Call Her Mom

Call Her Mom is a 1972 American TV movie. It was the pilot for a proposed series that was not picked up. It screened as a stand-alone film as an ABC Movie of the Week.[1]

It was directed by Jerry Paris.

Plot

A waitress becomes house mother for a college fraternity. The setting is Beardsley College where Alpha Rho Epsilon House (the Greek letters are APE) is a party-all-the-time fraternity. The housemother has quit because she cannot control their wild behavior. Twelve other housemothers had left before her.

Connie Stevens enters as a waitress fed up with her job. She loudly quits during a busy rush at the restaurant. The fraternity brothers witness her quitting and offer her a job as housemother.

The fraternity members expect that she will be lenient but she takes her role as housemother seriously and lays down the law. She also gets involved with the national women's liberation movement which causes a rift with the conservative college dean, played by Van Johnson. Beardsley College experiences picketing and protests like other American universities in 1972.

Mini-skirt clad Connie Stevens sings "Come On-a My House" and provides the sexual tension in the all-male fraternity. Jim Hutton and Charles Nelson Reilly are the co-stars. Mike Evans, who co-starred in All in the Family and The Jeffersons as Lionel Jefferson, also appeared as a fraternity member.

Cast

Reception


Thw TV movie was a huge ratings success, earning a 30.9 rating and a 46 audience share, making it the second highest show of the week after All in the Family.[2] It was the eighth most widely seen film on television, after Ben Hur, The Birds, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Night Stalker, Brian's Song, Women in Chains, and Born Free (the ninth and tenth were A Death of Innocence and The Feminist and the Fuzz).[3]

The Los Angeles Times, however, thought the movie was poor and the cast "wasted".[4]

ABC next cast Connie Stevens in the TV movie Playmates, co-starring Alan Alda.[5] This was another large success, ranking among the 20 most viewed films on TV for a time.[6][7]

The film was repeated in 1973 and was the 12th most popular show of the week.[8]

References
  1. Smith, C. (Feb 17, 1972). "New pilots star TV war-horses". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest 156941537.
  2. "ABC's movie of week up in ratings". Los Angeles Times. Mar 2, 1972. ProQuest 156974755.
  3. "Made-for-TV movies find big ratings". The Washington Post, Times Herald. Apr 9, 1972. ProQuest 148353437.
  4. "'This is real life'". Los Angeles Times. Feb 17, 1972. ProQuest 156955081.
  5. Haber, J. (Jul 6, 1972). "Connie to fatten her batting average". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest 157012040.
  6. "'Sex symbol' due in nation's homes". Los Angeles Times. Jul 25, 1974. ProQuest 157599961.
  7. "Unbreakable connie cries real tears". Los Angeles Times. Sep 15, 1974. ProQuest 157644271.
  8. "ABC'S 'SAN FRANCISCO' TOP OF NIELSEN POLL". Los Angeles Times. Jun 7, 1973. ProQuest 157260767.


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