Co-Ed Fever (partially found CBS sitcom; 1979)
Title card for the series.
Status: Partially Found
Co-Ed Fever was an American sitcom television series created by Martin Ransohoff, Michael Elias, and Frank Shaw that was broadcast on CBS in 1979. The series was part of a trend of "frat house" comedies largely spurred on by the financial success of National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978, with Co-Ed Fever being one of three frat house-based sitcoms to debut in 1979 (the other two being NBC's Brothers and Sisters and ABC's Delta House).
Premise
The series takes place in the fictional Baxter College, a formerly all-female college that has just started to admit male students. 250 male students are subsequently integrated in Baxter College's 2,400-girl campus, with the series focusing on the impact that the addition of male students has on the residents of the Brewster House dormitory.[1] The seductive Sandi (Heather Thomas), the compulsive eater Maria, a.k.a "Mousie" (Alexa Kenin), the wholesome Elizabeth (Cathryn O'Neil), Hope (Tacey Phillips), Melba (Jillian Kesner), and the "spaced-out" housekeeper Mrs. Selby (Jane Rose) make up Brewster House's female population, who are then joined by male residents in the form of the shy and romantic Tucker Davis (David Keith), the preppy and wealthy Doug (Christopher S. Nelson), the nutty Gobo (Michael Pasternak), and Mr. Peabody (Hamilton Camp).[2][3]
Availability
Six episodes of Co-Ed Fever would ultimately be produced, with the episode "Pepperoni Passion" first airing on CBS at 10:30 PM on February 4th, 1979 as a "special preview" following the film Rocky. Unfortunately the preview did not earn nearly high enough ratings to overcome [4] a universally harsh reception from television critics (TV Guide ranked Co-Ed Fever as the 32nd worst television series ever made in a 2002 list) besides numerous complaints from viewers and network censors over the program's notably raunchy content.[5]
In response to this intense backlash, CBS ultimately chose not to air the remaining five episodes of the series, earning the dubious honor of becoming one of the very few television series to be cancelled after a single episode. The Brewster House set would later be reused as the girl's dormitory in the first season of The Facts of Life, which would debut later that same year.
Oddly, all six episodes of Co-Ed Fever would later air (in a late-afternoon timeslot of the kind generally reserved for syndicated programming) in the Vancouver, Canada area, on the regional network affilliate BCTV. It's unknown exactly how this came about, save that the rights were probably inexpensive and the area's ties to Hollywood production companies very strong.
After this Canadian run concluded, Co-Ed Fever would not be shown again in any market, and due to the program's swift cancellation and the scarcity of home recording devices at the time of its broadcast, footage of the series has since become very hard to come by. A promo and the opening scene of the single CBS airing are all that has currently surfaced.
List of Episodes
| # | Episode Title | Air Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pepperoni Passion | Feb 4th, 1979 | Partially Found |
| 2 | Pilot | Unaired | Lost |
| 3 | Disco Tuck | Unaired | Lost |
| 4 | Double Exposure | Unaired | Lost |
| 5 | Mid-Term Panic | Unaired | Lost |
| 6 | Goodbye, Mrs. Selby | Unaired | Lost |
Gallery
External Links
References
- ↑ Article in The Montreal Gazette about the series. Retrieved 25 Feb '23
- ↑ Page for Co-Ed Fever on Sitcoms Online. Retrieved 25 Feb '23
- ↑ Page for Co-Ed Fever on Nostalgia Central. Retrieved 25 Feb '23
- ↑ Article in The Bonham Daily Favorite about the series. Retrieved 25 Feb '23
- ↑ Forum thread containing the 2002 TV Guide list. Retrieved 25 Feb '23