Spoiler alert: Maher did not turn into Robin Williams or Roseanne. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t get his opportunities. He told Carvey and Spade about his shots at sitcom stardom that fizzled shortly after liftoff.
Sara
“I did my four or five Tonight Shows, and I got on a big show, a sitcom on NBC that was on after Family Ties,” he remembered. “It was a big thing with a big producer, Gary David Goldberg.”
The big thing was Sara starring Geena Davis, hot off her supporting turn in Tootsie. The rest of the cast was studded with future stars, including Maher, Alfre Woodard and Bronson Pinchot. “I was Marty, the office creep,” Maher explained. The show went up against blockbuster Dynasty and got canned after 13 episodes. Still, Maher didn’t mind. “When I did that first sitcom, I remember my salary was $7,500 a week,” he said. “Previously that had been my yearly earnings.”
Hard Knocks
No, not the HBO series that chronicles the training camp mishaps of NFL teams. This Hard Knocks “was one of the first sitcoms on Showtime,” Maher said. “It was two mismatched detectives, if you can believe a thing like that.”
It was another 13-episodes-and-done for Maher, but without the visibility of airing after a network hit like Family Ties. One IMDb user wrote a review headlined, “First Time I Remember Seeing Bill Maher.” The show “ran sometimes in tandem with It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” they wrote. “A restaurant was involved somehow.”
Sounds like a winner.
‘One with Sam Kinison, I Can’t Remember the Name’
We’ll help you out, Bill — you’re thinking of 1991’s Charlie Hoover, a sitcom starring Tim Matheson as a boring accountant who gets life advice from his tiny alter-ego played by a screaming Kinison. Somehow, it was half as successful as Maher’s other flops, lasting only seven episodes.
Maher played Elliot Weedle, a character who doesn’t get a description in the show’s Wikipedia entry. But after watching a YouTube episode, it’s clear that Maher once again landed the role of Office Creep. “Mr. Weedle,” says a secretary holding a pot of coffee. “I hate you and so does everyone who ever met you.”
So it was almost like he was playing himself.