Acting Sheriff

Acting Sheriff is an unsold, half-hour television pilot sitcom created by Walt Disney Television for television network CBS that aired across the United States on Saturday, August 17, 1991.<ref name="Schedule">Template:Cite news</ref> Identified as episode number 895 in Walt Disney Television season number 35,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Dead link</ref> the 30-minute comedy drama featured Robert Goulet as B movie actor Brent McCord who is elected to the unlikely job of sheriff in a small Northern California town.<ref name="Schedule"/> With only an actor's knowledge and experience of what a sheriff does, the McCord character clashes with the local district attorney, character Donna Singer, and eventually lets a bank robber–prisoner escape.<ref name="Variety">Template:Cite book</ref> Character Mike Swanson, a deputy who is loyal to McCord, captures the escaped prisoner and helps cover for McCord's mistake by informing news reporters that McCord made the capture.<ref name="Variety"/>

Response

Initially, Acting Sheriff was thought to have a good chance of filling the Saturday 10:30 PM slot in the CBS 1991 fall television schedule.<ref name="Variety"/> In addition to the draw of noted actor Robert Goulet, the show was developed by the writing team of Larry Strawther and Gary Murphy, who were the writers of Night Court, a then-widely popular American television situation comedy, and the writers of Without a Clue, a 1988 comedy film starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley.<ref name="Variety"/> However, the one-time-only, August 17, 1991, presentation of Acting Sheriff received poor ratings.<ref name="Nielsen">Template:Cite news</ref>

In the August 21, 1991 primetime ratings for the week of August 12 to August 18, Acting Sheriff received a 4.6 share and was ranked as number 83 out of a total of 90 primetime television shows.<ref name="Nielsen"/> The 4.6 share represented 4.3 million TV homes out of a possible 93.1 million TV homes.<ref name="Nielsen"/> Despite the poor showing by Acting Sheriff, CBS tied television network ABC for first place in the August 12 to August 18 network ratings battle.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> CBS eventually filled the Saturday 10:30 PM to 11:00 PM primetime slot with 48 Hours, a documentary and news program broadcast on the CBS television network since January 19, 1988.

Critics' reactions were mixed. The Florida daily newspaper St. Petersburg Times rated Acting Sheriff a "best bet."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> However, the weekly entertainment trade newspaper Variety found the Brent McCord character too cartoonish to support the show as a series.<ref name="Variety"/> In describing Goulet's performance as Brent McCord, Variety stated that it was "a goof on Ronald Reagan by way of Ted Baxter" and came across as a "trigger-happy, ACLU-bashing boob whose disregard for the law is equaled only by his vanity."<ref name="Variety"/> Variety also faulted the show's appearance and other characters as too closely resembling the look, feel, and characters of Night Court.<ref name="Variety"/> Fourteen years later, American actor Lee Tergesen, who was on Acting Sheriff with Robert Goulet, characterized Goulet's performance as "quite good."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Reaction to response

The August 17, 1991, airing of the show was its only broadcast. In a December 1991 effort to raise more than $200 million to finance Disney's network television business, Disney created Zero Coupon Based Rate Adjustment Securities ("ZEBRAS") as promissory notes to be used to obtain money from the investing public.<ref name="ZEBRA">Template:Cite news</ref> Disney added Acting Sheriff and other television projects such as Lenny, The Fanelli Boys, Singer & Sons, and Stat to the ZEBRAS.<ref name="ZEBRA"/> Even though Acting Sheriff and the other projects were considered "dead dogs" by some, Disney presented ZEBRAS as a way for the public to buy into programming Walt Disney Television that was started in October 1988 and profiting from possible hits similar to Blossom, Golden Girls, and Empty Nest.<ref name="ZEBRA"/>

The 15-year ZEBRA zero-coupon bonds carried a guaranteed yield of 4% with a promise of up to a 20% return if Acting Sheriff or any of the other included shows were sold into syndication.<ref name="Terminate">Template:Cite news</ref> The bonds were seen both as innovative and controversial by tying their investment return to the performance of Disney's television shows.<ref name="Terminate"/> With analysts saying the deal was not a good one for investors, the ZEBRAS were not successful.<ref name="Terminate"/> Disney ended their offerings 23 days after the program started, citing falling interest rates as a reason for terminating the ZEBRA program.<ref name="Terminate"/>

Interest in Acting Sheriff largely remained dormant for the next thirteen years. However, in 2004, Acting Sheriff made its way onto the August 16, 2004, television show, The Best TV Shows That Never Were.<ref name="Never">Template:Cite news</ref> As one of 40+ reviewed television pilots from a pool of thousands available pilots, clips of Acting Sheriff were used by The Best TV Shows That Never Were show to insinuate that it was one of the worst aired pilots.<ref name="Never"/> In reviewing The Best TV Shows That Never Were, the New York Post ranked Acting Sheriff along the lines of the pilot for a "mellow John Denver cast against type as a two-fisted FBI agent in the mountain adventure Higher Ground" and the pilot where Tom Selleck and Robert Urich co-starred in the cop drama Bunco.<ref name="Never"/>

External links

• [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0233153

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