Patty Duke in Hail to the Chief (1985)

The 1984 presidential elections featured, for the first time, a female vice presidential candidate. This show, by the creators of the popular and long running Soap extrapolated on that circumstance. Julia Mansfield is the first female president of the United States after being elected to the office of vice president and having to take over for her predecessor. She has a philandering husband (Ted Bessel), three children (Quinn Cummings, Ricky Paull Goldin & Taliesen Jaffee) and friends and foes in the government and public life including Senator Sam Cotton (Murray Hamilton) and televangelist reverend Billy Joe Bickerstaff (Richard Paul). The plots were similar to those on Soap, with story lines carrying through from episode to episode and focused on both the affairs of state and family dynamics within the first family.

This especially intelligent and funny show ran for only 7 episodes. It's humor was particularly political and had an edge to it that was calculated to push buttons. Julia's secret service officer Randy (Joel Brooks) was gay and made no bones about it with lines like "I'm the most lethal pansy in the US of A, so watch it!" Her young son (Jaffee), in an attempt to get out of going to school claims to have an enlarged prostate. Look for very funny turns by Hershel Bernardi as her head of security and Dick Shawn as Soviet Premier Zolotov.

This series has never made it to DVD, though the pilot is on YouTube. Part one is above, uploaded by PattyDukeTheater.

Obscurity factor: 9 (not on DVD, available on YouTube in part, largely unknown)