Paramount Network Television
With the old year ending and a new year beginning, the TV networks began filling in their mis-season schedules with new shows replacing the ones from the Fall that didn’t quite work out. The Syndication market also saw the premiere of several new series that aired across the country on local channels. The networks also turned out some memorable new series to kick off the year with a new 1955 sitcom that featured a popular star and launched the careers of many associated with it, a 1984 drama that was a success but failed due to network tinkering, and a 1995 sitcom that also fell victim to network interference (coincidentally the same network). 2005 saw a new host take over a popular late, late night talk show, and a primetime drama about a crime-solving psychic, while 2015 gave us a comedic Medieval musical series that was critical darling but struggled to hold on to an audience. Scroll down to see all the shows that premiered this week, and let us know if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.
1954-1955
- January 1 – Eddy Arnold Time (Syndication, Two seasons, 26 episodes)
- January 1 – Wonderama (Syndication, 26 seasons, last broadcast on December 25, 1977)
- January 2 – The Bob Cummings Show (NBC/CBS, Five seasons, 173 episodes)
- January 3 – Hollywood Today (NBC, One season, last broadcast on September 23, 1955)
Eddy Arnold Time starred singer Arnold in different roles in each episode within a musical narrative. The show also featured Betty Johnson and the Jordanaires (as the Gordonaires). A young Ed Asner appeared in one episode. The show was among the earliest syndicated programs in the US TV market, however it suffered from uninspired performances and storylines, a poor soundtrack and inadequate marketing. In 1959, episodes were edited together with The Old American Barn Dance and Town and Country Time, starring Jimmy Dean, and syndicated as Your Musical Jamboree.
Wonderama was a three-hour Sunday morning children’s show that aired on Metromedia-owned TV stations in the US, including WNEW in New York, WTTG in Washington DC and KTTV in Los Angeles. The show was created and hosted by Sandy Becker from 1955-1956. Herb Sheldon hosted from 1956-1958. Bill Britten and Doris Faye were co-hosts in 1958, Sonny Fox hosted from 1959-1967, and Bob McAllister hosted from 1967 until the show ended. McAllister claimed he had no idea why the show was cancelled, but later admitted he may have inadvertently ended the show. After learning an ad for the R-rated movie The Mechanic ran during an episode of the show, McAllister took out an ad in the New York Times urging parents to not let their kids watch the show, as he strove to make sure there was no violent content aired during the show’s run time. The ad cost him $10,000 and his job. Based in New York, the show was able to feature a number of guests including ABBA, Jerry Lewis, Jodie Foster, Van Halen, David Cassidy, The Jackson 5, Monty Python, Billy Crystal, The Bay City Rollers, Doug Henning, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Maria Von Trapp, Cindy Williams, Penny Marshall, Sister Sledge, Dick Van Dyke, The Muppets, Rodney Dangerfield, Elton John and KISS. An hour-long documentary series debuted in 1980 with the Wonderama title, but bore no resemblance to the original series. It ran until 1983. A 2017 revival of the series was launched on Tribune Broadcasting stations with David Osmond (son of Alan, nephew of Donny) hosting. The series, still in production, features many of the classic elements of the McAllister years of the show.
The Bob Cummings Show aired for a half season on NBC, moved to CBS for two full seasons, and back to NBC for its last two seasons. Reruns aired on ABC daytime and in Syndication under the title Love That Bob. The show was followed by the similar, but less successful, The New Bob Cummings Show which ran one season. Cummings’ character name was Bob Collins, the same as the character he played in the 1945 film You Came Along. Cummings occasionally appeared on the show as Collins’ grandfather, Josh. The show boosted the career of creator, producer and head writer Paul Henning, who would go on to create The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Ann B. Davis, later better known as Alice on The Brady Bunch, would win two Emmy Awards playing Bob’s assistant Schultzy. Davis had a cameo in The Brady Bunch Movie as Schultzy, as another actress was playing Alice. The role had been created for Jane Withers, but she had too many demands that the producers were unwilling to meet, so Davis got the role. The character was also the inspiration for Pepper Potts in the Iron Man comics. A young Dwayne Hickman appeared on the show as Bob’s nephew and was a hit with female viewers, leading to his casting on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, during the last season of the show. He had already filmed enough episode to so that he appeared on the show through to its conclusion. Nancy Kulp had a recurring role on the show, and Henning later cast her as Miss Jane Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies. While the show was sold in August 1954, Cummings did not agree to go on air until January 1955 in order to have a sufficient backlog of scripts. Cummings said it was his decision to end the show so it could be sold into Syndication before it became too dated. He also wanted to avoid a tax bill that would have come if he kept making the show. Cummings received two Emmy nominations and the show was also twice nominated.
