This is the fourteenth in a series of examinations of legends about television and the people involved in TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the previous thirteen.

Let’s begin!

TV LEGEND: 77 Sunset Strip was released in theaters specifically to take away rights from the show’s creator.

STATUS: True

Roy Huggins is one of the most accomplished producers in television history, known primarily for creating the series Maverick, The Fugitive, Baretta and Rockford Files.

He also created 77 Sunset Strip for ABC when he was working for Warner Brothers, who were JUST getting into television in the mid-50s when they hired Huggins.

The main character of 77 Sunset Strip was former World War II intelligence operative turned private investigator Stuart Bailey (played by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.).

Stuart Bailey originally appeared in a novel Huggins wrote in 1946 and Huggins later adapted the character for the silver screen in 1949’s I Love Trouble (the character was played by Franchot Tone).

Huggins was producing an anthology series for Warner Bros. and Bailey appeared in an episode of that, as well (played by Zimbalist for the first time). The episode went over well enough that Warners wanted to turn the concept into a regular series.

They produced a 90-minute pilot episode and previewed it to audiences around the country who responded enthusiastically. Warner Bros. felt that they had a hit on their hands.

However, Warners also did not particularly feel like sharing any of the rights to the show with Huggins, so they came up with a plan to basically screw Huggins out of his fair share.

The pilot was not actually written by Huggins, but by screenwriter Marion Hargrove, who, since he wrote the script for Warners as a member of their staff, had no claim to the copyright of the work himself.

So Warner Bros. then released the pilot for a short time in a theatrical run in Puerto Rico before ever airing the show on television under the title of the episode, Girl on the Run.

Warners then argued that the television series was an adaptation of Marion Hargrove’s film, Girl on the Run, and nothing else, and since Hargrove wrote the film as a member of Warner Bros., then according to Warners, THEY owned the copyright to the show, not Huggins.

You would think that such a transparent maneuver would have failed if Huggins had really pushed it, but for whatever reason, while he DID complain and try to get himself royalties in the property, Huggins decided it wasn’t worth the fight and instead just quit Warner Bros. soon after the series began.

The series would go on to become a smash hit and run for over 200 episodes (and spin off a number of shows for ABC - well, by “spin off,” only one show actually spun off from the show proper, but a bunch of shows started that were designed just like 77 Sunset Strip only in different locales).

Huggins did learn his lesson, though - from that point on, when Huggins was involved in creation of a show, he would use the fabled “Huggins Contract,” which would give him vast amounts of power over the rights to a show, even if he was not actively involved in the actual production of the property - all he needed was to actually come up with the IDEA for the show.

He created The Fugitive under this contract, and years later, he still owned the rights to the show when it was adapted for boffo box office results in 1993, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.

So while he was stiffed out of his royalties from 77 Sunset Strip, you could perhaps argue that in the long run, being stiffed led to him making even MORE money due to the creation of the “Huggins Contract.”

TV LEGEND: Edd Byrnes appeared on the pilot of 77 Sunset Strip as a totally different, and evil, character than Kookie.

STATUS: True

When the pilot for 77 Sunset Strip was in previews, there was something that fans seemed to universally enjoy, and that was the character played by Edd Byrnes.

The producers were confused, since the character Byrnes played was a sadistic killer!

The plot of the pilot is that private investigator Stu Bailey (Zimbalist) is hired by a nightclub singer who has witnessed the murder of a union boss by a criminal. The singer (the titular “Girl on the Run”) is in serious danger, as the murderer has hired a killer-for-hire to hunt her down. The killer was a charasmatic looking young man who had the tic of constantly combing his hair. Called “Smiley,” the character was played by young character actor Edd Byrnes.

At the end of the episode, Byrnes’ character is caught for his crimes and is sent off to prison to be executed.

Well, fans looked past his evil ways and thought he was great, teens especially dug the “hep cat.”

