My 90's and 2000's Experience: TGIF: The Shows I Watched (1989-2019)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm pretty good. I had a nice, quiet weekend. So today I decided to take a look at the shows I watched that were part of the various incarnations of ABC's Friday night comedy programming block, TGIF, which stands for Thank Goodness It's Funny. Next week I'll be taking a look at several shows I didn't watch. For this first part I'm including the shows I watched that were part of ABC's later attempts to revive the programming block in the mid 2000s, the 2010s and the modern day, when it became ABC Friday Night. So let's get into it.

TGIF was the brainchild of Jim Janicek, who was the head of promoting ABC's Tuesday night and Friday night comedy lineups, and ABC's president at the time, Bob Iger. Janicek's reasoning for creating this block was because he remember watching The Wonderful World of Disney, which he watched with his family when he was a kid, as pretty much all of us have done at one time or another since 1954. ABC also had a long history of airing family oriented sitcoms on Friday nights from The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Flintstones in the 50's and 60's to The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family in the 70's. And it all came from there. TGIF debuted on Friday, September 22nd, 1989, with megahits Full House (1987-1995) and Perfect Strangers (1986-1993), along with newcomer, Family Matters (1989-1998) and, sophmore series, Just the Ten of Us (1988-1990), which had debuted on Tuesday nights during the 1988-1989 season. While the lineup changed during the 11 years TGIF was on the air, the programming block was appointment television for families on Friday nights. Especially for kids who were too young to be out at night, and adults who weren't interested in the weekend night life of the 90's. So let's take a look at the shows that I did watch at various times during this period, and then next week I'll look at a few of the shows that I didn't watch or don't remember watching.

First up is Full House. I've talked about this show alot on my blogs over the years, but never when I watched it. It's funny, because I don't remember watching Full House when it was on TGIF. I remember watching it on Tuesday nights, but not on Friday nights, as it moved to Tuesday nights at the beginning of the 1991-1992 season. Nonetheless, it was part of the initial lineup of TGIF, hence why I'm including it here.

Next is Family Matters, which is actually a spin-off of Perfect Strangers as Harriette and Carl Winslow originally appeared on that show. Which is something I didn't know until I saw a few YouTube videos on the history of TGIF. I also didn't know that the actress who played Harriette, Jo Marie Payton, was replaced by Judyann Elder in the show's final season when the series moved from ABC to CBS. Probably because I didn't watch the final season since it had moved to CBS, and it wasn't airing on any Canadian channels, that I can recall, after that move. I talked about this show in my first sitcoms post I did a while back.

The 1990-1991 brought the Jim Henson co-production, Dinosaurs, to TGIF. I also mentioned this show in my first sitcoms post, so I won't go too in depth here. It only ran for four seasons, until 1994, but I loved this show when I was a kid.

Next is Boy Meets World. I don't think I've ever talked about this show on my blogs before, but it was one of my favourites growing up. I didn't start watching it until its fourth season in 1997, but this was the last TGIF show that my family was still watching by the time the original incarnation of TGIF ended in 2000. All the others had either ended or, in the case of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, were on later at night.

 While Sister, Sister began its broadcast run on TGIF in early 1994, I don't remember watching it. My sister claims we did, but it's possible she watched it in syndication sometime in the 2000s and I watched some of it with her. the 1994-1995 season was weird for me, because, other than Full House (most likely) and the series premiere of Star Trek: Voyager in early 1995, I don't remember watching very much Primetime television during this period. By this point we'd moved to the log house, and my siblings and I had our own play room area on the second floor, in the common area outside the three bedrooms (I shared a room with my brother), so we didn't watch much TV with our parents. At least, I didn't, as I had to be on my feeding pump full time, which was in my bedroom. Plus for the one season that Sister, Sister was airing as part of TGIF, it was on at 9:30, according to the schedule on Wikipedia, AND we didn't have access to ABC, just the over the air Canadian channels, plus PBS, since we didn't have cable. So if we did watch Sister, Sister it was after it had moved to a different night and was on in an earlier time slot, or it was in syndication in the 2000s. I do remember seeing commercials for Sister, Sister during Full House. 

