TV by the Decade :: September 15•21

Amblin Television

The Fall Season premieres continue in earnest this week with many classic and long-running series making their debuts. We won’t belabor the teasing this week so you can get to it, but of note are two shows premiering a decade apart with the same title, two shows separated by a decade with the same lead actor, and two shows two decades apart featuring angels. The list is long this week and the trivia is informative, so have a look down below and let us know if your favorite shows are celebrating anniversaries this week!

1954

• September 15 – The Best of Broadway (CBS, One season, 9 episodes)
• September 18 – Willy (CBS, One season, 39 episodes)
• September 19 – People Are Funny (NBC, Six seasons, last broadcast on April 1, 1960)
• September 21 – Studio 57 (DuMont/Syndication, Four seasons)

Each 60-minute episode of The Best of Broadway was broadcast live and in color, and featured an adaptation of a famous play. The series aired every four weeks. Notable productions included The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Philadelphia Story, Arsenic and Old Lace and Stage Door. Stars who appeared include Claudette Colbert, Helen Hayes, Frederic March, Joan Bennett, Margaret Hamilton, Buster Keaton, Bert Lahr, ZaSu Pitts, Art Carney, Ethel Merman, Mary Astor, Dorothy McGuire, Edward Everett Horton, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Jackie Gleason, Thelma Ritter, Alice Ghostley, Franchot Tone, Rhonda Fleming, Elsa Lanchester, Joseph Cotten, Piper Laurie and Keenan Wynn.

Willy was produced by Desilu Productions. June Havoc’s Willa ‘Willy’ Dodger was the first female lawyer as a lead character on a primetime TV series. The show’s original title was Miss Bachelor at Law, and the pilot was filmed under the title My Aunt Willy, which was then changed to The Artful Miss Dodger before becoming Willy before the show’s premiere. Havoc attributed the show’s low ratings to TV audiences not being able to accept a female lawyer who didn’t look like a Victorian spinster. She also blamed the show’s 10:30 PM time slot which prevented families from watching the show together. To boost ratings, the show’s location was moved from New Hampshire to New York City and was moved from Saturday to Thursday, but none of the changes helped and sponsor General Mills dropped out in May 1955. The show was syndicated for the rest of the 1950s but apparently has not been seen since.

People Are Funny was Emmy-nominated in 1955 and 1956. When the show ended, NBC continued to air reruns through April 13, 1961, making it the first game show to air repeats.

Studio 57 was also known as Heinz Studio 57. It was one of the last regularly scheduled series to air on the DuMont Network. The April 23, 1957 episode ‘It’s a Small World’ was the pilot for Leave It To Beaver. An Australian version of the series was produced in the late 1950s titled Whitehall Playhouse which aired some of the DuMont episodes, making it the only DuMont series to air outside of the US. Writer Ray Bradbury contributed to the series. Actors who appeared on the show include Carolyn Jones, Keye Luke, Natalie Wood, Brian Keith, Rod Taylor, Hugh Beaumont, Peter Graves, Lon Chaney Jr., Peter Lawford, Mike Connors, Jane Darwell, Joanne Dru, Keenan Wynn and DeForest Kelley.

1964

Screen Gems

• September 15 – Peyton Place (ABC, Five seasons, 514 episodes)
• September 16 – Shindig! (ABC, Two seasons, last broadcast on January 8, 1966)
• September 16 – The Peter Potamus Show (Syndication, One season, 27 episodes)
• September 17 – Bewitched (ABC, Eight seasons, 254 episodes)
• September 18 – Jonny Quest (ABC, One season, 26 episodes)
• September 18 – The Addams Family (ABC, Two seasons, 64 episodes)
• September 19 – Flipper (NBC, Three seasons, 88 episodes)
• September 19 – Kentucky Jones (NBC, One season, 26 episodes)

