Miller-Boyett Productions - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Miller-Boyett Productions (or simply, Miller-Boyett) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

production company

Production company

A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...

that mainly developed television sitcoms from the 1970s through the 1990s. It was responsible for family-oriented hit series such as Bosom Buddies
Bosom Buddies
Bosom Buddies is an American sitcom starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari created by Robert L. Boyett, Thomas L. Miller and Chris Thompson. It ran from 1980 to 1982 on ABC and in reruns in the summer of 1984 on NBC....

, Happy Days
Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....

, Full House
Full House
Full House is an American sitcom television series. Set in San Francisco, the show chronicles widowed father Danny Tanner, who, after the death of his wife, enlists his best friend Joey Gladstone and his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis to help raise his three daughters, D.J., Stephanie, and...

, Perfect Strangers
Perfect Strangers (TV series)
Perfect Strangers is an American sitcom that ran for eight seasons from March 25, 1986, to August 6, 1993, on the ABC television network. Created by Dale McRaven, the series chronicles the rocky coexistence of midwestern American Larry Appleton and his distant cousin from eastern Mediterranean...

, Mork & Mindy, Laverne & Shirley
Laverne & Shirley
Laverne & Shirley is an American television situation comedy that ran on ABC from January 26, 1976, to May 10, 1983...

, Family Matters
Family Matters (TV series)
Family Matters is an American sitcom about a middle-class African-American family living in Chicago, Illinois, which ran on national television for nine full seasons. The series was a spin-off of Perfect Strangers, but revolves around the Winslow family...

and Step by Step.

History

It was originally founded on January 15, 1974 by program executive Thomas L. Miller and former film editor Edward K. Milkis as Miller-Milkis Productions, and, in 1980, became Miller-Milkis-Boyett Productions once Robert L. Boyett (who was a creative consultant of Happy Days at the time) joined the company, before adopting the Miller-Boyett name five years later (although Boyett joined the company in 1978), following Milkis' resignation.

Most of the series the company produced for ABC during the Miller-Boyett era aired on the network's Friday night lineup (known as TGIF
TGIF (ABC)
TGIF was the name of an American family-friendly prime time television programming block on the ABC network. The name comes from the initials of the popular phrase "Thank God It's Friday"...

from 1989 to 2000); in fact, during the 1990-91 season

1990-91 United States network television schedule

This was the television schedule on all four networks for the fall season beginning in September 1990. All times are Eastern and Pacific, with certain exceptions, such as Monday Night Football.New series are highlighted in bold....

, all four Friday comedies on ABC were Miller-Boyett series: Perfect Strangers, Full House, Family Matters and the short-lived Going Places; and the company had six sitcoms on the air during that same season, along with The Hogan Family
The Hogan Family
The Hogan Family is an American television situation comedy that aired from March 1, 1986 to July 20, 1991...

(which had moved to CBS, after a five-season run on NBC) and the short-lived The Family Man. Around 1997, longtime Miller-Boyett associate and co-creator of Family Matters and Step by Step, Michael Warren broke his partnership with producer partner William Bickley after twenty-one years and joined Miller-Boyett Productions; the company was renamed Miller-Boyett-Warren Productions and produced their last shows, Two of a Kind and Meego. After both shows were cancelled, it was shut down.

Originally, the company was set up at Paramount Television

Paramount Television

Paramount Television was an American television production/distribution company that was active from January 1, 1968 to August 27, 2006.Its successor is CBS Television Studios, formerly CBS Paramount Television...

. After Milkis left the company Miller and Boyett left Paramount to work for Lorimar Television, which was folded into Warner Bros. Television

Warner Bros. Television

Warner Bros. Television is the television production arm of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself part of Time Warner. Alongside CBS Television Studios, it serves as a television production arm of The CW Television Network , though it also produces shows for other networks, such as Shameless on...

in 1993. Despite the fact that the company shut down as Miller-Boyett-Warren Productions, it was, and still is, referred to as "Miller-Boyett Productions" (or just simply "Miller-Boyett").

Trademarks

Many of Miller-Milkis/Miller-Milkis-Boyett/Miller-Boyett's sitcoms had common trademarks:

Midwestern setting: many Miller-Milkis/Miller-Milkis-Boyett/Miller-Boyett sitcoms were set in the Midwestern United States
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....

(e.g.; Laverne and Shirley was set in Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...

, Step by Step was set in nearby Port Washington, Wisconsin
Port Washington, Wisconsin
Port Washington is the county seat of Ozaukee County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The city is about 25 miles north of Milwaukee and 110 miles north of Chicago. In the 2000 census Port Washington had a population of 10,467...

, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers and Two of a Kind were all set in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

). There were some exceptions; for example, Full House was set in San Francisco, while Going Places was set in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

.
Charles Fox
Charles Fox
Charles Fox may refer to:*Charles Fox Mathematician*Charles Douglas Fox , British civil engineer*Charles James Fox , British politician*Charles Fox , film and television composer...

: Most shows in the Miller-Milkis/Miller-Milkis-Boyett eras had the theme songs and scene changes composed by Fox, who was the same age as Tom Miller. However, Fox's last theme song he could compose was for The Hogan Family
The Hogan Family
The Hogan Family is an American television situation comedy that aired from March 1, 1986 to July 20, 1991...

in the Miller-Boyett era. For that show's first two seasons, he composed the scene changes and bumper music for commercial breaks.
Jesse Frederick
Jesse Frederick
Jesse Frederick is a film and television composer best known for writing and performing the themes to popular television shows such as Perfect Strangers, Full House, Family Matters, and Step By Step.-Early years:...

and Bennett Salvay: Most series in the Miller-Boyett era had their theme songs, and in many cases scene change and bumper music, composed by Frederick and then-music partner Bennett Salvay. Frederick also performed the themes to Step by Step (with Theresa James), Full House and Family Matters. The main title theme songs composed by Frederick and Salvay had a common bond in that they utilized inspirational lyrics and an upbeat composition; however, the themes composed by Frederick and Salvay for The Family Man, Two of a Kind and Meego did not include lyrics and were strictly instrumentals. In later years, Gary Boren and/or Steven Chesne composed the scene change music for the remaining Miller-Boyett series.
Flash credits: Most Miller-Milkis/Miller-Milkis-Boyett/Miller-Boyett series used a flash effect instead of a fade-in/fade-out effect for their credits. This usually applied to both the opening and in-show credits, though the in-show credits following the opening titles of Step by Step during its first two seasons and the final season used this, nor did Perfect Strangers and Family Matters at any point in their runs, other than in the closing credits (and in Perfect Strangers' case, the opening titles as well). All Miller-Milkis/Miller-Milkis-Boyett/Miller-Boyett series used the effect for their closing credits as well. The use of flash credits was, and to a certain extent, still is common for use in the closing credit sequences of television series since the 1980s.
In-credit production logos: Miller-Milkis/Miller-Milkis-Boyett/Miller-Boyett's series commonly featured the production logos within the closing credits (though until 1990, the Lorimar Television logo was not shown within the closing credits and a separate animation was used, except on Family Matters, which always used the in-credit Lorimar logo).
Syndicated voice-overs: The first five sitcoms in the Miller-Boyett era were put into syndication and each of them had syndicated voice-overs at the end of the closing credits, voiced by actors starring in the respective series. The actors who did the voice-overs are Jason Bateman
Jason Bateman
Jason Kent Bateman is an American television and film actor. After appearing in several 1980s and 1990s sitcoms including It's Your Move, and The Hogan Family, Bateman came to prominence in the early 2000s for playing Michael Bluth on Arrested Development, for which he won a TV Land, a Golden...

(who portrayed David Hogan) for The Hogan Family, Mark Linn-Baker
Mark Linn-Baker
Mark Linn-Baker is an American actor and director famous for his role as Larry Appleton on the television sitcom Perfect Strangers.-Early life and career:...

(who portrayed Larry Appleton
Larry Appleton
Larry Appleton is a fictional character on the television show Perfect Strangers, played by Mark Linn-Baker. Larry was often called Cousin Larry or just Cousin normally pronouncing cousin "cosin" by his cousin Balki...

) for Perfect Strangers, Dave Coulier
Dave Coulier
David Alan "Dave" Coulier is an American stand-up comedian, impressionist, television and voice actor, and television host. He is well-known for his role as Joey Gladstone on the ABC sitcom Full House, which ran from 1987 to 1995....

(who portrayed Joey Gladstone) for Full House, Reginald VelJohnson
Reginald VelJohnson
Reginald VelJohnson is an American actor of film, stage and television, well known for his role as Carl Winslow on the sitcom Family Matters, where he was the only cast member to appear in every single episode. He also portrayed LAPD Sgt...

(who portrayed Carl Winslow) for Family Matters, and Patrick Duffy
Patrick Duffy
Patrick George Duffy is an American character actor of stage and film. He is best known for his role on the CBS television drama Dallas, where he played Bobby Ewing from 1978 to 1985 and from 1986 to 1991, Duffy returns to reprise his role as Bobby in a new up-to-date Dallas currently scheduled to...

