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Before "Austin Powers," "Johnny English," and "Top Secret!" there was "Get Smart," the 1960s spy sitcom that mined the genre for laughs when the James Bond and "Mission: Impossible" franchises were still in their infancies. Co-created by comedy legends Mel Brook and Buck Henry, "Get Smart" ran for five seasons from 1965 to 1970, earning seven Primetime Emmys and plenty of other accolades along the way.

Stand-up comedian Don Adams starred as Maxwell Smart, the sometimes inept top-secret agent who regularly held the fate of the world in his hands ... and often almost fumbled it. By his side was the beautiful, super-cool Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), who loves Maxwell despite his clumsiness and penchant for messing up missions. The central trio was rounded out by Edward Platt's The Chief, the supportive leader of the intelligence agency Control, which employed both Agent 99 and Maxwell.

"Get Smart" inspired a follow-up film, sequel TV show,...

Lee Gabler, the powerful Hollywood agent who orchestrated landmark television deals during a four-decade career that included 25 years as a stalwart at CAA and a long relationship with David Letterman, has died. He was 84.

Gabler died Monday in Los Angeles from a brain injury, his wife of 35 years, Elizabeth Gabler, president of 3000 Pictures at Sony Pictures Entertainment, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Gabler, who started out at the Ashley Steiner Famous Artists agency in New York before coming to prominence at ICM, negotiated agreements for some of the most popular shows in TV history.

They included The West Wing, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, ER, Mad Men, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Amazing Race, Moonlighting, American Idol, House, Beverly Hills, 90210, Northern Exposure, 24, Sex and the City, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Melrose Place, The White Shadow, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Band of Brothers, Tales From the Crypt and Alf.

Bob Ellison, the two-time Emmy Award winner who wrote for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and served as a game-saving creative/script consultant on Cheers, Wings, Becker and many other comedies, has died. He was 91.

He died April 8 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his business manager, Malcolm Orland, told The Hollywood Reporter. “He was a sweetheart and so good at what he did,” Orland said.

Ellison came from the world of variety shows, where he wrote and/or produced several specials that starred Julie Andrews and Burt Bacharach. He also co-developed the 1988-92 NBC sitcom Dear John, starring Judd Hirsch.

Ellison wrote 15 episodes and was an executive story editor during the last two of The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s seven seasons (from 1975-77). He shared an Emmy with Allan Burns, James L. Brooks, Ed. Weinberger, Stan Daniels and David Lloyd for the beloved series finale, “The Last Show.

You know, a wise man once said that sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name.

"Cheers" is one of the best and most popular sitcoms of all time. That's not hyperbole, either — critics and fans alike will sing the praises of the show until you can't stand it anymore. "Okay, I get it!" you'll say. "You love 'Cheers'! Leave me alone!" Running for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993, and starring Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Woody Harrelson, and more, "Cheers" was actually a flop during its first season, finishing last in the ratings during its premiere. Things were so bad, in fact, that the network almost pulled the plug. Eventually, though, "Cheers" found its audience, and that audience couldn't get enough of the barflies and bartenders who called the show home.

The show sprang forth from creators Glen and Les Charles and James Burrows, and as it turns out,...

There’s no IP more innately suited for adaptation as a pure two-hander than the tale of Adam and Eve, a story in which, initially at least, there are no other characters, excepting the creator of the universe, who quickly gets relegated to a supporting role in the wake of more fleshed-out human leads. Legendary television scenarist Ed. Weinberger has finally done the obvious and turned it into a two-person play in the style of “Love Letters,” read aloud from scripts, like A.R. Gurney’s highly portable, bare-bones model. Weinberger’s take on the world’s favorite creation myth, “The Journals of Adam and Eve,” premiered over the weekend with a very limited run at L.A.’s 110-seat Garry Marshall Theatre, where a total of six audiences saw that it was… good.

How good? That might be a little tricky to exactly figure out, or at least take another...

Shelley Smith, who starred with Martin Short on ABC sitcom The Associates, has died. She was 70 and her death from cardiac arrest came on Aug. 8.

Smith died at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, according to her husband of 18 years, actor Michael Maguire.

“I’m sorry I have not updated everyone sooner,” Maguire said in his post. “My dear, sweet angel Shelly Smith passed peacefully yesterday at 2:20 Pm. Her children, Nicky and Miranda Nathan and I were at her side and holding her hand and kissing her head and singing to her and telling her how much we loved her. Also, with us was Grant Stevens, my great great friend, who gave up himself to help us, understand the process of dying, and guided us through it with so much class and dignity! We owe him a tremendous debt!

“Shelley lived an incredible life! We are all heartbroken, but we are also...

Shelley Smith, the statuesque super model who starred alongside Martin Short on a sitcom and was a regular on game shows like The $10,000 Pyramid before she launched an egg-donor program to assist infertile couples, has died. She was 70.

Smith died Tuesday at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, her husband of 18 years, actor Michael Maguire, tearfully announced on social media. She had been in a coma after experiencing cardiac arrest three days earlier, and her health had deteriorated in the past year, he said.

