She's the Sheriff: Cast Photo - Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries

She's the Sheriff aired from September 1987 until May 1989 in first run syndication.

Following the death of her husband Jim , Hildy Granger ( Suzanne Somers) succeeded him as sheriff of Lakes County, Nevada, in the beautiful mountain country near Lake Tahoe. As a widow with two young children, Allison and Kenny ( Nicky Rose, Taliesin Jaffe) to support, Hildy definitely needed the job. Unfortunately her second in command , obnoxious Max Rubin ( George Wyner), was a constant thorn in her side. The other male deputies accepted her , but Max was constantly trying to undermine her authority and embarrass her, in a never-ending quest to get the job that was rightfully his. The other deputies included Lou Richards as Deputy Dennis Putnam; Guich Koock ( who had played a similar role in Carter Country a decade earlier) as Deputy Hugh Mulcahy; and Leonard Lightfoot as Deputy Alvin Wiggins. Helping out on the home front was Hildy's bubbly mother , Gussie ( Pat Carroll), who moved to Lakes County to take care of her grandchildren while her daughter was at work.

A pllot for this series, titled " Cass Malloy" was aired by CBS on July 21, 1982 with Caroline McWilliams in the lead role. It took some years to progress the project further but the subsequent series was set to star Priscilla Barnes as the sheriff. Shortly before production began, however, Suzanne Somers was brought in as her replacement. The move was ironic in that Barnes had replaced Somers in Three's Company in 1981.

She's the Sheriff was one of five sitcoms chosen by NBC to checkerboard across its weekday schedules in the fall of 1987.

An Article on the first run syndication market of the 1980s from The New York Times

First-Run Syndicators Find Tight TV Market

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: February 27, 1988

In recent years, the business of making programs for local television stations has been one of the fastest-growing segments of the entertainment industry, if also the least glamorous.

Shows like ''Wheel of Fortune,'' ''Entertainment Tonight'' and ''The People's Court'' have been big money makers.

But for producers of non-network shows, the business known as first-run syndication is now facing a much tougher environment: while demand from stations is relatively weak, the number of new shows being developed continues to grow strikingly.

''The business is dangerous,'' said Marvin Grieve, a program syndicator who is president of the Association of Program Distributors. ''It's crowded. There are too many programs and too few time slots.''

This year, the major studios and smaller production companies are offering the usual grab bag of trash, fun and games, and network-quality comedy and drama for the television season that starts in September. The programs range from talk shows with hosts like G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar; Don King, the flamboyant boxing promoter, and Howard Cosell, the former sports announcer, to situation comedies like ''The Munsters Today,'' to game shows like ''Pearl Bailey's Love Court,'' in which the singer will oversee a panel of ''love litigators'' mediating romantic disputes.

There will also be more ambitious dramatic programming, including ''The Street,'' a late-night police show from MCA Television Enterprises. The success in syndication this year of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' from Gulf and Western's Paramount Pictures Corporation has led that studio to develop a series based on ''War of the Worlds.'' Paramount's ''Friday the 13th: The Series'' has spawned imitators like ''Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy's Nightmares'' from Lorimar Telepictures Corporation. Few Offerings Will Be Produced

Few of the hundreds of new offerings, however, will be purchased by enough stations to justify being produced, industry executives said.

''There are an enormous number of pilots, and only a handful will get on the air,'' said Dick Gold, the president of Casablanca IV, a syndicator that is selling ''Howard Cosell: Speaking of Everything'' and ''Crimes of the Century,'' which will re-create cases of infamous malfeasance.

Part of the problem is that many of the prime afternoon and early evening time slots on local stations are already locked up by successful syndicated shows like ''Wheel of Fortune,'' ''Jeopardy'' and ''Oprah.'' Many stations also have depleted their budgets by buying the rights to reruns of network programs like ''The Bill Cosby Show.''

In a more general sense, the problems are the result of the widespread financial difficulties plaguing local television stations, especially those that are not affiliated with one of the three major networks.

Those independent stations are the major consumers of syndicated programming. Many of them were acquired over the last five years by new owners who took on heavy debt loads to buy them at top prices, only to see advertising revenues drop off and program costs soar. In the last year, 23 independent stations have gone bankrupt and others have found their cash flows badly crimped.

While advertising expenditures are picking up again this year, executives at both independents and network-affiliated stations remain hesitant about acquiring expensive programs. Aside from the few top-rated syndicated shows - ''Wheel of Fortune'' and ''Jeopardy'' are No. 1 and No. 2 -almost all shows will go for prices significantly lower than the syndicators are asking.

