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Here we are into the second week of the New Year and the 19th week of the TV season across the decades. Almost every year saw new TV shows premiere so let’s get right into it!
1959
- January 9 – Jackpot Bowling premieres on NBC, the first national bowling series since Bowling Headliners aired from 1948 to 1950. The series began as a 15-minute program on Friday nights at 10:45 PM from the T-Bowl in Wayne, NJ, but the air times varied wildly as the program followed the Cavalcade of Sports Friday Night. With unpredictable times, the bowling series often started early and had to pad out its time to round out the hour. The series expanded to a full 30 minutes in 1960. Leo Durocher hosted the first two episodes but quit and was replaced by Mel Allen. Bud Palmer became the third host on April 10, 1959, and he and Allen would trade positions throughout the show’s original run as they returned to covering their respective sports (Allen was a baseball guy and Palmer covered basketball). The show went on summer hiatus after the June 24, 1960 episode before returning in September as the 30-minute series. The show ran just two seasons, ending on March 13, 1961.
- January 9 – Western Rawhide premieres on CBS. The series starred Eric Fleming and an up-and-coming actor named Clint Eastwood and aired on Friday nights and focused on the challenges faced by the drovers of a cattle drive in the 1860s. Fleming played trail boss Gil Favor and Eastwood was the young and impetuous Rowdy Yates. The series covered a wide range of topics as the drive crossed the land, often in search of water. Some topics included anthrax, cattle raiding, bandits, dried up rivers, morphine addiction, racism, and the aftermath of the Civil War. Before the show’s eighth and final season, Fleming was fired after a disagreement with the producers, and co-stars Sheb Wooley, James Murdock and Robert Cabal were also let go while Eastwood was promoted to the lead, with John Ireland and Raymond St. Jacques joining the series. Ratings had already fallen, placing the former top ten series at Number 44 by the seventh season. After the cast shake-up, the series lasted only 13 episodes and was suddenly cancelled mid-season, with the final episode airing December 7, 1965. Eastwood had already starred in A Fistful of Dollars in 1964, and his movie career took off following the end of the series.
- January 12 – Concert series The Bell Telephone Hour makes its television debut on NBC. The series began on NBC Radio on April 29, 1940 and aired until June 30, 1958 before making the move to television, one of the first series to be broadcast exclusively in color. The series played host to stars of opera, musical theatre and ballet, and was noted for its Christmas specials, and originally aired Fridays at 10:00 PM. NBC moved the series to Tuesdays at 10:00 PM in 1963, then to Sundays at 6:30 PM in 1965 where it alternated in the time slot with news series Actuality Specials. NBC moved the show back to its original Friday timeslot for the final season in 1967 and switched the format from taped musical performances to filmed documentaries about classical musicians. One of the last episodes featured opera stars Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price, Renata Tebaldi and Birgit Nilsson all on one program. The series won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-recorded) in 1964.
1969
- No new series premiered this week in 1958.
1979
- No new series premiered this week in 1968.
1989
- January 7 — The New Yankee Workshop premieres on PBS, a half-hour program devoted to woodworking projects. The series was hosted by Norm Abram, who had been a regular fixture on This Old House. The series looked at accessories, architectural details and furniture projects over the course of 21 seasons, produced about 235 projects. The series ended on October 16, 2009 but could have continued, according to the show’s host, as the entire series was fully funded through underwriting but he decided that he had done just about everything he’d set out to do. Episodes are still available on The New Yankee Workshop website. 284 episodes were produced.
- January 9 — Syndicated newsmagazine Inside Edition premieres. The half hour program is the longest running syndicated newsmagazine that is not focused just on entertainment news, mixing hard news stories with entertainment, gossip, scandals, true-crime and lifestyle features. The series was hosted by David Frost, who was demoted to a correspondent after three weeks of low ratings. Frost was replaced by Bill O’Reilly as the program shifted towards a mix of tabloid, crime and entertainment stories. O’Reilly departed in 1995 and was replaced by Deborah Norville who continues as host the daily edition to this day. There is also a weekend edition, and a spin-off, Inside Edition Extra, which lasted just a single season.
