 This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. That wonderful TV year, 1991. From the Pop Culture Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. I've collected TV guide fall preview issues over the years and thought it would be fun to talk about which shows made it, which didn't, and which ones we actually watched. Now I have to give credit to Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor Podcast for this idea. Both the TV industry and TV guide stepped back a bit from the overstuffed previous season. Six fewer new shows, while TV guide went back to a single fall TV preview issue. They had four the previous year. So starting on Saturday night, The Turkelsons, NBC, and Oklahoma Family fights off debt after the husband leaves the family. Apparently it's a comedy. Connie Ray and William Shallert star. In the second season, the show was retooled and renamed almost home with the family moving to Seattle. The show also moved from film to videotape while Perry King and a young Brittany Murphy joined the cast. A total of 33 episodes aired. Nurses on NBC, a second generation spinoff with progenitors, the Golden Girls and Empty Nest. The action takes place in the same hospital where Dr. Harry Westin, Richard Mulligan, works. The show was designed as a vehicle for Stephanie Hodge, who played one of the nurses along with Arnisha Walker and Jeff Altman. David Rashi joined the cast in season two. Then Lonnie Anderson came in on the final season as the hospital administrator, at which point Hodge was gone and Anderson became the star. There were plenty of crossover episodes, of course. The Commiss, ABC. Michael Chiklis stars in the Stephen J. Cannell dramedy about a small New York town police commissioner. He's also a family man with wife Teresa Saldana and son Jack, Cack Erickson, Erickson. What a name. That's Cack Erick Erickson. Cack or cash? Oh, cash. It is cash. I think I got it wrong like three times in a row. So a blend of police drama and family issues. John Segan, later Melinda McGraw, then back to Segan, played his lieutenant. The show ran for five seasons. It was originally planned to air on CBS, but a disagreement with Cannell forced the network change. Two TV movies followed the series run. PSI Love You, CBS. This awkwardly named crime drama starred Greg Evigan as an undercover cop and Connie Selica as a con woman. She agreed to also work undercover to keep out of jail. The pair posed as a husband and wife working for Earl Holloman at his detective agency. But it's still a police operation? TV Guide noted that Selica can't pull off a Bronx accent. The show is set in Palm Springs and Sonny Bono, the actual mayor at the time, made appearances. This Glenn Larson production lasted all of 13 episodes. By the way, the awkward show name referred to the PI's phone number 5888 or PSI Love You. Moving on to Sunday, the adventures of Mark and Brian NBC, real-life local shock jocks Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps star in an early reality slash prank show. Well, it worked on radio, but not so much on TV. Despite having the NFL as a lead-in, the show sank and most of the episodes were burned off in the next summer. Eerie Indiana, that's one we recognize on NBC, a bizarre comedy drama from the makers of Unsolved Mysteries starring Marshall Teller as a 13-year-old investigator in a creepy Midwestern town. Justin Shankarow played his buddy. The pair kept running into weird people and events, like a woman who kept her twins stored in vacuumware every night to keep them young. The rest of the family and the town had no idea this was all going on. The show wound up first on the Disney Channel, then Fox's Saturday morning lineup, along with a rebooted series later. The original run was only 19 episodes. Man of the People, NBC. James Garner returns to TV in the show about a grifter that ends up in city council after the death of his ex-wife. He continues scamming while helping his new constituents. Kate Mulgrew played the mayor. This 30-minute sitcom lasted 11 episodes with two more unerred. Garner called the series short-lived and rightly so. Pacific Station on NBC is a Barney Miller pastiche starring Robert Guimet as a veteran cop assigned to a crazy precinct near Venice Beach. Richard Lippertini, Megan Challenger, Tellager, and Rob Liebman played the other cops with Joel Murray as the lead detective. It ran from September to October, then pushed back to December before ending a 10-episode run with three more unerred. Guimet would return to series TV almost a decade later for Sports Night. Rock on Fox. Charles S. Dutton stars as a Baltimore garbage man dealing with his family in what began as a traditional family sitcom. Ella Joyce played his wife with a younger brother, Rocky Carroll, and father, Carl Gordon. As all of the cast were primarily stage actors, the star wanted to move the show to be aired live. After a tryout the previous year, season two aired live each week. This updated show would begin with a monologue from one of the cast speaking directly to the audience. This experiment, the first scripted show since the 50s to go live an entire season, only resulted in a minor ratings bump. Apparently, the actors were so professional, three of them had just completed the stage run of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson that it didn't feel live to the audience, a.k.a. they didn't screw up. The show was critically acclaimed, but never did well in the ratings. I don't think I watched it. No. Herman's head on Fox was a surrealistic sitcom about a Greek chorus of personalities inside the mind of the lead, William Ragsdale, a fact checker for a magazine. He seemed normal on the outside, but there's a constant struggle in his brain. Angel, Molly Hagen, represents