After his failed attempt to launch the sitcom Mr. Dugan, Norman Lear reworked the project, finally coming up with Hanging In, the story of Lou Harper, a former professional football star who becomes president of fictional Braddock University.
Most of the supporting cast of Mr. Dugan and its several different incarnations (including the final three episodes of Maude and the unsold pilot Onward and Upward, which featured Good Times star John Amos) also appeared in Hanging In.
As The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows: 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh dryly put it, "the actors must have known their lines pretty well by this point", as the scripts on each project were nearly identical.
[1] In the end, Hanging In lasted just four weeks on CBS, leaving the air after its August 29, 1979 broadcast.
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