In 1985, producers Tom Miller and Bob Boyett were casting the husband role for Valerie Harper on her new NBC series Close to Home, which was retitled Valerie before its premiere.

Joanie Loves Chachi was the first Miller-Boyett ( and only Garry Marshall-produced ) sitcom developed by Tom Miller and Robert L. Boyett, and was created by Lowell Ganz, Mark Rothman, and Garry Marshall.

In 1990, Edwards was reunited with former Happy Days producers Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett, when she was cast as divorced mother Hilary Kozak on their single-season CBS sitcom The Family Man.

Upon the series ' cancellation in the summer of 1991, Edwards was asked by Miller and Boyett to join the cast of their hit ABC series Full House.

The series was conceived by Miller and Boyett as a male counterpart to their hit sitcom Laverne & Shirley.

William Boyett ( January 3, 1927 – December 29, 2004 ) was an American actor best known for his work as the low-key but authoritative Sergeant William ' Mac ' MacDonald on the police drama Adam-12.

Boyett was born in Akron, Ohio and lived there until the 1940s when he moved with his family to Los Angeles, California.

The series was the brainchild of Dale McRaven ( co-creator of Mork & Mindy ) and producers Tom Miller and Robert Boyett.

The show, for its entire run, was executive produced by Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett, and series creator Dale McRaven was executive producer with them for the first two seasons, becoming an executive consultant thereafter.

The network felt that the series's Nielsen ranking alone at the end of season three was respectable enough for renewal, but that another show from Miller / Boyett would have been a greater audience draw than Just the Ten of Us, given the higher ratings and ad revenue yielded for M / B shows at the time.

Making good on their promise, Miller / Boyett and Tartikoff brought in Sandy Duncan as the series ' new lead, and the third season premiere was hastily re-written and shot to feature the shocking storyline change.

The only issues she cited with Miller / Boyett was over the salary increase.

Miller and Boyett had ideas about venturing into hour-long comedy / dramas with Lorimar, at a time where a decline in the popularity of half-hour situation comedies was perceived.

Valerie was the first series Miller / Boyett created without the aid of Eddie Milkis.

The show was produced by Miller / Boyett and Tal Productions, Inc. ( which stood for Tony and Val ) in association with Lorimar Television ( as Lorimar Productions for season 1 and Lorimar-Telepictures for season 2 ).

This was the only Miller / Boyett series from the Lorimar / Warner Bros. era to have not used the songwriting, composing and underscore talents of Jesse Frederick and Bennett Salvay for most of its run.

Conversely, Valerie was the only Miller / Boyett series to have featured scoring by Fox during the producers ' Lorimar era.

As was the case with Perfect Strangers, the first season did not use the familiar Miller / Boyett Productions logo set in Century 751 type ; the " Miller / Boyett Productions " byline appeared in the show's main font instead.

Although Tom Miller, Bob Boyett, and Eddie Milkis were the show's supervising producers for the second season, the show was produced by Miller-Milkis Productions at Paramount Television.

During the development stage, the series originally went under the working title Life Happens, and was originally conceived as a series for ABC ( who had broadcast other series produced by Bickley and Warren, and their production partners Tom L. Miller and Robert Boyett ) before the network's decision to move away from family sitcoms, just prior to the network's 1995 purchase by The Walt Disney Company.

Boyett also played Battalion Chief McConnike on the 1970s series Emergency !.

Miller and Boyett also claimed that Harper and Cacciotti were displeased over the possibility that writing would shift to the more slapstick stories that had been a secondary component of their sitcoms at Paramount.

The theme song was a gentle tune with a traditional Miller / Boyett " inspirational " sound, and was performed by Mark Lennon ( who also sang the theme to Going Places ).

In addition to the title sequence consisting of one entire scene, which was not typical of Miller / Boyett shows, Getting By also made use of the special animation effects designed by Creative Tool.

Happy Days producers Tom Miller and Bob Boyett would eventually get to work with Edwards again, casting her as a regular on their future sitcoms The Family Man ( 1990-1991 ) and Full House, where Edwards portrayed Vicky Larson from 1991 until 1994.

Joel Zwick, a regular director on Miller / Boyett shows, garnered a rare producing credit in the second season as well.

Boyett went on to play Sgt.

Castile and his fellow Going Places cast member Staci Keanan were approached by Miller / Boyett into another sitcom Step By Step that premiered on ABC in Fall 1991.

Finally, USA Ostar Theatricals ( headed by Barry Diller and Bill Haber ), of the revival of Noises Off, Bob Boyett ( producer of a revival of Hedda Gabler and investor in a revival of The Crucible and original productions Sweet Smell of Success and Topdog / Underdog ), and Lawrence Horowitz ( producer of Electra and It Ain't Nothin ' But the Blues ) signed on.

" When ABC executives asked Miller and Boyett to explain what they meant by the comparison to Wilder, the producers mentioned Some Like It Hot and ABC bought the show on condition that it would include men in women's clothing, just like that movie.

Boyett made several guest appearances on Perry Mason throughout the series ' nine-year sun ; in each appearance he portrayed a police officer.

At the end of the 1989-90 season, Griffard and Adler launched pre-production on their own series developed by Miller / Boyett, Going Places, which followed Perfect Strangers on TGIF the following season.

* " Emerald City Blues "-a short story by Steve Boyett published in the Fall 1988 issue of Midnight Graffiti in which the horrors of nuclear war are made vivid by having an atom bomb dropped on Oz with the fallout killing Dorthy Gale.

When ABC failed to see the series fitting anywhere else on its schedule, rumors quickly circulated that they would even drop the program altogether, if it meant milking more success with Miller / Boyett in its place.

They placed the series on Saturday nights at 8: 30 / 7: 30c, with a new Miller / Boyett sitcom, The Family Man, as its lead-in.

After a long run at Paramount Television, which concluded with the end of Happy Days in 1984, producers Tom Miller and Bob Boyett moved to a new home at Lorimar Television, a partnership between the two and the studio which commenced on October 1 of that year.

Its usage, ceased when the second season of Valerie went into production, later showed up on three more Lorimar programs ; the 1989 NBC sitcom Nearly Departed, and ABC's Family Matters and Getting By ( the latter two of which were direct sister shows to Valerie, as they were Miller / Boyett series ).

( The full version of the Miller / Boyett logo, with the " M / B ", would reappear as a stand-alone vanity plate on their shows from 1996 – 98.

With three of their successful ABC comedies built on the concept of blended families ( Full House, Family Matters and Step By Step ), Miller and Boyett were looking to develop a new sitcom for the network in 1992 which would further capitalize on this theme.

Miller / Boyett and Bickley-Warren were dissatisfied with ABC's plan, as they were certain their show's ratings would severely drop on Saturday nights ( ABC had previously damaged the ratings of Miller / Boyett's Perfect Strangers when they moved it to Saturdays for a time in 1992 ).

Adam-12 producer Jack Webb recommended him for the role after his performance in an episode of Webb's Dragnet, and Boyett stayed with the series for its entire 1968-1975 run.