Abso Lutely Productions
With regular season series coming to an end, the number of new shows premiering this week is extremely slim. Only two scripted series in two different decades debuted this week through the decades, and while neither is known by mainstream audiences, both have significant cult followings. Let’s check them out.
1950
- No new series premiered this week in 1950.
1960
- No new series premiered this week in 1960.
1970
- No new series premiered this week in 1970.
1980
- May 12 — Primetime soap Flamingo Road premieres on NBC. Based on the 1942 novel by Robert Wilder and the 1949 movie starring Joan Crawford, the series was NBC’s attempt to compete with CBS in the nighttime soap department even though the show was produced by the same company responsible for that network’s hits Dallas, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest. The series took place in the fictional Florida panhandle town Truro and revovled around characters who had ties to the wealthy Weldon family who lived on Flamingo Road. The Weldon family included Claude, his wife Eudora, their believed to be adopted daughter Constance, and son Skipper. Constance was married to Fielding Carlyle and Lane Ballou was his mistress. Lane worked for bar owner Lute-Mae Sanders, Constance’s biological mother (Claude was actually her father but no one knew). Lane became friends with and eventually married construction magnate Sam Curtis. Other characters included Sheriff Titus Semple and Elmo Tyson, editor of teh Truro Clarion and Eudora’s old high school sweetheart. The main cast included John Beck, Peter Donat, Howard Duff, Morgan Fairchild, Mark Harmon, Kevin McCarthy, Cristina Raines, Barbara Rush and Stella Stevens. Melba Moore and Eight Is Enough star Dianne Kay appeared in the pilot. Esther Rolle, David Selby and Cynthis Sikes joined the show’s second season. The show premiered with a pilot TV movie on May 12 then made its series debut on January 6, 1981 with a 15 episode season. Season 2 had a full 22 episode order. While initially popular, the show fell victim to ABC’s Hart to Hart and the last of the show’s 38 episodes aired on May 4, 1982. Several of the cast members eventually migrated to those other Lorimar soaps on CBS, most notably David Selby who segued to Falcon Crest immediately after Flamingo Road‘s cancellation. Fairchild had a guest appearance on a 1978 episode of Dallas and joined Falcon Crest from 1985-1986. Duff appeared on two episodes of Dallas in 1988, then had a recurring role on Knots Landing between 1984 and 1990. Beck recurred on Dallas between 1983 and 1986. McCarthy guested on a rival primetime soap, Dynasty, in 1984. After the show’s cancellation, NBC had planned to produce a daytime version that was to premiere in September 1982, but this never happened even though a third season of the series had been drafted. The series has been rarely seen since its original broadcast and has never been released to the home video market. Longtime fans of the show hope that Warner Bros., which owns the Lorimar catalog, will make the episodes available once its new streaming service HBO Max launches on May 27, 2020.
1990
- No new series premiered this week in 1990.
2000
- No new series premiered this week in 2000.
2010
- May 16 — Comedy series Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule premieres on adult swim. A spin-off of the network’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, John C. Reilly starred as Dr. Steve Brule. The program parodied 1980s public access programs as Brule examines different facets of living. His extreme, possibly pathological, naivete and social awkwardness often land him in embarrassing situations, but he generally remains ignorant of the embarrassment he’s caused himself. As the series progresses, he reveals shocking and sometimes horrifying details about his past and personal life. In each episode, Brule interviews real people and, according to the producers, their reactions to his questions are genuine, but the humor is intended to derive from Brule’s character and not the reactions of the guest. To give the show its 1980s look, the video is piped through a VCR to simulate the poor production value and hit to cause a jump in video synchronization. To date, four six-episode seasons and one special have been completed. The first two seasons have been released on DVD.
Did you or do you watch any of these show? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
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