SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1991-1992 Sundays

On Mondays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Saturdays in the 1991-92 season! After this week, I will be taking a two week break from the blog for the holidays!

ABC	7:00	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	Life Goes On	America’s Funniest Home Videos	America’s Funniest People	Sunday Night Movie
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

ABC had no changes to its Sunday lineup for 1991-92. Life Goes On continued at 7pm despite middling ratings. It made news for having an HIV Positive character on the show at a time when that topic was still quite taboo. The comedy videos duo of America's Funniest Home Videos and America's Funniest People continued at 8pm. They weren't the breakout Top 10 hits they started as, but they were still strong performers for the alphabet network. A movie continued at 9pm.

CBS	7:00	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	60 Minutes	Murder, She Wrote	Sunday Night Movie
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

CBS also had no changes with its tried and true lineup of 60 Minutes, Murder She Wrote and the Sunday Night Movie. 60 Minutes had been a growing force and newsmagazines were becoming a bigger and bigger deal. That perfect storm led to 60 Minutes moving up to the #1 spot in the ratings more than 20 years after its premiere. Part of that was also due to it being the post-Super Bowl show (which featured an interview with then presidential candidate Bill Clinton) but the fact that it was 60 Minutes that was chosen for the post-Super Bowl slot shows just how big the newsmagazine was. Murder, She Wrote not only benefited from being after TV's top show but also from having Angela Lansbury appear in all the episodes for the first time in several seasons. The movie easily beat out NBC and ABC's competing movies.

NBC	7:00	7:30	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	The Adventures of Mark and Brian	Eerie, Indiana	Man of the People	Pacific Station	Sunday Night Movie
Oct
Nov			Various Programs
Dec	Eerie, Indiana	The Torkelsons	Hot Country Nights
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr	Various Programs	Against All Odds	Mann & Machine
May		Various Programs

While ABC and CBS had no changes all season, NBC and FOX were a little more interesting on Sundays. NBC tried something totally different with a two hour comedy block from 7-9pm. First up was The Adventures of Mark and Brian, an unscripted comedy show hosted by two radio personalities that featured stunts galore. It might have been a better fit with ABC's unscripted comedy block than on NBC where it was followed by three scripted shows. The most notable entry in the NBC lineup was Eerie, Indiana, a sci-fi show that had both drama and comedy elements. It was about a teenager and his family in the bizarre title town. It bumped around the Sunday lineup for almost the whole season but was cancelled at the end of the season. It became a cult hit though and reruns on The Disney Channel and FOX's Saturday morning block led to a spinoff in 1998. Less remembered are the two sitcoms that followed. Man of the People starred James Garner as a grifter on a city council while Pacific Station starred Robert Guillaume and Richard Libertini as Venice Beach cops. Both shows were gone from Sundays by November and cancelled soon after with Garner actually praising the cancellation of his show (which had planned a retooling to make Garner's character warmer). In December, only Eerie was left of the four on the night. It moved to 7pm and was paired with Saturday transplant The Torkelsons while the 8pm hour went to Hot Country Nights, a country variety show that came on the air as country music was becoming a bigger and bigger force. It lasted a few months and then was replaced by Mann & Machine, a sci-fi drama set in 2012 (yep) and featuring a human police officer paired with a female robot. The series lasted just a few weeks on Sundays before being yanked and resurfacing in the summer. One more unscripted show was added late in the season but it lasted just four episodes (and two of them were back to back). Against All Odds was hosted by Lindsay Wagner and Everett McGill and focused on people and animals who have overcome death defying odds. 

FOX	7:00	7:30	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30
Sep	True Colors	Parker Lewis Can’t Lose	In Living Color	Roc	Married With Children	Herman’s Head	The Sunday Comics
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan							Get A Life	Charlie Hoover
Feb								The Sunday Comics
Mar
Apr			Roc	In Living Color			Stand By Your Man	Get A Life
May			In Living Color	Roc

Though they were making a dent on Thursdays, FOX's biggest night was still Sundays as it's easily where they programmed the most shows (four hours as opposed to two on any other night). There was a decent amount of stability except for the 10pm hour. The 7pm hour was the same as 1990-91 with True Colors and Parker Lewis Can't Lose. Both shows had low ratings and True Colors was cancelled after two seasons but Parker was renewed. True Colors also lost cast members Nancy Walker and Cleavon Little to cancer shortly after filming was completed. In Living Color continued at 8pm and famously aired a live Super Bowl episode during halftime of the big game on CBS. At 8:30pm was the new Roc, a comedy starring Charles S. Dutton as a Baltimore garbage man. The series received some critical acclaim but struggled to find a mass audience. It did enough by FOX standards to get a second season though. Roc switched places with In Living Color briefly in the spring. Married... With Children continued at 9pm and continued to be one of the network's highest rated shows. In fact, the 1991-92 season was the peak for Married with the highest ratings of its entire run as it also benefited from entering syndication and becoming a success there. At 9:30pm was the new Herman's Head, an oddball sitcom about a man whose inner thoughts are dramatized by a Greek chorus. Perhaps the oddest detail about Herman's Head, which was renewed for a second season, was it was the first show in the US to air a commercial for condoms during an episode. The 10pm hour started with The Sunday Comics, which had aired the previous spring. It went on hiatus for Saturday transplants Get A Life and Charlie Hoover and eventually Stand By Your Man, a sitcom starring Melissa Gilbert and Rosie O'Donnell as sisters who both had husbands in prison. None of the shows that aired in the 10pm hour lived to see the 1992-93 season.

Top Rated Sunday Show of 1991-92: 60 Minutes (#1)

Lowest Rated Sunday Show of 1991-92: Charlie Hoover (#102)

What would I have watched on Sundays in 1991-92?

Maybe Life Goes On. I might have tried the NBC comedies but none of them struck me as that interesting. Ditto for the FOX shows. There wouldn't have been much for me to watch on Sunday nights. Maybe I could have gotten into some of the movies.

Tomorrow: Top 10 Episodes of 2021!

Monday, Jan 3: A look at Mondays in the 1992-93 season!