The Hogan Family

The Hogan Family (originally titled Valerie and later Valerie's Family: The Hogans) is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC from March 1, 1986 to May 7, 1990, and later aired on CBS from September 15, 1990 to July 20, 1991, for a total of six seasons. It was produced in association with Lorimar Productions (1986), Lorimar-Telepictures (1986–88), and Lorimar Television (1988–91).

The Hogan Family
Original cast from 1986–1987
Also known as	Valerie (1986–1987) Valerie's Family: The Hogans (1987–1988)
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Charlie Hauck
Starring	Valerie Harper Sandy Duncan Jason Bateman Danny Ponce Jeremy Licht Josh Taylor Edie McClurg Steve Witting Tom Hodges Josie Bissett Angela Lee John Hillerman Judith Kahan Christine Ebersole
Theme music composer	Charles Fox Stephen Geyer
Opening theme	"Together Through the Years", performed by Roberta Flack
Composer	Bruce Miller
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	110 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Charlie Hauck (pilot) Thomas L. Miller Robert L. Boyett Tony Cacciotti (1986–1987) Irma Kalish (1990–1991)
Producers	Ronny Hallin (1986, 1990–1991) Linda Marsh (1986) Margie Peters (1986) Richard Correll (1985–1988) Judy Pioli (1986–1990) Chip Keyes (1986–1990) Doug Keyes (1986–1990) Laura Schrock (1986–1987) Steven Pritzker (1986–1987) Deborah Oppenheimer (1988–1990) Bob Keyes (1988–1990) Shari Hearn (1990–1991) Michael Loman (1990–1991) Larry Spencer (1990–1991)
Camera setup	Film; Multi-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production companies	Miller-Boyett Productions TAL Productions, Inc. (1986–1987) (seasons 1–2) Lorimar Productions (1986) (season 1) Lorimar-Telepictures (1986–1988) (seasons 2–3) Lorimar Television (1988–1991) (seasons 4–6)
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	March 1, 1986 (1986-03-01) – May 7, 1990 (1990-05-07)
Network	CBS
Release	September 15, 1990 (1990-09-15) – July 20, 1991 (1991-07-20)

Under the title Valerie, the show centered on Valerie Harper in the title role as a mother trying to juggle her career as a buyer for an auction house and raising three teenage sons with an absent airline pilot husband (Josh Taylor). After the first two seasons, due to a salary dispute involving future ancillary profits, Harper was fired from the show. Her character was killed off at the start of season three, and Sandy Duncan joined the cast as Valerie's sister-in-law and the boys' aunt. The series was retitled Valerie's Family: The Hogans, and for the rest of the series, it was retitled The Hogan Family.

Cast

• Valerie Harper as Valerie Hogan (seasons 1–2)
• Sandy Duncan as Sandy Hogan (seasons 3–6) who replaced Valerie as the mother figure of the family
• Jason Bateman as David Hogan
• Danny Ponce as Willie Hogan
• Jeremy Licht as Mark Hogan
• Josh Taylor as Michael Hogan
• Christine Ebersole as Barbara Goodwin (season 1)
• Judith Kahan as Annie Steck (season 2)
• Edie McClurg as Mrs. Patty Poole (seasons 2–6)
• Tom Hodges as Rich (seasons 2–5, guest appearance in season 6)
• Steve Witting as Burt Weems (seasons 3–6; previously made guest appearances in season 2)
• Willard Scott as Peter Poole (seasons 3–4)
• Angela Lee as Brenda Walker (seasons 5–6)
• Josie Bissett as Cara Eisenberg (seasons 5–6)
• John Hillerman as Lloyd Hogan (season 6)
• Lisa Rinna as Annie

Episodes

Main article: List of The Hogan Family episodes

Season	Title	Episodes		Originally released			Rank	Rating
				First released	Last released	Network
1	Valerie	10		March 1, 1986 (1986-03-01)	May 19, 1986 (1986-05-19)	NBC	#24	18.1 (tied with Moonlighting and Falcon Crest)
2		22		September 28, 1986 (1986-09-28)	May 4, 1987 (1987-05-04)		#39	14.8 (tied with The ABC Sunday Night Movie)[1]
3	Valerie's Family: The Hogans	21		September 21, 1987 (1987-09-21)	May 2, 1988 (1988-05-02)		#20	16.9 (tied with My Two Dads)
4	The Hogan Family	21		October 3, 1988 (1988-10-03)	May 8, 1989 (1989-05-08)		#22	16.3 (tied with NBC Sunday Night Movie and The Wonder Years)
5		23		September 18, 1989 (1989-09-18)	May 7, 1990 (1990-05-07)		#32	14.2[2]
6		13		September 15, 1990 (1990-09-15)	July 20, 1991 (1991-07-20)	CBS	#85	6.5 (tied with Cop Rock)[3]