sensitivity. Animal, Cann Hudson Campbell, represents lust. Wimp, Rick Lawless, represents anxiety. Genius, Peter McKenzie, represents intellect. Jealousy, Bobcat Goldwaite, and God, Leslie Nielsen, make guest appearances. They all appear in what appears to be a large attic filled with stuff from Herman's memories. In the real world of the show, the Simpsons Hank Azaria and Yarlene Smith play his buddy and a research assistant, respectively. Jane Sibbot played another fact checker who would do anything to get ahead. The show never did well in the ratings, but it did run for three seasons with the lead character dying in a car accident in the final episode. Leif plans for a fourth episode for a season which came from a writer posting on an early BBS message forum involved switching to Sibbot's head with new personalities. That reminds me so much of the Disney movie Inside Out. I wonder if that's where they picked up a shadow of an idea for it. Maybe. On Monday, there were no changes in the schedule that year. Amazing. On Tuesday, we have All Fly Away on NBC, a period drama set in the U.S. south in the late 50s with the main theme being race relations. Regina Taylor starred as a black housekeeper for a district attorney played by Sam Waterston just before his long run-on-law in order. Jeremy London and Catherine Harold also starred. The series became more and more intertwined with the civil rights movement over time. The show won two Emmys and 23 nominations, but was gone in two seasons due to bad ratings. A TV movie wrapped up the storylines. It's often enlists of series canceled too soon. Creators Joshua Brandt and John Falsy had already created St. Elsewhere and would go on to Northern Exposure. Home improvement on ABC. This mega hit came from the give-a-stand-up-his-own-sitcom factory. Tim Allen plays Tim the toolman-tailor host of a cable TV show. He generally acts before he thinks, which gets him into trouble. He's also convinced he can fix anything which results in physical comedy. His wife Jill, Patricia Richardson, and kids played by Zachary Ty Bryan, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Terran Noah Smith all watch off to the side. His show within his show includes Richard Karn as Al his sidekick and Pamela Anderson later Debbie Dunning as the tooltime girl. Tim could always ask mostly unseen next-door neighbor Wilson, the voice of Earl Hindman, for family or work advice. The gimmick was that you saw the top of Wilson's head over the shared fence. The kids grew up and moved out over time. People got married, what you usually see in long-running sitcoms. The show ran for eight seasons in the top ten for all of them. It's been running in syndication ever since and can be seen on Hulu and Antenna TV. Homefront on ABC. Another period drama this time dealing really more of a soap opera with G.I.'s returning to Sweethearts who had found someone else while they were gone plus racial and union issues. Kyle Chandler, Mimi Kennedy, Tammy Lauren, Wendy Phillips and John Slattery were just part of the large cast. The show would run for two seasons and won a number of awards for Emmys, a WGA, and a People's Choice. Wednesday we had the Royal Family on CBS. Red Fox returns to TV as a retired mailman ready to enjoy life with his wife played by Della Reese. In what became a TV trope, their divorced daughter played by Mary Ann Ada, along with kids, Silver Gregory, Lauren State, and future Glee star Naya Rivera decide to move back home. Whackiness ensues. Well, not so wacky. Just a month into the series, Fox had a massive heart attack during a rehearsal. Ironic, since his best known role of Fred Sanford faked them a lot. And he died later at the hospital. The death was written into the show, and 227's Jack A. was added to the cast as Reese's half-sister, later changed to her adult daughter. After a promising start in high ratings, the show was gone in 13 episodes with two more unaired. Teach on CBS. Phil Lewis stars as a token black teacher at a boys' boarding school. Colonel Achilles Alicio, who comes up with these names, Joshua Hoffman, Ken Lawrence Johnston, and Jason Christopher played the students, along with a yuppie played by Jack Nosworthy. 13 episodes were produced, but only four ever aired. Sibs on ABC, a sitcom about sisterhood, not to be confused with sisters, with Marcia Mason, Margaret Collin, and Jamie Gertz. Alex Rocco played Mason's husband with the Simpsons' Dan Castellanetta as her ex-boss. Despite the talent involved in front of and behind the camera, James L. Brooks was the exec. The show never caught on. It ran eight episodes of that fall, then three more the next spring, with 12 more never aired. Despite this, there was an attempt to revamp it as related by birth, minus Mason and Rocco. They just ceased to exist while the other characters moved on. The pilot didn't make it to series. Good and Evil on ABC. Susan Harris brought us the story of two more sisters. In this case, Terry Gar and Margaret Witton. Gar's character was the cold CEO of the family's cosmetic empire, while Witton played a sensitive scientist involved with stopping viruses. Their mother, Mary and cell days, still ran the empire, though. Mark Blankfield, Lane Smith, Seth Green and Brooke Theiss were part of this large cast for a corporate soap parody. Blankfield's character was blind, and his physical antics got the network in hot water with the National Federation of the Blind. It was a moot point. Only six episodes aired, with five more were actually produced but never seen. On Thursday, pros and cons on ABC with James Earl Jones is character from Gabriel's Fire Returning. This time in a more lighthearted series, his wrongfully sentenced PI moves to LA, teaming up with another PI, played by Richard Krenna. Bowen's character