Webster (TV series)

Webster
File:WebsterSeason4.png Webster opening title (seasons 4-6)
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Stu Silver
Directed by	Joel Zwick (1983-1986) Lee Bernhardi (1986-1989)
Starring	Emmanuel Lewis Alex Karras Susan Clark Henry Polic II Eugene Roche Cathryn Damon Ben Vereen Jack Kruschen Chad Allen Corin Nemec
Theme music composer	Steve Nelson Madeline Sunshine
Opening theme	"Then Came You", performed by Steve Nelson (uncredited) and Gail Lopata Lennon (uncredited)
Composer	Steve Nelson
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	150 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Stu Silver (1983) Bill D'Angelo (1983-1984) Bruce Johnson (1984-1989) Steven Sunshine (1984-1985) Madeline Sunshine (1984-1985) Bob Brunner (1986-1989) Ken Hecht (1986-1989)
Producers	Bruce Johnson (1983-1984) Steven Sunshine (1983-1984) Madeline Sunshine (1983-1984) Tom Tenowich (1984-1985) Judy Pioli (1985-1986) Dave Hackel (1985-1986) April Kelly (1985-1986) Fred Rubin (1986-1988) Nancy Steen (1986-1989) Neil Thompson (1986-1989)
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22 mins.
Production companies	Georgian Bay Ltd. Emmanuel Lewis Entertainment Enterprises (1986-1989) Paramount Television
Original release
Network	ABC (1983–1987) Syndication (1987–1989)
Release	September 16, 1983 (1983-09-16) – March 10, 1989 (1989-03-10)

Webster is an American situation comedy that aired on ABC from September 16, 1983 until May 8, 1987, and in first-run syndication from September 21, 1987 until March 10, 1989. The series was created by Stu Silver.

The show stars Emmanuel Lewis in the title role as a young boy who, after losing his parents, is adopted by his NFL-pro godfather, portrayed by Alex Karras, and his new socialite wife, played by Susan Clark. The focus was largely on how this impulsively married couple had to adjust to their new lives and sudden parenthood, but it was the congenial Webster himself who drove much of the plot. The series was produced by Georgian Bay Ltd., Emmanuel Lewis Entertainment Enterprises, Inc. (1986-1989) and Paramount Television.

Like NBC's earlier hit Diff'rent Strokes, Webster featured a young African-American boy adopted by a white family.

Production history

When Alex Karras and Susan Clark married in real life, they started their own production company, Georgian Bay Ltd. ABC approached the couple about a sitcom development deal which resulted in a proposed romantic-comedy series, Another Ballgame, to star Karras as an ex-NFL player who quickly found true love with a socialite consumer advocate (Clark) on a cruise. ABC picked it up for the fall 1983 schedule, with Paramount Television as packager, but major changes would occur before the premiere.

After seeing Emmanuel Lewis in a Burger King commercial, ABC's programming chief, Lew Erlicht, wanted to give the actor his own series. At this time, Another Ballgame creator Stu Silver desired to develop an original show based on the lead characters portrayed by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in the film Woman of the Year and saw Alex Karras and Susan Clark's on-screen chemistry as being strikingly reminiscent of this.

The network felt the need to cast Lewis in a project quickly, before he grew another inch (like child actor Gary Coleman, who was also small for his age, Lewis would end up at 4'3".) With the number of comedy pilots ABC had greenlit for that fall's schedule, it was likely that Lewis would not be able to get his own series and timeslot unless he was worked into already-existing comedy projects. So, among others shows, co-producers on Another Ballgame were approached about working Lewis into the show. Stars Karras and Clark liked the idea of the sudden marriage and instant adoption of a young black boy, and the Webster character was thus created.

The premise of Webster's parents' death, and his inclusion into the Papadopolis household, originated with the second phase of the pilot, which had the show's title changed to Then Came You. Executives soon made it inherently clear that the show's major focus would be on the Webster character, instead of it being a split romantic/family comedy. The character of George Papadopolis' buddy and broadcasting colleague, played by Art LaFleur, was summarily dropped from the regular cast; once getting to air, LaFleur only appeared in the pilot. Karras and Clark did not approve this round of changes, as creative control was still in their hands with Georgian Bay. However, Clark originally prevented their co-producers and ABC from changing the series' title to Webster, since she wanted to maintain the ensemble aspect of the series. While early promotions for the sitcom carried the title Then Came You, network politics would end up violating Clark's request; the brass ultimately settled on Webster just before its fall premiere.

