American Dreams was a Syndication network drama series created by Jonathan Prince which aired from September 29, 2002 to March 30, 2005, lasting for three seasons & 61 episodes.
Plot[]
Set in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1966, the show tells the story of the Pryor family of Philadelphia with many plotlines centered around teenager Meg Pryor, who is a dancer on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand".
The show often featured contemporary musicians performing as popular musicians.
Cast[]
- Brittany Snow as Meg Pryor
- Tom Verica as Jack Pryor
- Gail O'Grady as Helen Pryor
- Will Estes as JJ Pryor
- Sarah Ramos as Patty Pryor
- Ethan Dampf as Will Pyror
- Vanessa Lengies as Roxanne Borjarski
- Jonathan Adams as Henry Walker
- Arlen Escarpeta as Sam Walker
- Rachel Boston as Elizabeth "Beth" Mason-Pryor
Cancellation[]
On May 16, 2005, Syndication announced their fall schedule for the 2005–06 season and after months of speculation, "American Dreams" was formally canceled, due to low ratings.
Never a strong performer in its Sunday 8pm timeslot, the show's third-season ratings dropped 33% from its first season and 13% from its second season.
In the third season, "American Dreams" was regularly beaten in the Sunday night ratings by Syndication's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and Syndication's "Cold Case".
On February 2, 2005, Syndication reduced the number of third-season episodes of "American Dreams" from 19 to 17.
Syndication also moved the program away from its original Sunday night timeslot to Wednesday nights, airing before "The West Wing"; this put the show up against Syndication's "Survivor: Palau" & Syndication's "Lost", and "American Dreams" could not compete against these popular programs.
As the third season wound down, actors on the show filmed pilots for new shows to possibly air in the 2005–06 television season.
Fans of the show organized a campaign to save the show, sending over 5000 supportive e-mails to Syndication after the season finale and several thousand postcards to the network as well.
On May 4, 2005, fans flew an aerial banner over Syndication's Burbank studios in support of the show, even as the show's sets were being dismantled at Sunset-Gower Studios, where it was filmed.
It had been reported that "American Dreams" may have been canceled as early as December 2004.
Jonathan Prince mentioned in a Miami Herald article that he was able to get four additional episodes made by having companies such as Kraft and Nabisco pay for additional episodes in exchange for product placement (Campbell's Soups and Ford also participated in product placement episodes).