MovieChat Forums > Gimme a Break! (1981) Discussion > What really brought Gimmie a Break! down...

What really brought Gimmie a Break! down!?


Was it the death of Dolph Sweet (and the difficulty to re-engineer the show in his absence) or the move to New York for the final season?

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I don't think they had difficulty moving the show forward in his absence. He was not the lead. He was a co-lead and in some episodes a supporting character, especially during his last season on the show.

Moving to New York was not the problem either. I think the deal, as with most shows that reach the 5 year mark and beyond, is they start to run out of storylines. Moving Nell to a new setting was supposed to open up new story avenues, which it did-- but some of those changes were too abrupt.

And the other thing that hurt the show was the girls had grown up and were moving out. So for Nell to stay relevant and remain a caregiver, they had to write new kids in for her to raise.

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Hey, how are you? I agree, the final season was the worse of the two without Dolph. There the show changed completely due to the network wanting changes or they'd take it off the air. I think that was what should've happened instead. Yes, after 5 seasons shows can run out of ideas and that is why they usually get sold into syndication at the time and end their prime time run. But sometimes if the show is doing well they will keep going for several more years. In this case, maybe it was time to stop after 5.

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Hey Steve. I sent you a message and replied on the '704 Hauser' board to one of your comments there.

Getting back to 'Gimme A Break!,' I agree that they should have ended it after the fifth season. A mistake they made, because NBC wanted them to reformat, was that Glenlawn was more than the setting, it was like one of the main characters. So when they had Nell & Addy move away with Joey, they lost the whole small town atmosphere. As we had seen in 'Mama's Family,' the small town feel helped make the show funny and charming-- because Alabama-born Nell was truly a fish out of water living in Glenlawn. They could have done a short-story arc in New York City (maybe two or three episodes with Nell helping Samantha get settled in college and agreeing to care for Joey's younger brother) but then she should have returned to Glenlawn.

As for running out of ideas, it happens all the time on network shows. But most shows just repeat or remake earlier episodes, hoping audiences won't catch on. In the case of something like 'Cheers,' it was easier to recycle stories, because they had a switch in leading ladies (from Shelley Long to Kirstie Alley) so they could recycle all the "will they or won't they hook up" stuff with Rebecca that they had done with Diane, because it seemed new with a different actress.

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She actually did go back to Glenlawn after dropping Sam off at college. The thing was that Joey didn't go back with her, but with his dad and new baby brother.

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Wasn't Joey abandoned or an orphan?

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I'd say the latter. The 5th season was better than the 6th and final season. In the season after Dolph had died you still had many characters that were there, although some were used less in certain episodes. The final season, the daughters were gone (except Sam on a recurring basis), Simpson was gone, and the show was now taking place in NYC, which is where too many shows take place to begin with.

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the premise was a bad idea by 1981. They should have had the kids move in with an African American professional family-- a "reverse" different strokes!!

Nell should have been a professional book executive right off the bat.

The African American maid as a friend was really questionable by 1981--after civil rights laws had passed and people knew they existed. Nell certainly would have had more education and more job options by 1981. They could have been fellow book editors at the same company.

No reason for the Black woman to be reduced to being a maid who cleans and pick up after teenage girls. Let them do the cleaning while she is at work.

I am not sure who at the network had thought the original premise was a good idea or how it got on the air.

It would have looked questionable even in 1981. Looks REALLY bad now.

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You do realize situations like this still exist even today?

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probably b/c Nell was a lousy singer, like Linda Lavin.

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I think they just ran out of ideas.

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