why wasn't it always the Hogan Family?

Sparks, did you watch the show?

She did not quit, she was fired for wanting too much money. She was only on the show for the first two seasons. I think the reason why they had "Valerie's Vamily" and then "the Hogan Family" as titles was so that the audience who liked VALERIE would see Valerie's FAMILY and connect the two together.

In the show she was killed off by a drunk driver. (pretty standard practice for Family-style sitcoms of the late 80's)

You're laborers, you're supposed to be laboring! That's what you get for not having an education!!

The show was called "Valerie" because she and her husband, along with NBC, created it. They were paired up with Lorimar Telepictures as well. It debuted as "Valerie" in March 1986 as a mid-season replacement series with only 10 episodes ordered.

The show did reasonably well but didn't really start to pick up steam until it was on Sunday nights briefly during Season 2. From then it was placed on Monday nights paired with "Alf" and the show was a steady hit for NBC throughout all of Season 2.

During the summer hiatus, Valerie and her husband asked for a 15% raise and more creative control since they felt the show was gaining popularity. They also felt that some of the latter stories of Season 2 focused too much on Jason Bateman's character having a "girlfriend of the week" and not enough attention was spent on her character, Valerie Hogan, and the other 2 boys (in addition to Edie McClurg as Mrs. Poole). Miller & Boyett, the producers of the show, along with Lorimar, declined and both Valerie and hubby notified the show that they would not show up for work until a renegotiation took place. The show shot the first episode of "Valerie" for Season 3 without Valerie in it, explaining that Valerie Hogan was back East visiting her parents.

In the meantime, Brandon Tartikoff, the then-president of NBC, thought of Sandy Duncan stepping in. Sandy had signed a deal with NBC that she was to have her own show and she filmed a pilot called "Act 2", but NBC didn't pick it up. Since Tartikoff knew of the trouble over at "Valerie", he thought he could fulfill his series obligation to Sandy Duncan by having her step onto the existing show "Valerie" rather than giving her an unknown new show from scratch. The only problem was that Valerie Harper was still on the show as the star.

A week later, Valerie and crew met and an agreement was reached where Valerie & hubby would get a substantial raise increase (a little bit more than 65% of what she originally asked for) as well as 10% more creative control. She came back to work and parts of the Season 3's first episode were re-shot to include the Valerie Hogan character. Later on during that week, she was in a costume fitting for the clothes she would be wearing for the rest of Season 3 when she was informed from NBC that she was fired (she was actually told her services were no longer needed). She made a few phone calls and found out that Tartikoff set it in motion and that it couldn't be undone. Season 3's first episode was then re-shot to include Sandy Duncan but was put off for a later airing (it's the episode where David pretends he got farther on a study date with a girl named Candace than he actually did).

A new first episode was hastily written and shot to explain that Valerie Hogan had been killed in a car crash. How the crash occurred is never explained... so whoever is claiming that she was killed by a drunk driver is incorrect. I suspect the show felt giving away too many details about how Valerie Hogan died would've made the character (as well as the FIRED actress) more sympathetic to the audience, something that they definitely did NOT want to do; hence all the cheering for Sandy during the first couple of episodes. It was as if the show was giving a forced assurance that it would remain just as funny without Valerie with Sandy on board.

So yes, Valerie did indeed want more money, but the deal was worked out, new contracts were signed and she was ready to embark on the new season. What they did to get her fired in order to honor their series obligation to Sandy was what was unprofessional and uncalled for and it put the series at risk. We all know now that the show survived the loss of "Valerie" but at the time everyone thought it wouldn't last (including the cast... Edie McClurg spoke of the huge stress everyone was under in a recent interview).

I personally feel the show wasn't the same without the Valerie Hogan character. Something just felt "off" about how that was handled. It was bad enough that she was killed off but other than a tear or two from Jason Bateman, it was as if she never existed. That's not how that family would've reacted to having lost Valerie. Those boys were her world and they should've been devastated at the loss of their mother. As it was, they mostly seemed... bored. The writing took a nose dive with that. That family lost a lot of their character "truth" with that and many plots from then on came off more silly rather than clever. It's not a slam against Sandy or the cast for they delivered brilliant performances, but let's just say the show didn't improve or stay the same after that.

I think that's why it's hardly remembered at all and only really comes up when someone remembers the switch from Valerie to Sandy. What a waste. Had it retained more originality, it'd be much more popular and we'd have DVDs of the show by now... :(


Ed

The guy who played the dad was also on Days of Our Lives at the time(and ironically he is again now lol) so he probably couldn't commit to a full time role on the show. However, as an airline pilot he really would've been gone quite a bit in real life so it does make sense.