Early seasons

Like most American sitcoms in the 1980s, the series sometimes dealt with moral conflicts, but not in a heavy-handed fashion. In the very special episode "Bad Timing", which first aired February 7, 1987, David and a former girlfriend debate whether to have sex.^[4][5] The episode featured the first use of the word condom on a prime time television program.^[6]

After a modest start in the ratings that was countered by critical success, Valerie had begun to show growth in the Nielsens by the end of the 1986–87 season. Its most significant ratings jump occurred after its moving to Mondays at 8:30/7:30c in March 1987, following ALF. NBC renewed the series for a third season in May. In light of the show's success, Harper and her husband, Tony Cacciotti, approached their producers and NBC about per-episode salary increases and a larger cut of future syndication revenue.^[7] When all of the couple's requests were refused, Harper and Cacciotti walked out on Valerie. Harper had prior history in this situation, as she staged a walkout in 1975 following the first season of her hit series Rhoda (and its parent series, The Mary Tyler Moore Show) which successfully resulted in a pay increase.^[7]

The couple continued to negotiate with Miller-Boyett Productions, Lorimar-Telepictures and NBC during the next few months as the behind-the-scenes struggle became well publicized. NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff, who was unhappy with the feud, publicly stated that he would replace Harper with another actress if the fighting did not cease. Tartikoff suggested Sandy Duncan as a replacement to Miller and Boyett, who both sided with the network chief in this possible casting decision. Duncan had recently signed a contract with NBC for a starring vehicle, and Tartikoff felt that this would be the best opportunity for her to make use of it.^[7] Though the NBC case was dismissed, Harper and Cacciotti won their trial against Lorimar on September 16, 1988, and were awarded $1.82 million in damages; which they both later donated to various charities. Harper left the show and was replaced by Duncan as the female lead.^[7][8]

Network switch

The cast of The Hogan Family with the inclusion of Sandy Duncan

In 1990, after spending three of the last four years on Monday nights at 8:30/7:30 (having been on Sundays before that), NBC opted not to respond to an agreement made with Lorimar insisting that the network had to exercise renewal options on the series before April 1. Despite the series still sporting decent ratings, NBC stated that it chose not to renew The Hogan Family "because of the strength of our current development."^[9] The show was then picked up by CBS for the sixth and final season.

Production

Theme music and presentation

The theme song, "Together Through the Years", was performed by Roberta Flack and composed by Charles Fox. The lyrics were written by Stephen Geyer.

Syndication

The Hogan Family aired in U.S. syndication on local television stations, from September 1990 until the summer of 1998. From August 1998 until August 1999, startup broadcast network PAX TV aired reruns of the series weekdays at 4/3c.

ABC Family previously held the U.S. syndication rights to the program and had aired episodes twice daily for five weeks from September 25 to October 27, 2006. It has discontinued running the show since then.

In Canada, the Crossroads Television System held the Canadian syndication rights and began airing the show on Wednesday nights. It discontinued airing the show in 2011.

The Hogan Family title was used for syndicated showings of almost all episodes, including those broadcast as Valerie or Valerie's Family, along with a shortened theme.

In 2016, Antenna TV announced that it would air the series in 2017.^[10][11] The Christmas episode was the first to air on the network on December 16, during a marathon of holiday-themed episodes from Antenna TV programs throughout the month,^[12] before the show officially joined the lineup on January 2, 2018.^[13]

On September 1, 2021, the series began airing on Antenna TV's new sister network Rewind TV, which features sitcoms from the 1980s through the 2000s.^[14]

In the United Kingdom, the series was shown on BBC1 from 1986 to 1992.^[15]

See also

• The Conners, the revamped revival of Roseanne after Roseanne Barr was fired, that also killed off her character