The Julie Andrews Hour
| The Julie Andrews Hour | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Variety show |
| Written by |
Frank Peppiatt and John Aylesworth George Arthur Bloom Bob Ellison Lila Garrett Hal Goodman Larry Klein |
| Presented by | Dick Tufeld (announcer) |
| Starring |
Julie Andrews Supporting cast: Rich Little Alice Ghostley Garrett Lewis The Dick Williams Singers Choreographer: Tony Charmoli |
| Theme music composer | Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II |
| Opening theme | "The Sound of Music" |
| Ending theme | "Time Is My Friend" |
| Composer(s) | Julie Andrews and Leslie Bricusse |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 24 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
Nick Vanoff William O. Harbach |
| Production company(s) |
ATV ITC Entertainment |
| Release | |
| Original network |
ITV (UK) ABC (USA) |
| Original release | 1972 – 1973 |
The Julie Andrews Hour was a television variety series starring Julie Andrews that was produced by ATV and distributed by ITC Entertainment. It aired on the ABC network in the United States.
In order to secure Andrews for the series, Sir Lew Grade and ABC offered her an extremely lucrative contract. In 1963, when another major star, Judy Garland, was signed to a weekly television variety series, it failed to catch on with the public. One of the main reasons for its demise was its constant change of format and the fact that critics and audiences felt that Garland was not shown off to her best advantage. In order to avoid that error, Andrews asked producer Nick Vanoff what the premise of the show would be about. Vanoff immediately answered her by saying "Julie Andrews ... without Julie Andrews there is no Julie Andrews Hour."
The show premiered on Wednesday, 13 September 1972 at 10:00 P.M. ET to rave reviews. Unfortunately, its time slot proved to be daunting because it was up against the popular CBS detective series, Cannon. Another reason for the low ratings was that the lateness of the hour was not conducive to family viewing since children were in bed by that time. On Thanksgiving Eve, 22 November 1972, The Julie Andrews Hour devoted an entire episode saluting Walt Disney. To make it more of a "family special", ABC switched the time slot of The Julie Andrews Hour that night to 8:30 P.M. and The ABC Wednesday Movie Of The Week to 9:30 P.M. The ratings improved a little, so ABC then made a decision to alternate Andrews' time period each week. (One week it would be 10:00 P.M., and the next week it would be 8:30 P.M.) This continued until January 1973, when the series was moved to Saturday nights at 9:00 P.M. The ratings went from bad to worse, as Andrews' chief competition was The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show (both highly rated series) on CBS. (Ironically, Moore had been Andrews' co-star in the 1967 hit film, Thoroughly Modern Millie.) The Julie Andrews Hour was finally canceled by ABC after its 24th episode in April 1973.
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