''Wheel of Fortune'' generates revenues of $400,000 an episode from fees paid by local stations as well as revenues from advertising time sold by the show's syndicator. By comparison, new shows often bring in a tenth of that or less. A Rude Awakening

''The last year taught us that we are going to have to be even more cost-conscious when it comes to acquiring programming,'' said Deborah McDermott, the general manager of WKRN-TV in Nashville, who is president of the National Association of Television Program Executives.

For many syndicators and program producers, today's tight market is a rude awakening after years of being able to sell new shows every season to the large number of stations that went on the air in the early and mid-1980's. There were 96 syndicated first-run shows on the air at the start of the 1987-88 season, compared with 88 in 1986 and 25 in 1980.

Lured by the huge success of ''Wheel of Fortune'' and ''Jeopardy,'' hundreds of small companies sprang up to supply stations with game, talk and courtroom shows and the like. Future Dim for Small Studios

Today, many of those small companies face a precarious future. Not only will they have trouble selling their shows, but they must face increased competition from Hollywood's biggest studios, which have steadily been expanding their operations in first-run syndication.

''The smaller guy will have a really hard time,'' said Al Masini, the president of Telerep, a syndicator and advertising sales representative.

Paramount, the Tracinda Corporation's MGM/UA Communications Company, the Walt Disney Company and MCA Inc., the parent of Universal Studios, have now joined Lorimar as powerhouses in the business. They bring not only experience in producing network-quality shows but also the financial strength to support the huge sales staffs necessary to market new programs aggressively to hundreds of individual stations.

''For the studios, making programming for first-run syndication is as important as making programming for the networks,'' said Lucille Salhaney, president of Paramount's domestic television division.

First-run syndication has become more attractive to the big studios as making shows for the networks has become less profitable.

Because of competition from independents and cable television, the networks' share of audience has declined to 70 percent this year, from 87 percent six years ago, according to the A.C. Nielsen Company.

Facing more pressure to cut costs, ABC, NBC and CBS have been holding the line on the fees they pay studios to make their shows. Studios generally lose money on a show's network run, but they have always banked on being able to make money on the sale of reruns. Now, however, the off-network market for reruns has dried up, except for a few blockbuster hits like ''The Bill Cosby Show.''

''The entire industry is now focusing on first-run syndication because it is recognized as the fastest-growing and potentially most profitable part of the business,'' said Shelly Schwab, the president of MCA Television Enterprises. The Lure of the Business

The lure of the business is easy to see. ''Wheel of Fortune,'' the most successful syndicated show ever, brings fees and advertising revenues of more than $100 million to King World Productions Inc., its syndicator, and Merv Griffin Enterprises, the unit of the Coca-Cola Company's Columbia Pictures Industries that produces the show. ''Wheel of Fortune'' reportedly costs about $8 million a year to make.

Lisbeth R. Barron, an analyst at Balis Zorn Gerard Inc., estimates that three of Lorimar's top syndicated shows - ''The People's Court,'' ''Love Connection'' and ''Superior Court'' - together bring in annual revenues of $45 million and generate $16 million in operating income. Most of that, she said, is from ''The People's Court.''

The circumstances are more complicated for syndicated situation comedies, of which there has been a glut for the last two years. Even a successful show such as Lorimar's ''She's the Sheriff'' does not make money on its initial run. The typical situation-comedy episode costs $300,000 to make, but brings in initial revenues of only $200,000 to $250,000. Betting on Rerun Sales

To make money in the long run, then, a studio is betting that it can sell the show all over again as a rerun. No one yet knows how successful a strategy that will be, since studios are only now beginning to offer their syndicated shows as reruns. If they cannot get the prices they hope for, Ms. Barron said, ''it does not bode well for first-run sitcoms.''

The business is also getting more difficult because stations are demanding that syndicated comedy and drama be of network quality - even though they do not pay network prices for it. Paramount's ''Star Trek: The Next Generation,'' one of the few new syndicated hits of the current season, is made by the studio's network division on a reported budget of about $1.3 million an episode, about what most hourlong network shows cost to make.

The studios said that after years of being at the bottom of the Hollywood totem pole, syndication is finally getting some respect from actors, writers, directors and other creative personnel. For one thing, syndicated shows are usually made in batches of at least 24 episodes, compared with as few as six for network programs, which means more job security.

For the Official Website of Suzanne Somers go to http://www.suzannesomers.com/

For another Suzanne Somers Website go to http://www.suzanne.com/

For another Website dedicated to Suzanne Somers go to http://www.geocities.com/suzannefan/

For a Page dedicated to Suzanne Somers go to http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/archive/peoplearchive.php/Suzanne_Somers/biog

For more on She's the Sheriff go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She's_the_Sheriff