 This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. That wonderful TV year, 1989. From the Bob Culture Bunker, I'm Middy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife 3 Comics on iTunes, or on our website, SFPodcastNetwork.com. I've collected TV guide follow preview issues over the years, and I thought it would be fun to talk about which shows made it, which didn't, and which ones we actually watched. Now, I do have to give credit to Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor Podcast for this idea. As the concept of fall TV began to be diluted, networks started chomping at the bit to get out there first, hence TV guide's early starters. Cops on Fox. A basic concept, follow around cops and videotape it. Despite changing attitudes about policemen and legal ramifications, this simple show is still on the air, with 1,083 episodes tallied so far. It ran on Fox until 2013, moved to Spike through 2017, before that was rebranded to the Paramount Network. There is also Cops 2.0, which included live web chats, which aired from 2007 to 2009 on G4, yet another version of Spike Paramount. Totally hidden video on Fox. One of many knockoffs of a candid camera, Alan Funt even sued them. At one point, it was determined that actors were brought in to react to some of the gags. The show ran for three seasons. Open House on Fox. Here's an example of a spin out, a series that was generated from the ashes of a canceled show. Fox had a sitcom called Duet, which starred Mary Paige Keller and Matthew Lawrence. The show was never a hit, but a side character played by Alison La Placa was so well liked that the new show was centered around her, with Keller downgraded to co-star status and Lawrence dropped entirely. Chris Lemon played La Placa's husband in both series, but they broke up during the new show's single season run. La Placa moved from a high-pay movie studio job to working at a high-end real estate firm with new boss, Philip Charles McKenzie, who were actually dating at the time and eventually were married. A very young Ellen DeGeneres played a co-worker in her first TV role. Anything but love on ABC. The question of can a man and a woman have a platonic friendship had just been answered in the film when Harry met Sally, but they gave it another try in this quasi-romcom. Richard Lewis and Jamie Lee Curtis co-star as a columnist and researcher respectively. Via TV logic, they wind up working at the same magazine. You see, magazines were slabs of paper like non-interactive blogs. Bruce Kirby played Curtis's father, Holly Fulger, per friend. I really like that show. As the show went on, the two leads went through various relationships and they eventually almost got together. The show moved around from time slot to time slot with cast adjustments made throughout, eventually reaching four seasons. Some as short as six episodes, rare for the time. Quantum Leap on NBC, a time travel show with a difference. Sam, Scott Bakula, would jump into someone else's body in the past. He spent five years going from body to body, historical event to historical event, writing wrongs all with the hope that the next jump would be the leap home. He's aided by an artificial intelligence in the form of a holographic Dean Stockwell, aka Al, which of course only he can see. The show became an anthology series with primarily a new cast each episode. It was nominated for 32 Emmys winning six technical enemies. The show never got a final episode that wrapped things up. Two possible endings were tacked on. Creator Donald P. Bilisario would go on to Jag and NCIS. It's a show that is often mentioned for a possible reboot. Primetime Live on ABC, one of many attempts to replicate the success of 60 Minutes. This one did very well running in various incarnations until 2012. It was originally hosted by the team of Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer with others passing through over the years. Now let's move on to the actual fall shows. We're not there yet? No. Saturday, Living Dolls on ABC, a spin-off of Who's the Boss, introduced in a backdoor pilot and hence having little to do with the main show. Leah Remini starred as an aspiring model working at an agency run by the Waltons, Michael Lernit. It also starred a young Hailey Berry in her first acting job. The show got terrible reviews and was gone in 12 episodes. Moving to Sunday and life goes on ABC. A family drama led by Corky, a young man with Down syndrome, actor Chris Burke actually had the condition. A young Kelly Martin played his younger sister. The show attempted to show the real life of a family dealing with a problem child lasting four seasons, although never doing very well in the ratings, winning two Emmys during its run. Booker on Fox, a spin-off from one of Fox's first hits, 21 Jump Street starring Richard Greiko. He was a rebel cop, but now he's an investigator for a generic Japanese company. Can he still work for the little guy? Stephen J. Cannell couldn't make it work and it lasted only one season. Free Spirit, ABC. When a 10-year-old boy of a divorced dad makes a wish to get a new mom, he gets Kareen Bauer a nanny slash witch, of course. The 14 episode run may