Peyton Place was loosely based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious. Episodes from 1964 to 1966 were in black-and-white, and in color from 1966 to 1969. The first color episode is #268. At its peak, ABC aired three episodes a week, which drove viewers away who were used to the two-episode a week schedule. Lee Grant won an Emmy Award for Supporting Actress in a Drama. The show launched the careers of Mia Farrow, Ryan O’Neal, Barbara Parkins, Christopher Connelly, David Canary, Mariette Hartley and Lana Wood. ABC hoped the series would duplicate the success of the UK’s Coronation Street. The series marked the birth of the American primetime soap. Star Dorothy Malone, who had a major storyline, had to be rushed into emergency surgery and producers were faced with a dilemma, knowing the character could not suddenly disappear without reason. Malone was replaced with Lola Albright until she was able to return to the show. Ratings declined when Farrow, who never expected the show to be a hit, left and they never recovered. Farrow had been trying to get out of her contract from the moment the show began airing. She was written off the show in the Summer of 1966 at the urging of her then-husband Frank Sinatra. Leigh-Taylor Young joined the show as her replacement, but she did not help boost the ratings. Most of the main characters had been written off by 1968, in many cases at the actors’ requests. Critics felt the show had become both dated and confusing with the constant change of characters. James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Greg Morris, Dabbs Greer and Richard Dreyfuss appear in minor roles. A daytime revival, Return to Peyton Place, aired from 1972 to 1974 and featured three actors from the original series: Frank Ferguson, Patricia Morrow and Evelyn Scott. That series appears to be lost, likely erased to reuse the videotapes. Two TV movies aired in 1977, Murder in Peyton Place, and 1985, Peyton Place: The Next Generation. The first reunited Malone, Ed Nelson, Tim O’Connor, Joyce Jillson and Christopher Connelly. Other characters were re-cast. The second brought back Malone, Nelson, O’Connor, Connelly, James Douglas, Ruth Warrick and Barbara Parkins. Parkins earned a Lead Actress in a Drama Emmy nomination in 1966, and Warrick was nominated for Supporting Actress in 1967. Malone was Golden Globe nominated for Best Television Star – Female in 1964, while she and Farrow were both nominated in 1965.

Los Angeles disc jockey Jimmy O’Neill hosted musical variety series Shindig!. The series was a replacement for the folk music series Hootenanny, which fizzled after the ‘British invasion’. The series initially aired for 30-minutes and expanded to an hour, but was then split into two 30-minute broadcasts a week. The premiere episode was the second pilot (the first was scrapped) featuring Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers and The Righteous Brothers. Later shows were taped in Great Britain, with the first UK episode featuring The Beatles. The Who, The Rolling Stones and Cilla Black appeared in later episodes. This allowed many acts to be seen in the US before they actually went to America. Other artists that appeared on the show include Tina Turner, Lesley Gore, Bo Diddley, Sonny and Cher, The Beach Boys, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, The Supremes and The Ronettes. In March 1965, Little Eva performed a short version of ‘The Loco-Motion’, and is the only known video clip of her performing the song. The Mamas and the Papas appeared as back-up singers for Barry McGuire toward the end of the show’s run, and they introduced ‘California Dreamin” on that episode which launched their career. Shindig! is one of the few music shows of the era for which all of the episodes are still available.

