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While there are just over a dozen new series celebrating premieres this week over the last 40 years, there are a handful that went on to long runs with devoted fan bases and several awards to their credit. 1983 gave us a hybrid game show that ran for 60 minutes and included versions of two very popular game shows from the past, as well as one original host. 1993 produced a cheeky medical drama with a beloved actor, and his son, while also giving us a classic New York-set sitcom with a catchy theme song that grew out of its star’s real life. 2003 had several new series but one comedy went on to become a cult hit, finding new life on a streaming service after its cancellation. 2013 gave us three short-lived reality shows and one long-running animated series with an interesting history. Read all about these shows and more and tell us if any of your favorites are on the list!
1953
- No new series premiered this week in 1953.
1963
- No new series premiered this week in 1963.
1973
- No new series premiered this week in 1973.
1983
- October 31 – Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour (One season, 192 episodes)
Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour combined two popular game shows from the 1960s and 1970s, with original Match Game host Gene Rayburn returning to host that portion of the show then joining the panel for the Squares portion. Jon Bauman, lead singer of Sha-Na-Na, was a panel member in the first half of the show and then hosted the Squares half, with three additional celebrities joining the six from Match Game. The Squares portion of the show differed from the original series in that the champion always played the ‘X’ instead of the original ‘Mr. X’ and ‘Miss O’ players. There was no Secret Square, and the opponent would win the square on a missed question instead of having to earn it with another question. For the final Super Match round, the contestant would choose a star who had a card in front of them with a hidden number from 10 to 30 which was used to multiply the amount of money to be played for after the Audience Match portion of the round. Original Match Game panelists Charles Nelson Reilly appeared on the show for seven non-concurrent weeks, while Fannie Flagg appeared on four weeks of episodes. Nedra Volz was the most frequent guest at nine weeks, with Leonard Frey also appearing for seven weeks. Only two Hollywood Squares regulars made appearances on the show – George Gobel and Abby Dalton, each for two weeks of episodes. The eight guest panelists rotated positions during their five days of play so that different groups of three only played in the Squares portion of the show. Relative unknowns at the time, Jay Leno and Arsenio Hall, appeared on the panel. The cast of Leave It To Beaver reunited for a week of episodes at the end of 1983, with other special weeks that included stars of NBC soaps, the cast of Too Close For Comfort, cast members from St. Elsewhere, and a salute to films of the 1950s with stars from the era. Original Squares host Peter Marshall was dismayed that he was not asked to return as Rayburn had been, and was happy the show didn’t last a single full season. The show had never been seen in reruns because of the complicated rights involved with the ownership of the two shows, but the BUZZR network has digitized and cleaned up the original masters for broadcast, which began airing on September 30, 2019.
1993
- October 29 – Diagnosis: Murder (CBS, Eight seasons, 178 episodes, 5 TV movies, 1 pilot)
- October 30 – The Paula Poundstone Show (ABC, 3 episodes, 1 unaired)
- November 3 – The Nanny (CBS, Six seasons, 146 episodes)
Diagnosis: Murder was a spin-off of Jake and the Fatman, which began with a series of three TV movies before CBS ordered the series. Two more movies aired after the series ended. The show struggled in the ratings and was nearly cancelled after Season 2, but it returned as a mid-season replacement in Season 3 and was regularly renewed for five more seasons. In the Jake and the Fatman backdoor pilot, Dick Van Dyke’s Dr. Sloane did not have a son, but his real life son Barry joined the series as Sloane’s son, who played a detective who helped solve the murder cases. Dr. Amanda Bentley was played by Cynthia Gibb in the three movies, and then by Victoria Rowell in the series. The first two movies were shot in Vancouver, while the third and the first eight episodes were filmed in Denver. The show quickly and without explanation moved to Los Angeles for the remainder of the show’s run. The series was notable for including actors appearing as their classic TV characters or those based on the more familiar characters. Van Dyke himself appeared in a fantasy segment as Rob Petrie. Mike Connors made an appearance as Mannix, Andy Griffith appeared as Matlock, Barbara Bain appeared as Cinnamon Carter from Mission: Impossible while her former co-star Peter Graves made an appearance but not as Jim Phelps. Robert Culp appeared as a character similar to I Spy‘s Kelly Robinson. Patrick Macnee, Robert Vaughn and Phil Morris appeared in the episode ‘Discards’ but not as their classic spy characters. Jack Klugman appeared in one episode as a similar character to his Quincy, M.E. role, while making a second appearance as Detective Harry Trumble, a character from the Diagnosis: Murder novel ‘The Past Tense’. Star Trek alumni George Takei, Walter Koenig, Majel Barrett, Wil Wheaton, and Grace Lee Whitney, and Lost in Space‘s Bill Mumy appeared in an episode about apparent alien abduction. M*A*S*H movie and TV stars Elliott Gould, Sally Kellerman, Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit and William Christopher appeared on the ‘Drill for Death’ episode. Emergency! stars Randolph Mantooth and Robert Fuller appeared in an episode about Malibu brushfires. Stars of Happy Days and its spin-offs — Erin Moran, Pat Morita, Don Most, David Lander, Leslie Easterbook and Conrad Janis — appeared in the ‘Food Fight’ episode. The first six seasons of the series included at least one episode that was a backdoor pilot, but none of them ever went to series.
The Paula Poundstone Show was a Saturday night variety series that first aired at 10:00 PM, then 9:00 PM, and was cancelled with the third episode unaired.
