Accidental Family was a short lived NBC sitcom. The show aired during the 1967-1968 television season. The series starred Jerry Van Dyke as a widowed comedian named Jerry Webster. This show was meant to be a starring vehicle for Jerry Van Dyke. Previously, Jerry Van Dyke had starred on My Mother the Car, a longer running sitcom and had a few guest star spots on his brother’s sitcom, The Dick Van Dyke Show. Unfortunately, Accidental Family failed to garner the ratings to stay on the air for more than 16 episodes. Its competition on Friday nights was a weekly movie on CBS and the western show The Guns of Will Sonnett on ABC. After NBC cancelled Accidental Family, it was replaced with Hollywood Squares.
While Accidental Family did not continue past 16 episodes, it did have some die hard fans. Evidence of this can be seen in the IMDB rating of 7.2 stars. You can learn more about this short-lived sitcom at IMDB, including a list of all episodes, additional actors and directors. You can learn only so much about a television show from the Internet Movie Database. If you really want to know more about Accidental Family, starring Jerry Van Dyke, you must click on over to a website I recently discovered titled Television Obscurities. You can visit this page to find out more about this obscure sitcom than you may have ever wanted to know.
Other notables: Leading actress Lois Nettleton, Executive Producer Sheldon Leonard.