The opening and closing animation for Bewitched was created by Hanna-Barbera. The series often contradicted itself as to where Darrin and Samantha Stephens lived, either Westport, Connecticut or Patterson, New York. The series was inspired by the films I Married a Witch and Bell, Book and Candle. Both films were produced by Columbia Pictures, which owned Screen Gems, the company that produced the series. José Ferrer narrated the first episode of the series. Samantha’s magical abilities were kept to a minimum in Season 1, often allowing her to problem-solve logically, but ABC wanted more magic and farcical plots causing battles between producer Danny Arnold and the network. Arnold left after the first season. The first two seasons were in black-and-white. William Asher won an Emmy for directing in 1966. Alice Pearce won a Supporting Actress Emmy posthumously for her performance as Gladys Kravits, and Marion Lorne won the same award in 1968, also posthumously, for the role of Aunt Clara. The series received 22 Emmy nominations total during its run. Alice Ghostley was approached to take over the role of Gladys but was friends with Pearce and declined out of respect. Sandra Gould took over the role in the Fall of 1966 and remained with the show until the Spring of 1971. Lorne was not replaced and her character was not seen after the fourth season. Ghostley took on the new role of Esmeralda in the sixth season. Kasey Rogers also replaced Irene Vernon as Louise Tate beginning with the third season. Season 5 saw the departure of Dick York as Darrin, replaced with Dick Sargent, due to a back injury York had suffered while making a film in 1959. Many Season 3 and 4 episodes had Darrin out of town because of York’s injury. York collapsed on the set in January 1969 and was rushed to the hospital, and after consulting with doctors and producers decided to leave the series. Star Elizabeth Montgomery, wife of Asher, announced she was pregnant with their second child around this time and Samantha had to give the news to Darrin over the phone as it was decided that the couple would also be expecting. Sargent was cast the same month to take over as Darrin. Samantha’s cousin Serena, also played by Montgomery (credited as Pandora Spocks), was also used more frequently beginning with Season 6. In the mid-1970s, the Stephens’ home was being rebuilt due to a fire so the production company traveled to Salem, Magnolia and Gloucester, Massachusetts to film an eight-episode arc in which Samantha, Darrin and Sam’s mother Endora attend the centennial Witches Convocation. It was the only time the production left the Columbia backlot. The ‘Salem Saga’ helped boost the show’s sagging ratings, but not by much, and many earlier scripts were being reused by the seventh season. By Season 8, ABC moved the show opposite The Carol Burnett Show on CBS, which further eroded the ratings. In addition, the Kravitzes, Darrin’s parents and Uncle Arthur did not appear at all, and Louise Tate was only featured in three episodes. The show was moved again opposite All in the Family, which made the ratings even worse. The patio and living room from Gidget Goes to Rome became the permanent set for the Stephens’ home. The set was also used on the TV series Gidget, I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees and The Fantastic Journey. The exterior was also used as the Bellows’ home on I Dream of Jeannie, which aired at the same time as Bewitched. It can also be seen as Clark Griswold’s childhood home in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and in Marvel’s WandaVision series as the home of Agatha Harkness. The Kravitzes house was used on The Donna Reed Show from 1964-1966. The house used after the switch to color would also be used years later as the home of The Partridge Family. An animated Darrin and Samantha, voiced by York and Montgomery, guested on a 1965 episode of The Flintstones. An animated TV special featuring the Stephens children, Tabitha and Adam and the Clown Family, aired on December 2, 1972. A short-lived sequel sitcom, Tabitha, aired in 1977. Darrin and Samantha are mentioned but never seen. Actors Bernard Fox, Sandra Gould, George Tobias and Dick Wilson reprised their roles as Dr. Bombay, Gladys Kravitz, Abner Kravitz, and ‘various drunks’, respectively. Fox also appeared on the NBC soap Passions as Dr. Bombay, and the resident witch Tabitha Lenox named her daughter Endora. The series was also adapted into a feature film in 2005 with Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell and Shirley MacLaine. Sony Pictures TV has been attempting to reboot the series since 2011, with the latest iteration announced in 2023. From 1981 to 1991, only the color episodes were sold into Syndication, as there was a belief that TV viewers would not watch the black-and-white episodes. Nick at Nite aired only the black-and-white episodes beginning in 1989. The color episodes joined the line-up in 1998. Seasons 1 and 2 were later colorized for Syndication. Both versions of Seasons 1 and 2 have been released on DVD.

