When you think about all of the tv sitcoms of the 70's that made it past pilot, this kind of thing makes you consider the quality of all that didn't make it. I suspect Austin and Irma were sitcom machines that had plenty of flops among their successes.
There sure were a lot of "Future" sitcom pilots like "Stick Around" with Andy Kaufman as a robot servant and that one about the family running a cantina on a space station with the Scottish droids!