Screen Legend Burt Reynolds Voiced An Alien In One Of TV's Weirdest Ever Sitcoms

In the late 1980s, a fantasy sitcom debuted that introduced us to a half-human, half-alien girl whose father was voiced by Burt Reynolds. It shouldn't have worked, and the critics certainly didn't think it did. But "Out of This World" lasted for four seasons before it was canceled. Somehow, Reynolds managed to remain off-screen for the whole thing.

With the number of sitcoms produced in the 20th Century, creators were always going to look for new and exciting ways to reinvigorate the format. Often, their solution was to introduce sci-fi and fantasy elements, leading to the creation of the fantasy sitcom or "magi-com." Of course, while many of these proved successful, they also led to some truly bizarre TV shows, in which the recognizable middle-class family dynamics of your standard sitcom were punctuated by fantastical story elements that didn't always mesh well with the overall tone.

One particularly bizarre example was the time Jerry Van Dyke turned down "Gilligan's Island" because he hated the script, only to star in a fantasy sitcom in which he spoke to his late mother via a magical car. "My Mother the Car" remains a mid-'60s curio that's often cited as one of the worst sitcoms ever made, but thanks to success stories such as "Bewitched," "I Dream of Jeannie," and "The Flying Nun," the fantasy sitcom persisted into the 1970s and '80s. Shows such as "Mork & Mindy" and "Alf" proudly carried on the tradition.

The same can't quite be said for 1987's "Out of This World," simply because it never enjoyed the success of those other, better-known shows. But it did last for four seasons and gave Burt Reynolds something to do during a low point in his career. 

America's first fantasy sci-fi sitcom (unless you count "Mister Ed") arrived in 1963. "My Favorite Martian" was about an extraterrestrial who crash-lands on Earth and is taken in by a newspaper reporter. The show then follows the pair as they try to keep the martian's identity a secret and figure out a way for him to return to his home planet. 24 years later, "Out of This World" followed a similar rubric.

The show revolves around half-human, half-alien teenager Evie Ethel Garland (Maureen Flannigan) whose mother, Donna Froelich-Garland (Donna Pescow), once had a relationship with a spaceman named Troy (Burt Reynolds). On her 13th birthday, Evie discovers she has special powers, prompting her mother to reveal the truth about her origins. It turns out her father was actually a member of the Antarean race of aliens, who married Donna and conceived Evie before being called back to his home planet to fight in an intergalactic war.

But Evie and Troy are not estranged. A magical crystal known as The Cube allows them to communicate across the galaxy, with Troy offering advice and even altering events on Earth from afar. He'd often have to step in when Evie's powers — which, like Ray Walston's Uncle Martin O'Hara from "My Favorite Martian," included the ability to stop time by touching her index fingers together — got her into a bind. Troy even showed up in a few episodes, though his face was always obscured. Why? Well, part of it almost certainly had to do with Burt Reynolds being wary of showing up in a series that seemed to sum up the state of his career in the mid-'80s. His name isn't even in the credits.

Many of Burt Reynolds' best movies came out in the 1970s. By the time he signed on to "Out of This World," he was in a career slump. Reynolds turned down the role of Garrett Breedlove in James L. Brooks' 1983 dramedy "Terms of Endearment" to star in the comedy "Stroker Ace." The latter bombed while Jack Nicholson took on the role of Breedlove and won an Oscar. Reynolds then starred alongside Clint Eastwood in a gangster film that Roger Ebert and pretty much every critic hated before directing yet another critical and commercial failure with 1985's "Stick." By 1987, he was admitting to the Los Angeles Times that he was in bad shape."I was real angry for a while at people that were jumping ship," he said. "The worst press I've ever gotten in my life has been the past two years when I wasn't doing anything."

At the time, Reynolds was aware of the perception of him as a "has-been," but remained certain audiences would give him another chance. "I've got a lot to prove to a lot of people," he said. Perhaps he was aware that voicing an unseen alien in a fantasy sitcom wasn't exactly going to help him beat the "has-been" allegations. Reynolds' name never appeared on the show, and beyond his voice, neither did he.

Interestingly, despite lackluster reviews, "Out of This World" lasted much longer than Reynolds likely expected. It ran for four seasons until 1991, ending on a cliffhanger wherein Evie's mom is transported to the planet Antareus, leaving Troy on Earth. Might we have seen Reynolds in the flesh if the show had been renewed? Perhaps, but he was probably glad it never came to that.