Pretty sure the one after Seinfeld was Mad About You. Can’t remember what was in the earlier slot.
I read it as, “I could get some great TV back yonder, in a delectably couch potato fashion.”
No harm pointing out that it’s not been all downhill since then.
Got to admit, that’d be a heck of a line-up though. At 8+ hours, your parents would never get to go bowling!
That really wasn’t what it was - it was more “there was only one day and time you could watch these shows- wasn’t it great that it was all the same night and station” so there wasn’t any “choose between MASH and All in the Family - you can’t watch both”
Wasn’t Frasier in there somewhere?
I think Frasier was on Tuesdays, IIRC.
I remember very often the show after Friends was some new show or a weaker show the network was trying to building an audience for, presumably because they figured people would watch it just because it was in between the two popular shows.
It definitely followed Friends in the early 2000s. Not sure if it followed Friends while Seinfeld was still running.
Without researching: Veronica’s Closet (with Kirstie Alley and Kathy Najimi) and Just Shoot Me (ensemble anchored by David Spade) were on Thursdays at some point. I think in 1997-98 (Seinfeld’s send-off) and probably the season after that.
EDIT: Yep. I hadn’t realized that Veronica’s Closet was the #3 show that fall, slightly outdrawing Friends. In fact, NBC has Neilsen #s 1, 2, 3, and 4 on Thursday nights in 1997-98.
And then moved to Thursdays, taking over Seinfeld’s old time slot starting in fall 1998.
That’s one of those things the young 'uns might not understand.
Yeah. You could watch them without getting up to change the channel, adjust the antenna, or anything.
And the reason they put newer or weaker shows in between the better shows was, you didn’t want to switch stations, in case you missed the start of the later show. No rewinding!
I think the problem with any given year of NBC’s Thursday lineup, was that there was always a “weak” entry sandwiched in there.
Looking at the Wiki entry for “Must See TV”, there were powerhouses like Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, The Office, and Frasier along with gems like 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, Scrubs, My Name Is Earl, Community, and Mad About You, but always with a Suddenly Susan, Veronica’s Closet, Joey, Whitney…well, the list goes on.
If NBC had been able to avoid sticking the needy shows into a slot, it could have had the greatest lineups in history, especially when the ten o’clock hour featured shows like Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and ER.
Exactly.
One thing I remember about TV from that era that is obsolete is this: If you were watching “Rockford” and you saw an ad for a program coming up the next week, there was no question about which channel it would be on - it would be on the Rockford channel. Today, you see ads for all sorts of programs on different channels.
Of course what the network hopes is that the new, weaker shows at the 8:30 or 9:30 timeslot grows in popularity so that it can standalone, perhaps in the 8pm timeslot on another evening.
Until they settled on the now-classic lineup, CBS always had a problem with that 8:30pm ET time slot between All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore. They tried different shows that didn’t make it. The one I recall was “Friends and Lovers,” aka “The Paul Sand Show,” a sitcom about a symphony orchestra. Paul Sand had a hang-dog look and demeaner similar to Gene Wilder. We thought it was OK but it just wasn’t a good follow-up to Archie Bunker or lead-in for Mary.
Looking back at the prime time schedules, CBS sandwiched a lot of stuff between All In The Family and Mary Tyler Moore.
1971 - Funny Face (either you thought Sandy Duncan was adorable, or you didn’t) and The New Dick Van Dyke Show (just watch reruns of the orignal)
1972 - Bridget Loves Bernie (a premise that wouldn’t have worked even in 1952). That was the season The Bob Newhart Show premiered.
1973 - the all-star lineup.
1974 - MASH gets moved to Tuesdays, and XOldiesJock’s memory of Paul Sand fills the spot. The show was created by MTM’s creative powerfhouse, and featured some of the industry’s leading scriptwriters. Paul Sand was a good enough sad sack, but he lacked the “spunk” that made you root for someone like Mary Richards or Rhoda.
1975 - All In The Family moves to Wednesdays, replaced by The Jeffersons and is followed by Doc, a sitcom about a crusty but kind-hearted old doctor. It was well written and acted, but the premise didn’t fit with the other shows and it was canceled after two seasons.
BTW, The Carol Burnett Show replaced Mission Impossible, which had limped through its final two seasons replacing Mannix, which had worn out its welcome. Compared to them, Carol Burnett was fresh and exciting.
What I remember most about that TV Lineup, was it was Taco Night!
Paul Sand had appeared earlier on an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, playing an IRS agent who was auditing Mary, developed a crush on her (as everyone inevitably did), and, lacking the courage and self-esteem to ask her out, instead spent the whole episode using the audit as an excuse to spend time with her.
Somehow, the MTM folks thought that this creepy, probably illegal, borderline stalker type of character had the makings of a romantic lead, and gave him his own show.
Back in the 70s, a lot of what we now recognize as “creepy stalker” tended to read as “lovably quirky.”
Sadly, a certain subset of men agreed with this.