The Nanny was nominated for twelve Emmy Awards during its run, winning just one. Star Fran Drescher was twice nominated for the Golden Globe and Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series. Several foreign adaptations of the show have been produced, loosely inspired by the original scripts. The theme song in the show’s pilot was a version of ‘If My Friends Could See Me Now’ performed by Gwen Verdon from the musical Sweet Charity. The song was changed to the familiar ‘The Nanny Named Fran’ following the pilot. Along with the change came the change of the credits to the animated sequence audiences are familiar with now. The same team that created the opening credits were hired by Rosie O’Donnell to create the opening animation for her daytime talk show. Drescher came up with the idea for the show while on a shopping trip with the teenaged daughter of her friend Twiggy Lawson, and how she interacted with the girl. Drescher’s pitch to CBS, with then husband Peter Marc Jacobson, was ‘like The Sound of Music, but instead of Julie Andrews, I show up at the door.’ Most of the early episodes were filmed before a studio audience, but later seasons did not use an audience due to the complexities of the fantasy sequences and costume changes. Drescher had requested audiences be pre-screened due to a home invasion and attack she experienced in 1985, fearful of random strangers at the tapings. After dropping the studio audience, Cental Casting was employed to hire ‘professional laughers’ who were recorded during taping, and the audio track would be added to the episodes in post-production. This service would continue to be used on other shows. The show’s humor occasionally drew on the actors’ previous roles or real lives, such as when Lauren Lane had to use props to hide her pregnancy. Drescher at one point reprised her This is Spinal Tap character Bobbi Fleckman, and played herself in an episode where TV Fran meets her idol. The last name of the Sheffields’ butler Niles is never revealed. The actual name of C.C. Babcock, Maxwell’s business partner, is revealed in the series finale as Chastity Claire. The series was often compared to I Love Lucy and made many allusions to the classic sitcom during its run.
2003
Imagine Television
- October 29 – A Minute with Stan Hooper (FOX, One season, 13 episodes, 5 unaired)
- October 30 – Tru Calling (FOX, Two seasons, 26 episodes)
- November 1 – Kenny the Shark (NBC/Discovery Kids, Two seasons, 26 episodes)
- November 1 – Tutenstein (Discovery Kids, Three seasons, 39 episodes, 1 film)
- November 1 – Xiaolin Showdown (Kids’ WB, Three seasons, 52 episodes)
- November 2 – Arrested Development (FOX, Three seasons, 53 episodes / Netflix, Two seasons, 53 episodes)
- November 3 – Average Joe (NBC, Four seasons, 27 episodes)
The title character’s name on A Minute with Stan Hooper, played by Norm Macdonald, was taken from a character Macdonald played on Saturday Night Live, but was vastly different in the sitcom. Macdonald hoped to lure the TV audience into complacency and become more subversive as time went on, culminating in the murder of Stan’s wife at the end of Season 1.
Tru Calling was cancelled by FOX, leaving its Season 2 finale episode unaired and with multiple cliffhangers unresolved. The episode was finally broadcast when Syfy picked up reruns of the series.
A reboot of Tutenstein was announced in October 22, noting that it will have a completely different look. Xiaolin Showdown was nominated for four Daytime Emmy Awards, winning one in 2005 for Outstanding Sound Editing — Live Action and Animation.
Ron Howard, the executive producer and narrator of Arrested Development, appeared as a fictionalized version of himself in later seasons. For its first season, the series received seven Emmy Award nominations, winning five including Outstanding Comedy Series. Season 2 received eleven nominations and one win for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for the episode ‘Righteous Brothers’. Season 3 earned four nominations, and Season 4 received three nominations. Jason Bateman won the 2005 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical. Alia Shawkat was the first actor cast for the series. Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi and Will Arnett were cast immediately after their readings for the network. The characters of Tobias and George Sr. were to be minor roles but actors David Cross and Jeffrey Tabor mixed so well with the main cast that their roles were expanded. Producers wanted Liza Minnelli to play Lucille 2 but assumed someone of her stature would not want to be involved. Ron Howard asked her personally to take the role as the two were old friends — she was his babysitter when she was a teenager. Each episode of Season 4 takes place at roughly the same time and focuses on one character, with more details filled in during later episodes. The entire 15-episode season was re-edited in chronological order and presented as a 22-episode season titled Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences.
Average Joe was a reality dating show featuring a beauty queen dating ‘average’ men, but neither of the women in the first two seasons were aware of this twist (Season 2 was filmed before Season 1 aired), led to believe they would be dating handsome suitors. Handsome men were brought in to compete halfway through the season, and each season ended with the female contestant choosing one of the handsome suitors, upending the show’s premise that beauty is only skin deep.
2013
Cartoon Network Studios
- October 29 – Naked Vegas (Syfy, One season, 6 episodes)
- November 3 – It Takes A Choir (USA, One season, 8 episodes)
- November 3 – Restaurant Express (Food Network, One season, 7 episodes)
- November 4 – Steven Universe (Cartoon Network, Five seasons, 160 episodes)
The pilot for Steven Universe first aired on May 21, 2013. The series was followed by the TV movie Steven Universe: The Movie in September 2019, and an epilogue limited series, Steven Universe Future, that ran from December 2019 to March 2020. The series won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids & Family Program in 2019, becoming the first animated series to win the award. It also received a Peabody Award for Children’s & Youth Programming in 2019. It also earned five Emmy nominations. Rebecca Sugar was the first non-binary person to create a show independently for Cartoon Network. She had previously been a storyboard artist on Adventure Time. The title character was named after her younger brother Steven, who was also a background designer for the series. This marked the first lead acting role for Zach Callison (Steven), and the first voice acting role for British singer Estelle (Garnet).
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