TV by the Decade :: January 22•28

Joe Hamilton Productions

Five decades had new series premieres this week, and interestingly it is the earlier decades that produced the most notable new shows (we can’t completely slight 2003, which did give us Jimmy Kimmel and the Mythbusters, but 2013 … meh). 1953 and 1963 are still snoozing, and 1973 only had one new show but it was popular, ran for several seasons, and gave Buddy Ebsen a signature character that wasn’t Jed Clampett. 1983 had two new series, a sitcom and an action-packed dramedy. The sitcom brought Vicki Lawrence’s Mama character from The Carol Burnett Show to our TV screens on a weekly basis, and the action show made a star out of Mr. T. 1993 had a single new series that was a sequel to a 20-year-old TV classic starring David Carradine. Want to know more about these shows? Read on and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating this week!

1953

• No new series debuted this week in 1953.

1963

• No new series debuted this week in 1963.

1973

• January 28 – Barnaby Jones (CBS, Eight season, 178 episodes)

Barnaby Jones was a Quinn Martin Production, the second longest-running series from the company. The first episode of the series featured a crossover with another QM series, Cannon. A second crossover occurred in 1975. Star Buddy Ebsen’s daughter Bonnie made six guest appearances, while co-star Lee Meriwether’s daughter Kyle cameoed in two episodes. Meriwether and co-star Mark Shera were interested in a TV movie reunion but could not get Ebsen to join the project. Ebsen did, however, reprise the role of Barnaby Jones in The Beverly Hillbillies 1993 theatrical film, which would mark his final film appearance.

1983

Universal Television

• January 22 – Mama’s Family (NBC, Two seasons / Syndication, Four seasons, 130 episodes)
• January 23 – The A-Team (NBC, Five seasons, 98 episodes)

Mama’s Family was a sitcom spun off from ‘The Family’ sketches on The Carol Burnett Show and the TV movie Eunice, with Vicki Lawrence reprising the role of Thelma Harper. Burnett’s show had recurring guests playing roles in ‘The Family’ sketches, and Ken Berry reprised his roles as Thelma’s son Vinton, with Betty White recurring as snobbish daughter Ellen. Burnett and Korman guested in a handful of episodes for the NBC incarnation of the show. Lawrence initially turned the series down because she didn’t want to wear a fat suit and play an old lady every week without Burnett and Harvey Korman (who said they would guest but not be regulars), but after the success of the TV movie and urging by Burnett to take the moment and shine, Lawrence finally agreed to do the show. NBC bought the show without a pilot but demanded it include ‘normal teenagers’ like on other sitcoms, which led to the creation of Buzz and Sonja. After the show’s cancellation, NBC continued to air reruns during the Summer which fared better than expected, spurring Lorimar/Telepictures to give the show an order 100 episodes for Syndication, with only Lawrence, Berry and Dorothy Lyman returning. Buzz and Sonja were briefly mentioned in the first new episode and never spoken of again. Rue McClanahan, who was a regular on the NBC version, and Betty White had moved on to The Golden Girls, but White did make one guest appearance on the Syndicated version while McClanahan’s character was killed off in the first episode. Neither Burnett nor Korman guested, and their characters were written off as moving to Florida. Allan Kayser joined the show as Eunice and Ed’s son Bubba, and Beverly Archer moved in as next door neighbor Iola Boylen. Lawrence wrote in her autobiography that Burnett did not return as Eunice because she was in the midst of an acrimonious divorce with husband Joe Hamilton, who produced Mama’a Family, and she resented Lawrence for agreeing to revive the show with him, seeing it as a betrayal to her as Burnett had pitched a new version of the show starring the both of them. They finally patched things up after his death. The show became the highest rated first run program in Syndication. Berry claimed the series ended because Lawrence was tired of playing Mama — even though she has reprised the role on stage for her ‘two-woman show’ for years afterward — and Lawrence said the series simply reached the episode threshold to keep it successful in Syndication and no more episodes were needed. The series earned three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Costumes for a Series in 1983, 1984 and 1987, winning in 1984 for the episode ‘Mama’s Birthday’.

The A-Team was Stephen J. Cannell’s first series for NBC after being fired by ABC for not producing a hit series for the network. Boy George guested on an episode as ‘Cowboy George’. David McCallum made a guest appearance and worked with his former The Man From U.N.C.L.E. co-star Robert Vaughn, who was a series regular.

1993

• January 27 – Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (Prime Time Entertainment Network, Four seasons, 88 episodes)

Kung Fu: The Legend Continues serves as a modern day sequel to the 1972-1975 Kung Fu TV series, which was set in the Old West. The series ended only because PTEN ceased operations and no other outlets opted to continue the show. David Carradine played the grandson of the character he played in the original series. The show’s pitch title was Kung Fu: The Next Generation.

2003

ABC

• January 22 – Chappelle’s Show (Comedy Central, Three seasons, 28 episodes)
• January 23 – MythBusters (Discovery Channel, Fifteen seasons / Science Channel, Two seasons, 283 episodes, 13 specials)
• January 24 – Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (Showtime, Eight seasons, 89 episodes)
• January 26 – Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC, Twenty-one seasons, over 3,200 episodes to date)
• January 27 – Ask Rita (Syndication, Two seasons, 86 episodes)
• January 27 – Miracles (ABC, One season, 13 episodes)
• January 27 – Veritas: The Quest (ABC, One season, 13 episodes)

For the first ten years of its existence, Jimmy Kimmel Live! aired at Midnight (or 12:05 AM) because ABC’s Nightline aired at 11:30/11:35 PM. The shows’ timeslots were swapped on January 8, 2013 so Kimmel could compete directly with The Tonight Show on NBC and the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. Despite the title, the show is usually taped at 5:00 PM Pacific Time on the day of broadcast. Live editions have been broadcast to coincide with events like the Academy Awards (except when Kimmel has hosted the awards) and NBA Finals. During the COVID pandemic shutdown, the show aired reruns for two weeks from March 16, 2020 to March 30 when the show resumed from Jimmy’s house. It also reverted to its original 12:05 AM timeslot with Nightline returning to 11:35 PM. On April 30, 2020, episodes were shortened to 30 minutes and the timeslots were swapped again. Kimmel took a personal hiatus beginning June 18, 2020 with guest hosts filling in for the 30-minute show until his return after hosting the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards. This practice has continued in July and August after returning to the regular 60-minute format. In-studio taping returned on September 21, 2020 without a studio audience and a return to the 60-minute format, pushing Nightline back to 12:35 AM. Due to an increase in COVID cases the show returned to the at-home format briefly in January 2021. Kimmel signed a new three-year contact in September 2022 to continue as host and executive producer of the show.

2013

• January 22 – The Taste (ABC, Three seasons, 23 episodes)
• January 22 – Wild Deep (Animal Planet, One season, 6 episodes)
• January 22 – Edge of America (Travel Channel, One season, 10 episodes)
• January 23 – Kimora: House of Fab (Style Network, One season, 8 episodes)
• January 23 – Big Rich Atlanta (Style Network, One season, 13 episodes)
• January 24 – Incredible Crew (Cartoon Network, One season, 13 episodes plus the Pilot)
• January 26 – Swamp Pawn (CMT, Three seasons, 34 episodes)
• January 28 – Built (Style Network, One season, 9 episodes)

Incredible Crew was the final live-action series produced by Cartoon Network until the announcement of Family Mash-Up in 2021. Over 330 sketches were created for the show and carefully curated for each episode.