Trivia / It's a Living

• Channel Hop: Began on ABC in 1980, but its first season was cut short by a Writers' Guild strike. It was renewed (as Making a Living), but canceled in the middle of Season 2, leaving it with 27 episodes. Still, reruns went into syndication (mainly in once-a-week weekend timeslots) and started getting good ratings. A lot of it was because Ann Jillian had become a sex symbol and gained a lot of publicity via her public battle with breast cancer (resulting in a double mastectomy). As a result, production resumed with Season 3 in first-run syndication in 1985. Jillian left after the season (by design; her main condition in agreeing to come back was that she would only do one season), but it continued for three more years.
• Follow the Leader: The show was like a combination of several hit sitcoms of its era: Alice (waitresses), Three's Company (attractive single people in SoCal), Taxi and WKRP in Cincinnati (a Work Com with an Ensemble Cast), and The Facts of Life (a group of females with distinct personalities supervised by a watchful middle-aged woman).
• Playing Against Type: Susan Sullivan, who'd been a familiar Soap Opera face, as a waitress on a Work Com. Her next big gig was a Prime Time Soap (Falcon Crest), before she went the sitcom route again on Dharma & Greg.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • In "Fallen Idol" Vicki's dad is played by Richard Schaal, Real Life father of Wendy Schaal (who played Vicki).
  • Danny Thomas, the father of executive producer Tony Thomas, made guest appearances in two different episodes, as Nancy's doctor and as the Angel of Death who meets Jan in the penultimate episode.
• Un-Canceled: Canceled by ABC in 1982, but revived in syndication in 1985.