SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1986-1987 Fridays

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I am back with a new week of blog posts. To start, here's a look at Fridays in the 1986-87 season!

ABC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Webster	Mr. Belvedere	Sidekicks	Sledge Hammer!	Starman
Oct
Nov
Dec			Dads	Gung Ho
Jan			Gung Ho	Dads
Feb			Various Programs
Mar	The Charmings	Webster
Apr			Friday Night Movie
May	Webster	Mr. Belvedere

ABC had a rough go of it on Friday nights in 1986-87. They threw a lot at the wall but nothing really stuck. They first continued with a two hour block. The 8pm hour stayed the same with Webster and Mr. Belvedere. The pairing wasn't gangbusters but it kept the lights on in the hour. Late in the season, Webster slid to 8:30pm to make room for The Charmings, a very cheesy fantasy sitcom about Snow White and Prince Charming living in a Los Angeles suburb. Despite critical trashing and middling ratings, it managed to get renewed for another season while Webster was cancelled. However, syndication picked up Webster where it ran for two more years. Mr. Belvedere was almost cancelled as well but gained a last minute reprieve. The Webster/Mr. Belvedere pairing was briefly restored to finish out the season. The 9pm hour was a bigger problem spot for ABC. Two new shows kicked things off. Sidekicks was a martial arts action show based on a Disney film and Sledge Hammer! was a police satire that garnered some critical notice and was originally developed for HBO. Going from family sitcoms to martial arts to satire to a 10pm sci-fi show was a very unnatural lineup for ABC and it did not work. Both Sidekicks and Sledge Hammer! were sent to Saturdays after just a couple months and replaced by two more new comedies that were sitting on the bench. Dads was a sitcom about two single fathers in Philadelphia starring Barry Bostwick and Carl Weintraub while Gung Ho was based on a 1986 film and starred a young Scott Bakula as an American employee working for a Japanese car company and seemed to mostly be one long joke about culture clashes. The show aired for a few weeks in their debut slots and then switched slots for a few more weeks before both were cancelled. Some specials aired for about a month before a movie took over the latter part of the night. Until the movie took the slot, Starman aired at 10pm. The sci-fi drama continued the story from a 1984 film of the same name.

CBS	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	Scarecrow and Mrs. King		Dallas	Falcon Crest
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar	Nothing is Easy	The Popcorn Kid
Apr
May	Various Programs

CBS continued to have stability on Friday nights with Dallas and Falcon Crest in the last two hours of the night. In its tenth season, Dallas was outside the Top 10 for the first time since its second season but it was still #11 while Falcon Crest continued to be a solid player at 10pm. This was the season where Dallas famously brought back Patrick Duffy's killed off character and revealed that the previous season had been a dream. Although the show continued to do well and ran for several more years, it was not a choice appreciated by fans. The 8pm hour was not as successful. After a few years on Mondays, CBS shifted Scarecrow and Mrs. King to Friday nights. The drama was already declining but that was accelerated with the move to Fridays. It was moved to Thursdays in March and replaced by a comedy hour. Nothing is Easy was a show that had been known in the fall as Together We Stand but had changed its title a few months into the run when it moved to Sundays. The revamped version did not fare any better and the show was cancelled at the end of the season. It was followed by The Popcorn Kid, an odd show about a 16 year old working at a movie theater concession stand who has dreams of making it big in the movies.

NBC	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	The A-Team		Miami Vice	L.A. Law
Oct
Nov
Dec				Crime Story
Jan	Stingray
Feb
Mar	Roomies	Amazing Stories		Stingray
Apr
May

NBC kept it mostly to dramas on Friday nights though a comedy surfaced towards the end of the season. The night started off with The A-Team, which had moved from its longtime Tuesday home after a pretty substantial drop in the ratings the previous season. The move to Fridays continued its decline and the action drama was cancelled partway through the season. It aired the end of its run in obscurity after once being a huge performer for the network. Miami Vice aired at 9pm after hitting the cultural zeitgeist. However, its ratings never really matched its buzz and it was already on the decline in its third season. NBC stuck a new little Steven Bochco legal drama called L.A. Law in the quiet Friday 10pm slot. They must not have realized what they had. The show showed potential in the ratings and was a critical darling and quickly was moved to a higher profile Thursday slot where it blossomed. Replacing The A-Team was Stingray, which was held for midseason (very uncommon back then for a veteran show). It was already a questionable renewal and didn't do any better in season two. Replacing L.A. Law at 10pm was Crime Story. which moved over from Tuesdays. The drama had critical buzz but struggled in the ratings. It did manage to sneak a second season renewal. Late in the season, Stingray moved to 10pm and NBC added a comedy at 8pm despite ABC and CBS already airing comedies at the same time. Roomies was about a 42 year old veteran going to college and being assigned roommates to a 14 year old whiz kid going to college early. On in sitcom land! The show lasted just eight episodes. It was followed by the end of the second season of Amazing Stories. The show was cancelled at the end of the season but became a cult favorite as evidenced by the fact that there was an Apple TV+ reboot decades later.

Top Rated Friday Show in 1986-87: Dallas (#11)
Lowest Rated Friday Show in 1986-87: Gung Ho (#80)

What would I have watched on Fridays in 1986-87?
As I mentioned in my 1985-86 post, I may have gotten into Dallas or Miami Vice. I also probably would have been interested in Crime Story.

Tomorrow: Top 10 Christmas Sitcom Episodes (pre-1995)!

Next Monday: A look at Saturdays in 1986-87!