Fame (1982 TV series)
| Fame | |
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Series titlescreen
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| Country of origin | USA |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 136 (list of episodes) |
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| Running time | 60 minutes |
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| Distributor | MGM Television |
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| Original release | January 7, 1982 – May 18, 1987 |
Fame is an American television series originally produced between 1982 and 1987 by Eilenna Productions in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television. The show is based on the 1980 motion picture of the same name. Using a mixture of drama and music, it followed the lives of the students and faculty at the fictional New York City High School for the Performing Arts. Although fictional, it was based heavily on the actual Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. Most interior scenes were filmed in Hollywood, California. In all seasons except the third, the show filmed several exterior scenes on location in New York City. Season 4 featured 18-year-old Janet Jackson as one of the students.
The popularity of the series, particularly in the UK, led to several hit records and live concert tours by the cast. Despite its success, very few of the actors maintained high-profile careers after the series was cancelled. A number of the cast members were seen again briefly in Bring Back...Fame, a reunion special made for UK television in 2008.
The show was produced by MGM Television and aired Thursday nights at 8:00-9:00 on NBC beginning on January 7, 1982. Despite glowing reviews from critics, ratings were less than impressive, and NBC cancelled it after only two seasons. However, by special arrangement with LBS Communications, MGM revived the series for first-run syndication in the fall of 1983, where it continued for four more seasons, with the last first-run episode airing in the US on May 18, 1987.
Ira Steven Behr wrote twelve episodes of the series. He recalled the series thusly: "I did three years on Fame, which was a lot of fun and was also in syndication. We had no one looking over our shoulder. We got to do some wonderfully bizarre things on the show, and the only time they gave us any trouble was the last show I was going to write after I knew we were cancelled. It was going to be Road Warrior meets Fame. It was a show that takes place in the future, and you could only sing for the state. It was a fascist society , and we were going to have motorcycles going through the school and have Iggy Pop as the guest star. It was great, and I was in the midst of writing the episode when somehow MGM read somewhere that we planned to burn down the sets, which was a lie. We were going to trash them a bit, but it wasn't the last episode. We had one more after that, and they stopped me from writing it".
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