TV by the Decade :: May 26•June 1

NBC

The season finales have ended and through most of the earlier decades, summer meant reruns. It wasn’t until the advent of cable TV when audiences had more options to choose from that original programming between June and September became a necessity. Summer was still dominated by reality shows, but the cable networks did occasionally offer some scripted fare. Unfortunately for the week we’re looking at this week, not many of the series that premiered were very memorable.

1959

• No new series premiered this week in 1959.

1969

• No new series premiered this week in 1969.

1979

• No new series premiered this week in 1979.

1989

• No new series premiered this week in 1989.

1999

• May 31 — Game show Vs. premiered on Comedy Central hosted by comedian Greg Proops. The game featured two three-member teams that were polar opposites, answering questions about general topics and topics related to the teams’ specific area of expertise. The winning team went to the Grande Finale bonus round to win an additional $1000, but if they missed the question the losing team had five seconds to give a correct answer to win the money. Teams included Nudists vs. Porn Stars, Vegans vs. Deli Workers, College Professors vs. Middle School Students, Astronmers vs. Astrologers, Mall Santas vs. Elvis Impersonators, and PETA Members vs. Hunters. The series lasted just one short season, ending on September 3, 1999.

2009

• May 26 — Reality series Hitched or Ditched, hosted by Tanya McQueen, debuts on The CW. The series focused on couples in long-term relationships who have not taken that next step towards marriage, nominated by a friend who believed it was time to either move forward or break up. The network ordered six episodes but low ratings doomed the series and it ended with the sixth episode on June 30.
• May 26 — Reality series The Little Couplepremieres on TLC. The series stars Bill Klein and Dr. Jennifer Arnold, who both have skeletal dysplasia. The show follows their lives in Houston as they build a customized home and attempt to have a baby. The show’s fifth season followed the couple as they moved into their home and launch a new business. They also adopted a son, who suffers from dwarfism, from China. In Season 6, the couple also adopted daughter Zoey, a little person, from India, and followed Arnold’s through her diagnosis and treatment for stage 4 choriocarcinoma, a rare form of cancer due to a non-viable pregnancy she suffered in September 2013. The latest season of the series premiered on October 9, 2018 which featured the family moving to Florida. Legal battles between the couple, producers LMNO Productions and Discovery Networks has put the future of the series into question.
• May 26 — Medical drama MƎNTAL debuts on FOX. The series starred Chris Vance and Annabella Sciorra and was filmed in Bogota, Columbia which stood in for Los Angeles, but no Columbian actors were cast in lead roles due to the American nature of the series. British actor Vance played an Australian doctor, Jack Gallagher, living in America who uses his unorthodox methods to get inside his patients’ heads to help them. Gallagher also has a mentally unstable sister who had been living on the streets and also fears developing schizophrenia himself. He may also be dealing with clinical depression. An altercation with another doctor leads to Gallagher being fired. After 13 episodes, the season — and series — ended in opposition to how it stared with Jack’s sister living with their parents and he now a ‘vagrant’ with no direction. Guest stars on the series included Bella Thorne, Silas Weir Mitchell and Nicholle Tom.
• May 27 — Animated comedy The Goode Family debuts on ABC. The series was created by Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill) and focused on an environmentally responsible family while taking a comedic look at contemporary society. The voice cast included Judge, Nancy Carell, David Herman, Linda Cardellini, Dee Bradley Baker and Brian Doyle-Murray. Other voice actors included Amy Hill, Julia Sweeney, Laraine Newman, Phil LaMarr, Cree Summer, Alyson Hannigan, Diedrich Bader and Elvis Costello. ABC announced the show’s cancellation on August 8 due to low ratings after the first season’s 13th episode aired on August 7.
• May 29 — Docuseries Obsessed premieres on the A+E Network. The series follows subjects experiencing various anxiety disorders — OCD, panic, social anxiety, general anxiety — and their treatment. The series produced 17 episodes over the course of two seasons.
• May 31 — Reality series Jesse James is a Dead Man premieres on Spike. The show starred motorcycle customizer James performing death-defying stunts. Eleven episodes were produced — though it’s not clear if they all aired — and the final episode was broadcast on August 9. Marvel Comics also released a one-shot comic based on the show.
• June 1 — The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien premieres on NBC with the former Late Night host taking over from Jay Leno in what was ultimately an ill-fated decision by the network. O’Brien’s style of comedy worked much better in the later time slot, but regular Tonight Show viewers did not warm to O’Brien’s style, particularly as fans of Leno’s saw NBC’s move to push him off the show as a betrayal. To compound matters, NBC gave Leno a nightly primetime talk show at 10:00 PM which seriously impacted the ratings for O’Brien’s show, then NBC planned to move Leno to the 11:35 PM timeslot, pushing The Tonight Show to 12:05 AM. O’Brien released a statement that he would not continue with the show if such a move were to take place, fearing it would ruin the long tradition of the show. After two weeks of negotiations, NBC settled with O’Brien, buying out his contract for $45 million, ending his tenure as host of the show and with NBC after 22 years. Leno returned to host the show on March 1, 2010. O’Brien was given a new show at cable network TBS which was free to air a year after O’Brien’s departure from NBC (the new show began at 11:00 PM to draw fans away from NBC). With just 145 aired episodes, this marked the shortest run for any Tonight Show host. Two weeks after O’Brien’s final new episode aired (reruns aired until the network’s Olympics coverage began on February 11, 2010), NBC began scrubbing YouTube and Hulu of all The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien videos, and removed all mention of the host from its website save for references to other series such as O’Brien’s appearance on NBC’s 30 Rock. During an April 6, 2010 appearance by Slash and Andrew Stockdale, there were very few close-ups of Slash who wore a ‘I’m with Coco’ pin. On June 8, Chris Rock made an appearance on Leno’s show and made a few subtle references to O’Brien, calling Leno a ‘bad, bad man.’ On a June 10 episode, Denis Leary mentioned he opened a Twitter account because O’Brien had one. Leno mentioned that he had one too, but the comments were edited out of the interview clip posted on NBC’s website. On July 8, Leno announced ‘the good news’ that The Tonight Show had received four Emmy nominations. ‘The bad news’ was that none of them were for his show (neither of Leno’s Tonight Shows had ever been nominated). The nominations, however, did not translate into wins. On February 17, 2014, Jimmy Fallon took over the hosting duties from Leno, thanking all the previous hosts including O’Brien.

 
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