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It’s our 100th ‘episode’ of TV By The Decade, but there isn’t a whole lot to celebrate with this week’s TV premieres with just three shows making their debuts in three different decades, none of them running longer than two seasons (although one of them had over 600 episodes). Let’s take a look to see if you remember any of this week’s premieres.
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
- August 4 — Soap opera Texas premieres on NBC. Produced by Procter and Gamble Productions, the show was a spin-off of the long-running Another World. The series was conceived with a concept set in the Antebellum South with the title Reunion, but NBC wanted something more like CBS’ successful primetime soap Dallas. The concept was refashioned to feature popular Another World character Iris Cory Carrington, played by Beverlee McKinsey. Several new characters made their debuts on Another World in the lead-up to the new series’ premiere so viewers would have time to connect with them when they all moved to Texas. The first season focused on the wealthy Wheelers and Bellmans and the middle class Marshalls. McKinsey left the show in November 1981, and the show promptly lost a million viewers as secondary characters were given more story time (Another World also lost a million viewers when McKinsey departed that show but the impact wasn’t as great as it was for the new series). With its days numbered, the show was rechristened Texas: The New Generation, but airing against General Hospital on ABC and Guiding Light on CBS did not help the ratings. Country music stars Johnny Paycheck, Tom T. Hall and Ray Stevens made appearances as themselves, as did Oklahoma Governor George Nigh and his wife Donna. Texas Lieutenant Governor William P. Hobby toured the show’s Brookly, NY studio and praised the show’s realistic feel but did not make an appearance on the show. The last episodes featured a “Christmas miracle” (snow fell in Houston and a presumed dead character, Ashley, returned home to her husband), and the New Year’s Eve series finale had the local TV station bought out and all the major characters were fired (shaded of the series finale of The Mary Tyler Moore Show). NBC replaced the soap with game shows Wheel of Fortune and Hit Man, the latter of which was cancelled after 13 weeks despite an increase in the network’s ratings in the 11:30 AM time slot. In addition to McKinsey, the cast included Daniel Davis, who went on to play Niles on The Nanny, Harley Jane Kozak, who joined Santa Barbara in 1985, and Kin Shriner, best known for playing Scott Baldwin on General Hospital since 1977. The series ran for two seasons, producing 617 episodes, concluding on December 31, 1982.
1990
- No new series premiered this week in 1990.
2000
- August 8 — Animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command premieres on UPN. The first series to be based on a Pixar franchise (the second, Forky Asks a Question, wasn’t until the 2019 launch of Disney+), it’s also the first hand-drawn animated project from Pixar. The series follows the adventures of Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear and began with the direct-to-video release Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins, which was also broadcast as the first three episodes of the series. A video game based on the series was also released in 2000. The series takes place in the future with Capital Planet, the forefront of the Galactic Alliance, as the centerpiece, a home to various alien species that coexist in harmony. Intergalactic crime boss Evil Emperor Zurg in the primary villain who rules an empire of heavily armed robots and slave races to work in opposition to the Galactic Alliance. Buzz takes a crew of rookies under his wing to investigate criminal activity across the galaxy, attempting to bring down Zurg once and for all. Tim Allen voiced Buzz in the pilot movie and Patrick Warburton took over for the TV series. Other voice actors included Nicole Sullivan, Stephen Furst, Larry Miller, Neil Flynn, Adam Carolla, Phil LaMarr, Nikki Cox, Joy Behar, Wayne Knight, Frank Welker, Diedrich Bader, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Craig Ferguson, Brad Garrett, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Dan Castellaneta, Russi Taylor, Tony Jay, Linda Hamilton, Brian Doyle-Murray, Cree Summer, Stephen Root, John O’Hurley, Ed Asner, Jon Favreau and French Stewart. 52 episodes aired on UPN until November 29, with the remaining 13 original episodes airing in ABC from October 14, 2000 to January 13, 2001, for a total of 65 episodes.
2010
- August 7 — Game show Power of 10 premieres on CBS. Drew Carey, pulling double duty while also hosting The Price is Right, asked contestants to predict how a cross-section of people responded to questions from a wide variety of topics. The two contestants are given ten seconds to lock in their guess using a percentage and the player who comes closest gets the point. The first player to earn three points advances to the money round. Five questions are asked and the contestant wins if their answer is within a margin of error which decreases with each question. The first question is worth $1000 and each question increases the money by the power of 10. For the first three questions, the answer is revealed once the guess is locked in. Contestants are allowed to ask an in-studio relative or friend to give an opinion before the answer is locked in. Contestants can stop the game and take the money they have won before locking in an answer. The host is not aware of the answers and may offer his opinion as well. If the contestant answers the fourth question for $1,000,000, the correct answer is only revealed if the guess is outside the percentage range of 10%. If they answer correctly, they are given the chance to win $10,000,000 by picking the exact percentage of that 10% range. Missing a question ends the game, and a miss on either of the first two questions sent the contestant home with nothing. From the third $100,000 question, a wrong answer reduced the contestant’s winnings ‘by the power of 10’, or 10% of the money accumulated to that point. 19-year-old Jamie Sadler was the youngest person ever to win $1,000,000 on an American game show (not counting reality competition series). He also achieved that distinction on the very first episode, the first time had given away that amount of money on its first show (a record beaten nine years later when a couple won $1.3 million on the first episode of NBC’s The Wall). Big Brother 8 contestants Daniele Donato and Amber Siyavus won the opportunity to compete on the show during a Power of Veto challenge and were taken out of the house to compete. Amber won the opening round and made it to the $100,000 but answered incorrectly and left with $1000. Matt Hoffman, who went on to compete on Big Brother 12, did not make it past the first round. On the January 2, 2008 episode, two contestants made it to the money round and left with nothing. The show premiered as a summer series and aired twice a week. CBS ordered six additional episodes, before the summer finale which aired on September 23 due to the reality series Kid Nation premiering the following week. The show returned in January but aired opposite FOX powerhouse American Idol. CBS removed the show from the schedule on January 24, 2008 with a possible run in the summer. By April 30, the show had been cancelled and replaced with The Price is Right $1,00,000 Spectacular, also hosted by Carey. GSN aired the show weekdays at 5:00 PM starting in March 2011 to promote Carey’s upcoming improv series, but it was eventually moved to weekends, replaced by reruns of Deal or No Deal. In all, 18 episodes were produced with the last airing on January 23, 2008.
Did you or do you watch any of these shows? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
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