1980's Saturday Morning Historical Preservation Society

Pryor's Place (1984, 11:30 on CBS) is generally believed to be one of the more ill-conceived Saturday Morning programs of the 80's that looked great on Paper. In 1984, traditionally adult-themed comedian Richard Pryor was riding a wave of popularity with kids thanks to movies such as "The Toy" and "Superman III", and so a bunch of Hollywood-types started offering him kid-friendly projects, most of them being just terrible (one pitch I heard of was a kind of revamp of the Super Globetrotters theme, only with Pryor providing all the voices for an "Ethnic Super Team" - he walked out of the meeting, insulted).

Sid and Marty Krofft (makers of H.R. Puffinstuff, Land Of The Lost, etc) were the only ones who pitched him a show that wasn't racially insulting; a cross between Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood, where Pryor could populate the entire street with characters of his creation. Partially inspired by the recent trend in those noted programs to touch on more "serious" issues such as Death, Pryor was inspired to take the offer.

Unfortunately, there were the censors at Standards & Practices. Perhaps because of Pryor's reputation as a controversial and profane comedian, the censors seemed to to keep an extra-harsh judgmental eye towards the rough drafts, scripts and even finished episodes of the show before they even hit the air. As a result, the aired episodes came off as being extremely dark and moody. A combination of mixed reactions, poor ratings and lengthy delays from the S&P Censors resulted in the show being cancelled before the end of the year.

The show had potential... it even had Ray Parker Jr doing the theme song and in the opening credits!