TV by the Decade :: January 14•20

Paramount Television

Two decades took the week off but 1974 gave us one classic, long-running sitcom that very nearly never existed if it hadn’t been for George Lucas, of all people. 1984 gave us a show about ninjas that had a short run and become a target of ridicule, and 1994 brought a colorful comedian to primetime, and brought William Shatner back to sci-fi television. 2004 and 2014 both premiered groundbreaking LGBTQ series on rival cable networks, and rich kids also learned in 2014 that reality TV was hard work. Scroll down to see what shows are celebrating premieres this week, and tell us if any of your favorites are on the list!

1954

• No new series premiered this week in 1954.

1964

• No new series premiered this week in 1964.

1974

• January 15 – Happy Days (ABC, Eleven seasons, 255 episodes)

Happy Days began as an unsold pilot with Ron Howard, Marion Ross and Anson Williams that was incorporated into an episode of Love, American Style titled ‘Love and the Television Set’ (later retitled ‘Love and the Happy Days’ in Syndication). The cast was rounded out with Harold Gould as Howard Cunningham, Ric Carrott as Chuck and Susan Neher as Joanie. Howard won the lead role in American Graffiti after director George Lucas saw the pilot, which gave ABC renewed interest in the series. Gould was expected to return as Howard but had committed to a play overseas by the time the series had been picked up, so the role went to Tom Bosley. When ratings began to fall during the second season, producer Garry Marshall retooled the show to highlight the relatively minor character of Fonzie, leading the show to become number one for the 1976-1977 season. The show spawned successful spin-offs Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy, as well as failures Joanie Loves Chachi, Blansky’s Beauties and Out of the Blue. Henry Winkler’s Fonzie originally wore a grey windbreaker during the show’s first season. It was thrown in the garbage after ABC allowed Fonzie to wear a leather jacket. The leather jacket is now a permanent piece of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Adam Arkin had one of his first TV roles on the show in Season 2, and Julie Brown made her TV debut in a seventh season episode. Pre-Grease stars Jeff Conaway and Didi Conn appeared in one episode each in Season 3 and Season 2, respectively. Ron Howard’s brother Clint appears in a Season 3 episode. Pre-stardom Tom Hanks, Charlene Tilton and Cheryl Ladd each made guest appearances. The show is the third longest-running ABC sitcom, tying with Modern Family, and behind The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet at 14 seasons. The show remained in the same 8:00 PM Tuesday timeslot for its first ten seasons. Entering Syndication while still in production, the reruns were retitled Happy Days Again until the series ended. CBS head Fred Silverman tried to knock off Happy Days by scheduling Good Times against it during their second seasons. A year later Silverman was head of ABC and had to save the show he’d almost killed, quickly bringing it to the top of the Nielsen ratings in 1977. The official series finale aired on May 8, 1984, but ABC had five leftover episodes that went unaired due to the Winter Olympics and a limited run of a.k.a. Pablo. Four aired on Thursdays during the Summer of 1984, with the fifth broadcast on September 24, 1984. The first two seasons were filmed with a single camera and a laugh track. Season 2’s ‘Fonzie Gets Married’ was filmed with three cameras and a studio audience as a test, and the new format began with the third season, which also required some retooling of the sets for the Cunnigham home and Arnold’s Diner. The show’s first season theme song was a newly recorded version of ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley and the Comets. The song was never released commercially, but the 1953 original returned to the charts in 1974 as a result of the show’s popularity (the Syndicated episodes used an edited version of the original song for the opening titles). The ‘Happy Days’ theme replaced ‘Rock Around the Clock’ for Seasons 3-10. The song was rerecorded for the 11th season in a more modern style, and new opening credits were filmed with the title logo reanimated to create a ‘new’ feel to the show, incorporating 1980s sensibilities with 1950s nostalgia (even though the show was set in 1965 by this point). Robin Williams made his screen debut on the show as Mork from Ork, replacing a previously cast actor at the last minute, improvising most of the dialogue and physical comedy. Impressing everyone, studio executives moved quickly to get him under contract before competitors could make their own offers. The phrase ‘Jump the Shark’ originated with Jon Hein following the Season 5 episode ‘Hollywood: Part 3’ where Fonzie jumps over a shark while on water skis. The scene was reference in Arrested Development when Winkler’s character Barry Zuckerkorn also hopped over a shark. ABC has aired two reunion specials, one in 1992 and a second in 2005 to commemorate the show’s 30th anniversary.

1984

• January 20 – The Master (NBC, One season, 13 episodes)

The Master starred Lee Van Cleef as an aging ninja master. Sho Kosugi also starred as a ninja warrior trained by Van Cleef’s character, and Kosugi also served as Van Cleef’s fight double, the series’ fight choreographer, ninja technical advisor and stunt coordinator. In the mid-1980s, seven TV-movies were created by editing together two episodes for each movie. The first two volumes were lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

1994

• January 16 – The George Carlin Show (FOX, Two seasons, 27 episodes)
• January 17 – Can We Shop starring Joan Rivers (Syndication)
• January 17 – Rolonda (Syndication, Four seasons, 1,100-plus episodes)
• January 17 – TekWar (Syndication/USA Network/SciFi Channel, Two seasons, 22 episodes)

The George Carlin Show was set mostly in the Moylan Tavern run by bartender Jack Donahue (Anthony Starke). The bar was based on the real Moylan’s Tavern that existed on Broadway during Carlin’s childhood. Jack Donahue was based on the real-life owner Jimmy Donahue. The set, however, was based on the upper-Broadway bar Cannon’s where, Carlin remarked, ‘my father used to drink.’

