If you spent any time watching reruns of 1970s sitcoms, you probably recognize the name Pat Morita. Before he became the iconic Mr. Miyagi and taught us all how to "wax on, wax off," he was Taro Takahashi—better known as Mr. T and Tina. No, not the gold-chain-wearing A-Team star. We’re talking about the 1976 ABC sitcom that holds a very strange, somewhat awkward place in television history.
It was a spinoff. Specifically, it spun off from the massive hit Welcome Back, Kotter.
Honestly, the show was a bit of a pioneer, even if it crashed and burned faster than most people can remember. It was the first American sitcom to feature an Asian lead. That’s a huge deal. But if you look at the ratings from 1976, you’ll see that being a pioneer doesn’t always mean you get a second season. Or even a full first one.
Why Mr. T and Tina happened in the first place
Television in the mid-70s was obsessed with the spinoff. If a character breathed on a hit show, they got their own pilot. Pat Morita had been a recurring guest on Welcome Back, Kotter as a brilliant Japanese inventor named Taro Takahashi. He was funny, he was charming, and the network executives at ABC thought they had found a goldmine. They wanted to move him from Brooklyn to Chicago and give him a household to run.
The premise was pretty standard for the era. Mr. T (Taro) is a successful businessman who moves to the United States and hires a very "American" nanny named Tina, played by Susan Blanchard.
Contrast. That was the whole hook.
You had the traditional, somewhat rigid Japanese culture of Mr. T clashing with the free-spirited, mid-70s vibe of Tina. It sounds like a classic fish-out-of-water story. In theory, it should have worked. The problem? The writing often leaned into stereotypes that even audiences in 1976 found a bit thin. You’ve got a genius inventor who somehow can't figure out basic American social cues? It felt forced.
The Kotter Connection and the Pilot Flop
The show actually premiered as a backdoor pilot during an episode of Welcome Back, Kotter titled "Arrivederci, Arnold." It’s kinda fascinating to watch that episode now. You can see the gears turning in the producers' heads. They were trying to capture that same lightning-in-a-bottle energy that the Sweathogs had, but it just didn't translate to the Chicago setting.
When Mr. T and Tina officially launched on September 25, 1976, it was placed in a brutal time slot.
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Saturday nights.
Back then, Saturday night was where shows went to die unless you were part of the powerhouse CBS lineup. ABC was trying to compete, but they were throwing a very niche, very specific sitcom against established giants.
The cast was actually pretty solid. Aside from Morita and Blanchard, you had June Angela playing Sachi, and Pat Suzuki as the stern Auntie. They were doing their best with the material. But the scripts? They were basically a revolving door of "Oh, those wacky Americans" vs. "Oh, those traditional Japanese." It lacked the heart that Kotter had.
Cultural Impact or Cultural Miss?
It’s easy to look back and cringe at some of the dialogue. However, we have to give credit where it’s due: Pat Morita was a lead. In 1976. This was years before All-American Girl or Fresh Off the Boat.
Morita himself was a survivor of the Japanese-American internment camps during WWII. He knew a thing or two about the Japanese-American experience. Unfortunately, the show didn't really let him explore that. It wanted him to be a caricature. He was "Mr. T," the eccentric inventor.
Actually, the title itself is a bit of a mess. It sounds like a variety act. It didn't scream "must-watch sitcom."
The Cancellation that Nobody Noticed
How long did it last? Not long.
Only five episodes actually aired. ABC pulled the plug so fast it made people's heads spin. They had filmed nine episodes in total, but four of them just sat on a shelf, unseen by the general public for decades.
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The show was replaced by The Nancy Walker Show, which also failed. It was just a bad year for ABC comedies. But for Morita, this was a massive blow. He had left a steady gig on Happy Days (where he played Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi) to chase this lead role.
Imagine that.
You leave one of the biggest shows in history to star in your own series, and it disappears in about a month. He eventually went back to Happy Days, but the sting of Mr. T and Tina followed him for a while. He often talked about how the show was a missed opportunity to actually say something about the immigrant experience.
Why It’s Still a "Cult" Curiosity
Today, you can find clips of the show on YouTube or in deep-dive TV archives. It’s a time capsule.
- The fashion is aggressively 1976.
- The laugh track is dialed up to eleven.
- The set design looks exactly like every other ABC sitcom of the era.
But if you watch Morita, you see the talent. He had incredible comic timing. Even when the jokes were bad—and some were really bad—he sold them with a smirk or a raised eyebrow. It’s the same charisma that eventually won him an Oscar nomination for The Karate Kid.
Comparing the Two "Mr. T" Icons
It’s impossible to talk about this show without mentioning the confusion it causes now. If you search for "Mr. T," you get Lawrence Tureaud. Mr. T from the A-Team. The guy who pities the fool.
But for a few weeks in September 1976, Mr. T and Tina was the only Mr. T on the block.
It’s a fun piece of trivia. If you ever want to win a bar bet, ask someone who the first "Mr. T" to have his own show was. Most people will say the A-Team guy. They’d be wrong. Pat Morita beat him to the punch by seven years.
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Lessons from the 1976 Television Season
What can we learn from this failed experiment?
First, representation matters, but quality matters more. You can’t just put a diverse cast on screen and expect people to tune in if the writing is stale. The audience wanted characters they could relate to, not just cultural stereotypes clashing in a living room.
Second, the "spinoff fever" of the 70s was a double-edged sword. For every Laverne & Shirley, there were five shows like Mr. T and Tina that simply didn't have enough gas in the tank to survive on their own.
Third, Pat Morita was a powerhouse who was ahead of his time. The industry wasn't ready for a nuanced Japanese-American lead, so they tried to shoehorn him into a standard sitcom mold. It didn't fit.
What to do if you want to find the show
If you’re a TV historian or just a fan of Pat Morita, hunting down these episodes is a bit of a challenge. They aren't on Netflix. You won't find them on Hulu.
- Check Archive.org: Often, old broadcast tapes get uploaded here by collectors.
- Search for Paley Center archives: They hold copies of many "lost" pilots and short-lived series.
- YouTube: Search specifically for "Mr. T and Tina 1976" to avoid the A-Team results.
The show is a reminder that even the biggest stars have a few skeletons in their IMDb closet. For Morita, this was a stepping stone. A weird, short, confusing stepping stone that paved the way for better things. It’s a footnote in TV history, but it’s a footnote worth reading.
To truly understand the evolution of the American sitcom, you have to look at the failures. They tell you more about what the audience was—and wasn't—ready for than the hits ever do. Mr. T and Tina was a bold swing that missed the ball, but at least they were at the plate.
Actionable Takeaways for TV Enthusiasts
- Research the "Spinoff Era": Look into other failed spinoffs from Welcome Back, Kotter or Happy Days to see how networks tried to recycle talent.
- Analyze 70s Casting: Compare Pat Morita's role in this show to his later work. It’s a masterclass in how an actor can outgrow limited material.
- Support Archive Preservation: Short-lived shows like this are often lost to time. Supporting organizations like the UCLA Film & Television Archive helps keep this history alive.