Hollywood Today was a 15-minute gossip show hosted by columnist Sheilah Graham. The show expanded to 30-minutes during the Summer of 1955 and was renamed Hollywood Backstage. Ern Westmore replaced Graham later in the Summer, and the format changed to makeovers.
1964-1965
- 1965 – Captain Fathom (Syndication, One season, 26 episodes)
- 1965 – Rainbow Quest (Syndication, One season, 39 episodes)
- 1965 – Teen Town (Syndication, One season)
- 1965 – Winchell-Mahoney Time (Syndication, Three seasons)
Captain Fathom was the last show produced in Synchro-Vox, like Clutch Cargo and Space Angel, a process the placed real talking lips on still images.
Rainbow Quest was a folk music series hosted by Pete Seeger. Teen Town was a music variety series hosted by Motor City DJ Robin Seymour.
Winchell-Mahoney Time starred Paul Winchell and his ventriloquist dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. The show was owned by Metromedia, which entered negotiations with Winchell to syndicate 305 color episodes of the show but no deal could be reached. Winchell offered to buy the tapes outright for $100,000 but Metromedia responded with an ultimatum: agree on a Syndication deal or the tapes would be erased. Winchell refused and the company carried out its threat. Winchell sued in 1986 and a jury awarded him $3.8 million for the value of the tapes and $14 million in punitive damages against Metromedia, which appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court, unsuccessfully. Winchell’s last TV appearance with his puppets was on the 1969 children’s version of Hollywood Squares, Storybook Squares, which aired Saturday mornings on NBC.
1974-1975
- No new series premiere this week in 1974-1975.
1984-1985
- December 30 – Crazy Like a Fox (CBS, Two seasons, 35 episodes)
- January 4 – Street Hawk (ABC, One season, 14 episodes)
Crazy Like a Fox was a success during its first season on Sunday nights, and continued to draw audiences in Season 2 but CBS revived its Sunday Night Movie which displaced the show (and Trapper John, M.D.), forcing CBS to bounce it around the schedule, causing audiences to lose interest. CBS produced a TV movie in 1987, Still Crazy Like a Fox, which featured Monty Python’s Graham Chapman in one of his last roles. Star Jack Warden earned Emmy nominations for his performance both seasons of the show’s run.
Street Hawk was to air in the Fall of 1984, but the network’s Call to Glory did well and the show was pushed to mid-season. Tangerine Dream composed the show’s main theme, produced by Christopher Franke.
1994-1995
Carsey-Werner Productions
- January 1 – Taxicab Confessions (HBO, Eleven seasons, 19 episodes)
- January 2 – Cybill (CBS, Four seasons, 87 episodes)
- January 2 – The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show (Syndication, One season, 13 episodes)
- January 4 – Washington Journal (C-SPAN, Still in production)
- January 4 – Double Rush (CBS, One season, 13 episodes, 1 unaired)
- January 4 – Women of the House (CBS/Lifetime, One season, 13 episodes)
The first episode of Taxicab Confessions won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series or Special in 1995. The show was also nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Program (Reality) in 2001 and 2002.
Cybill star Cybill Shepherd claims the show was cancelled — unexpectedly as the fourth season ends with a cliffhanger and ‘To Be Continued’ on screen — because CBS was unconfortable with its feminist themes, and because she had rebuffed the advances of network head Les Moonves, which led to him interfering with the show and ultimately cancelling it. During its run, the show was nominated for five Golden Globes and eleven Emmy Awards, winning Globes for Best Comedy Series and Best Actress in 1996, and Emmys for Supporting Actress (Christine Baranski) and Art Direction in 1995, and Costume Design in 1996. Baranski also won a SAG Award, American Comedy Award and Viewers for Quality Television Award for her performance in 1996.
The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show was a spin-off of Disney’s Marsupilami, which was a spin-off of Raw Toonage. Unlike other Disney afternoon cartoon shows, it ran just once a week, usually on Mondays. It was Disney’s attempt to do more edgy shows like Ren & Stimpy and Rocko’s Modern Life.
Double Rush starred Robert Pastorelli, who had left his regular role on Murphy Brown to star in his own show. CBS scheduled the series against Roseanne on ABC, and it struggled to find an audience. It went on hiatus after Episode 5 on February 1, 1995, returning on March 6 but ratings remained poor. The show’s 13th and final episode was never broadcast, pre-empted by coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Women of the House was a spin-off of Designing Women starring Delta Burke, reprising the role of Suzanne Sugarbaker after reconciling with the producers of her former series after a bitter, highly-publicized battle. Nine episodes aired on CBS through August 18, 1995, with the final four airing on Lifetime on September 8. The series co-starred Teri Garr, Patricia Heaton and Valerie Mahaffey. Burke’s husband Gerald McRaney guest starred on one episode. Meshach Taylor also appeared in one episode, reprising his Designing Women character of Anthony Bouvier. Charles Frank, who starred with Burke and Dixie Carter in the pre-Designing Women series Filthy Rich, also made a guest appearance. Jamie Farr guest starred as himself in one episode, appearing in drag as a nod to his role in M*A*S*H.
