Charles in Charge

Charles in Charge is an American sitcom television series that premiered on October 3, 1984, on CBS. The series was a production of Al Burton Productions and Scholastic Productions in association with Universal Television and starred Scott Baio, who had previously starred in Happy Days, in the title role. Willie Aames, who had previously been a cast member on Eight Is Enough, also starred as Charles’ best friend Buddy Lembeck. Charles in Charge joined the CBS Wednesday night lineup at 8:00 pm, placing it against ABC’s hit action series The Fall Guy and the new Michael Landon-led Highway to Heaven on NBC. At the time, with the exception of their Monday-night comedies (Kate & Allie and Newhart), CBS's sitcom lineup was not performing well in the ratings and Charles in Charge did not do much to change that. Still, the network allowed the show to remain in production to complete the 22 episodes it had ordered for the season. After the February 27, 1985, episode, CBS placed Charles in Charge on hiatus. Two episodes had yet to air, and CBS aired them on March 13 and April 3, 1985. The network then dropped Charles in Charge from its Wednesday lineup in favor of the mystery drama series Double Dare; the show was moved to Saturday, where it aired in reruns for several weeks until it was replaced by the drama Cover Up. None of these series were renewed for a second season, nor were either of the two comedies that shared the hour with Charles in Charge (Dreams and E/R). One year later, after seeing the success of some cancelled network series after they were revived for first-run syndication (which was a significant trend at the time), Universal decided to rework and relaunch Charles in Charge in syndication. The show premiered on local stations at the midway point of the 1986-87 season, with the first episode of the new series premiering on January 3, 1987. Four seasons were produced for syndication, with the last episode airing on November 10, 1990. In total, 126 episodes were produced, 22 in the abbreviated first season and 26 in each of the syndicated seasons.