Welcome to TV Squad Lists (formerly 'The Five'), a feature where each blogger has a chance to list his or her own rundown of things in television that stand out from the rest, both good and bad.
Even before "Must-See TV" networks made an attempt to capture a particular demographic with a killer lineup of TV shows. (Bob's done one of these lists in the past.) What follows is a list of the best TV lineups in history.
1. CBS Saturday, 1973: All in the Family, M*A*S*H*, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Carol Burnett Show. All classics. If this lineup were on today, it would still get huge ratings. It's hard for most folks to remember when these shows were originally on and it's even harder to believe that they were once all on in the same night. It makes me wonder what the other networks were showing or why they even bothered.
2. ABC Friday, 1971-72: The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Room 222, The Odd Couple, Love American Style. A wholesome evening of comedy that turns into the perfect aphrodisiac for any TV fan. This lineup is amazing because it starts out as a G-rated evening and slowly ends up with what was, at the time, a very hip show.
3. NBC Thursday, 1984-86: The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court, Hill Street Blues. Over 100 Emmy nominations combined. I know many of you wonder why I didn't include a lineup with Friends or Seinfeld. It's because those lineups always included ER, which is one of my most despised shows.
4. ABC Tuesday, 1978: Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company, Taxi, Starsky and Hutch. This lineup would still hit the 14-20 demographic. Can you imagine being a teenager and watching this night of TV? The Fonz, Lenny & Squiggy, Mr. Furley and Reverend Jim all in one evening!
5. ABC Saturday, 1982-83: T.J. Hooker, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island. I really don't know what to say here. I can't defend these shows, because they are what they are. One thing that can't be argued is that, for the brief time this lineup existed, it dictated the weekend plans for many a budding TV geek.
Celebrate the 4th by watching television!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-15-2007 @ 2:19PM
Keith McDuffee said...
One my wife says is sorely missing:
CBS Thursday, 1982-1985: Magnum, P.I.;Simon and Simon;Knots Landing
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4-16-2007 @ 1:43PM
Richard Korn said...
I remember reading an interview with the president of TV Land saying if he had MASH, he wanted to replicate that lineup of All in the Family, MASH, MTM and Bob Newhart. I'm waiting for it.
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4-16-2007 @ 2:00PM
Karen said...
ABC Tuesday, 1978: Yikes. I was in that 14-20 demographic (I didn't turn 20 until November of that year), and I couldn't disagree more with this being a coherent line-up. In fact, it sounds like a game of "one of these things is not like the other."
"Taxi" I watched, because it was smart and hip and funny. The others? I never watched any of those first three sitcoms listed when they aired. It would never even have occurred to me to have watched them. I thought they were for dumb people. And "Starsky and Hutch"? I've literally never seen a single episode of that to this day.
Maybe I just wasn't the dream 14- to 20-year-old, but that line-up just sucks to me. That CBS Saturday 1973, though? My whole family was all over that one. It's difficult to believe, now, that I would have sat and watched the same network for three solid hours. But who would have wanted to miss a single one of those shows?
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4-16-2007 @ 2:05PM
Crambam said...
CBS Fridays circa 1980-- Incredible Hulk/Dukes of Hazzard/Dallas.
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4-16-2007 @ 2:43PM
CaliberSRT4 said...
We will never have any lineups to compare to those.
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4-16-2007 @ 3:15PM
hessian2k said...
Back in the day I worked at WDBD, FOX 40 in Jackson, MS.
In the fall of '93 our Friday night lineup was THE ADVENTURES OF BRISCO COUNTY, JR., THE X-FILES and first run episodes of STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE.
That was some goooood watching.
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4-16-2007 @ 3:51PM
mikedt said...
yes, CBS Saturday, 1973, was a magical time. I was 13 at the time and I remember watching those shows with my family. I know the current thinking is that no worthwhile demographic stays home and watches tv on Fri or Sat night but either my family was weird or life has changed dramatically since then.