be remembered for one of the other kids, played by Buffy and how I met your mother's star, Alison Hannigan, in her first regular TV role. I don't remember that at all. I'd like to go back and watch that. Sister Kate on NBC is another fish-out-of-water tale as biblical archaeologist Nun. I never saw that as a major in college. Stephanie Beacham is dropped into a Chicago orphanage. One of the orphans is a young Jason Priestley and the theme was performed by Amy Grant. Despite all this, major competition from America's Funniest Home Videos and Murder She Wrote ensured the series never had a prayer and was gone in a season. The Home Room on ABC, an entry from the era of give any stand-up-a-zone show, Daryl Sivad stars as an ad man who quits and becomes an inner-city school teacher. That works well. Penny Johnson played as a long-suffering wife. The show had 13 episodes, three of which never aired. Sivad went on to the nick of truth while Johnson is currently on the Orville. On Mondays, we had Major Dad on CBS. Simon and Simon's Gerald McRainey is a Marine training commander. Reed is a liberal journalist. Can they get along? Well, they did for four seasons. Action switches between the camp and home with McRainey's character trying to run a household with three girls in semper-five tradition. After the first season, he is reassigned as a staff secretary at what is essentially Quantico. The show hit number 21 and number nine in the ratings of its middle seasons. The People Next Door, CBS. When you hear Wes Craven, you automatically think sitcom, right? Well, he took Jeffrey Jones from Beetlejuice and made him a far-side-esque cartoonist who could make his imagination come to life. His wife was played by SNL's Mary Gross, whose sister was played by St. Elsewhere's Christina Pickles, along with three kids. Sounds like a mess, right? Well, ten episodes were produced, five of which never aired. Alien Nation on Fox. America's fourth network, at least at the time, lucked into their own sci-fi franchise after their film division had a minor hit with this police-action immigration parable. In a World where an alien race are trying to peacefully coexist with humans on modern-day Earth. Matthew Sykes, James Cahn in the film, Gary Graham in the series, is a cop partnered with Sam Francisco, Mandy Patinkin in the film, Eric Peerpoint in the series, one of the newcomers. It was produced as a series of morality plays about racism as the aliens were under various types of discrimination. The show was a success for Fox, but the network was losing so much money overall that they canceled all dramas the next year. A few years later, a series of TV movies were produced. The famous Teddy Z on CBS, John Cryer, who had been mostly doing films to that point, played a very young talent agent in this sitcom. He moved from the mailroom to the top. After punching out a big client, he was driving around the city, who, using TV logic, picked him as his agent for standing up to him. This annoys his old agent, played by Alex Rocco, who won an Emmy for the role. The show was a critical hit, but the ratings were low, and it was gone in less than a season. On Tuesdays, Rescue 911 from CBS, one of a series of early reality shows involving first responders, C-Cops, William Shatner hosts, narrating reenactments of nail-biting emergencies. The show was a hit, it helped that it caused very little to make, running for seven seasons and hitting the top 20 in the middle of its run. The show was used by CBS to plug up various holes in their schedule over the years, and it was later chopped up into a syndication package that ran for years. Wolf on CBS. After narcotics officer Jack Scalia is framed and drummed out of the force, he puts out a PI shingle in this action series. His other job is running a fishing boat that he lives on with his dad. Sounds similar to the Rockford Files. The show lasted all of 12 episodes. Chicken soup on ABC. If you think this is based on the long-running inspirational book series, you would be wrong. Borsch Belt comedian Jackie Mason stars as a salesman and aspiring author who often talks to God and us about his troubles. He's in a relationship with neighbor Lynn Redgrave, who's a Catholic. Oy vey! The show was given the catbird seat following Roseanne, but it lost a lot of that lead-in. Plus Mason made some real-world nasty comments during the New York mayoral election that year which resulted in a total of 12 episodes, four of which never aired. Island Sun on CBS. Richard Chamberlain, who became a star playing Dr. Kildare, was back practicing medicine in this series set in Hawaii. He has to deal with his adopted parents and an 18-year-old son, as well as various doctors and patients in this drama that lasted one season. Moving to Wednesday, and peaceable kingdom CBS, take two likeable TV actors, Mionic Woman Lindsay Wagner and Luke Duke Tom Wopat, pair them with cute animals at a zoo, and you've got a hit, right? Not so much. Wagner's character is a widow with three kids who's just been hired as a zoo director in this drama that lasted all of seven episodes. Competition like Unsolved Mysteries and Growing Pains didn't help. I bought a