The Baxters

The Baxters is a sitcom that aired in broadcast syndication from September 1979 to August 1981. The original American incarnation of the series aired locally from 1977 to 1979 on the Boston station WCVB-TV; in 1979, Norman Lear took over production, and a recast version aired nationally in the 1979–80 television season. Facing cancellation, the series was then acquired by a Canadian firm who moved the production to Toronto, Ontario and recast it again; it lasted one more season as a Canadian series before ending its run in 1981. It is not to be confused with the 2018–2019 Lightworkers Media television series of that name based on the novels of Karen Kingsbury and starring Roma Downey. The series was the first "interactive" sitcom, depicting a middle-class St. Louis family. Each 30-minute episode was split into two parts; the first half was a vignette dramatizing the events in the lives of the Baxter family, and the second was a live studio audience "talk show" segment where audiences were given the opportunity to participate and voice their opinions about the issues raised in that week's episode. Synopsis The original run on WCVB featured married couple Stanley and Susan Baxter, their children Dennis and Amy, plus Grandma Lizzie. Stan was a high school shop teacher, while Susan was enrolled in night school. Dennis was in college and Amy in high school. During the first season as a nationally-syndicated program, the Baxters were an "average" middle-class family living in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Fred Baxter (Larry Keith) was an insurance salesman and Nancy (Anita Gillette) a housewife and mother. Naomi (Derin Altay) was their adopted 19-year-old daughter; Jonah (Chris Petersen) was their 14-year-old son; and their youngest, Rachel (Terri Lynn Wood), was their 10-year-old daughter. The series followed the Baxter family as they dealt with various important and, in some cases, controversial, issues of the day. In one episode they were faced with whether to commit Mother Baxter to a nursing home; in another, whether the fact that Jonah's teacher was a homosexual would harm their son; and in another, Fred faced a dilemma over whether to turn a small, money-losing apartment house he owned into condominiums, thus forcing out some of the tenants.