(who portrayed Frank Lambert) for Step by Step.
Character continuity: A common theme in many Miller-Boyett shows would be the disappearance of a major character, who is no longer needed on the show, without a final on-screen explanation of their whereabouts. This has jokingly been referred to as the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome after the name of the Cunningham's older son who mysteriously disappeared from Happy Days after its second season without any on-screen explanation. This was most evident with characters such as Donald Twinkacetti on Perfect Strangers, Judy Winslow and Rachel Crawford on Family Matters, Brendan Lambert on Step By Step and the aforementioned Chuck Cunningham from Happy Days.

Production team members

Thomas Lee "Tom" Miller (born August 31, 1940 (age 71)) - He started his career as assistant to director Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

. Miller also previously served as a development executive at Paramount and 20th Century Fox. In 1970, a year after starting the company with Edward K. Milkis, he co-created Nanny and the Professor
Nanny and the Professor
Nanny and the Professor is a U.S. fantasy situation comedy created by AJ Carothers and Thomas L. Miller for 20th Century Fox Television. During pre-production, the proposed title was Nanny Will Do. The series first aired as a mid-season replacement on January 21, 1970, on ABC and was last telecast...

with the late producer AJ Carothers
AJ Carothers
AJ Carothers was an American playwright and television writer, best known for his work with Walt Disney, who was a very close friend. So much so in fact that Carothers gave a eulogy at Disney's funeral. Disney's daughter later spoke at Mr. Carothers' funeral...

. Prior to then, he was a writer of The Year of the Horse
The Year of the Horse
The Year Of The Horse is the name of a VHS released by singer/songwriter Sinéad O'Connor in 1991. The concert was recorded live at Forest National, Brussels , on 29 October 1990 and Ahoy Sport Paleis, Rotterdam , on 30 October 1990...

in 1966, and in 1969 he was in charge of development for The Immortal
The Immortal (TV series)
The Immortal is an American television series, which aired on ABC from September 1970 to January 1971. The series is based on a pilot movie of the same name, which aired in September 1969. The pilot is based on the science fiction novel The Immortals, by James Gunn. Although the series was canceled...

and did the same job in the 1970s for Weekend of Terror and Assault on the Wayne. He later wrote episodes for Nanny and the Professor and Me and the Chimp
Me and the Chimp
Me and the Chimp was a short-lived American television series which aired during 1972 on CBS starring Ted Bessell. He played a dentist who lived with his wife, two children, and a chimp named Buttons, a washout from the space program...

and co-created that show with Garry Marshall
Garry Marshall
Garry Kent Marshall is an American actor, director, writer and producer. His notable credits include creating Happy Days and The Odd Couple and directing Nothing In Common, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries.-Early life:Marshall was born in the New York City...

. Miller co-produced the feature films Silver Streak (1976) and Foul Play
Foul Play
Foul Play is a 1978 American comic mystery/thriller film written and directed by Colin Higgins. In it, a recently divorced librarian is drawn into a mystery when a stranger hides a roll of film in a pack of cigarettes and gives it to her for safekeeping....

(1978) with Edward Milkis.
Robert Lee "Bob" Boyett (born 1942; age 67-68) - He grew up in Atlanta, and later on moved to New York City to become a development executive at ABC, then later became senior vice president at Paramount Television. He later became a creative consultant to Happy Days on its mid-seasons before joining Miller and Milkis in 1978. Boyett however was not credited as an executive producer with Tom Miller and Ed Milkis on most series in the Miller/Milkis/Boyett era. Following the dissolution of the Miller-Boyett-Warren company, Boyett became a producer for Broadway theatre productions. He currently resides in Salisbury, Connecticut.
Edward Kenneth "Eddie" Milkis (July 16, 1931 - December 14, 1996; age 65) - A life-long resident of Los Angeles, California, he became a film editor on such movies as North By Northwest
North by Northwest
North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau...

. Next he signed on as the associate producer of Star Trek. Later on, he was involved in some of Tom Miller's early shows prior to the establishment of Miller-Boyett. He died on Saturday, December 14, 1996, at the age of 65, after a lengthy illness. His last production was Exit to Eden
Exit To Eden (film)
Exit to Eden is a 1994 American comedy-thriller loosely based on the Anne Rice novel of the same name, directed by Garry Marshall and adapted to the screen by Deborah Amelon and Bob Brunner. The original music score was composed by Patrick Doyle....

, which he produced alongside Garry Marshall
Garry Marshall
Garry Kent Marshall is an American actor, director, writer and producer. His notable credits include creating Happy Days and The Odd Couple and directing Nothing In Common, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries.-Early life:Marshall was born in the New York City...

.
Michael Warren started his career the associate producer of The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...

