Episode Quotes

Mistakes/Goofs

Trivia

• The producers of "Maude" still liked the idea of a show centered around a new Congressional representative (even though they had watched a D.C.-politics show called "All's Fair" from their studio barely make it through the 1976-79 season) and remade this show THREE times. First this show was re-taped as the pilot for "Onward and Upward," starring John Amos as the Congressman. Amos, who has quit "Good Times" after its third season, quit this series before any new shows could be made. The next try was called "Mr. Dugan" (after a couple of name changes) and scheduled for a limited run in 1979 with Cleavon Little in the title role. Four days before that show was to premiere, Norman Learn's company canceled it unilaterally and refunded $1.2 million in production costs (four to six shows' worth) to CBS-TV after African-American members of Congress, who had screened the available shows, vehemently disapproved the comic portrayal of an African-American in high office as a chronic fumbler. Back to the drawing board. This time the producers moved the whole show to a college campus, added a fifth character named Rita (Darrian Matthias, who had appeared in the last regular "Maude") as a wide-eyed student assistant, picked up Bill Macy (yes, "Maude"'s husband Walter Findlay) in the lead role and filmed four shows. They aired on CBS-TV in August 1979 and sank into obscurity. Ironically, another branch of Lear's company put on "The Facts of Life" (also using a college setting in its later years) at almost exactly the same time for a limited run and withed it turn into a hit.
• Final episode of the series.