So for the second episode (the first regular episode of the series), besides debuting Stu Bailey’s partner, Jeff Spencer (played by Roger Smith), the show featured the debut of Edd Byrnes as Kookie, the parking valet who helps Bailey and Spencer on their cases.

The character got the name “Kookie” because that’s what the producers referred to Byrnes as during the filming of the pilot “that kook.”

While Kookie had a different name than the killer of the first episode, it was in many ways the same character (even keeping the incessant hair combing), so the producers felt that they needed to have a good explanation for why the killer from episode 1 was suddenly a good guy.

To deal with this, Zimbalist actually appeared to the audience out of character before the second episode and said:

We previewed this show, and because Edd Byrnes was such a hit we decided that Kookie and his comb had to be in our series. So this week, we’ll just forget that in the pilot he went off to prison to be executed.

Isn’t that awesome?

Imagine someone trying that today!

In any event, Byrnes became a major star, even having a hit song with Connie Stevens “Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)”

And all for a guy who ended the first episode on his way to the chair…

TV LEGEND: NBC’s “Must See TV” was created for its Thursday night sitcom lineup.

STATUS: False

The first time that Thursday nights were treated as something special at NBC was in the 1982-83 Fall Season, when the ratings-challenged network began to tout its Thursday night lineup as a critical bonanza.

The night had the following shows…

At 8pm to 9, it had the acclaimed television adaptation of the film Fame….

At 9pm, it had a pair of sitcoms - the critically acclaimed new sitcom, Cheers….

and the critical darling that NBC had actually saved from cancellation at ABC, Taxi…

The night was then capped off by one of the most lauded shows of the 1980s, Hill Street Blues…

But that was all that NBC did to promote it - “Here are some high quality programs!”

And even that, they gave up on after half a season!

Taxi was moved to Saturdays and Cheers was moved to 9:30 and the paragon of brilliant television, Gimme a Break!, was moved into the 9pm slot.

Really, it was not until the 1984-85 season that Thursday night exploded for NBC, as the brand new series, The Cosby Show became a rating juggernaut…

which made the 8:30 show, Family Ties, ALSO become a hit.

The Cosby Show helped carry the night for the rest of the decade (it also helped that Hill Street Blues was eventually replaced by another critically acclaimed drama that was also a good deal more mainstream than Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law).

After The Cosby Show went off the air, Cheers was the biggest show on the night until it, too, left in 1993.

Then the night was carried by Sienfeld for a time…

coupled with popular sitcoms Mad About You…

and the Cheers spin-off, Frasier…

It was the 1994-95 debut of Friends, though, that really changed the landscape for NBC, though.

Suddenly, going into the 1995-96 season, they had four very popular sitcoms, so what they decided to do was to move Mad About You to join Frasier (which had already moved the previous season) to Tuesday nights to form a comedy block on that night to go with their Thursday night shows.

It was THEN that NBC finally debuted their slogan “Must See TV,” but it was not, as most people believe, a Thursday Night thing - it was a Thursday AND Tuesday Night thing.

Heck, here are two promos from that season…

In fact, for the 1997-98 season, NBC tried to expand their sitcom base with an incredibly ambitious (and ultimately disastrous) schedule of FOUR nights of sitcoms from 8pm to 10pm, with an additional hour of sitcoms from 8pm-9 on Sundays! In that season, NBC called EACH NIGHT (from Monday to Thursday) “Must See TV ___(fill in the blan of the night).”

However, as their sitcoms began to fail and their rating juggernauts faded away, NBC dropped the slogan.

They brought it back for a time in 2006 when they paired The Office with My Name Is Earl at 9pm.

But beginning in the 2006-07 season, NBC went with a new slogan, Comedy Night Done Right, for their two-hour block of shows, My Name Is Earl, The Office, Scrubs and 30 Rock.

Amusingly enough, NBC even itself has bought into “Must See TV = Thursday Night,” as they had a 20th Anniversary of Must See TV Thursday in 2002.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com