Partially an oral history of obscure TV shows, partially an oral version of MST3K, and partially a thorough episode guide, It Was a Thing on TV is an anthology podcast about obscure, forgotten, and odd TV shows, commercials, televised events, and almost anyone and anything else that was on television. For the most part, the subjects we cover are from the United States and Canada. We’re just three guys with a love for television. New episodes are generally every Monday and Thursday, sometimes more often.
NBC might have made a big comeback in the mid-1980s, but there was one huge weakness for them--Friday nights at 9 PM against shows like Benson and Dallas. Half Nelson was another Friday at 9 victim, succumbing after a month and a half. But it had a lot of big names!
Next week, Saturday Night Live starts it's 48th season on NBC. In this special minisode we look back at a weird commercial parody making fun of monster truck shows where those boring funny cars turn out in the ad to be sentient beings able to achieve perpetual motion. Sadly those monster trucks are not amused by what these funny cars manage to accomplish.
We revisit school briefly for this episode. Before Saved by the Bell, some of its characters were in a short-lived Disney Channel show set in a middle school in Indianapolis. Good Morning, Miss Bliss was a precursor to the popular series from the 80s and 90s. One thing remained the same: Zack Morris is trash.
We wrap up our annual Back to School week by turning the tables, focusing not on a TV show about the students, but rather the educators themselves. Teachers Only had a short first season, but underwent a major overhaul of the cast (and even a new theme) for a slightly longer second season.
It's back to school week! We start this week talking about why some movies should not make the transition to TV shows. Ferris Bueller had very little in common with the movie, and the title character makes that known in the first 2 minutes of the pilot. But it did have Jennifer Aniston.
In 1997, CBS took the bold steps of putting together a 2-hour comedy block on Friday nights versus ABC's TGIF, and even took two of TGIF's stalwarts in the process. The two former TGIF shows were on its last legs. We're here to talk about the two original shows to the Block Party--Meego and The Gregory Hines Show.
UPN tried throwing almost anything on their schedule in the late 90s. Shasta McNasty is no exception. It was so bad that the title was cut in half to just Shasta during the show's run. Even cross-promotions with WWF Smackdown couldn't lure viewers. This was basically the most 1999 TV show that ever 1999'd.
In episode 61, we talked about the season when NBC owned and operated stations had primetime starting at 7:30. We talked about one of those 5 shows, We Got it Made, in episode 66. Another show from that experiment is this show's focus. Marblehead Manor follows the antics of a wealthy family and their staff at their palatial residence.
In anticipation of the upcoming Amazon Prime series, this episode takes a look at the "blink and you'll miss it" television version of one of the breakout movie hits of 1992. A League of Their Own had a handful of characters reprising their roles in one-off appearances and its TV fate may have been set in stone by a certain organization.
Norman Lear's 100th birthday celebration continues with possibly his most obscure series, airing for just 5 episodes in 1977. A Year at the Top followed the Faustian formula of selling one's soul to the devil for instant success. Audiences gave it a month at the bottom of the ratings.
