Rob Lowe's First Acting Job Co-Starred Janet Jackson (And Is Impossible To Watch Today)

It's hard to imagine that Rob Lowe, of all people, would have a lost project floating out there in the abyss. For much of his career, the public has eaten up whatever he's had on offer. Lowe's iconic 1980s film "St. Elmo's Fire" defined a generation of stars as Hollywood's Brat Pack. Apart from all his other successful roles, he's found the time to star in two Stephen King TV miniseries. The erstwhile Kathryn Hahn herself was scared to meet Lowe on "Parks and Recreation" because of a childhood crush. You'd expect that anything the man has ever appeared in would have been aired many times over, and probably released as special physical media editions with swooning commentary tracks by directors and co-stars. And yet. 

There does, in fact, exist an old Rob Lowe sitcom that can't be viewed, no matter what. The show in question is called "A New Kind of Family," and its only season aired on ABC between September 1979 and January 1980. It had just 11 episodes, and as its time frame suggests, the show was actually Lowe's first acting job. What's more, he wasn't the only future superstar on the show; singer and actress Janet Jackson also made her screen acting debut on "A New Kind of Family."

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.