Webster premiered in September 1983 and was an instant hit. From the start, the final product was drawing close comparisons to NBC's popular Diff'rent Strokes, which featured the diminutive Gary Coleman as a young black boy adopted by a white family. The main differences, however, were that Lewis' character of Webster Long had an adoptive mother and father from the start who had no children, whereas Coleman's character Arnold Jackson was adopted by a widower with a daughter. Also, Coleman's short stature was due to a congenital kidney condition, whereas Lewis was completely healthy and had no pre-existing condition to explain his height. Eventually, in the fall of 1985, Webster would be joined on ABC's Friday night lineup by Diff'rent Strokes, when the latter moved to ABC for what turned out to be its eighth and final season.

Despite the early success, the show that made it to the air as Webster was not what Karras and Clark foresaw as their ideal starring vehicle. The first season was fraught with tension, between the couple's disagreements and their protests with Paramount and ABC. After the initial episodes that set up the show's premise (George and Katherine's wedding, Webster's arrival, and the resulting adjustments) were shot, most of the plots became exclusively Webster-driven, even though it was the writers' intention to include story elements that focused on George and Katherine as much as possible. The show's married stars did win many of the early script disputes, and several first season episodes did get to focus on the new marriage and lives of the adult leads. The in-fighting on set continued, and especially had an effect on Emmanuel Lewis. Reportedly, Lewis was often whisked away from the set whenever Karras and Clark argued and demanded rewrites. It became so severe that Lewis blamed the trouble on himself.

Main cast of Webster: (L-R) Susan Clark, Emmanuel Lewis, Alex Karras

After the first season ended, ABC stopped pushing hard for "all Webster, all the time"; Paramount eventually came to an agreement with Karras and Clark that they would continue to get prominent storylines for their characters. In the long run, the series did become part romantic and part family-oriented, as Clark and Karras wanted it to be; the series was also regarded for handling Webster's childhood stories in a more sophiscated, intelligent fashion than other comedies of the time that relied on preachy, heavy-handed morals to tell a story. The only condition that Paramount laid out for Clark and Karras was that Emmanuel Lewis, who ABC saw as a money maker above all else, would get production credit alongside them. As a result, "Emmanuel Lewis Entertainment Enterprises, Inc." was launched in 1986, acting as another production company for Webster starting in its fourth season.

By season three at the latest, the stormy relations of the first season disappeared on set. The main cast bonded well from then on, with Karras becoming a surrogate father figure to Lewis. Webster director Joel Zwick, in his interview for the 2003 E! True Hollywood Story on Emmanuel Lewis, remarked that, "As far as TV sitcom families go, it took them longer than most to acclimate to each other."

Synopsis

The show, set in Chicago, revolves around Webster Long (Emmanuel Lewis), a 5-year-old African American orphan whose biological parents, Travis and Gert Long, were recently killed in a car accident. He is taken in by his godfather, retired football star George Papadopolis (Alex Karras), with whom Travis had played professional football in the 1970s, and his wife Katherine (Susan Clark), an upper crust socialite with zero housekeeping skills. George and Katherine's new married life was part of the premise, but it was Webster who was the main focus of the show. The Papadopolises lived in a luxurious high-rise apartment in Chicago, with burly George now working as a sportscaster at local station WBJX-TV, and Katherine working as a consumer advocate, later becoming an accomplished family psychologist.

Although the series is set in Chicago, the apartment complex shown in exterior shots of the first two seasons is actually The Mirabella condominium building, located at 10430 Wilshire Blvd, in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California.

Sarcastic social climber Jerry Silver (Henry Polic II) was Katherine's male secretary, as well as her professional and personal confidant. Webster also had an uncle, Phillip Long (Ben Vereen) who first appeared near the end of the first season. Phillip had issues with Webster living with a white couple (creating acrimony between him and George) and sought to adopt him and take him to live in Chicago's South Side. After his numerous attempts at this during the second season, Phillip moved to Hollywood to launch an acting career. In the later seasons, Phillip would return in a few guest appearances.

Shortly after being adopted, Webster starting calling George by his first name but calling Katherine "Ma'am." In one episode Katherine asked Webster why he used such a formal name, and he explained that he was calling her as close to "Mom" as he could without disrespecting his birth mother. George often called Webster "Web."

