This Day in TV History: The Hoyt Axton Show on NBC

40 years ago tonight, NBC started its broadcast evening with an unsold pilot, The Hoyt Axton Show, starring...Mac Davis. No, it was Hoyt Axton, who should have been the hottest thing on TV already just from singing the theme song to Flo.

Unfortunately, I can't find any Hoyt Axton Show footage on YouTube, so we will have to make do with that crackling tune. There is also this awesome clip of Ringo Starr and a cast of many on a 1975 variety special:

Back to the 1981 pilot: Directed by Richard Crenna, this one features Axton as "a country singer who, after his wife dies, returns from life on the road to raise his 3 kids." Lee Goldberg's indispensable Unsold TV Pilots adds that the character's teenage daughter is dating a divorcee and his son is heading out on the road with a rock band. Yikes!