, where he met writer/Producer William S. Bickley. Then as an associate producer on Happy Days for its second season, later a story consultant with William Bickley, who was then a story editor. The two men produced Out of the Blue in 1979. Warren and Bickley later wrote for Happy Days and Perfect Strangers, before creating Family Matters, Getting By and Step by Step between 1989 and 1993, at that point Bickley and Warren became squarely producers instead of producer/writers, before officially ending their partnership around the time of the cancellation of Family Matters and Step by Step and joining the Miller-Boyett team.

Associates to Miller, Boyett, Milkis and Warren

Garry Marshall
Garry Marshall
Garry Kent Marshall is an American actor, director, writer and producer. His notable credits include creating Happy Days and The Odd Couple and directing Nothing In Common, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries.-Early life:Marshall was born in the New York City...

(1974-1984)
William Bickley & Michael Warren (1986-1997)
Robert Griffard & Howard Adler (1987-1999)

Television series

Angie
Angie (TV series)
Angie is an American television sitcom that was originally broadcast by the ABC network from February 1979 until October 1980.-Premise:Philadelphia coffee shop waitress Angie Falco starts a romance with customer Bradley Benson...

(1979–1980)
Blansky's Beauties
Blansky's Beauties
Blansky's Beauties is an American sitcom which aired on the ABC network in 1977. The main character of the series was introduced in an episode of Happy Days.-Synopsis:...

(1977)
Happy Days
Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....

(1974–1984, produced by Miller/Milkis, 1974–1981, produced by Miller/Milkis/Boyett, 1981–1984)
Laverne and Shirley (1976–1983, produced by Miller/Milkis, 1976–1981, produced by Miller/Milkis/Boyett, 1981–1983)
Makin' It
Makin' It
Makin' It is an American sitcom starring David Naughton as a disco dancer in the late 1970s. The series only lasted nine episodes, airing on Fridays at 8:00PM on ABC from February 1 through March 23, 1979 before being canceled...

(1979)
Mork and Mindy
Mork and Mindy
Mork & Mindy is an American science fiction sitcom broadcast from 1978 until 1982 on ABC. The series starred Robin Williams as Mork, an alien who comes to Earth from the planet Ork in a small, one-man egg-shaped spaceship. Pam Dawber co-starred as Mindy McConnell, his human friend and roommate...

(1978–1982, produced by Miller/Milkis, 1978–1981, produced by Miller/Milkis/Boyett, 1981–1982)
Out of the Blue
Out of the Blue (1979 TV series)
Out Of The Blue is an American fantasy sitcom that aired on ABC during the fall of 1979. It is chiefly notable as having featured a Mork & Mindy crossover, and for the controversy surrounding its status as a spin-off of Happy Days....

(1979)
Petrocelli
Petrocelli
Petrocelli is an American legal drama which ran for two seasons on NBC from September 11, 1974 to March 31, 1976.-Plot:Tony Petrocelli was an Italian-American Harvard-educated lawyer who grew up in South Boston and gave up the big money and frenetic pace of major-metropolitan life to practice in a...

(1974–1976)
$weepstake$ (1979)

Made-for-television films

The Heist (1972)
The Weekend Nun (1972)
Walkin' Walter (1977)

Theatrically released films

Silver Streak (1976)
Foul Play
Foul Play
Foul Play is a 1978 American comic mystery/thriller film written and directed by Colin Higgins. In it, a recently divorced librarian is drawn into a mystery when a stranger hides a roll of film in a pack of cigarettes and gives it to her for safekeeping....

(1978)

Television series

Bosom Buddies
Bosom Buddies
Bosom Buddies is an American sitcom starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari created by Robert L. Boyett, Thomas L. Miller and Chris Thompson. It ran from 1980 to 1982 on ABC and in reruns in the summer of 1984 on NBC....

(1980–1982)
Goodtime Girls
Goodtime Girls
Goodtime Girls was a short-lived situation comedy produced by Garry Marshall and his associates, Thomas L. Miller, Edward K. Milkis, and Robert L. Boyett, which ran on ABC from January 22, 1980 to August 29, 1980...

(1980; first series with Miller/Milkis/Boyett production team)
Foul Play (1981; adaptation of Miller/Milkis' 1978 theatrical film)
Joanie Loves Chachi
Joanie Loves Chachi
Joanie Loves Chachi is an American television spin-off of the popular American sitcom Happy Days that was originally broadcast on ABC from March 23, 1982 to September 13, 1983...

(1982–1983)

Theatrically released films

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (film)
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a 1982 film adaptation of the musical of the same name released by Universal Pictures, which was co-written and directed by Colin Higgins...

(1982)