The Addams Family is based on Charles Addams’s New Yorker cartoons. The cartoon characters were originally unnamed, but the series gave them names and a family history. The Hall of Languages building at Syracuse University served as creative inspiration for the Addams Family home. The series debuted at the same time as The Munsters, and to differentiate themselves each show avoided booking actors that had appeared on the other. The characters of Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester and Lurch appeared in animated form in a 1972 episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, with original cast members John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan and Ted Cassidy reprising their roles, and Jodie Foster voicing Pugsley. The episode was a pilot for a series, which aired in 1973 with just Coogan, Cassidy and Foster returning. All of the cast reunited for a TV movie, Halloween with the Addams Family, in October 1977. Blossom Rock was too ill to return as Grandmama and was replaced with Jane Rose. Elvia Allman replaced Margaret Hamilton as Mother Frump. Astin reprised the voice of Gomez in a 1992 animated adaptation of the series, and appeared as Grandpapa Addams in a 1998-2000 series reboot on Fox Family Channel. Two feature films were produced in 1991 and 1993, and a Broadway musical debuted in 2010.

Flipper was an extension of the 1963 film of the same title. The show was co-created by Ricou Browning, who played The Creature from the Black Lagoon in the underwater scenes. The series was filmed in Key Biscayne, Florida at the Miami Seaquarium — where a Flipper show is still presented today — and Nassau, for the underwater scenes. Five females dolphins portrayed Flipper because they were less aggressive than a male dolphin, however a male dolphin was used for the famous tail walk because none of the females could master it properly. Flipper’s ‘voice’ was a doctored song of a kookaburra bird.

Kentucky Jones was the first starring role for Dennis Weaver, who had left Gunsmoke after several years. The show did not have a laugh track but NBC insisted one was added or the show would be cancelled.

1974

• September 21 – Nakia (ABC, One season, 13 episodes, 1 TV movie pilot)

Nakia‘s pilot movie was aired on April 17, 1974. The show starred Robert Forster as a Navajo Native American, though he was of European descent. The show was filmed mainly on location in Albuquerque, new Mexico.

1984

Embassy Television

• September 15 – Snorks (NBC, Four seasons, 65 episodes)
• September 15 – Pink Panther and Sons (One season, 13 episodes)
• September 15 – The Get Along Gang (CBS, One season, 13 episodes)
• September 15 – Muppet Babies (CBS, Eight seasons, 107 episodes)
• September 15 – Pole Position (CBS, One season, 13 episodes)
• September 15 – Pryor’s Place (CBS, One season, 13 episodes)
• September 16 – E/R (CBS, One season, 22 episodes)
• September 16 – Miami Vice (NBC, Five seasons, 114 episodes)
• September 16 – Punky Brewster (NBC/Syndication, Four seasons, 88 episodes)
• September 17 – The All-New Let’s Make a Deal (Syndication, Two seasons)
• September 17 – The Transformers (Syndication, Four seasons, 98 episodes)
• September 18 – Hunter (NBC, Seven seasons, 153 episodes)
• September 19 – Highway to Heaven (NBC, Five seasons, 111 episodes)
• September 20 – The Cosby Show (NBC, Eight seasons, 201 episodes)
• September 20 – Who’s the Boss? (ABC, Eight seasons, 196 episodes)

The Get Along Gang was created for American Greetings’ toy design and licensing division and greeting cards line. The series was loosely inspired by the Our Gang (Little Rascals) short films.

Muppet Babies was co-produced by Henson Associates and Marvel Productions. The concept of the Muppets as babies was first presented as a dream sequence in The Muppets Take Manhattan. The show was universally acclaimed and won seven Daytime Emmy Awards, including four consecutive awards for Outstanding Animated Program.

Pole Position is loosely based on the arcade video game series of the same name, but the show and game have very little in common. The name was licensed from Namco to capitalize on the game’s popularity.

Despite star Richard Pryor’s reputation for using profanity, Pryor’s Place was a Saturday morning series aimed at children. The theme song was performed by Ray Parker Jr.

