Suddenly Susan was one of those terrible shows NBC slotted in at 9:30 on Thursdays. Cf. Veronica’s Closet. SS was only in the slot briefly for half of season one but that got enough audience to last outside the slot for a bit. VC started in the slot but died once it was moved out.
If neither had been in that time slot, they would have gone away quickly and ended up as footnotes in the most diehard sitcom fan’s notes.
Letterman once joked that NBC could air melting cheese in the 8:30 Th time slot and it would still be a hit. The 9:30 slot was not as popular.
It was on Russian TV in the '90s, along with Babylon 5, Highlander, Space Above and Beyond, Twin Peaks, Due South, and a lot of other oddball American/Canadian series. It was also on Russian TV that I first saw The Sopranos, CSI, Criminal Minds, and Monk.
Imported series were all the rage in the '90s. I haven’t gone back to Russia since December 2021, so I have no idea how popular they are today.
We bought the series on DVD. I don’t think we even fiinished the first episode. Hubby had really liked the series when it was first broadcast, but it’s not watchable.
How about Scarecrow & Mrs. King? I used to love that show and am curious if it is at all watchable. It was totally implausible, but it was amusing.
Northern Exposure had a few years of popularity and critical acclaim. I briefly worked in the same office park in Redmond where it was filmed. Haven’t heard it mentioned in a long time; wonder how it would hold up these days.
Not sure in today’s streaming segmented market world we have the same sort of big across the culture shows anymore, but do any of you think that anything big popular culture shows now will stand up in future decades?
Many of these kinds of shows are still shown on broadcast TV. For instance, Rewind TV is a broadcast channel that has Family Ties, Mork and Mindy, Mad About You, Caroline in the City, Suddenly Susan, and many others. The minor broadcast channels are packed with these kinds of older shows. They must be pretty cheap to license based on the low-tier advertising which supports them.
I’m enjoying the walk down memory lane, but I do think some of the shows mentioned in this thread were never “popular” - I liked Brisco County (had a cat named Brisco the time) and Space:AAB, but they weren’t that popular and there was a reason they were short-lived.
I do agree with those who say that the switch to streaming meant that shows that are newer have more difficulty staying in public consciousness (I mean, we can find them, but they aren’t the sort of “there” where everyone knows who the characters are and what the premise is, even if they’ve never watched) - though, to be fair, we forgot a lot of the older ones, too. But maybe not the really popular ones. I mean look at the 1960-61 and I recognize most of them, even if it was a couple decades before I was born. But the westerns are more down to after we got a satellite dish than than reruns on the local broadcast stations, unlike some other types of shows. My mom liked westerns and mysteries (still does). I actually do better with those than the 1970-71 top 10, so there’s bound to be variability from person to person. Looks like the article mentioned the forgotten ones from 1994-95, though.
I did a rewatch several months ago and really enjoyed it. I didn’t see the last season after Rob Morrow left, though, because my free Prime trial ran out and I don’t really remember if it was as good as the rest.
Bob Newhart has been mentioned, but not his 80s sitcom Newhart. It was so weird and surreal (“I’m Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl”). And in the very last episode, we finally find out why!
Another long lost show was Empty Nest. It was in the same universe as Golden Girls, because Sophia occasionally visited. I remember it for the Joe Isuzu guy, and in the opening credits the lead orders his dog off the bed, but it jumps back up after he goes to sleep.
And I’m surprised I’m the first to mention that early Paul Reiser vehicle, My Two Dads
There was some lag for some series, but I didn’t feel most were out of date. As I indicated above, Twin Peaks was on the winter of '92–'93. Monk, NCIS, CSI, Criminal Minds, The Sopranos, and (IIRC) the reboot of Battlestar Galactica were all on closer to 2000–2003, or thereabouts.
I remember watching Mr Bean, 'Allo, 'Allo, Smack the Pony, Dempsey and Makepeace, and The Thin Blue Line with my daughter when she was a preschooler, around 1998–2000. They all looked more or less contemporary to me.
King of the Hill, Futurama, and The Simpsons were all popular with both kids and adults at that time.
There was a smattering of older shows mixed in with the above, e.g., The Avengers (with Emma Peel and Tara King), The Flintstones, Cimarron Strip, and the original Addams Family.
Star Trek TNG debuted with much ballyhoo on New Year’s Day 2000, but it didn’t catch on. Only the first 100 episodes were aired, so I never found out how the Romulan–Vulcan reunification ended.
I should also have mentioned Columbo, which was cornerstone of the Sunday night schedule on Channel 1. Analyses of the show and what made it so popular popped up frequently in different publications. The episodes that were shown dated all the way back to the '70s and (IIRC) the 1968 pilot.
It rotated with McMillan & Wife and McCloud. I remember Rock Hudson and Susan St James on the former but don’t even recall McCloud. Watching Columbo with my dad is one of my favorite childhood memories.
Sort of a fish-out-of-water premise, with Dennis Weaver as a deputy from New Mexico who’s sent on loan to the NYPD. My main recollection is that McCloud always dressed Western-style, with a cowboy hat, bolo tie, sheepskin coat, and cowboy boots.
McCloud was inspired by Coogan’s Bluff. But stupider!
And mind you, I watched every Mystery Movie show, even the ones that ran 6 episodes. I loved McCloud when I was a kid, but I tried watching it recently and it is irredeemably stupid.
McMillan (with or without & Wife) and Banacek hold up fine, allowing for their age. McClod makes me want to pay for his plane ticket back to Taos out of my own pocket.
I have. I watched seasons 1 and 2 on Russian TV in the '90s, and then 3 and 4 after I moved to Canada in 2008.
The first two seasons (which I watched religiously in Russia) hold up well, but the last two are very disappointing, especially in how they wrote Ray out of the series when he wanted more money.