Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Good Advice

Good Advice ran from April 1993 until August 1994 on CBS.

Susan DeRuzza ( Shelley Long), was a very successful Los Angeles marriage counselor with a string of best-selling books on the subject, even though she seemed to know nothing about it. Her own marriage had fallen apart when she found her " loving" husband , Joey in the middle of one of his apparently numerous affairs. She threw him out of the house and began rebuilding her life, ineptly. Susan shared an office suite with Jack ( Treat Williams), a womanizing fast-talking divorce attorney who sometimes hovered like a vulture, hoping to get new clients when her patients failed to work out their marital problems. Others in the office were Artie ( George Wyner), the building owner and a chiropractor who also shared the suite and who acted like an adopted " Jewish" Uncle; Artie's mother Ronnie ( Estelle Harris), their receptionist ; and Sean ( Lightfield Lewis), the eccentric son of a wealthy family from Bel Air who sought refuge from the elitist world of his upbringing by doing odd jobs around the office. Michael ( Ross Malinger), was Susan's young son.

Good Advice had even more problems than Susan's patients. Originally scheduled to premiere in the fall of 1992, it was delayed first by health problems of its star, Shelley Long, and then because of extensive changes in the concept and story lines. After a short unsuccessful run the following spring it was supposed to be reworked and return in the fall. The producers kept tinkering with it , and then Long came down with the flu and its return was delayed until the following spring. When it did return there were 2 new cast members -Paige ( Teri Garr), Susan's flighty, self-centered older sister, who had just moved to L.A. and become the new inept receptionist, and Henriette ( Henriette Mantel), Susan's outspoken new housekeeper. The changes didn't help and the "new" Good Advice soon disappeared.

The series was based on a character created by Shelley Long.

A Short Review From Time Magazine

TELEVISION

Not Long for This World

SITCOMS CAN SOMETIMES BE THE SADdest places on TV. Whenever you see a new one with a star who rarely does television, there's usually a tale about dried-up movie roles or a career on the downswing. The latest actress to come crawling back is Shelley Long, who left Cheers six years ago for a movie career that has gone nowhere. In GOOD ADVICE (CBS, debuting April 2), she plays a marriage counselor whose sunny outlook is dashed when she discovers that her husband has been cheating on her. In the usual sitcom way, her real family is at the office, where she shares quarters, oddly, with a bald-headed chiropractor and an aggressive divorce lawyer (Treat Williams -- boy, this is sad). Long still has her bristly charm, but the vehicle has little.

An Article from USA TODAY
Published on October 12, 1993

'Bob stands in for ill Long

By Jefferson Graham
USA TODAY

Open the new TV Guide and you can't miss CBS' big ad accompanying the Friday , Oct. 22, schedule: " Susan is a marriage counselor with one piece of advice-never share an office with your sister and a single divorce attorney, Good Advice 9 PM."

Stars Shelley Long, Treat Williams and Teri Garr are pictured but viewers looking for the trio will see a different duo when they tune in: Bob Newhart and Betty White who star in Bob.

Long got a case of the stomach flue, so severe that production on Advice was delayed , and CBS was forced to pull the show from the schedule. Bob, which had been scheduled for 9:30 Fridays, got drafted to take Advice's place.

CBS promotion chief George Scheweitzer can't recall another time that a show got pulled after ads for the season premiere already had been published.

Long had missed 10 days of work and finally returned last Thursday. " She made the mistake of going back too soon," says her spokeswoman Lisa Kasteller . " And then she had a relapse. She's been hit with a really horrible case of the flu. It's not to be taken lightly."

For a website dedicated to Treat Williams go to http://tributetreat.tk/