On the 1979-80 ABC comedy The Associates, a sequel of sorts to The Paper Chase from creators James L. Brooks, Ed. Weinberger, Stan Daniels and Charlie Hauck, Smith played a sharp, upper-class Bostonian who works at a Wall Street law firm.

The show, which also featured Short, Joe Regalbuto, Alley Mills and Wilfrid Hyde-White — with whom she graced the cover of TV Guide in November 1979 — lasted just 13 episodes.

The 5-foot-9 Smith then played Capt.

The cast of Taxi was back together again for a special reunion, as four of the show's main stars recently reunited. It's a reunion that comes almost 40 years to the day since the classic sitcom ended its run on television in June 1983, and going by the smiles seen in the images, it's clear that the love between the castmates is still strong. Tony Danza, who played Tony Banta on the show, shared an image of the reunion on Twitter where he can be seen chumming it up and having drinks with Christopher Lloyd (Jim "Iggy" Ignatowski), Carol Kane (Simka Gravas), and Judd Hirsch (Alex Reiger).

"Love these people so much!" Danza said of the reunion.

Lloyd also took to Instagram to share the photo along with a couple of others. The actor captioned his post with, "What the hell is going on here?"

Taxi was created by James L. Brooks,...

Tony Danza reunited with his Taxi co-stars 40 years after the show ended its five-season run.

In a photo Danza shared on Twitter, the actor is seen having drinks with his former co-stars that included Carol Kane, Christopher Lloyd and Judd Hirsch.

“Love these people so much!” Danza captioned the photo.

Love these people so much! #oldfriends #taxi pic.twitter.com/1NIBt3djid

— Tony Danza (@TonyDanza) May 8, 2023

Over on Instagram, Lloyd shared more photos from their reunion and captioned the post, “What the hell is going on here?”

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A post shared by Christopher Lloyd (@mrchristopherlloyd)

The reunion of the Taxi cast happened almost exactly 40 years after the show ended its five-season run and with over 100 episodes produced.

Taxi, created by James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis and Ed. Weinberger, centers on a group of employees working the night shift at the fictional Sunshine Cab Company.

David Davis, a veteran comedy writer who co-created the indelible ensemble comedies “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Taxi,” died Nov. 4 in Los Angeles.

Davis’ death was confirmed Saturday by his daughter, Samantha Davis-Friedman. Survivors also include his wife of many decades, “Rhoda” star Julie Kavner, now best known as the voice of Marge Simpson from Fox’s “The Simpsons.”

Davis was known for his work in the Mtm Television stable. He wrote for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Rhoda” and in addition to helping to craft two Hall of Fame sitcoms. After retiring from writing in 1979, Davis worked as a consultant on TV and film projects including the ABC TV series “Phenom” and noted pics including 1987’s “Broadcast News” and the 1983 Oscar winner “Terms of Endearment.”

Born in Brooklyn in 1936, Davis got his start in TV as a script supervisor on such early 1960s comedies as “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis...

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David Davis, the Emmy-winning writer and producer whose heyday in the 1970s included invaluable work on the enduring network sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, The Bob Newhart Show and Taxi, has died. He was 86.

Davis died Friday in Los Angeles, his daughter Samantha Davis-Friedman told The Hollywood Reporter.

Survivors include his wife, actress Julie Kavner, best known as the voice of Marge Simpson on The Simpsons. Davis recommended her for the part of Brenda Morgenstern, Valerie Harper‘s insecure sister on Rhoda — it was her first paying job as an actress — and they were together since 1976.

Rhoda “gave me my life, it gave me my career, it gave me the love of my life, David Davis,” Kavner said in a 2009 interview.

A member of the Mtm Enterprises production company founded by Grant Tinker and Mary Tyler Moore, Davis started out on Mtm’s inaugural series,...

Betty White has penned three memoirs and spent a lifetime in the public eye. When author Ray Richmond was approached to write a book timed to White’s 100th birthday on Jan. 17, he questioned whether there was anything left to uncover about her sui generis life and career.

Once he went down the rabbit hole of a quick “facts about Betty White” Google search, Richmond was hooked. “Betty White: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life,” published this week by Becker & Mayer Books,” became a five-month intensive study on what makes Betty White so beloved as an entertainer and such an enduring figure in pop culture.

Richmond, a former Variety reporter who has penned numerous books, believes White’s authentic “aw shucks” attitude about herself and willingness to go for it with bawdy humor has been crucial to her staying power. There’s a fine line between funny and crass, and...

James Burrows, perhaps the most successful TV director in history, owes his lengthy small screen career to Grant Tinker.

Tinker, who died Monday at 90, was a towering television titan who turned Mtm Enterprises into one of the most successful production companies in the 1970s, then took over NBC and led that network from worst to first in the 1980s.

But his legacy lives on, thanks to the writers, producers, directors and stars he championed during his long career. Burrows, who recently directed his 1,000th episode of television (which NBC celebrated with a primetime special), is one of them.

“I owe my entire television career to him,” Burrows told IndieWire.

