wow! Talk about stupid! Adam West was the whole point of that show.
Its amazing the amount of stupid choices that happen with television networks. For those of you interested in the behind the scenes stuff I have to recommend Bill Carter's Desperate Networks. I'm reading it right now. Basically going over the past twelve years of network activity and the rise of the big shows (Friends, ER, Millionaire, Survivor, CSI, American Idol, Lost, Deperate Housewives and the news anchors - how CBS climbed from barely on the radar to the #1 network and how NBC went from 1st to 4th in one season.)
ABC passed on CSI, and it was the showrunner of Everybody Loves Raymond that essentially saved the show. It was the day before CBS announced its schedule and showrunner was asked his opinion on a Tony Danza/family dectective show (on the schedule) or CSI (not on). While the Danza show was good, he had enough of Danza in show and thought CSI was cool. The rest is history.
ABC wanted Desperate Housewives on at Friday at 10 while others fought for the timeslot its in now, Lost was close to being a miniseries that aired two hours later.
NBC couldn't find any comedy shows to replace Friends except Will & Grace but even that wasn't a big hit.
Everyone passed on American Idol, even UPN, and when Fox picked it up a year later nobody thought it would be great. Same with Survivor, that took a lot of work to get on the air.
Current CBS President Les Moonves worked his way to the top and on the way helped cast the Olsen Twins for Full House, the cast of Friends, George Clooney on ER and William Peterson on CSI.
Check it out, you wouldn't believe what goes on and how these people get jobs. 9/10 the big hits are unexpected and the big expectation shows are failures.