Shortly into the second season, Webster accidentally burned down the family's apartment with a science kit and the family moved to a large Victorian house located at 1432 North State Parkway in Chicago's Gold Coast (41.908825°N 87.628949°W / 41.908825; -87.628949). Bill and Cassie Parker (Eugene Roche and Cathryn Damon) were the gregarious middle-aged couple who leased the house to the Papadopolises during the show's second and third seasons. Bill, a master craftsman, installed secret passageways throughout the house, which Webster explored when he, George and Katherine were first taking a tour of the property.

A ladder built against the basement wall led Webster into the closet of a mysterious bedroom, where he encountered a life-like doll moving in a rocking chair, and other spooky sights. Everyone soon found Webster in the bedroom after he was unable to escape, which forced Bill and Cassie to reveal why they were having second thoughts about renting the house. Their daughter Maggie, at age 16, had run away and had only been sending her parents letters without a return address, as a way to assure them that she was alive. Bill, more so than Cassie, had wanted to preserve Maggie's bedroom (life-size doll and all) for the day she would finally come home. After the Papadopolises displayed compassion over their story, and after some convincing by Cassie and Webster, Bill relented, letting the family take the house. The Parkers took a basement apartment, with Cassie and Katherine becoming good friends and Bill and George being less so--but time softened them up. A thread of drama was added when Maggie (guest star Jennifer Holmes) appeared for a tearful-reunion episode, complete with a son. The Parkers also had a son named Regis, who was referred to but never seen.

Many more of Webster's friends and classmates passed through, including Rob Whitaker (Chad Allen). A recent "divorce kid" living with his mother, Rob was kidnapped by his father in one episode, and the Papadopolises and the community rallied to help Rob's mother find him. When he returned, it was Katherine who successfully intervened with his father. Later in the third season, Rob's last name inexplicably became Joiner. Bill and Cassie disappeared after the third season; Cathryn Damon had left the series upon having been diagnosed with ovarian cancer (which ultimately took her life in May 1987), and instead of recasting her role, Eugene Roche was dropped as well so that their characters would not have to be used. As the fourth season opened, George and Katherine bought the Parkers' house outright.

Jerry, who was a more prominent member of the show in the first season (receiving the "co-starring" heading in the opening credits after the show's three leads), had since become an occasional character, but would continue for the entire series. George's jovial aging father, George Sr. (Jack Kruschen), known to all as "Papa" Papadopolis, first showed up in a couple of guest appearences in the second season, before joining as a recurring cast member in the fall of 1985. The following season, three more of Webster's friends/classmates had recurring roles--Roger (Carl Steven), Timmy (Danny McMurphy) and Tommy (Gabe Witcher).

Over the course of the fourth season, ratings dropped sharply. The show, which had been a Nielsen top 30 series, ranked 46th by the end of the season. Although ABC still saw Emmanuel Lewis especially as a bankable star, having recently featured him in his first self-headlined primetime special (Emmanuel Lewis: My Very Own Show, which aired in February 1987 and featured Lewis performing alongside Sammy Davis, Jr., Bob Hope and other big-name celebrities), the network felt that Webster was past its peak in terms of ratings, and was unsure that it would ever regain the higher numbers it had during the early seasons. Having been the Friday night 8 p.m. anchor since March 1985, Webster moved back to the "protected" time slot of 8:30/7:30 on Fridays in March 1987. ABC announced the series' cancellation in May.

Cancellation and move to syndication

Even though Webster had seen its overall ratings decline leading into its cancellation, the series had always drawn a large audience of younger viewers— in fact, Webster's largest audience was children.

At the time of the cancellation of Webster by ABC, there was a trend in syndication of seeing various television series that had been cancelled by the three major networks find new life as weekly syndicated series (examples including Mama's Family, Charles In Charge, and It's a Living). Even before Webster fell out of the Nielsen top 30 on ABC, Paramount had signed an exclusive deal with the show's producers to continue the show in first-run syndication if the network eventually had reason to cancel it before it reached its 100th episode. (This package deal also gave the same option to the Paramount-produced Cheers and Family Ties, if either of them were to see an early demise on NBC). With that as well as its consciousness of its new target demographic, Paramount elected to keep Webster in production and its syndication arm began selling the series to local stations across the United States. The switch to syndication still went through even as the show precisely reached 100 episodes on its last original ABC airing.

