Rob Lowe's First Acting Job Co-Starred Janet Jackson (And Is Impossible To Watch Today)
The central premise of "A New Kind of Family" is cohabitation. Strapped for financial resources, widower Kit Flanagan (Eileen Brennan) and divorcee Abby Stone (Gwynne Gilford) end up living in the same house, thus bringing Kit's three children and Abby's only child Jill (Connie Ann Hearn) under the same roof. Lowe was only 15 when he played the role of Kit's eldest child, Tony, the most prominent male character on the series along with David Hollander's Andy Flanagan. "A New Kind of Family" struggled to find an audience, and faced the very real threat of a mid-season cancellation. To combat this fate, the show attempted to reinvent itself on the fly by taking a brief hiatus after episode 6 ("Andy's New Dad") and replacing Abby and Jill with Telma Hopkins' Jess and Janet Jackson's Jojo Ashton. This creative pivot unfortunately could not save the show, and cancellation was unavoidable. Apart from its role in Lowe and Jackson's careers, the sitcom's biggest mark in history was its Outstanding Video Tape Editing For A Series Emmy nod. ("The Muppet Show" won.) Unavailable on home media and unwatchable through any conventional means, "A New Kind of Family" is a tough nut to crack for completionists. You can track down the show's opening credits on YouTube easily enough, but even those are from the pre-Jackson era of the series. Beyond that? Crickets. Perhaps someone, somewhere is sitting on a bunch of elderly VHS cassettes that contain the whole show, but unless you get seriously lucky at a yard sale, being able to witness this particular piece of pop culture history doesn't seem very likely.