Burrows was a theater director and stage manager in New York when he worked on the musical “Holly Golightly” (later retitled “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”), starring Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain. The show closed after just four nights, but by the end,...

A show about prostate problems that plague older men does not strike one as a comical subject. But when lines about male issues are being delivered out of the mouth of the quintessential curmudgeon, an 86-year-old Ed Asner, this delicate topic is gut-wrenching humorous. Asner is appearing around the country in a new one-man show, “A Man and His Prostate,” that recently debuted in mid January to sold out crowds at the Metropolitan Room in New York City. Written and created by Emmy and Golden Globe winner Ed. Weinberger, this hilarious and painful story of one man’s woes with a.

"You've gone from Taxi to this," Jimmy Fallon cracked at Danny DeVito during Tuesday's Tonight Show, as the duo geared up for a game of inflatable flip cup. "When this is over, I'm gonna kick your ass," the actor fired back. Host and guest channeled their inner frat boys as they raced to down Solo cups of beer and flip over the cups, all while wearing random poofy suits.

Fallon took an early lead in the contest, holding on for a victory – despite a strong surge from DeVito, whom Fallon...

The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 7, Episode 24: “The Last Show”

Written by James L. Brooks, Allan Burns, Ed Weinberger, Stan Daniels, David Lloyd & Bob Ellison

Directed by Jay Sandrich

Original Airdate: March 19, 1977 on CBS

The Mary Tyler Moore Show began in 1970 on the CBS network. The show, itself, was ground breaking. It centered on a single woman who had just went through a bad breakup and was trying to make a name for herself. And she accomplished that throughout the seven years that the show was on the air.

In the first episode we were introduced to Mary Richards who had just moved to Minneapolis and was going to start work at the local news station. Since the show began right at the beginning of the seventies the nation was still dealing with women in the workforce. We see elements of this throughout that episode; Mr. Grant seems reluctant...

Taxi, “Like Father, Like Daughter”

Written by James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis, Ed Weinberger

Directed by James Burrows

Aired September 12th, 1978 on ABC

Comedy pilots are hard. Even the best sitcoms often take a while to find their voice, hitting their strides halfway through season one or even in season two. The cast needs to gel, the writers and actors need to find the right levels for each character, and the series as a whole needs to establish its tone. Given a talented and motivated showrunner, writing staff, director, and cast, each of these will come, with time, but it is extremely rare for all three to come together immediately, in the pilot. As a rule, frankly, comedy pilots are bad. One exception to this rule is Taxi and its pilot, “Like Father, Like Daughter”.

The premise of Taxi is a straightforward one- it’s a workplace comedy...

The Sopranos was named the best-written show in television history by the Writers Guild of America, edging out an eclectic collection of some of the most beloved and admired series. Members of the Writers Guild of America, West (Wgaw) and the Writers Guild of America, East (Wgae) voted online for the 101 Best Written TV Series, with David Chase’s iconic “family” drama topping Seinfeld, The Twilight Zone, All in the Family, and M*A*S*H*.

“At their core, all of these wonderful series began with the words of the writers who created them and were sustained by the writers...

The Cosby Show, “Theo’s Economic Lesson”

Written by Ed Weinberger and Michael Leeson

Directed by Jay Sandrich

Aired September 20th, 1984 on NBC

The standup comedy boom of the 1980s led to a glut of network sitcoms centered around standup comedians. It was a pretty straightforward formula- find a popular or promising standup, have them create and star in a half-hour comedy based on their material, and sit back and count your money when it becomes a hit. Of course, at least as many series missed as hit, but that didn’t stop network television from being littered with mostly male comedian-based family comedies. It’s easy to lump these shows together as mostly uninteresting or uninspiring, often dated sitcoms (with a few exceptions, like Seinfeld, rising above the others), but there’s a very good reason the networks followed this formula so rigidly- they wanted to find the next The Cosby Show.

Well my dear Friends. TV One has decided Not 2 pick up Belles the best show & cast they ever had. I am in shock. But it will be back. The above is a tweet from co-star of the series, Miguel Núñez. So I suppose that's it then for TV One's latest original scripted series, Belle’s - a comedy centered around a widower who owns and operates his family's upscale soul food restaurant. The half-hour series was co-created by Emmy Award-winning producer Ed Weinberger (Taxi, The Cosby Show). Keith David, Elise Neal, Tami Roman, Ella Joyce and Nadja Alaya, made up the series' starring cast. The...

Via the press release received today... on Monday, January 21, 2013, at 10 pm Est, TV One will premiere its latest original scripted series, Belle’s - a new comedy centered around widower William "Big Bill" Cooper who owns and operates his family's upscale soul food restaurant. The half-hour series is co-created by Emmy Award-winning producer Ed. Weinberger (Taxi, The Cosby Show). In addition to running the restaurant, Bill (Keith David) must deal with his two headstrong daughters: Jill (Elise Neal), the sensible hardworking manager of Belle's who also juggles being a single mom; and Loreta (Tami Roman), a stylish, self-absorbed...