The Lost Ending of First Family (1980) — Hollywood’s Quiet Rewrite

A Political Satire That Never Landed

In 1980, Buck Henry — the sly wit behind The Graduate and co-creator of Get Smart — stepped behind the camera to direct First Family. On paper, it looked like a surefire hit: Bob Newhart as a hapless President, Madeline Kahn as his First Lady, Gilda Radner, Harvey Korman, Fred Willard, and Richard Benjamin filling out the ensemble. It was an SNL-era comedy dream team dropped into a White House farce.

And yet, First Family bombed. Critics were brutal, audiences lukewarm, and the movie quickly slipped into obscurity. But hidden in its history is a fascinating footnote: the film we saw wasn’t the one Buck Henry originally made.

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The Ending That Disappeared

Reports from the time note that First Family went through significant changes after test screenings, including its ending. Early audiences reacted poorly, and Warner Bros. ordered reshoots. Henry reworked scenes and the film’s conclusion, leaving the original finale on the cutting room floor.

Here’s the problem: no one seems to know — or at least, no one has publicly documented — what that original ending actually was. The evidence is there in production notes, scattered reviews, and the recollections of crew, but the specifics remain elusive.

Speaking to columnist Marilyn Beck, in November of 1980, Madeline Kahn stated that the original ending was 'Bittersweet' and that director Buck Henry was working to make the ending 'funny and upbeat.'

This missing piece of film history raises a tantalizing question: what did Buck Henry really want First Family to say about America’s Commander-in-Chief?

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Why Endings Matter in Comedy

A comedy’s final beat is everything. It’s not just the last laugh; it reframes everything that came before. A good ending can elevate shaky material (think Airplane!), while a weak one can flatten even the strongest setups.

For Henry, whose humor thrived on sharp, subversive punchlines, the ending likely carried his most pointed political barb. If Warner Bros. found it too dark, too cynical, or simply too alienating, it’s easy to see why they might have pushed for a safer resolution. The studio was chasing broad laughs, not political discomfort.

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Hollywood’s History of Reshot Endings

First Family isn’t the only comedy reshaped in the editing room. National Lampoon’s Vacation famously changed its climax after test audiences hated the darker original. Little Shop of Horrors had its tragic stage ending swapped out for something happier.

Studios often treat endings as expendable, especially in comedies, where audience satisfaction is measured by applause or laughter. In Henry’s case, however, the rewrite may have gutted the movie’s satirical teeth. What was meant as a biting political parody ended up toothless, pleasing no one.

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What Might Have Been

Without surviving footage, script drafts, or firsthand accounts, speculation fills the gap. Given Henry’s history, the original ending may have been more bleak, more pointed about presidential incompetence, or even absurdly nihilistic.

Perhaps Newhart’s bumbling president was meant to fail spectacularly, a lampoon of American politics that went too far for studio comfort. Maybe the kidnapped daughter subplot ended on a darker note. Or perhaps Henry’s finale was simply too strange, too far removed from mainstream expectations of what a political comedy should deliver in 1980.

Whatever the case, Warner Bros. decided audiences weren’t ready for it.

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A Comedy Without a Punchline

Today, First Family is remembered, if at all, as a curiosity — a comedy with a dream cast that fizzled. But the story of its missing ending makes it more interesting than its reputation suggests. It’s a relic of how Hollywood second-guessed satire at the dawn of the Reagan era, sanding down edges in search of box office safety.

The irony? The rewrite didn’t help. First Family still flopped.

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Final Thought

The lost ending of First Family may never resurface. No director’s cut has appeared, no script draft has leaked, no studio memo has gone public. All we know is that Buck Henry had a different punchline in mind — one that test audiences never let him tell.

And maybe that’s the sharpest joke of all: the real satire isn’t in the film, but in the way Hollywood itself buried its own political comedy.