Not to be confused with NBC’s later ER, E/R was a 30-minute sitcom developed from a play of the same name. Like the later series, E/R starred Mary McDonnell and featured George Clooney. The cast also included Elliott Gould, Concahata Ferrell, Lynne Moody, Karen Black, and Jason Alexander.

Miami Vice drew heavily upon 1980s New Wave culture and is noted for its integration of contemporary pop and rock music and stylish or stylized visuals. The series’ conception is unknown. One version has it that NBC head Brandon Tartikoff presented a memo to series creator Anthony Yerkovich that simply read ‘MTV Cops’. Yerkovich has stated the idea came from asset forffeiture, which allowed law enforcement to confiscate the property of drug dealers for official use. The pilot was written under the title Gold Coast. The series was an instant hit and the first season earned 15 Emmy nominations, winning four including Supporting Actor for Edward James Olmos. It earned just five more nominations for the following seasons. Influenced by Miami’s art deco style, no ‘earth tones’ were allowed to be used in the production. It was one of the first American series to be broadcast in stereophonic sound. Each episode cost about $2 million. Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges were considered for the leads, but it was not lucrative at the time for movie stars to venture into television. CHiPs star Larry Wilcox was considered but producers felt going from one police officer role to another would not be a good fit for the show. Don Johnson was nearly replaced with Mark Harmon after two seasons due to a contract dispute. The clothing on the series was a huge influence in American fashion, virtually inventing the ‘T-shirt under an Armani jacket’ style. Johnson’s typically unshaven face also sparked men to sport ‘designer stubble’ at all times. Outfit colors included shades of pink, blue, green, peach, and fuchsia.

Punky Brewster spawned an animated spin-off that aired from 1985 to 1986, and featured the original cast reprising their roles. A revival streamed on Peacock on 2021 with stars Soleil Moon Frye and Cherie Johnson reprising their roles. In 1984, six fifteen-minute episodes were produced to air after football, which often ran overtime, so as not to join the show already in progress and disappoint the young fans. The Season 2 finale centers on the very real Space Shuttle Challenger disaster which traumatizes Punky, who had dreams of becoming an astronaut. The term ‘a very special episode’ was used frequently for the series.

The Transformers is the first television series in the Transformers franchise, produced by Marvel and Sunbow Productions with Toei Animation.

Hunter, starring Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer, was originally scheduled on Friday nights but struggled against Dallas on CBS. Producer Stephen J. Cannell showed NBC execs a two-part episode that had not yet aired and asked for more time to build an audience. NBC pulled the show from the schedule until a better time slot could be found, and it returned two months later on Saturday where viewership slowly began to increase. An important addition to Season 2 was Garrett Morris as humorous street informant Arnold ‘Sporty’ James. The second season ended in 38th place compared to Season 1’s 65th place. Dryer nearly quit the show before Season 3 due to a salary dispute, and he was hit with a $20 million breach of contract lawsuit. A deal was made for him to return at a salary of $50,000 per episode, up from the first two seasons’ $21,000. Theresa Saldana appeared in a Season 3 episode as a pianist being stalked by a psychotic fan, which was based on her real-life stalking in which she was brutally stabbed outside her home in 1982. Erik Estrada joined the series in Season 4. Dryer became an executive producer with Season 6. One episode reveals Hunter and McCall had slept together to appease the fans and the network which wanted the characters in a relationship. Dryer and Kramer refused, saying the show would then become Hart to Hart. Kramer departed at the end of Season 6, and Hunter worked with two new female officers played by Darlanne Fluegel, whose character was murdered halfway through the season as Fluegel wanted out, who was replaced by Lauren Lane. Another salary dispute with Dryer, and sinking ratings, led to the show’s cancellation.

Highway to Heaven was Michael Landon’s third and final series, and the only one set in the present day and not a Western, following Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie. It was also the end of Landon’s professional relationship of 30 years with NBC. It was the last series for Victor French, who died from lung cancer two months before the final episode aired, although the series had basically been cancelled by that time due to sinking ratings.