zoo! Yeah, yeah, basically. Doogie Houser, MD on ABC. Stephen Botko and David E. Kelly, Hill Street Blues and LA Law, his drama about a young prodigy, Neil Patrick Harris, who becomes a physician at age 14. The show deals with the standard medical show stuff, but also how a genius deals with growing up and working with peers far older than him. Doogie lives at home with parents James B. Siking and Belinda Montgomery. Max Casella plays his buddy, a standard teen who usually enters the home through Doogie's bedroom window. Each episode ended with Doogie adding a diary entry on his computer about what he learned that week. It was the top 30 for the first half of a four-season run. Producers had planned for Doogie to lose interest in medicine and become a writer, but the network canceled the show before they got there. The Nut House on NBC. Mel Brooks and Ellen Spencer from Sledgehammer co-created this farce about a once-great hotel using two of his film troupe, Harvey Corman and Clarice Leachman as its leads. He's the manager, she's the housekeeper. Brian McNamara plays the grandson of the owner, played by Leachman, who has to step in and run the place dealing with crazy visitors and lots of sight gags. It lasted all of five episodes. Five more aired outside the U.S. Then I'm moving to Thursday and The Young Writers on ABC. The network saw the success of the film Young Guns and said, well, we can do that, but we don't want to pay for that name. Stephen Baldwin and Josh Brolin star along with other model slash actors as a team of Pony Express writers. Melissa Leo played the caretaker of the local station. Like most westerns, a gaggle of young actors pass through as guest stars. The show was never a hit, but got a loyal audience large enough to keep it on the air for three seasons. Top of the Hill on CBS. Yet another political drama? This one starring former greatest American hero William Cat as a young congressman who takes over from his father who steps out due to health issues. His lack of political experience both hurts and helps him throughout the ten episodes that aired in this Stephen J. Cannell flop. Airing against Cheers didn't help. And then on Friday, Snoop's CBS. The real-life married couple from Frank's Place, Tim and Daphne Maxwell-Reed, return as a criminologist and a protocol aide at the State Department. They keep finding themselves dealing with intrigue a la the thin man in this dramedy. The show lasted all of 13 episodes. And you may recognize this Baywatch on NBC. In the worst business decision since New Coke, the peacock canceled this frothy series about hot lifeguards after one season, after which it became the most watched TV show in the world via syndication, running for a decade and generating spin-offs and reboots including a 13-part porn parody. Of course, the show stars ex-nightwriter David Hasselhoff and a team of models saving folks on the beach and having soapy adventures. Another factor for the initial cancellation was the studio involved which went out of business. Hasselhoff and the show's creators financed it themselves for syndication, making them all very rich. Family Matters on ABC was part of the network's TGIF lineup and the show began as a Cosby clone with a two-career African-American couple, Reginald Veljonsen and Jo-Marie Payton, with three kids in the suburbs. It was also a spin-off from Perfect Strangers, another TGIF alum. Who you won't find in the initial episodes is Steven Steve Quincy Burkle, Jaleel White, the wacky neighborhood kid who quickly became the show's star, similar to Jimmy J.J. Dinomite Walker. Burkle was a geek who seemed to gain incredible abilities over the show's run, turning into Suave Stefan and female cousin Myrtle and building an Urkel bot. After eight seasons, the show's ratings fell to the point that CBS snapped up the series for a final ninth season, competing against TGIF and losing badly. Hardball, NBC, not to be confused with the later MSNBC commentary show, this was a police drama with an older cop, John Ashton, forced to cop partner with a young rogue cop, Richard Tyson. Brandon Tartikoff, NBC president at the time, saw this as inspired by legal lethal weapon. It lasted a season. Mencuso, FBI, on NBC. Robert Logea stars as a hardened veteran of the FBI, who has, as a press release put it, a passionate love affair with the United States Constitution. Yee! The character was introduced in an earlier miniseries called Favorite Son, starring Harry Hamlin. I guess the audience tuned in for Hamlin and not Logea as the show only lasted a season. Logea did get an Emmy nom for his performance. So let's recap. In 1989, including the early starters, out of 30 new series, there were 13 hits. Cops, totally hidden video, Anything But Love, Quantum Leap, Primetime Live, Life Goes On, Major Dad, Alien Nation, Rescue 911, Doogie Howitzer MD, Young Riders, Baywatch and Family Matters, and Seventeen Misses, a fairly decent percentage. Yes, that was a good year for television. You might want to check out the 1989 television, or you might want to check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. From the Pop Culture Bunker, I'm Nadine. At our mark, thanks for watching.