Muppets Tonight was kind of like my generation's version of The Muppet Show, except taking place in a TV studio instead of an old theatre. It was only on ABC for a season before moving over to the Disney Channel for its final season, so I didn't watch it on TGIF for very long. I did love the show, even though I'd grown up watching reruns of The Muppet Show on YTV. Like I said, it was my generation's version of The Muppet Show.

The last staple of TGIF that I watched was Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I missed the first season in the 1996-1997 television season, but I caught it in reruns during the summer before season 2 began airing. This is the era that I remember watching TGIF during the most. Every Friday night, my mom, my brother, my sister, and I would sit and watch Boy Meets World, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and two other shows that I'll talk about momentarily from 8 pm until 10. By this point I was 10, about to turn 11, and my brother was 6 and my sister was 7, and so Mom let us stay up to watch TGIF with her since it was Friday night and we didn't have school the next day. This was also the era in which Teletoon and Space Channel were just starting to become a thing, Family Channel was becoming available to us, as it wasn't a premium cable channel anymore, and Pokemon was about to come into our lives.

Teen Angel was the first of the two shows that debuted during the second hour of TGIF. This was my introduction to Ron Glass, who played Marty's heavenly guide, Rod, a.k.a. God's brother, on this show. So when he appeared on Star Trek: Voyager as a different character in the seventh season I recognized him immediately. I also recognized him when I saw him as Shepherd Book on Firefly when I watched that show for the first time almost a decade later.

I remember watching You Wish, but I don't remember very much about it, other than there was a genie in it. Like with Teen Angel, You Wish only lasted one season, so it wasn't on for very long. However, what I remember most about TGIF's 1997-1998 season is the TGIF Time Warp week. This was basically a crossover between Boy Meets World, Sabrina, Teen Angel, and You Wish, where Salem swallows a time ball on Sabrina and then makes his way, with Sabrina close behind him, to the other three shows, sending all four shows into different time periods. Of course you didn't have that with most shows during that era, though Urkel from Family Matters would appear on Full House, Step by Step, and other TGIF shows from time to time.

 The last TGIF show from this era that I watched was Two of a Kind, which brought Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen back to TGIF following the end of Full House. This show was on at 8 with Boy Meets World at 8:30 and Sabrina at 9, with Brother's Keeper to round off the programming block at 9:30. Unfortunately Two of a Kind only lasted for one season and for the spring part of the 1998-1999 season, Sabrina moved into the 8 pm time slot, with newcomer Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place moving into the 9 pm slot. By this time TGIF, and ABC as a whole, was seeing declining ratings, despite the network trying to bring the ratings back to what they were at the height of TGIF in the early to mid 90's. But other than The Hughleys, which debuted in 1998, but moved to TGIF in 1999, there were no new lasting shows on TGIF. In the summer of 2000, Boy Meets World ended after seven seasons, Sabrina moved to The WB, and The Hughleys moved to UPN for the 2000-2001 television season. It was at the end of that season that I got a TV in my room and started watching The Simpsons, That '70s Show, Hollywood Squares, The King of Queens and The Drew Carey Show, among many other shows. But, that wasn't it for TGIF.

While I didn't watch it on ABC, I did watch 8 Simple Rules (initially called 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter). This series was my introduction to Kaley Cuoco, only a few years before she started playing Penny on The Big Bang Theory in 2007. I remember when John Ritter passed away in 2003, and his character on the show, Paul, died offscreen, bringing in James Garner and David Spade. Besides Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paul was the first TV character I ever saw who actually died. Even Mr. Hooper had died on Sesame Street before I was born. 

I also watched George Lopez. 8 Simple Rules, in its final season, and George Lopez were part of the second run of TGIF which only lasted from 2003 to 2005, though neither show were in the block together. George Lopez aired on TGIF in the 2003-2004 season, while 8 Simple Rules aired on TGIF in the 2004-2005 season. I loved both shows, but, because I wasn't watching them on ABC, it wasn't the same as it was in the 90's when I was watching Boy Meets World, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Teen Angel, You Wish, and Two of a Kind with my mom and siblings. 

