SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1990-1991 Fridays

On Mondays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Fridays in the 1990-91 season!

ABC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Full House	Family Matters	Perfect Strangers	Going Places	20/20
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar				Baby Talk
Apr
May		Dinosaurs	Family Matters	Perfect Strangers

ABC was coming off its first year with the TGIF moniker on Friday nights and they continued to work on the lineup. The first hour really started to take off in the ratings with Full House coming in at #15 for the season and Family Matters just one spot behind it. These two shows were really the reason that TGIF took off as a brand. For Family Matters, the addition of Urkel (Jaleel White) to the cast midway through its first season helped with its breakout second season. Perfect Strangers followed at 9pm but that show was now in its sixth season and started to show its age. It lost a pretty significant chunk of the Family Matters audience. At 9:30pm was a new sitcom, Going Places. It came from Miller-Boyett Productions, the company behind the other three sitcoms. The series was purposely a little bit more young adult focused as the shows progressively were less for kids as the night went on. That seems like a good idea on paper but it didn't work out. Going Places, whose cast included Alan Ruck and Heather Locklear, lost a lot of audience from its lead-in (which was already down from the 8pm hour). And even more problematic was the fact that the ratings popped back up for 20/20 at 10pm. It underwent creative retooling about halfway through its run but that didn't make a difference and it was cancelled. It was replaced in March by Baby Talk, which had gotten delayed thanks to some drama before airing. The show, featuring a talking baby and coming from the people behind the movie Look Who's Talking, originally starred Connie Sellecca. However, Sellecca was unhappy with the show and ended up quitting after a couple episodes were filmed which caused its planned fall start to be delayed (it was replaced in the fall by Head of the Class). Sellecca was replaced by Julia Duffy. The show moved to Tuesdays and did get renewed but then Duffy didn't return to the show and the character was re-cast again for season two. Baby Talk also featured a young George Clooney as well as the voice of Tony Danza as the baby. Late in the season, Family Matters and Perfect Strangers both shifted back half an hour to make room for Dinosaurs, an unusual satire about a family of anthropomorphic dinosaurs. Coming from the Jim Henson Company about a year after Henson's death, it only aired five episodes in its first season but did get renewed.

CBS	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	Evening Shade	Bagdad Cafe	Various Programs
Oct
Nov	Uncle Buck		Over My Dead Body	Dallas
Dec	Various Programs
Jan	Guns of Paradise		Dallas	Sons & Daughters
Feb
Mar				Various Programs
Apr				True Detectives
May				Various Programs

CBS was all over the place on Friday nights in 1990-91 and it was the end of an era as it was the 14th and final season of Dallas. A comedy hour was attempted at 8pm with the new Evening Shade and the returning Bagdad Cafe. Evening Shade marked Burt Reynolds' first foray into TV comedy and featured an all-star cast including Marilu Henner, Hal Holbrook, Ossie Davis, Michael Jeter and Charles Durning. The Arkansas-set sitcom delivered promising ratings early on and, as is almost always the case when that happens with a Friday sitcom, it got a timeslot upgrade. Shade switched places with the struggling Monday sitcom Uncle Buck. While Shade went on to run for four years, Buck and Bagdad were off the schedule less than a month later. In January, the 8pm hour was handed over to Guns of Paradise, which had changed its title from just Paradise for its third season. The show did not undergo major changes despite the name change and the ratings weren't any better. It was cancelled after three seasons and 57 episodes. The last two hours of the night got a late start in the season, not airing until November. At 9pm was Over My Dead Body, a crime drama starring Edward Woodward as a mystery novelist who teamed up with a younger reporter to solve crimes. Similar to CBS's own Murder She Wrote (and from the same producer), it aired for a few months before being cancelled and burned off in the summer. Dallas returned to 10pm where it had been moved the previous season after years at 9pm. After being a dominant force throughout the era of primetime soap operas, Dallas had dropped pretty dramatically in the ratings and saw the departure of one of its longtime stars, Barbara Bel Geddes, over a salary dispute. The series added Susan Lucci and Barbara Eden as recurring guest stars but it was the end of the road for Dallas. The decision was made to end it after 14 seasons and 357 episodes. The series has remained in the public consciousness of course and had a semi-successful revival on TNT in 2012. Dallas returned to its longtime 9pm home for its closing run in the winter and spring. Replacing it at 10pm was Sons & Daughters, which had originally been slated for Thursday in the fall. The family drama starred Lucie Arnaz as a single mom and only lasted for seven episodes. The rest of the season at 10pm was filled with various programs and a short run for unscripted series True Detectives.

NBC	8:00	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Quantum Leap	Night Court	Wings	Midnight Caller
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan		Various Programs
Feb	Various Programs	Dark Shadows
Mar		Hunter		Dark Shadows
Apr	The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage			Midnight Caller
May	Various Programs

Like CBS, NBC was also all over the place on Friday nights in 1990-91. The season started with a complete revamp from the previous season but without using any new shows. All were returning shows transplanted to the night. At 8pm was Quantum Leap which seemed to regularly "leap" between Wednesdays and Fridays. It was followed by a comedy block - the aging sitcom Night Court and a second year sitcom, Wings, which was coming off a very short first season. At 10pm was Midnight Caller, which had aired its first two seasons on Tuesdays. The lineup seemed like a safe bet as all the shows had experienced some level of success in the past, but the group struggled in the ratings and all of them were gone from the night by the end of January. Midnight Caller was put on a temporary hiatus while the others went back to other nights (and all saw more success and renewals on those other nights). The rest of the year was a sort of hodgepodge. NBC tried to revival the popular gothic soap from the 1960s, Dark Shadows at 9pm and then 10pm. It had a decent amount of pre-premiere buzz but couldn't find an audience as the era of prime time soaps was winding down. Hunter came to the night for awhile before it ended its seven season run and Midnight Caller was back on the night in April but was cancelled at the end of the season. A new entry came on the night towards the end of the season. The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage was a family series produced by Disney that centered on a 17th century pirate in the Caribbean. The series was co-created by Stephen J. Cannell, who was much better known for action/crime procedurals. It lasted just three weeks on Friday nights before being sent to Sundays for a few more weeks.

FOX	8:00	9:00
Sep	America’s Most Wanted	D.E.A.
Oct
Nov		Against the Law
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr		D.E.A.
May

FOX expanded to Friday nights in 1990 but they didn't make as much of an effort to really be a force as they did with their expansion to Thursday nights. At 8pm was America's Most Wanted, which expanded to an hour to lead off the night. It was never a huge ratings hit but was a solid and cheap option for FOX in their early days of expansion. It was initially followed by another unscripted offering. D.E.A., which focused on an elite DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) team. The real life crime team was replaced by a fictional crime team as Against the Law moved over to the night from Sundays. It lasted several months before D.E.A. came back to 9pm to end the season. Neither show was renewed but America's Most Wanted had become a fixture.

Top Rated Friday Show of 1990-91: Full House (#15)

Lowest Rated Friday Show of 1990-91: Against the Law (#131)

What would I have watched on Fridays in 1990-91?

The adult version of me would have been more interested in the fall NBC lineup than the ABC one but probably would have opted for Perfect Strangers over Night Court at 9pm. I also would have watched Evening Shade and probably sampled Sons & Daughters on CBS.

Tomorrow: Top 10 Modern Family Characters!

Next Monday: A look at Saturdays in the 1990-91 season!