instantly changed from being dour to almost manically happy, which had to throw viewers. He also married his love interest from the other series played by Madge Sinclair. At one point this show's title was even more of a pun. It was going to be called Bird & Cat. Jones played Gabriel Bird and Krenna's character was going to have the name Cat. 12 episodes and out. Drexel's class on Fox, yet another attempt to make Dabney Coleman who always played sour, unsympathetic roles into a big star. Not sure why the networks ever thought this would fly. He plays a guy with massive tax debt, forcing him to take a job as a teacher to fifth graders. Jason Biggs, Heidi Ziegler, Damian Cagnolotti and Matthew Lawrence played the students while A.J. Langer and Brittany Murphy, there she is again, played Drexel's teenage daughters. Edie McClurg played the principal. The show pivoted partway into more of a standard family sitcom with the school left mostly behind, but it only ran for 15 episodes. FBI The Untold Tales on ABC. Pernell Roberts hosts this early reality series Recreating FBI Cases, that's about it. The show ran for a total of 13 episodes over two seasons. Sounds like filler for ABC. Moving on to Friday. Princesses. CBS. Julie Hagerty, pre-nanny Fran Drescher and former model Twiggy played New York roommates all trying to find their way in life. Twiggy played role-former princess, hence the show's name. Matt about Hughes, Leila Kenzie played Hagerty's sister. Now there was a great deal of friction among the actresses with Hagerty walking off after four episodes. Drescher contacted directly the head of CBS programming to recommend a recast, but he acts the show instead. Eight episodes were shot, but only five aired. Now, this is, I thought this was interesting. TV Guide said that Drescher's gum-chewing Brooklyn sticker routine was wildly overplayed. Two years later, a version of that same character would become CBS's Queen of Comedy, like into Lucy, doing the same bit. Step-by-step on ABC. It's a mainstay of ABC's TGIF from the Miller Boy at sitcom factory. Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Summers all is forgiven, love ABC. Co-star is a divorcee and a widow, each with three kids. Why do I suddenly see a set of character boxes in my mind? Brandon Kahl, Christine Lackin, Josh Byrne, and Stacey Keenan, just off my two dads, Angela Watson, and Christopher Castile play the kids. The parents had their own child together in the fourth season, standard operating procedure in family sitcoms, with Emily May Young playing her once she's shot from birth to five years old in two seasons. The medical term is Soros, soap opera rapid aging syndrome. Jason Marsden played a boyfriend of perfect strangers, Bronson Pinjo arrived as a business partner for Summers character. In the final season of Seven, the show moved from ABC to CBS, who is trying to build their own TGIF clone. Brooklyn Bridge on CBS. Yet another period piece, this was the year of them, a gentle comedy set in Brooklyn in 1956. The show centers on Alan, Danny Gerard, a 14-year-old in a Jewish family. Louis York and Amy Aquino are parents, with Happy Days Marion Ross as matriarch Sophie. They're just part of a large cast of relatives and neighbors. The show was well received by critics, winning a Golden Globe, a PGA, and four viewers for quality television awards, along with 13 Emmy nominations. The series ran for two seasons. The Carol Burnett Show in NBC. She's back for another shot at Variety Show Glory just on another network. It's literally the same show, except with new supporting players. Richard Kind is the only one I recognize. She even brought her Good Luck Charm Jim neighbors in for the premiere. Despite running all of two episodes per IMDb, weeks apart, so really more like specials in a series, it was nominated for three Emmys. The ultimate challenge on Fox. Michael Adamley and Heather Thomas host this early reality show about daredevils and stunt performers that only lasted a few weeks. Flesh and Blood on NBC, a driven D.A. Lisa Dar wants to find her birth family in this sitcom. In Walk's Redneck Arlo, David Keith who insists he's her brother, he's actually a con man, dragging his three kids in to live with her. Perry Gilpin, Pre-Phraser, plays her secretary. 12 episodes, four of which never aired. Pellis Gard on CBS, a Steven J. Cannell crime drama starring D.W. Moffat and Marcy Walker. He's a reformed jewel thief. She's a PR chief for a huge hotel chain. They go to a different locale each week and stop a disaster at one of their hotels using questionable methods. Oh, and he's also secretly the son of the Hotel Empire's owner. Including the two-hour pilot, three total episodes aired with five more left for the housekeeper. Reasonable doubts on NBC, a pre-NCIS Mark Harmon and a post-children of Lesser God Marley Matlin co-star as a police detective and assistant D.A. He's all about bust the perps while he's into the rights of the accused. There's a lot of arguing going on. The show ran for two seasons with Matlin moving on to picket fences and Harmon to Charlie Grace. So, let's recap. In 1991 out of 28 new series, there were 11 hits to find us lasting more than one season. The Torkelsons, nurses, the commission, rock, Herman's head I'll fly away, home improvement, home front, step by step Brooklyn Bridge and reasonable doubts. With 17 misses for a phenomenal 39% success rate, the previous year was only 26%. I don't think I watched much TV in 1991. None of these stick out as things that I particularly watched a lot or loved. What about you? I was probably watching early MST at that point. There you go. And he's still watching early MST at this point. So, you can 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 Mindy And I'm Mark. Thanks for watching.