TV by the Decade :: Oct 30•Nov 5

Marvel Entertainment Group

With only one new show premiering on the last day of October and the other handful following in the first week of November, there isn’t a whole lot that’s interesting or very memorable this week. Chief among the highlights is the 1972 premiere of PBS’s cultural arts series Great Performances, which brings plays, musicals, operas, ballet, concerts and even documentaries into viewers’ homes. Over the years, productions have included Cyrano de Bergerac, King Lear, The Seagull, Madama Butterfly, The Taming of the Shrew, Count Dracula, Mourning Becomes Electra, The Most Happy Fella, The House of Mirth, You Can’t Take It With You, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Comedy of Errors, Show Boat, Our Town, Turnadot, The World of Jim Henson, Swan Lake, Cats, Crazy for You, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Kiss Me Kate, My Name is Barbra, and much more. The series is still airing today.

1992 saw the premiere of the popular X-Men animated series, which ran for five years and will see a new continuation on Disney Plus in 2023 picking up where it left off in 1997. Two other Disney shows debut in ’92, focused on Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse respectively, but these shows were just collections of past Disney shorts with no new material added. In 2002, MTV gave us the adult animated sci-fi series Clone High, which parodied shows like Dawson’s Creek and Beverly Hills 90210, with each episode billed as ‘a very special episode’. ’02 also saw the debut of the long-and-still running sports series Around the Horn on ESPN, and a limited run telenovela on Telemundo. 2012 had a horror series for kids on Nickelodeon based on a popular book series; a sitcom that brought Reba McEntire back to television after a five year break (but not for very long), two short-run docuseries, and a comedy short series on Adult Swim that was a parody of self-help infomercials. Check out the list below, and tell us if any of your favorite shows are celebrating this week!

1952

No new series debuted this week in 1952.

1962

No new series debuted this week in 1962.

1972

November 4 – Great Performances (PBS, Forty-nine seasons to date)

1982

No new series debuted this week in 1982.

1992

October 31 – X-Men (FOX Kids, Five seasons, 76 episodes)
November 2 – Donald’s Quack Attack (The Disney Channel, 95 episodes, last aired in 1998)
November 2 – Mickey’s Mouse Tracks (The Disney Channel, last aired in 1995)

2002

Lord Miller Productions

November 2 – Clone High (MTV, One season, 13 episodes)
November 4 – Around the Horn (ESPN, Eighteen seasons, more than 3.600 episodes to date)
November 4 – La venganza (Telemundo, Limited Run series, 127 episodes)