The Black/Marlens Company
A very small number of series premiered this week in several decades with a few very notable shows making their debuts. 1964 saw the first iteration of a popular game show that is still on the air today, and 1994 gave us the debut of a traditional sitcom that went on to present a groundbreaking episode. ’94 also had a long-running religious docuseries, but the rest of the show’s the premiered this week didn’t make it past a single season. Take a look at the list below and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating anniversaries this week!
1954
- No new series premiered this week in 1954.
1964
Merv Griffin Productions
- March 30 – Jeopardy! (NBC, 11 seasons, 2,753 episodes)
During the last season of Jeopardy!, a Syndicated nighttime version was launched between September 1974 and September 1975, and NBC rebooted the series again for daytime as The All-New Jeopardy!, which ran from October 1978 to March 1979. Art Fleming was the host of all versions of the show until 1979, and Don Pardo was the announcer until 1975, replaced with John Harlan. The current version of the series began airing in September 1984. Jeopardy! is one of the longest running game shows in TV history. Merv Griffin, known primarily as a talk show host, created Jeopardy! with the title What’s the Question?, which NBC rejected. The original concept featured a board with ten categories and ten questions each, but the board could not be easily shown on television so it was reduced to six categories with five questions each. The original intention was to only accept grammatically correct phrasing, but this slowed the game down so any response was accepted as long as it was in the form of a question. The famous music played during the Final Jeopardy! round, titled ‘Think’, was originally composed by Griffin as a lullaby for his son, titled ‘A Time for Tony’. Griffin once stated that the use of the music in various projects had earned him about $70 million. When NBC cancelled the show, it compensated Griffin by purchasing another show he created, Wheel of Fortune, which premiered the Monday after Jeopardy! ended. Only a small number of episodes from the first three versions of the show still exist, with the daytime version only consisting of black-and-white kinescopes of the color videotapes. As a whole, the series has won a record 39 Daytime Emmy Awards, with 17 of those for Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show.
1974
- No new series premiered this week in 1974.
1984
- March 24 – People are Funny (NBC, One season, 13 episodes)
People are Funny was a reboot of a popular 1950s game show hosted by Art Linkletter. Flip Wilson hosted the 1984 edition. The series originated as a radio program in 1942, the popularity of which spawned a 1946 feature film of the same title offering a fictional account of the show’s origin story.
1994
- March 25 – Mysteries of the Bible (A&E, Five seasons, 45 episodes)
- March 29 – Ellen (ABC, Five seasons, 109 episodes)
Mysteries of the Bible began as a two-part pilot that aired in January 1994.
Ellen was originally titled These Friends of Mine during its first season but was changed to avoid confusion with NBC’s Friends, which debuted in September 1994. The show was the first to have a main character come out as gay in 1997’s ‘The Puppy Episode’, which prompted ABC to run a parental advisory at the beginning of each subsequent episode. The series existed in the same universe as The Drew Carey Show, Grace Under Fire and Coach as seen in the Las Vegas crossover episode which featured Carey, Brett Butler and Wayne Newton. Other notable guest stars included Mary Tyler Moore, Captain & Tennille, Vance DeGeneres, Janeane Garofalo, Emma Thompson and Kaley Cuoco. ‘The Puppy Episode’ included appearances by Laura Dern, Oprah Winfrey, Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, k.d. lang, Gina Gershon, Jorja Fox, Dwight Yoakam and Melissa Etheridge. After the initial frenzy over the coming out episode, ratings began to wane and the show was criticized — even among the LGBTQ community — for becoming too serious and focused on ‘gay content’. During its run, the show earned four Golden Globe nominations (three for DeGeneres and one for Joely Fisher), and ten Emmy nominations, winning two in 1997 for editing and writing (for ‘The Puppy Episode’) and one in 1998 for Emma Thompson as Guest Actress. Two Season 3 episodes were actually filmed for Season 1, and were included in the Season 1 DVD box set as ‘bonus episodes’, and are not included in the Season 3 set.
2004
- No new series premiered this week in 2004.
2014
The Jim Henson Company
- March 25 – Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge (Syfy, One season, 8 episodes)
- March 27 – Surviving Jack (FOX, One season, 8 episodes, 1 unaired)
Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge was a design competition series hosted by Farscape star Gigi Edgley, with Brian Henson as the head judge. The show scored Syfy’s highest rated premiere for an unscripted series, and was especially strong with female viewers. It’s unclear why the show did not earn a second season.
FOX initially ordered 13 episodes of Surviving Jack, but the order was cut to eight because of scheduling restrictions. The series was then cancelled after seven episodes aired, leaving one unaired. The series starred Christopher Meloni and Rachael Harris. As usual, FOX aired the episodes wildly out of order, with Episode 2 moved to the eighth spot and unaired.
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