TV by the Decade :: May 24•30

Still from the 2016 TV miniseries "Roots", featuring a shirtless Black man, Malachi Kirby as Kunta Kinte, standing in a river, holding a spear in his right hand. He wears traditional African necklaces and accessories. The background is a lush forest, conveying a strong, natural tone.

The Wolper Organization

Only three decades produced any new programming this week, with 1986 giving us a late night movie show that picked up where Elvira left off (and preceded the infinitely more popular Mystery Science Theater 3000), 2006 serving up a competition series for kids and an animated series for kids from a man who previously made a decidedly more adult cartoon, and 2016 produced two remakes — a TV movie based on a stage play and a previous theatrical film, and a miniseries remake from the granddaddy of all TV miniseries that made a huge cultural impact. Scroll down to see all of the programs that debuted this week, and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.

1956

No new shows premiered this week in 1956.

1966

No new shows premiered this week in 1966.

1976

No new shows premiered this week in 1976.

1986

May 28 – The Canned Film Festival (Syndication, One season, 13 episodes)

The Canned Film Festival was a hosted B-movies series in the vein of Elvira’s Movie Macabre, with Laraine Newman playing movie theater owner and usherette Laraine hoping to bring life back into her theater, The Ritz, by showing the old movies. Customers coming to the theater would become new cast members. The movies shown in each episode were edited to fit the show’s two-hour time slot. The show was sponsored by Dr. Pepper.

1996

No new shows premiered this week in 1996.

2006

Promotional artwork for animated series "Squirrel Boy", featuring a cartoon boy with glasses, green and white horizontal-striped shirt, blue shorts, red socks and white sneakers, and a big-eyed, smiling reddish-brown squirrel sitting back-to-back on an orange background, conveying a playful and friendly tone.

Cartoon Network Studios

May 29 – Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman (PBS Kids Go!, Five seasons, 100 episodes)
May 29 – Squirrel Boy (Cartoon Network, Two seasons, 26 episodes)

Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman was a reality competition series featuring contestants between the ages of 10 and 14. Jim Conroy was the voice of Ruff Ruffman, as were most of the other characters. Guest stars on the show included Aaron Carter, Blue Man Group, Senator Ted Kennedy and Penn & Teller. The title was an acronym for ‘Fabulously Entertaining TV with a Canine Host’. Seasons were filmed about a year before they aired. It took about six months to complete the animation and editing of the season. Casting had been completed for a sixth season, but the show was cancelled due to a lack of funding. The show earned four Daytime Emmy nominations during its run.

Squirrel Boy was created by Everett Peck, better known for creating animated series Duckman. A pilot was produced in 2004 but never aired.

2016

Still from TV movie "The Dresser", featuring an elderly man, Ian McKellan as Norman, helping an actor, Anthony Hopkins as Sir, wearing a fake gray beard and wig with shoulder-length gray hair, put on a red velvet robe in a dimly lit dressing room. The scene conveys a sense of care and preparation.

BBC

May 30 – The Dresser (Starz, TV movie)
May 30 – Roots (A&E/History/Lifetime, TV miniseries)

The Dresser is an adaptation of the 1980 play, which had previously been filmed in 1983. The film originally premiered on BBC Two on October 31, 2015.

Roots is a remake of the 1977 miniseries, based on Alex Haley’s 1976 novel. The series was simulcast on three networks in the A+E family. Directors for each of the four episodes were Phillip Noyce, Mario Van Peebles, Thomas Carter and Bruce Beresford. The cast included Forest Whitaker, Anna Paquin, Lane Garrison, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anika Noni Rose, Matthew Goode, Makhi Phifer, James Purefoy, Regé-Jean Page, Malachi Kirby and Laurence Fishburne. It earned a Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Limited Series, and seven Primetime Creative Arts Emmy nominations.