Mr. Dugan

Norman Lear was the master of character driven, politically minded, controversial sitcoms in the 1970s. His resume includes classic shows like All in the Family, Sanford & Son, and Good Times. To that list Lear looked to add the Washington D.C. set comedy Mr. Dugan. It was 1979 and Lear’s long-running show Maude had come to end with the title character becoming a Congresswoman. Lear was enjoying the D.C. setting so he wanted to continue on with Mr. Dooley, a show focusing on politics in the U.S. capital but with the central character being an African-American Congressman, a role initially played by Lear’s former Good Times star John Amos, but “creative differences” with the show’s producers saw Amos vacate the role and Blazing Saddles star Cleavon Little stepping in. Lear changed the name of the show to Mr. Dugan, a pilot was filmed and CBS was very high on the show giving it some very heavy promotion leading up to the 1979 fall TV season. And then Norman Lear made the mistake of having a special screening of the show for a group of actual black members of Congress. The black Congress people all hated it and accused the show of being demeaning to black people and even threatened to organize a boycott of CBS if the show was allowed to air. Unbowed by this reaction, Lear set up a private screening of the show in his own home for several of his black friends and they hated it just as much as the black members of Congress. Ultimately all parties agreed that the show shouldn’t air and Mr. Dugan was cancelled. Lear then retooled the show by removing the black lead character, changing the setting of the show but keeping the rest of the cast and called the show Hanging In. That little bit of craven money grabbing was an unmitigated disaster too and was cancelled pretty swiftly.