Who’s the Boss? was nominated for a total of ten Emmy Awards and five Golden Globes, winning one each for Direction of a Comedy Series and Supporting Actress (Katherine Helmond), respectively. The show was titled You’re the Boss during the early development stages. The title was changed so any of the major characters could get their way and be the ‘boss’. Tony Danza was always the first choice to star as Tony, but Judith Light was one of many to audition for the role of Angela. Mona was to be an older sister to Angela, but producers felt the role was difficult to cast, so the role was rewritten with Helmond in mind. Danny Pintauro and Alyssa Milano won their roles based on their auditions. The pilot was shot ten months before the show went on the air, which was originally to be mid-season in January 1984, but creative differences between producers and the network delayed the premiere until the Fall season, where it debuted against The Cosby Show on NBC. The show aired on Tuesdays for seven seasons, then ABC moved it to Saturday opposite The Golden Girls at 9:00 PM for its eighth season, but it was quickly moved to 8:30 PM, then 8:00 PM in February 1992. The show ended with a one-hour finale on Saturday, April 25, 1992.

1994

• September 15 – McKenna (ABC, One season, 13 episodes, 8 unaired)
• September 15 – Due South (CBS/CTV/Syndication, Four seasons, 67 episodes)
• September 15 – The Martin Short Show (NBC, One season, 13 episodes, 10 unaired)
• September 15 – Sweet Justice (NBC, One season, 22 episodes)
• September 17 – The Baby Huey Show (Syndication, Two seasons, 26 episodes)
• September 18 – Chicago Hope (CBS, Six seasons, 141 episodes)
• September 19 – ER (NBC, Fifteen seasons, 331 episodes)
• September 20 – Me and the Boys (ABC, One season, 19 episodes)
• September 21 – Daddy’s Girls (CBS, One season, 13 episodes, 10 unaired)
• September 21 – Touched by an Angel (CBS, Nine seasons, 211 episodes)
• September 21 – The Cosby Mysteries (NBC, One season, 18 episodes, 1 pilot)

Jennifer Love Hewitt took over the role of Cassidy McKenna on McKenna after the pilot was filmed. Vinessa Shaw originally played the role.

Due South began as a TV movie on CBS and CTV, but after higher than expected ratings a TV series was quickly developed. It was the first Canadian-produced series to have a regular primetime slot on a major US network. CBS cancelled the series after the first season, but it remained popular in Canada and the UK, which enabled enough money to be raised for a 13-episode second season. The show returned to CBS in late 1995 after several new Fall series had failed, and the network ordered an additional five episodes but broadcast only four before cancelling the show again. The show was revived on CTV after a one year hiatus and ran for two more seasons, while the 26-episodes were packaged as a single season for Syndication in the US.

The Baby Huey Show was an animated series that featured old theatrical shorts and newly-produced animation.

Medical drama Chicago Hope featured crossover episodes with Picket Fences. Star Mandy Patinkin also appeared on a 1995 episode of NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street as his character Dr. Jeffrey Geiger. Rocky Carroll, Jayne Brook, and Héctor Elizondo all guest-starred in an episode of Early Edition. The series was the first on network TV to show a teenager’s breasts after the character underwent reconstructive surgery. Seen as relevant to the subject matter, it went relatively uncriticized. Mark Harmon’s character utters the word ‘shit’ in an episode during a trauma, and again was met with little reaction. The moment did inspire the South Park episode ‘It Hits the Fan’. Chicago Hope had the first regular series episode broadcast in HD. The series was nominated for 42 Emmy Awards during its run, winning seven including acting awards for Patinkin, Elizondo and Christine Lahti. It also earned seven total Golden Globe nominations with one win for Lahti.

