Accidental Family

Accidental Family
Jerry Van Dyke as Jerry Webster.
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Melville Shavelson
Starring	Jerry Van Dyke Lois Nettleton
Composer	Earle Hagen
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	16
Production
Executive producer	Sheldon Leonard
Producer	Sy Gomberg
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production companies	Sheldon Leonard Productions, in association with NBC
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	September 15, 1967 (1967-09-15) – January 5, 1968 (1968-01-05)
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Accidental Family is an American sitcom broadcast on NBC during the first part of the 1967–68 U.S. television season. The show ran for sixteen episodes, from September 15, 1967, to January 5, 1968.

The show aired on Fridays at 9:30pm, sandwiched between the non-sitcoms Star Trek before it, and documentaries after, which was not considered an auspicious timeslot.^[1] The program consistently lost in the Nielsen ratings to both the CBS Friday Night Movies and the ABC Western The Guns of Will Sonnett, and as a result was cancelled midseason. It was initially replaced by the first prime time run of the game show Hollywood Squares.

Van Dyke publicly groused about the show's timeslot, complaining that nobody watched the show because of its competition. By October 13 — the airdate of the fourth episode — Van Dyke was already declaring defeat in the Arizona Daily Star. "In this business you've got to have such confidence," he said, "and I never did, so I'm beginning to wonder about myself. I'll tell you; I could use a success about now, and I believe this is a good show, but we've got to get out of that Friday night."^[2]