- January 9 — In the previous installment of TV By the Decade, we noted The Arsenio Hall Show made its debut the first week of January. This week its competitor The Pat Sajak Show made its debut late-night on CBS, pre-David Letterman. Sajak left the NBC daytime version of Wheel of Fortune to host the show but remained on board for the syndicated edition. CBS conceived of the series to have a late-night show in place when Johnny Carson announced his eventual retirement from NBC’s The Tonight Show. CBS built a new studio at a cost of $4 million, and Sajak was given a guaranteed two-year contract at a reported $60,000 a week. The first guests were Chevy Chase, Joan Van Ark, The Judds, Peter Ueberroth, Michael Gross and comic Dennis Wolfberg. The show made headlines two weeks before its cancellation with Rush Limbaugh guest hosted. Limbaugh decided to talk to audience members about the veto of a bill in Idaho which would have restricted abortion. It did not go well with audience members reacting loudly to Limbaugh, forcing him to conduct an interview with Sidney Biddle Barrows in a different studio. After another break, he attempted to address the topic of affirmative action which resulted in audience members in ACT UP T-shirts calling him a ‘murderer’. Limbaugh sat silently for a minute with the camera on him, finally replying, “I am not responsible for your behavior.’. After the break, Limbaugh conducted the final interview after the audience had been cleared from the studio. During the show’s final weeks, Sajak was reduced to hosting four nights a week with a guest host on Fridays, with Sajak partially joking that it was going so well they were auditioning replacements for him on the air (a notion Limbaugh confirmed in an interview with Sajak a decade later). With ratings half those of Carson’s and further diminished by Arsenio Hall’s, CBS cancelled the series on April 9, 1990. The final episode aired April 13 — a Friday, which Sajak did not host. CBS returned to running repeats of its primetime series and movies in the timeslot until David Letterman joined the network in August 1993.
1999
- January 8 — Primetime drama Providence begins its five season run on NBC. The series starred Melina Kanakaredes as Dr. Sydney Hansen, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who left her glamorous job to return to her hometown of Providence, RI. Mike Farrell co-starred as Sydney’s father Jim, who is a veterinarian. The two share a large home with Sydney’s brother, sister and baby niece. Sydney’s mother dies in the first episode but continues to appear as a spirit to offer Sydney advice. The series ended abruptly with a two-part wedding episode NBC billed as a ‘winter finale’ with the expectation the series would return in the Spring or Fall. Those plans were scrapped when key cast members opted out of producing a sixth season, causing the series to fall four episodes short of the ‘magic 100’ that was normally required for a syndicated off-network run.
- January 10 — Batman Beyonddebuts on Kids’ WB, a Saturday morning block of programming on The WB network. The animated series focused on a teenaged Batman in a futuristic Gotham City under the guidance of an elderly Bruce Wayne. After three seasons (52 episodes) and one direct-to-video movie, the series was put on hold for a new Justice League animated series even though the network had announced a fourth season. The voice cast included Will Friedle as Terry McGinnis/Batman, Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne, Cree Summer as Maxine Gibson, a friend of Terry’s, and Frank Welker as Ace, Bruce Wayne’s loyal Great Dane. Stockard Channing, Lauren Tom and Angie Harmon also lent their voices to the series. The unofficial series finale, which was an episode of Justice League Unlimited, revealed that Bruce Wayne was actually Terry McGinnis’ biological father.
- January 10 — The Sopranos debuts on HBO, ushering in a new era of primetime drama. The story focused on Tony Soprano, a New Jersey mobster, who tries to balance his family life with his role as the head of a crime family, the challenges of that life explored during therapy sessions with psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi. The series produced 86 episodes over six seasons when it ended on June 10, 2007, rather infamously with a cut to black that left audiences to decided the fate of Tony and his families. The cast included James Gandolfini, Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Dominic Chianese, Steven Van Zandt, Tony Sirico, Robert Iler and Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Nancy Marchand played Tony’s mother. Marchand died during production of season 3 and the producers had to resort to some early CGI trickery to give Tony and Livia one final scene together before killing off the character. The Sopranos has been hailed as one of the greatest TV series of all time, and was nominated in the Emmy Best Drama category each of its six seasons, the first cable series to be nominated in that category, winning in 2004 and 2007 — the first cable series to win, and the first series to win after its run had ended since Upstairs, Downstairs in 1977. The series also won Emmys in the acting and writing categories with Gandolfini and Falco winning three times each. The series has been credited with elevating serialized drama to an art form on the same level as feature films, literature and theatre, and helped establish HBO as a producer of high quality, critically acclaimed original television series.