2004-2005
- January 3 – Who’s Your Daddy? (FOX/FOX Reality Channel, One season, 6 episodes)
- January 3 – The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (CBS, Ten seasons, 2,058 episodes)
- January 3 – Medium (NBC/CBS, Seven seasons, 130 episodes)
- January 4 – Committed (NBC, One season, 13 episodes)
A 90-minute pilot for Who’s Your Daddy? aired on the FOX network on January 3, 2005, intending to be the set-up for a six-episode reality series where eight men would try to convince actress T.J. Myers that they were her biological father. Finola Hughes hosted the series. After modest ratings for the pilot, FOX shelved the series, with the remaining five episodes eventually broadcast on the FOX Reality Channel. A spin-off series titled Who’s Your Mommy?, also hosted by Hughes, was broadcast on FOX Reality for two seasons.
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson was the third iteration of the late night talk show that followed The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. Tom Synder and Craig Kilborn were the previous hosts. Mythbusters co-host Grant Imahara created Ferguson’s robotic skeleton sidekick Geoff Peterson, voiced by Josh Robert Thompson. Shadoe Stevens was the show’s announcer. Ferguson originally started the show with a traditional written monologue, but discovered his ad-libs between jokes got better reactions so the jokes were discarded and Ferguson generally freestyled the opening. The series won the Peabody Award in 2010 for Ferguson’s interview with Archibishop Desmond Tutu. Both Ferguson’s and Letterman’s shows suffered following the turmoil at NBC that saw Jimmy Fallon take over The Tonight Show and Seth Meyers head Late Night, with Letterman announcing his retirement and CBS passing over Ferguson to replace him, considering him as ‘too niche’, handing the show to Stephen Colbert (shades of Letterman’s rejection for The Tonight Show after Johnny Carson retired). Letterman’s company produced The Late Late Show and selected Ferguson as the host, but with his retirement CBS became the sole owner of the show (as well as The Late Show). Ferguson made it known he was Letterman’s replacement when his contract expired in June 2014, and if CBS did not give him the show he would be compensated by as much as $10 million. Ferguson ultimately decided to leave the show, a decision made before Letterman’s retirement announcement, but he agreed to delay the news until after the reaction to Letterman’s had subsided. Ferguson agreed to stay with the show until the end of 2014 to give CBS time to find a successor, with candidates including John Oliver (until he signed with HBO), Neil Patrick Harris and James Corden. Cordon was selected as the new host, and Jay Leno was Ferguson’s final guest. In the final episode, Ferguson wanted to know who was in the Secretariat costume all those years, and it was revealed to be Bob Newhart who told Ferguson this was all his dream. Ferguson then woke up in bed as Nigel Wick next to Drew Carey, and spoofs the finales of Newhart (it was all a dream), St. Elsewhere (it was all imagined from a snowglobe) and The Sopranos (cut to black with ‘Don’t Stop Belivin” playing). One of the show’s running jokes was a feud between Geoff and Kristen Bell, who claimed she wanted to be the sidekick and was upset Geoff was selected. During the show’s run, it received just one Emmy nomination for Ferguson as host in 2006.
The first five seasons of Medium aired on NBC, with the final two on CBS though the network cut the final season from 22 to 13 episodes, still allowing the writers to wrap up the storylines. The Season 2 Episode 9 episode of the show was broadcast in 3D. Star Trek: Voyager actor Robert Duncan McNeil specifically asked to direct the episode when he learned it would include 3D segments. The series earned three Emmy nominations during its run, with star Patricia Arquette winning Best Actress in 2006. Arquette also received the show’s three Golden Globe nominations in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
2014-2015
Rhode Island Ave. Productions
- December 29 – Confessions of the Boston Strangler (Investigation Discovery, TV documentary)
- January 1 – Big Women: Big Love (Lifetime, One season, 9 episodes)
- January 4 – Galavant (ABC, Two seasons, 18 episodes)
The first season of Galavant consisted of eight episode, which were broadcast two at a time over the course of four weeks. Season 2 consisted of ten episodes, with the same broadcast scheme. After the musical show’s cancellation, composer Alan Menken expressed a desire to continue it on stage. The show received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics on 2016. The series featured cameo appearances from Ricky Gervais, Kylie Minogue, Simon Callow, Matt Lucas and Nick Frost.
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