raysond Cannot believe that the series "Eight Is Enough" is 40 years old! The series was based on Thomas Braden's 1975 New York Times best selling novel which was modeled on the syndicated newspaper columnist who was a real life parent who raised eight kids on which the television series was based. The show centers on a Sacramento, California, family with eight children(from oldest to youngest: David, Mary, Joanne, Susan, Nancy, Elizabeth, Tommy and Nicholas). The father, Thomas Bradford, was a newspaper columnist for the fictional Sacramento Register. His wife Joan(Diana Hyland)took care of the children. Hyland appeared in four episodes before she took gravely ill; she was written out of the show for the remainder of the first season and died after after the second season aired. The second season began in the fall of 1977 with the revelation that Thomas Bradford(Dick Van Patten)was a widower. Tom fell in love with Sandra Sue "Abby" Abbott(Betty Buckley)a schoolteacher who came to the house to tutor Tommy who had broken his leg in a football game. They were married in one of the series TV Movie broadcast titled "Children of the Groom" which aired as a two hour event on November 9, 1977. In another television event two other Bradford children were married in Season four episode titled "I Do, I Do" that was originally broadcast on September 19, 1979. As the series progressed Abby got her doctorate in education and started a job counseling students at the local high school; Mary became a medical doctor,while second youngest son Tommy became a singer in a rock and roll band.In the pilot episode, the role of David was played by Mark Hamill while the role of Nancy was played by Kimberly Beck and Tommy played Chris English. Beck and English only appeared in the pilot and was abruptly replaced by Dianne Kay and Willie Aames for the remainder of the series. Mark Hamill was replaced by Grant Goodeve for the rest of the series entire run. As far as the rest of the cast were only actors Dick Van Patten, Lani O' Grady, Connie Needham, Susan Richardson, along with Adam Rich and Laurie Walters were with the series throughout its entire five season run appearing in all 112 episodes. Dianne Kay and Grant Goodeve appeared in 111 episodes while Willie Aames appeared in 109 episodes of the series and Betty Buckley appeared in 102 episodes."Eight Is Enough" was the brainchild of creator-writer and executive producer William Blinn along with producers Philip Capice and Lee Rich who served as executive producers along with producers Gary Adelson, Greg Strangis, Robert L. Jacks, and Philip Fehrie for Lorimar Productions for ABC-TV airing for five seasons and 112 episodes from it's mid-season premiere(which replaced "The Bionic Woman")on March 15, 1977 until May 23,1981. Repeated episodes from it's fifth and final season aired as summer replacements from May 30,1981 until August 29,1981. The series aired on ABC's Wednesday night prime time schedule at the 8:00 eastern/7:00 central time slot which was a ratings winner. Regular writers for this series included Peter Lefcourt,and writing teams of Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov along with Greg Strangis, William Blinn, Thomas Braden, Gil Grant, Bruce Shelley, Norman Lessing, Martin Roth, Matt Robinson, Bruce Kalish,and Paul Schneider. The rotating team of seasonal directors including Irving J, Moore, Vincent McEveety, Phillip Leacock, Earl Bellamy, Hollingsworth Morse, Arnold Laven, David Swift, Leslie H. Martinson, Ralph Senensky, Barry Crane, Marc Daniels, Gerald Mayer, Jack Bender, William F. Claxton, Robert Friend to name a few.Big name guest stars ranging from seasoned veterans like Jack Elam, to Will Geer, Frank Cady, David Wayne, Noah Beery, Abe Vigoda and Barry Van Dyke to guest stars Ellen Travolta, Julia Duffy, Susan Dey, to Judy Strangis, Sherry Jackson, Don Johnson, Tricia O' Neal, Danny Bonaduce, Charlene Tilton, Robin Williams, Ike Eisenmann, Stephanie Kramer, Jonathan Frakes, Timothy Van Patten, Karen Valentine, Gregory Walcott, Adrienne Barbeau, Kevin Schultz, Beth Howland, Corey Feldman, Billie Bird just to name of the big name guest stars that appeared on this show. Eight Is Enough throughout it's run was nominated for an impressive six prime-time Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Actor or Actress in a Prime Time Series, Best Supporting Actor in a Prime Time Series and Best Film Editing. It won the People's Choice Award in 1978 for Best New Dramatic Television Series and was nominated for 2 Golden Globes for Best Actor(Dick Van Patten),and Best Writing for a Prime Time Series. The best episodes that came from "Eight Is Enough" were "Turnabout", the two part "Yes, Nicholas There Is A Santa Claus", to "V is for Vivian", "Seven Days In February", "Long Night's Journey into Day","Here We Go Again", to the two part "You Won't Have Nicholas to Kick Around Anymore" to "Moving Out", "Mother's Rule", to "Marriage and Other Flights of Fancy", "And Baby Makes Nine", "The Idolbreaker", to "Father Knows Best" just to name a few of the great episodes of the "Eight Is Enough" television series. When it was abruptly canceled in the Spring of 1981, ABC replaced it on it's Wednesday night schedule with "The Greatest American Hero" that starred William Katt and Robert Culp.

lakesgirl2 I loved Eight is Enough growing up. Age wise, I was in between Tommy and Nicholas, so I enjoyed those two the most. Plus, I think they had more story lines given to them than the others. I think there were just too many girls for any of them to stand out to me and David was way too old for me to relate to. I liked the balance of drama and comedy. I could be laughing about one part of the show and crying about another part. I believe the death of the mother (Joan) set this show apart from the other big family shows (The Waltons, The Brady Bunch). They dealt with it pretty realistically. And when Abby joined the family, the kids continued to call her Abby instead of mom, which was much more believable. Ironically, Abby became my favorite character and I think Betty Buckley was the best actor in the bunch. But I enjoyed pretty much every Bradford and loved their big family scenes the most.Eight is Enough was an excellent family show that still stands the test of time.

beegeebright What is with these credits? They don't contain all of the family members, and the few that are there are buried in this monstrous list and the stars such as Dick Van Patten are listed as having appeared in only one episode! Are they serious? I also agree with the comment that Betty Buckley's character would NEVER have been called "Abby", no one picks up a nickname AFTER they have been married and THAT name derived from the name of their husband, surely her husband might have been called "Abe" or some such thing short for Abbott, but the only way she would have been called "Abby" is if HER maiden name had been Abbott. I was also, as someone else said baffled by why they did not just replace Diana Hyland, that whole year of courtship was awkward and stupid and the show was all about the kids anyway. Those were the stories we wanted to follow. I enjoyed the show tremendously. I had just had my second child in 1977 and knew for a fact that it was impossible that anyone could ever have eight children and live, two were killing me, so I guess in a way, it gave me hope that I might just make it with two...

Brian Washington This show pretty much picks up where the "Brady Bunch" left off, but on a more serious tone. This show was definitely one of the first "dramadies", but it still managed to have its lighter moments. Most of them were provided by Willie Aames as the entrepreneur Tommy and Adam Rich as the cute Nicholas. These two young actors helped make this show one of the most loved of the 1970's. I do think that the major flaw in shows of this type though is the conflict of whether or not it was to be a serious drama or whether it was to be a cute domestic comedy along the lines of the aforementioned "Brady Bunch" and another show of that era "The Partridge Family".