- January 10 — Stop-motion animated series The PJs debuts on Fox. Created by Eddie Murphy, Larry Wilmore and Steve Tompkins, the series portrayed life in an urban public housing project modeled after the Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago. Murphy also starred with Phil Morris, Loretta Devine, Ja’net Dubois, and Jenifer Lewis among the voice cast. George Clinton and Quincy Jones provided the theme music. The series was produced by Touchstone Television, a division of The Walt Disney Company, marking it as Disney’s first adult animated series. The series made its debut after an NFC Divisional Playoff and moved to its regular Tuesday time slot on January 12 following King of the Hill. 41 of the series 44 produced episodes aired before the show was cancelled on May 20, 2001 after three seasons.
2009
- January 7 — Reality competition series 13: Fear is Real debuts on The CW network. The series follows 13 contestants as they try to survive a setting inspired by various horror movies, facing shocking surprises, psychological scares and many ‘beware of the dark’ moments as they try to avoid elimination in the ‘Execution Ceremony’. A Death Box was introduced the day after the contestants arrived which allowed the holder to become the ‘killer’ who could kill off any player at any time other than during a challenge. There was a risk though. If any player believed someone to be the killer, all the contestants could vote and if correct they would have to surrender the Death Box and would go straight into the Execution Ceremony. If they were wrong, the accuser would suffer the same fate. The eventual winner would receive the grand prize of $66,666.
- January 7 saw the premiere of Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns on TBS. The sitcom revolved around Mr. Brown who ran a senior citizens’ home with his daughter Cora in Decatur, GA. As the show progressed, that idea was phased out and it became a typical sitcom with a family living under one roof. The series was based on Perry’s film and stage show of the same name, with David Mann and Tamela Mann, who had appeared in both previous productions. David Mann was the only actor to appear in all 140 episodes. Brianne Gould, who played Brianna, was replace by Logan Browning at the beginning of season two for undisclosed reasons. Eddie Walker was the first on-screen character to be killed off, with Brianna’s friend Antonio dying in season four in a car crash from texting while driving. Perry’s Madea character is referenced many times during the series’ run but never makes an appearance. Likewise, LB and Sarah, characters in both the play and the movie, are referenced but never seen. In November 2011, TBS made the surprise announcement that the series was ending, with the final two episodes airing on November 18.
- January 8 — Greg Behrendt’s Wake Up Call premieres on SoapNet. The series starred comedian and author Greg Behrendt who dealth with couples with relationship problems. The six-episode series was produced for ABC to air as a mid-season replacement, but the series sat on the shelf for two years before corporate sibling SoapNet picked it up. The final episode aired on February 12.
- January 8 — Parking Wars makes its debut on the A+E Network. The reality series followed traffic enforcement employees as they ticket, boot, tow and release vehicles back to their owners as part of their duties. The series was filmed in Philadelphia for the first five seasons, with Detroit added as a location during season three. In season five, Providence, RI was featured, with Staten Island, North Hempstead, NY and Trenton, NJ featured in the sixth season. The series ended after seven seasons and 104 episodes.
- January 9 — Prank series Howie Do It, starring Howie Mandel, premieres on NBC. The twist to this prank series is that the cameras are not hidden. Mandel often appeared on the series, sometimes in disguise, and after the prank is revealed Mandel or an assistant would say ‘This is Howie Do It!‘ NBC shared the cost of producing the series with Canada’s Global TV with the show airing on both networks. Six episodes were initially ordered with 20 total being produced and aired. The series last just a single season, ending on May 1.
- January 11 — Competition reality series Tool Academy debuts on VH1. The series featured unsuspecting ‘bad boys’ (and girls) who have been sent to ‘relationship boot camp,’ nominated by their respective partners, believing they are taking part in a competition for a title before they find out the truth — that they are being sent to a ‘charm school’ to teach them to behave better as partners. Each week, one contestant is eliminated as their partner decides whether to stay with them or not. Jordan Murphy hosted, with Trina Dolenz helping the contestants with their relationship problems and making the decision on who is expelled. The series produced 27 episodes over three seasons before ending on April 4, 2010.
Do you remember any of these shows? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
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