ER is the second longest running medical drama in the US behind Grey’s Anatomy. It is the most-rewarded with 128 industry awards out of 440 nominations. The pilot screenplay was titled ED (for Emergency Department). After writer Michael Crichton worked with Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park, he gave the newly titled ER script to the director who decided to film it as a two-hour TV pilot instead of a feature film. The series’ first episode aired against Monday Night Football and did well, so NBC moved it to Thursday where it took off, airing directly against Chicago Hope which had been expected to crush ER. The show ran in the same time slot for its entire run. The show switched to HD with Season 7. A 2002 episode titled ‘Brothers and Sisters’ began a crossover that ended with the Third Watch episode ‘Unleashed’.

Me and the Boys featured Steve Harvey, who was also a featured writer on the show, in his first starring role.

Daddy’s Girls was the first series in which a gay principal character was played by a gay actor (Harvey Fierstein). The show was Dudley Moore’s penultimate screen role and his last regular TV series. His difficulties during production were attributed to the early stages of progressive supranuclear palsy, which led to his death in 2002. Stacy Galina, Keri Russell and Alan Ruck also starred.

Touched by an Angel featured early appearances by Jack Black, James Marsden, Shia LaBeouf, Brie Larson, Kirsten Dunst, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Bryan Cranston. The show’s original pilot was darker and less hopeful than producers wanted.

Actor/Rapper Mos Def (Yasiin Bey) appeared on The Cosby Mysteries several times, sometimes credited as Dante Smith.

2004

• September 16 – Video Mods (MTV2, Two seasons, 6 episodes)
• September 18 – Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! (Jetix, Four seasons, 52 episodes)
• September 20 – Listen Up (CBS, One season, 22 episodes)
• September 20 – Second Time Around (UPN, One season, 13 episodes)
• September 21 – Rodney (ABC, Two seasons, 44 episodes, 6 unaired)

Video Mods is an animated television series which made music videos for existing songs featuring video game characters and assets. MTV never cleared the music rights for any purposes beyond their television airings, and the episodes were lost for many years. All of the episodes have become officially available to view on YouTube.

Despite decent ratings, Listen Up was cancelled after one season due to rising production costs. The series was executive produced by and starred Jason Alexander.

2014

Barbara Hall Productions

• September 15 – Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood (VH1, Six seasons, 97 episodes)
• September 15 – Justice with Judge Mablean (Syndication, Ten seasons to date)
• September 15 – Hot Bench (Syndication, Ten seasons, 1.535 episodes to date)
• September 17 – The Mysteries of Laura (NBC, Two seasons, 38 episodes)
• September 17 – Red Band Society (FOX, One season, 13 episodes)
• September 21 – Madam Secretary (CBS, Six seasons, 120 episodes)
• September 21 – Mr. Pickles (Adult Swim, Four seasons, 32 episodes, 1 pilot)

Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood is the third installment of the Love & Hip Hop franchise. The show was put on hiatus in May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it never returned. Many members of the show were transferred to Love & Hip Hop: Miami.

The Mysteries of Laura was originally adapted from a Spanish television series Los misterios de Laura. The premiere, following the season finale of America’s Got Talent, was the most-watched broadcast premiere of a series since March 2014.

A version of Red Band Society was originally developed for ABC in 2011.

Madam Secretary was retitled Madam President for its sixth and final season. Bebe Neuwirth left the show after the third Season 3 episode. She was replaced with Sara Ramirez as a new character. Ramirez left following Season 5, and Geoffrey Arend, Evan Roe, Kathrine Herzer, Keith Carradine, and Sebastian Arcelus were also dropped, with Carradine expected to return for at least one episode and the others to recur as their schedules allowed. Recurring actor Kevin Rahm was promoted to a series regular.

The first episode of the fourth season of Mr. Pickles was a surprise series finale, replaced with a new spin-off titled Momma Named Me Sheriff.

The featured image for this post illustration by Elizabeth Brockway / The Daily Beast / Getty.