 2016, she became the only panelist from the 1973-82 version to appear as one, although Kirstie Alley appeared as one after having been a contestant in 1979.
Bonnie Franklin died in 2013. Pat Harrington died in 2016. Nanette Fabray and Joseph Campanella died in 2018. Howard Hesseman died in 2022.
As of December 16, 2022, Mackenzie Phillips, Valerie Bertinelli, Richard Masur, Mary Louise Wilson, Shelley Fabares, Ron Rikfin, Glenn Scarpelli, Michael Lembeck, Boyd Gaines, Jeff Barry, Nancy Barry and Polly Cutter are still alive.
In 2017, Netflix produced a remake, centered around a Cuban-American family living in Los Angeles. The divorced mother was now an Army veteran, and one of her daughters, rather than a later foster son, was named Alex. But aside from the basic premise, the 2 daughters, and the building super being named Schneider, the show had little in common with the original. It ran for 4 seasons, and was deeply embraced by Hispanic Americans, but white Americans basically ignored it, not even curious to see how a show they once loved could be modernized. Even having Rita Moreno play the grandmother didn't help.
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December 16, 1975 was a Tuesday. This was also the day that Bill Veeck regained control of baseball's Chicago White Sox. I have a separate entry for that event.
Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 6 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 97-96 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Washington Bullets beat the Buffalo Braves, 100-94 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The Golden State Warriors beat the Chicago Bulls, 91-87 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Houston Rockets beat the Kansas City Kings, 111-100 at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium.
* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 123-103 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar led all scorers on the night with 34 points, and grabbed 22 rebounds.
* And the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 105-98 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.
There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 98-96 at the Nassau Coliseum. And the Spirits of St. Louis beat the San Antonio Spurs, 106-103 at the St. Louis Arena.
There was 1 game in the NHL: The Atlanta Flames beat the Kansas City Scouts, 3-1 at The Omni in Atlanta. There were 5 games in the World Hockey Association:
* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Calgary Cowboys, 7-3 at the Colisée de Québec.
* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Toronto Toros, 4-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Indianapolis Racers, 3-1 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.
* The San Diego Mariners beat the Houston Aeros, 4-2 at The Summit in Houston. (It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.
* The Denver Spurs beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 3-2 in overtime at the McNichols Arena in Denver.