In 2012, Tim Allen returned to TV with Last Man Standing as part of a semi-revival of TGIF known as ABC Comedy Friday, which ran from 2012 to 2017. I enjoyed this show when it first started, but, this was the early 2010s, so not only were comic book based shows becoming more prevalent, but American politics were starting to creep into alot of shows, whether they were dramas or sitcoms. Being a Canadian, I grew tired of that pretty quickly. I definitely watched it for two or three seasons before the CW DC Comics based shows became more prevalent in my life. But I dropped it after that.

2012 also saw the return of Reba McEntire to TV in a series, very similar to her previous show, Reba, called Malibu Country. I also didn't watch it on ABC. It was on Citytv here in Canada, right after Last Man Standing. I liked it, but, it only lasted for one season before being canceled, and I don't think it stayed on Citytv for very long, because I don't remember seeing it much beyond the first four or five episodes. It was fun seeing Reba back on TV again because I loved her previous sitcom, Reba, when it was on in the early to mid 2000s. 

This show replaced both Last Man Standing and Malibu Country in the ABC Comedy Friday lineup in the spring of 2013, though it was only temporary in the case of Last Man Standing. I only watched a few episodes of Happy Endings because Elisha Cuthbert, who I remembered from the Canadian series, Popular Mechanics for Kids, which aired on Global from 1997 to 2000. I didn't like it as much as I did Last Man Standing and Malibu Country though, and I only watched two or three episodes before I stopped. 

The last TGIF show I ever watched, even though it wasn't on TGIF when I was watching it during its first season, was Speechless. The show had started on Wednesday nights after Modern Family and The Goldbergs, but moved to Friday nights for ABC's second attempt to revive TGIF in the 2018-2019 season, which was the show's final season. By this point broadcast television had already begun its decline due to the rise of Netflix and Hulu (this was before Disney+ became a thing). Because of this, ratings weren't as high on any of the networks, as they'd once been, particularly in the 80's and 90's. So shows like The Goldbergs, Speechless and Schooled, which would've had high ratings in the 90's and 2000's, weren't getting as high of ratings in the mid to late 2010's. 

From 2017 to 2018, Friday nights on ABC were for shows like Once Upon a Time, Inhumans, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. rather than the sitcoms that had been a staple of the Friday night lineup on ABC since 1952, if not earlier. Which is probably ABC attempted to revive TGIF in the 2018-2019 season and kept the comedy block going in the 2019-2020 season, with news and current events show, 20/20, which had been a staple of the 10 pm to 11 pm time slot since 1987, becoming two hours, going from 9 pm to 11 pm, with American Housewife and Fresh Off the Boat being the only sitcoms in that one hour time slot from 8 pm to 9 pm. Since 2020, Shark Tank has taken over that 8 pm to 9 pm time slot, leaving ABC's Friday night lineup devoid of comedy or anything that's remotely passable as entertainment. 

TGIF is a product of its era. It was so much fun watching these shows whether or not I was able to watch them on Friday nights. But, what made it really special was getting to sit down on Friday nights with my family, while my dad was at work, and watching TV together after a busy week. Especially because, even though I wasn't in the hospital or going to appointments at the hospital as much by 1997, I still had school, and the occasional appointment. I also had physio therapy, a nurse coming in every day, Monday-Friday, and a Vitamin B-12 shot every two weeks. My sister also had ballet on Thursday nights, and all three of us had school, even though none of us had school related after school activities to go to. So it was nice to get to stay up later than normal and sit in front of the TV and watch shows that we could enjoy together, as a family. Even in the early to mid 2000's there weren't alot of shows that we'd sit down in the same room to watch since I had a TV in my room and by 2003-2004, my siblings each had a TV in their rooms. So while we may have watched some of the same shows, we weren't watching them in the same room.

There's also no such thing as appointment television anymore. Oh sure, we have alot of great shows being worked on by some very talented people, but with streaming services being prevalent, we can watch shows whenever we want. Even the ones that drop one episode a week. Now, I'm fortunate that my parents and I still have cable, and that Star Trek shows air on CTV Sci-Fi Channel, so I can still sit down and watch the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Superman & Lois on Thursday or Tuesday nights at either 9 pm (for Star Trek) or 8 pm (for Superman & Lois). But there aren't any sitcoms that I have to sit down and watch at a particular time once a week. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be back on Wednesday to talk about the Young Jedi Knights and Junior Jedi Knights book series that were published in the 90's. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.