The Mark Gordon Company
A few familiar shows made their debuts this week across the decades. 1953 had a short-lived TV series based on a comic strip. 1983 saw the debut of a long-running soap opera that featured performances from familiar faces, including Michael Weatherly Randolph Mantooth, Debbi Morgan, Catherine Hickland, Celeste Holm, Susan Walters, Genie Francis, Melba Moore, Debbi Morgan, John Wesley Shipp, Donna McKechnie and Marian Seldes, plus very early roles for Camryn Manheim, Mark Feuerstein, Luke Perry, Daisy Fuentes, John O’Hurley, Bryan Cranston, Edie Falco, Rena Sofer, and Rebecca Gayheart. 1993 had two shows that are practically forgotten today, 2003 saw the Spike network try its hand at animation, and 2013 had a popular scripted drama and a popular reality series full of drama that’s still going strong today. Read on and tell us is any of your favorites are on the list!
1953
- June 26 – Terry and the Pirates (Syndication, One season, 18 episodes)
Terry and the Pirates was based on Milton Caniff’s comic strip of the same name. Canada Dry ginger ale was the show’s sponsor.
1963
- No new series debuted this week in 1963.
1973
- No new series debuted this week in 1973.
1983
Dramatic Creations
- June 27 – Loving (ABC, 3,169 episodes, last broadcast on November 10, 1995)
Loving (working title: Love Without End) debuted with a two-hour primetime TV movie on June 26, 1983 with the daytime soap premiering the next day. When the series ended, it was replaced with a spin-off, The City, which ran for two years. Lloyd Bridges and Geraldine Page appeared in the TV movie. Lauren-Marie Taylor as Stacey Donovan Forbes was the show’s only continuously running cast member until she was killed off in 1995. Loving characters Ally, Alex, Angie, Buck, Frankie, Jacob, Steffi, Jocelyn, Richard, Tony, Danny and Tess were carried over to The City. Loving‘s serial killer storyline was revisted on General Hospital in August 2013 as Luke Spencer and Holly Sutton found their way into the abandoned Alden mansion, in pursuit of an adversary who was hiding out in Corinth, the setting for Loving. The series received a Daytime Emmy in 1991 for Supporting Actor (Bernard Barrow), and one in 1988 for Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Direction for a Drama Series.
1993
- June 25 – Johnny Bago (CBS, One season, 8 episodes, 2 unaired)
- June 26 – Front Page (FOX, One season)
2003
MGM Television
- June 26 – Stripperella (Spike, One season, 13 episodes)
- June 26 – Gary the Rat (Spike, One season, 13 episodes)
- June 26 – Ren & Stimpy ‘Adult Party Cartoon’ (Spike, One season, 6 episodes, 3 unaired)
- June 27 – Dead Like Me (Showtime, Two seasons, 29 episodes)
- June 30 – Cyborg 009 (Cartoon Network, One season, 51 episodes)
Stripperella is also referred to Stan Lee’s Stripperella. The topless nudity was censored for US broadcast, but aired uncensored in other countries around the world. Before Gary the Rat joined the Spike animation line-up, it appeared online in 2000 with 13 3-minute webisodes animated in Adobe Flash. Ren & Stimpy ‘Adult Party Cartoon’ was developed as an ‘extreme’ reboot of the classic Ren & Stimpy Show that originally aired on Nickelodeon. It was pulled from Spike’s schedule after three episodes, with the unaired episodes released on DVD. It has been called one of the worst animated series of all time.
Bryan Fuller created Dead Like Me for Showtime, but exited the show after five episodes due to creative differences with MGM Television. Cast member Rebecca Gayheart also left the series after the fifth episode. Fuller said the show was cancelled because of a loss of quality and that Showtime had a sense the issues would continue. A direct-to-DVD follow-up movie, Dead Like Me: Life After Death, was released on February 19, 2009.
2013
51 Minds Entertainment
- June 30 – Ray Donovan (Showtime, Seven seasons, 82 episodes)
- July 1 – Below Deck (Bravo, Ten seasons, 153 episodes to date)
- July 1 – Siberia (NBC, One season, 11 episodes)
- July 1 – AwesomenessTV (Nickelodeon, Two seasons, 40 episodes)
Ray Donovan‘s premiere was the biggest of all time for Showtime. The series, which was expected to have an eighth and final season, was surprisingly cancelled after the seventh season but due to outcry by the show’s fans, the network agreed to produce a TV movie finale to wrap the show up. The series was nominated for five Golden Globes, winning one, and nine Emmys, winning one.
Below Deck‘s yacht for the first season, Honor, was actually the Cuor di Leone chartered in Sint Maarten. The captain and first officer remained with the yacht while the regular crew was given time off and replaced with the crew cast for the show. During filming for the sixth season, crew member Ashton Pienaar was nearly killed when a tow rope wrapped around his leg and dragged him into the water between the yacht and the vessel’s tender. Had a cameraman not freed the tow line, it would have severed Ashton’s foot and he would have bled out in seconds. The series has spawned four spin-offs to date.
Siberia was a supernatural drama that played out like a reality competition series. As the series was licensed to NBC, it has never officially been cancelled, and at one point there had been talks to continue the show on NBC or another outlet. AwesomenessTV was a sketch-comedy series based on the YouTube channel of the same name.
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