Sunshine (TV series)

Sunshine
Elizabeth Cheshire and Cliff De Young as Jill and Sam Hayden in Sunshine
Genre	Comedy-drama
Written by	Carol Sobieski Corey Fischer
Directed by	George Eckstein Daniel Haller Bernard L. Kowalski
Starring	Cliff DeYoung Elizabeth Cheshire Bill Mumy
Opening theme	"Sunshine on My Shoulders"
Composer(s)	John Denver
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	13
Distributor	Universal Television
Release
Original release	1975 – 1975

Sunshine is a 1975 American television comedy-drama series starring Cliff DeYoung and Elizabeth Cheshire, about a hippie musician raising his young daughter alone after the death of his wife. The series was based on the 1973 made-for-TV movie Sunshine and DeYoung, Bill Mumy, Corey Fischer, and Meg Foster all reprised their roles from the film. The series originally ran for 13 episodes on NBC in the spring of 1975. The show's opening theme was John Denver's hit song "Sunshine on My Shoulders."

Three years after the death of his wife Kate (which occurred at the end of the 1973 Sunshine film), musician Sam Hayden (Cliff DeYoung) is raising their young daughter Jill (Elizabeth Cheshire) as a single father. Sam struggles to make ends meet by playing in a folk rock trio with Weaver (Bill Mumy) and Givits (Corey Fischer) and by doing various day jobs. Although Sam's responsibilities leave little time for him to date women, he hopes to find one he can love who will also be a good mother to Jill. Meanwhile, Weaver, Givits, and Sam's occasional girlfriend Nora (Meg Foster) pitch in to help Sam care for Jill.

Although the series drew praise from critics for its quality and realism, its timeslot forced it to compete for young viewers with the popular CBS series The Waltons, and older viewers were not interested in watching a show about a hippie. A Chicago Tribune reviewer also blamed the series' failure on its portrayal of daughter Jill as an ill-mannered "pest".Sunshine performed poorly in the Nielsen ratings and was cancelled after 13 episodes.

After its cancellation, the series was described as being "before its time" and "one of the most interesting failures" of the season. Five episodes of Sunshine were later combined into a feature-length movie called My Sweet Lady which was widely circulated in England, Japan and Australia, resulting in the characters becoming better known in those countries than they were in the United States.