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TDAS --- so ahead of its time!
TDAS --- so ahead of its time!
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Back then, it was the only place you could see the movies -- if you hadn't caught them in the theatre.
GOMER PYLE's ratings always mystified me. Even as a child, it was too irritating to sit through (and still is). Of course, at the time, I missed the erotic chemistry between Gomer & His Sergeant.
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Look how confusing it was for them to report two weeks of ratings in one listing.
It was also the only place you could see older movies considered "classics," since theaters focused almost exclusively on new releases and there was no "media" market like tapes or DVDs. The networks were mostly broadcasting "recent" films (several years after their theater debut) but would occasionally show an older, major classic like when CBS would show Gone With the Wind every year or so (split up over two nights). ABC would air The Ten Commandments on Easter. Can't recall who (CBS?) would air The Wizard of Oz. I saw The Towering Inferno on TV rather than in a theater, and I'd love to see it on a big screen someday.
Obviously the real treasure trove of old movies was in syndication and aired late at night on all the channels in various formats, but they were never measured for ratings.
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I saw that!
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It was always so weird how huge THE COSBY SHOW's rating were -- becoming the Number 1 show for five years --- its seasonal numbers were as high as DALLAS' were at its peak.
I lost interest in COSBY after one season. But its popularity, what the show was and what it wasn't, fit nicely into that mid-'80s zeitgeist.
Today, it's just another one of those '80s entities that's hard to sit through.
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Ah, Rhoda's wedding.
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I saw RHODA at #1 and was immediately baffled, like, "Geez. I didn't expect her show to be that popular!" But then I remembered her wedding episode that shot the ratings through the roof.
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RHODA was higher rated in its first two seasons than its parent series, but that didn't last too long -- RHODA just had no central identity.
The above listing for October 1966 contains the very first airing of THE GREAT PUMPKIN at Number One (the previous December 1965, A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS was Number 2).
I was surprised GUNSMOKE was still in the weekly Top 10/15 at this point (the infamous Bette Davis episode aired 1 October 1966, prior to this list); because GUNSMOKE dropped to 35th place by the spring of 1967 and was cancelled (again, but that didn't last long -- again). They moved the western from Saturdays to Monday nights by fall of 1967, and it rebounded into the Top 10 again. (35th place was high enough to keep most series on the air, but I guess the CBS board figured that GUNSMOKE, Number One for years and almost always in the Top 10, must be slipping after a dozen years on the air; William Paley reversed the board's decision, but cancelled GILLIGAN'S ISLAND to make way for GUNSMOKE on Mondays).
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I'm always a little baffled that MARY TYLER MOORE wasn't higher-rated than it was. And for one season, both RHODA and PHYLLIS bested it in the ratings.
As much as I like GUNSMOKE and knowing it lasted two solid decades on primetime TV, I wish GILLIGAN'S ISLAND had stuck around for just one more year. Maybe then we could've gotten a farewell episode with Tina Louise still hanging around as Ginger.
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I think the highest seasonal rating MARY got was 7th place for its third (1972-73) year. RHODA and PHYLLIS got a head start by being spin-offs.
the only time MARY ranked Number 1 for the week was its final episode in 1977.
I kind of agree with that. GILLIGAN was a Top 10 show and, formulaic as it was, it seemed to warrant another year.
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Okay, I need one of the numerous Dallas experts we keep on retainer here to explain what was going on during that Nov. 3-9 week. I assume this was the Big Reveal of Who Shot What's-his-name, but four episodes in one week?