Rolonda served as a replacement for The Les Brown Show, which debuted on September 6, 1993 and ended on January 14, 1994 due to low ratings.

TekWar was based on the series of novels of the same name, ghost-written by Ron Goulart from outlines by William Shatner. The series began as a collection of four syndicated TV movies that are often referred to as the show’s first season, despite not technically being a proper season. When the official series was greenlit, it moved to the USA Network in the US and continued to air on CTV in Canada. As ratings began to slide, USA cancelled the show on June 13, 1995 and due to the simulcast agreement, CTV also had to remove the series from its schedule. SciFi Channel acquired the rights to rebroadcast the show and just as they were to begin running the four unaired episodes, the episodes also ran on CTV. An adult animated adaptation was announced in September 2021.

2004

Showtime Networks

• January 18 – Whoopi’s Littleburg (Nick Jr., 3-episode mini-series, 1 unaired pilot)
• January 18 – The L Word (Showtime, Six seasons, 71 episodes)
• January 19 – My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance (Fox, One season, 6 episodes)

The L Word featured television’s first ensemble cast of lesbian and bisexual female characters, and its portrayal of lesbianism was groundbreaking at the time. It was also the first television series written and directed by predominantly queer women. Ossie Davis received a posthumous Emmy nominations for Guest Actor in a Drama Series, the series received multiple GLAAD Media Awards nominations, and Pam Grier and Jennifer Beals were repeatedly nominated for NAACP Image Awards. The series generated a sequel series, The L Word: Generation Q, and spin-offs The Real L Word, a reality series, and the documentary L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin. A pilot was produced for the spin-off series The Farm, set in a women’s prison, with Famke Janssen, Melissa Leo, Laurie Metcalf and Leisha Hailey reprising her role as Alice. Showtime declined to move forward with a series. Another spin-off, The L Word: New York, is in development.

My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance was one of the most successful reality series of the season, but did not get a second season order due to the nature of the premise — a season-long prank — which may have been easily recognized by participants familiar with the show. It did generate a follow-up, however, titled My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss.

2014

Fair Harbor Productions

• January 15 – Crazy Hearts: Nashville (A&E, One season, 8 episodes)
• January 16 – Jerks with Cameras (MTV, One season, 10 episodes)
• January 16 – The Brian Boitano Project (HGTV, One season, 4 episodes)
• January 17 – I Didn’t Do It (Disney Channel, Two seasons, 39 episodes)
• January 18 – Thrift Hunters (Spike, Two seasons, 18 episodes)
• January 18 – My Big Redneck Family (CMT, Two seasons, 19 episodes)
• January 19 – Looking (HBO, Two seasons, 18 episodes, 1 TV movie)
• January 19 – Rich Kids of Beverly Hills (E!, Four seasons, 35 episodes)
• January 20 – Sheriff Callie’s Wild West (Disney Junior, Two seasons, 45 episodes)

Looking was HBO’s first series centered around the lives of gay men. Ratings never matched expectations so when the series was cancelled, HBO produced the TV movie to wrap up the storylines. The series was based on Michael Lannan’s short film Lorimer. Lannan wrote the pilot for the series. The series receive GLAAD Media Awards nominations in 2015 and 2016 for Outstanding Comedy Series, as well as a nomination in 2017 for the TV movie.

The wealthy-by-inheritance cast of Rich Kids of Beverly Hills were shocked to learn how much work went into producing a reality series. Morgan Stewart said she had never had to work so hard on something, and was so exhausted by the end of the first week of filming that she was sick for the rest of the season because she didn’t have the stamina to keep up with the daily schedule. Cast member EJ Johnson got a one-season spin-off series, EJNYC, following the fourth season. Dorothy Wang, the first person cast for the series, went on to appear in Season 2 of Netflix’s Bling Empire and now appears on the spin-off, Bling Empire: New York. Morgan Stewart and Brendan Fitzpatrick got married in the series finale which aired on June 19, 2016. In August 2019 they filed for divorce.

Sheriff Callie’s Wild West debuted on the Disney Junior app on November 24, 2013. The first television broadcast was on December 13, 2013 with an 11-minute preview during the ‘Magical Holidays on Disney Channel’ programming event. The voice cast included Mandy Moore, Dee Bradley Baker, Kevin Michael Richardson, Cree Summer, Carlos Alazraqui, Rob Paulsen, Flea, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Keegan-Michael Key, Chris Isaak, Clancy Brown and Tress MacNeille. The show’s working title in 2011 was Oki’s Oasis, with the lead characters named Oki and Kiko, with a premiere set for the end of 2013. The date was pushed to January 2014 due to several changes to the names and characters, with the Japanese name Oki and Kiko changed to Sheriff Callie and Toby, which were more fitting for a show with an Old West setting. The series drew inspiration from The Andy Griffith Show, Green Acres, Quick Draw McGraw and the classic 1950s Disney series Davy Crockett. The series received two Annie Award nominations and one Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 2016.