The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

Our SNL 50th birthday celebration wraps up with a contender to the throne which was a direct rip-off of SNL; the head of ABC admitted as much!  Fridays had its moments, but it sorely missed making recurring characters who would be remembered nowadays.  It also had thrilling guest hosts like Henny Youngman!  Grab a bite to eat, as this is one of our longest shows to date.

In Fall 1975, two different shows named Saturday Night Live premiered--the one we know, albeit without the Live moniker, and this show, a variety/talk show hosted by arguably ABC's biggest personality (and definitely ABC's biggest mouth) at the time.  Despite its deserving role as one of the worst shows in television history, very little footage of this series exists...which may be a good thing.

The 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live's premiere is happening next week, on October 11th. As the 51st season of SNL starts tomorrow night, we decided to look at another disastrous SNL season, having covered Season 6 (episode 97) and Season 11 (episode 265) previously.  SNL was at a time of weakness, having lost key contributors in the previous year.  The show lost even more contributors in S20.  To add insult to injury, there would be a new kid on the block on another network.

Last year, Greg put this show up in the annual Viewer's Choice vote.  It did not win.  As always, we cover the shows that didn't win the vote in the following year.  After seeing this, Greg regretted ever picking this.  We all make mistakes, just like ABC did in 2012 after picking up this show which was like Bosom Buddies, but that's where the comparisons end.  The complete series aired, but not domestically, for some reason.  Suffer along with us, won't you?

In episode 34, we first talked about the Jason Bateman classic sitcom, It's Your Move, with very little video of the show at that time.  Fast forward five and a half years where some intrepid individual(s) uploaded all the episodes.  We felt it was time to give this show a proper revisiting.

CBS had a slew of hits in the early 70s, including a wartime comedy called M*A*S*H.  CBS went to the wartime well again in 1973 with this comedy about a battalion of primarily African-American soldiers in France during World War II.  As bad as the ratings were, that may not have been what got the show cancelled so quickly.  It's not good when your lead and a supporting cast member were arrested during the show's brief run.

The title of this series unintentionally goes deeper than the premise of the show.  It's not easy to keep the kids together after a divorce.  It wasn't necessarily easy to replace two actors who starred in this show's pilot, one of whom passed away to tragic circumstances.  It also wasn't easy for this show going up against two relatively new shows on TV, two favorites from the 1980s.  Certainly, it wasn't easy for one of the show's stars to balance this show with another gig he had at the time.

Over the last 30 plus years, MTV has had some decent cartoons, most notably Beavis and Butthead and Daria.  3-South isn't on that list, but it holds a place in the heart of at least one of us.  Goofy and stupid but with some notable contemporary voice talents, this show might be best known as one of the gigs Brian Dunkleman took after the first season of American Idol.

In prior episodes, we have talked about the first two iterations of The Joe Schmo Show.  While it is an often funny and unpredictable format, one can't go to the well with that format too often, due to the familiarity of the personnel and the wacky (and suspicious) scenarios which unfold.  After a hiatus of over a decade, the format returned with the same host, the same crazy situations, actors trying to sell their characters, and Lorenzo Lamas?  Wearing next to nothing?!

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, there was a crew of space garbage pickers before previous installment Salvage 1.  (See episode 399.)  NBC aired the pilot episode with little fanfare and little success.  However, something happened within two weeks of the pilot airing which gave NBC a reason to turn this pilot into a full-fledged series, albeit for just a smattering of episodes.