Earl Barret Dies: Sitcom Writer Who Co-Created Ted Knight Vehicle ‘Too Close For Comfort’ Was 94

Earl Barret, a television comedy writer whose credits over a 30-year career included episodes of Batman, Bewitched, The Andy Griffith Show, I Spy, Sanford and Son and Welcome Back, Kotter and who co-created the Ted Knight sitcom Too Close For Comfort, died of natural causes at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, on Thursday, October 22. He was 94.

His death was announced by his daughter J.K. Barret.

A native of Canton, Ohio, Barret launched his career in TV writing in 1961 after taking a free weekly TV writing class taught by Robert C. Dennis, who would later partner with Barret in writing scripts for several TV shows. That same year, Barret wrote for the shows Sea Hunt, Hawaiian Eye and Ripcord before penning an episode of My Favorite Martian in 1963, beginning a sitcom career that would last through the 1980s.

Among the 1960s sitcoms for which Barret wrote episodes were My Three Sons, My Mother The Car, O.K. Crackerby!, Get Smart, The Andy Griffith Show and Julia. He wrote several episodes for Seasons 1 and 3 of Bewitched, and four Batman episodes in 1966 featuring Victor Buono’s comic archvillain King Tut.

Occasionally writing for such comedy-tinged 1960s action series as I Spy and The Wild Wild West, Barret continued into the 1970s with episodes of Love, American Style, The Bob Newhart Show, Dirty Sally, 21 episodes of The Governor and J.J., 13 episodes of The Sandy Duncan Show, two episodes of Sanford And Son, six episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter and three episodes of Stockard Channing In Just Friends.

In 1980, Barret, along with Brian Cooke and Arne Sultan, created the sitcom Too Close For Comfort, a vehicle for Knight, who was coming off an immensely popular run as the vain anchorman Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Developed by Barret and longtime writing partner Sultan, the series featured Knight as a politically conservative cartoonist who lives with his wife (played by Nancy Dussault) and two grown-up daughters (Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Lydia Cornell) in their San Francisco home. Jim J. Bullock co-starred as a neighbor and comic foil to Knight’s character.

Too Close For Comfort, which initially aired on ABC and later in syndication (with a later name change to The Ted Knight Show) ran for six seasons from 1980 until 1987. Barret, who served as executive producer, also directed 13 episodes of the series.

Barret and Sultan would re-team to write, along with Marvin Worth, the feature film See No Evil, Hear No Evil starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, directed by Arthur Hiller, released in 1989 (Sultan had died in 1986). Both Barret and Sultan were credited as executive producers, their final credit.

In addition to his daughter, Barret is survived by wife Barbara Barnett Barret; son John Nelson; and five grandsons. He was preceded in death by daughter Lisa Nelson.