Webster's fifth season premiered in syndication on September 21, 1987, with a three-episode story arc which saw Webster, George, and Katherine head to San Francisco. Beginning with the fourth episode of the season, the Papadopolis household gained a new member in George's nephew Nicky (Corin Nemec), who moved in when his parents went off to work in Nigeria on assignment for the United Nations. Nicky provided Webster with a sort of "brother figure", and the two got along famously. However, Nicky was gone from the show at the start of season six (Nemec would later reach greater fame as the star of Fox's Parker Lewis Can't Lose). Although no longer a regular when the series moved to first-run syndication, Papa Papadopolis continued to make a few guest appearances during the fifth and sixth seasons, as did Webster's friend Tommy.

While the lead character's plots continued to mature somewhat with Webster's onset of pre-teendom, the same "cutesy factor" remained, thanks in part to Lewis' timing and portrayal. However, this was something Lewis was slowly tiring of, despite the fact that he had more creative control over Webster at this point. Now 17 years old and about to complete his high school education (which was followed by his enrollment at Clark Atlanta University in 1989), Lewis did not have the desire to continue portraying a character roughly half his age. Ultimately, due to Lewis' height, the character of Webster Long was only depicted between the ages of 5 to 8 years old over the show's six seasons. Early in the 1988-89 season, with Lewis clearly outgrowing the title role, Karras and Clark also decided that the time was right to move on. Webster's sixth season was announced to be its last, with the finale airing on March 10, 1989. Instead of a typical series finale, the last episode— titled "Webtrek"— saw Webster, George and Katherine go on an adventure aboard the Starship Enterprise from the series' Paramount-produced sibling, Star Trek: The Next Generation. There, they interract with Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) from TNG, whom Webster attempts to humanize, while a series of Webster flashbacks are shown that depict the concept of feelings.

Cast

• Emmanuel Lewis as Webster Long
• Alex Karras as George Papadapolis
• Susan Clark as Katherine Calder-Young Papadapolis
• Henry Polic II as Jerry Silver
• Eugene Roche as Bill Parker (1984–1986)
• Cathryn Damon as Cassie Parker (1984–1986)
• Ben Vereen as Uncle Phillip Long (1984–1985)
• Jack Kruschen as George "Papa" Papadapolis, Sr. (1985–1987)
• Chad Allen as Rob Whitaker/Joiner (1985–1986)
• Carl Steven as Roger (1986–1987)
• Danny McMurphy as Timmy (1986–1987)
• Gabe Witcher as Tommy (1987)
• Nick DeMauro as Benny (1987)
• Corin Nemec as Nicky Papadopolis (1987–1988) (credited as Corin "Corky" Nemec)

Episodes

Main article: List of Webster episodes

Nielsen ratings

• 1983-84: #26 (17.47 rating)
• 1984-85: #22 (17.46 rating)
• 1985-86: #41 (15.30 rating)
• 1986-87: #46 (13.80 rating)

Syndicated reruns

In addition to its continuation as a weekly series in syndication, Paramount also began offering reruns of Webster to local stations for their weekday lineups; this began in 1987 as well, as Webster had hit the so-called "magic number" of 100 total episodes that most series air before they are sold into syndication.

USA Network aired reruns of the show from September 22, 1997 to March 13, 1998. It also aired on Superstation WGN from September 21, 1998 to September 2, 1999 (which was, to date, the last time that Webster appeared on national television).

Webster also aired on Chicago's local station Me-TV and WMEU-CA (now known as Me-TV's sister station MeToo since March 2008) from 2006 to 2009.

DVD releases

Shout! Factory (under license from CBS Home Entertainment) has released the first four seasons on DVD in Region 1. Season 4 was released on January 17, 2012, as a Shout! Select title.

On October 9, 2012, Shout! Factory will release 20 episode best-of set entitled Webster- 20 Timeless Episodes.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date
Season One	22	January 25, 2011
Season Two	26	May 10, 2011
Season Three	29	August 9, 2011
Season Four♦	23	January 17, 2012
Season Five	25	TBA
Season Six	25	TBA

♦ - Shout! Factory select title, sold exclusively through Shout's online store.

External links

• Webster at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show
• Webster at epguides.com