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4-16-2007 @ 3:53PM
Debby said...
I agree with #1 - sadly I preferred staying at home on Saturdays, watching that great line-up, instead of dating in high school. Looking back, I think I got the better end of the deal. Perhaps Nick or TVLand can reinstate it for a period. I'm sure lots of folks would watch - Classic TV.
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4-16-2007 @ 7:14PM
nukethewhalesagain said...
If NBC would replace ER with something better I would say their current Thursday lineup would be up there.
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4-16-2007 @ 10:00PM
Joe Gannon said...
I thought the one-hour drama in the clean up spot on the ABC Thursday Night 1978 schedule was Family, not Starsky and Hutch. That's what I recall.
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4-16-2007 @ 10:33PM
erroneous_nick said...
I sat and watched all those lineups live, with the exception of lineup #5 which consisted of shows I just couldn't stand. I'd gladly sit and watch the CBS Saturday, 1973 lineup all over again.
I'm the same age as mikedt, and mike, if your family was weird then mine was just as weird in exactly the same way. That was the best night of television in 1973.
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4-16-2007 @ 11:16PM
Yahoo said...
How about old school CBS 1980s Friday Night:
Incredible Hulk
The Dukes of Hazzard
Dallas.
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4-16-2007 @ 11:18PM
CaliberSRT4 said...
I miss ABC's TGIF lineup with Sabrina and Boy Meets World. I know it's not "classic" nor did everyone watch it, but I think it may have been popular to the younger gen.
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4-17-2007 @ 12:05AM
Stevie said...
i watched all of these lineups, w/ the exception of some of the shows in #1-2 that i was too young to get (or in the case of 'love american style,' too mature at 5 yrs old. the one i really stayed home for was #3. and i watched 'love boat' and 'fantasy island' b/c i was a kid and home saturday nights. dunno what excuse those older than me can come up with!
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4-17-2007 @ 1:44AM
Joey Geraci said...
I guess I am going to have to be the one to step in and defend ER. Yes, it is an unholy pile of trash now, and has been for years. But for the first several years (I'd say until about when Kovatch came on the team), it was an amazing show. One of the best dramas ever to show on television.
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4-17-2007 @ 1:56AM
PN said...
I still remember Thursday nights from 1984 to 1986 when The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court and Hill Street Blues were on. That was a blockbuster lineup. I also remember some of ABC's lineup--but Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company and Taxi stood out in 1978. The first four was full comedy. One classic lineup I do remember was the Golden Girls and 227 back to back from 1985 to about 1990. That was the last great Saturday night lineup. The '73 lineup that you listed--classic! That would work in 2007 even if American Idol and reality shows are popular now. I saw some of those shows in later years as they went off the air on CBS.
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4-17-2007 @ 7:00AM
Jesse Anderson said...
I been watching tv since i were seven years old, i can say this, my taste could be wrong, but if a story did not make you think about a lot of thing in the world, then it was not a good show. Now it ok to laugh, but it the part where you have to learn real life story, because the world is not make up with just the i love lucy people this is a world where that if you make a wrong step then it over with.
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4-17-2007 @ 8:55AM
Vince said...
The coherent line-up is dead with the advent of PVRs. Fewer people are now sitting in front a TV watching live TV and not wanting to change the channels. Also, all of those lineups were from before the cable explosion that brought us so many more choices than ABC, CBS & NBC.
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4-17-2007 @ 10:14AM
Dan said...
How about SciFi Fridays 2005-- Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica?
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4-17-2007 @ 4:33PM
jasonpettus said...
Not to be a stickler, but with regards to #4 (ABC Tuesday, 1978): Technically Don Knotts wasn't on "Three's Company" yet, and neither was Christopher Lloyd on "Taxi." But that actually makes your quote cooler, as someone who actually was a teen back then can testify: instead of spending the night watching Mr. Furley and Reverend Jim, we were actually watching Mr. Roper and Andy Kaufman.
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