Mr. Smith (partially found NBC sitcom; 1983)

Promotional poster for Mr. Smith.

Status: Partially Found

Mr. Smith is a sitcom aired on NBC from September 23rd to December 16th 1983, for a total of 13 episodes. The premise follows a talking orangutan, named "Mr. Smith", who develops superintelligence and subsequently becomes a top-level political advisor in Washington D.C. (hence his name, a play on the classic movie Mr Smith Goes to Washington). The series was executive produced by Ed Weidenberger^[1], who also provided the voice for the lead character.

It has become notorious in the years since as its premise was not only very silly but very poorly executed. Critics roasted it for being altogether too dependent on its single not-very-funny gimmick, and viewers apparently agreed; it eventually ranked 47th out of the 52 new shows that aired in that time period.^[2]^[3]^[4] Thanks largely to these factors, no full episodes of the show have resurfaced online.

Premise

Former street performer ChaCha the orangutan is taken into custody by a government research team in Washington D.C. after after escaping his owner Tommy Atwood, (played by Tim Dunigan^[5]) In the course of bouncing between labs, ChaCha comes across a serum designed to increase human intelligence.^[3]After drinking the entire concoction, ChaCha develops an IQ of 256 (far beyond even genius-level human intelligence) and acquires speech along with other human attributes and customs (wearing clothes, for example).

The newly-renamed Mr. Smith is installed as a top-secret advisor to the White House (strongly implied to be the then-current Reagan administration^[6]) handling various political issues and controversies. His erstwhile owner Atwood is appointed as his assistant and companion. ^[3] At least one episode featured Mr. Smith imitating then-president, Ronald Reagan.

Cast

Mr. Smith was played by veteran orangutan performer "C.J.", best-known for starring alongside Clint Eastwood in 1978's Every Which Way But Loose and its sequel, Any Which Way You Can. IMDB page for CJ the Orangutan</ref>^[7]. C.J. is commonly dressed in a tuxedo and eyeglasses for his appearance as "Mr. Smith". Other cast included:

Ed Weidenberger (voice) as Mr. Smith / ChaCha^[8]^[1]
Leonard Frey as Raymond Holyoke^[1]
Tim Dunigan as Tommy Atwood^[5]^[1]
Terri Garber as Dr. July Tyson^[1]
Laura Jacoby as Ellie Atwood^[1]
Stuart Margolin as Dr. Klein^[1]
Delores Cantú as Laraine Sanchez^[9]^[1]

Availability

Given the series' notoriously poor reception and quick cancellation, it is not surprising that it has never been re-released in any official format, and while home recordings were defeinitely becoming mainstream by 1983, no full episodes of Mr. Smith have resurfaced online to date. Some clips are preserved in resurfaced NBC bumpers and other promotional materials of the period, and Delores Cantú has posted some additional clips of the series featuring her character on her Twitter account.^[9]

A blog post by ReverseShot, archived from the Wayback Machine, announced that they had the entire series of 13 episodes on DVD.^[10]This was shared on various forums^[11] but ultimately has never surfaced, and no support for the claim can be found.

An eBay listing of the script for the pilot of the seriesis available online.

Episode Listing

Pilot

#	Episode Title	Air Date	Status	Notes
n/a	Pilot	n/a	Lost	Script can be found here.

Episodes

#	Episode Title	Air Date	Status
1	Welcome To Washington Part 1	September 23rd, 1983	Lost
2	Welcome To Washington Part 2	September 23rd, 1983	Lost
3	Mr. Smith Operates	September 30th, 1983	Lost
4	Mr. Smith Finds His Brother	October 14th, 1983	Lost
5	Goodbye, Mr. Smith	October 21st, 1983	Lost
6	Mr. Smith Rescues Bobo	October 21st, 1983	Lost
7	Mr. Smith Falls In Love	October 28th, 1983	Lost
8	Mr. Smith Gets Physical	November 4th, 1983	Lost
9	Mr. Smith Loses A Friend	November 11th, 1983	Lost
10	Mr. Smith Makes A Commercial	November 18th, 1983	Lost
11	Mr. Smith Plays Cyrano	November 25th, 1983	Lost
12	Mr. Smith Goes Public	December 2nd, 1983	Lost
13	Mr. Smith Goes To Court	December 16th, 1983	Lost