Blackout, hosted by Bob Goen, premieres on CBS. The game show runs for only thirteen weeks, after which The $25,000 Pyramid, the show it replaced, returns to the air on April 4 while CBS develops a revival of Family Feud.
January 8
The ABC sitcom I Married Dora had low ratings and was canceled halfway into its only season. The final episode ended with a scene, known as "breaking the fourth wall," that ranked number 49 on TV Land's list of The 100 Most Unexpected TV Moments. The cameras pulled back to show the entire stage as the cast and crew waved goodbye and performed curtain calls.
January 16
Due to comments he made about breeding practices during slavery leading to blacks becoming superior athletes, CBS fires Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, who had been a regular on NFL Today since 1976.
January 22
KYMA in Yuma, Arizona signs-on the air, returning ABC programming to the Yuma market for the first time since KECY-TV dropped its affiliation to rejoin CBS in 1985.
UK animated television series for children Count Duckula (a spinoff of Danger Mouse) begins on Nickelodeon prior to airing in its homeland which will start on September 6 of the same year.
The writers of The Facts of Life create a controversial storyline in which Natalie (Mindy Cohn) becomes the first of the girls to lose her virginity. Lisa Whelchel (Blair) refused this particular storyline that would have made her character, not Natalie, the first among the four young women in the show to lose her virginity. Having become a Christian when she was 10, Whelchel refused because of her religious convictions. Whelchel appeared in every episode but asked to be written out of "The First Time".[1] The episode ran a parental advisory before starting and placed 22nd in the ratings for the week.[2]
February 13
ABC broadcasts the Opening Ceremonies for the Winter Olympic Games from Calgary. This is ABC's tenth and final Olympic Games that they would broadcast to date.
February 21
TelevangelistJimmy Swaggart, involved with a sex scandal, admits to being with prostitutes and temporarily ends his television ministry.
February 22
The Nickelodeon game show Double Dare begins its third season, airing simultaneously on Nickelodeon and Fox affiliates. Besides the presence of a new network, another big change was the stage left team now wearing blue (the stage right team would continue to wear red) so viewers and crew members could tell the teams apart more easily. Previously, both teams wore red.
In Jacksonville, Florida, NBC affiliate WJKS (now CW affiliate WCWJ) and ABC affiliate WTLV swap affiliations, reversing a swap that took place in 1980. NBC will later dub this swap one of its most successful affiliation switches ever.
April 4
James Brown appears on CNN after allegedly assaulting his wife with a lead pipe and shooting at her car. During the interview with Sonya Friedman, Brown shouted song titles of his own songs instead of answering questions.
Fox affiliate WVAH-TV moves to channel 11, one of the last remaining channel allocations in the U.S., from UHF channel 23.[3]
April 13
Geraldo Rivera's live special Murder: Live from Death Row is broadcast in syndication; a highlight is Rivera's pre-taped interview with Charles Manson.
The series finale of The Facts of Life airs on NBC. In the two-part episode, Blair buys Eastland to prevent its closing. Blair finds that the school is in such dire financial straits that she is forced to make the school co-ed. Blair then essentially adopts the Mrs. Garrett role as she presides over the school and is forced to deal with the trouble-making students in a plot line that is highly reminiscent of the season two premiere. The new Eastland students included Seth Green, Mayim Bialik, future Oscar-nominee Juliette Lewis, and Meredith Scott Lynn.
May 13
In the season finale of the CBS drama Dallas, character J.R. Ewing pushes over the railing of his high-rise office building the character Nicholas Pierce, and Sue Ellen is so enraged that she fires three shots at Ewing.
The Late Show on Fox hosts a reunion of the entire cast of Gilligan's Island. This would prove to be the last time that all of the regular cast members appeared together as Jim Backus, who was suffering from Parkinson's disease at the time, died the following year.
The Universal Pictures Debut Network broadcasts a special edition of the 1984 film Dune[4] as a two-night event, with additional footage not included in the film's original release.[5] This version totalled at 186 minutes, including a "What happened last night" recap and second credit roll. Director David Lynch disavowed this version and had his name removed from the credits, Alan Smithee being credited instead.
Three years after its cancellation by ABC, CBS resurrects Family Feud for its daytime lineup, featuring new host Ray Combs. A syndicated nighttime version would premiere later in the autumn.
July 11
The day before the Major League Baseball All-Star Game from Cincinnati, TBS televised the annual All-Star Gala[7] from the Cincinnati Zoo. Larry King hosted the broadcast with Craig Sager and Pete Van Wieren handling interviews. The broadcast's big draw would've been the Home Run Derby, which TBS intended on taping during the afternoon, and later airing it in prime time during the Gala coverage. The Gala coverage also had some canned features such as highlights from previous All-Star Games, a segment on Cincinnati's baseball history, a video recap of the season's first half and, a slow-motion highlight montage set to "This Is the Time" by Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung. Unfortunately, the derby and a skills competition were canceled due to rain. As a result, TBS scrambled to try to fill nearly an hour of now-open airtime. For example, the Gatlin Brothers, the event's musical guests, who had already played a full concert, were asked to come back out and play some more.
The word "Family" is incorporated into the CBN Cable Network's name to better reflect its programming format, rebranding as The CBN Family Channel; shortly after the new name was adopted, however, references to CBN within its name began to be excised in on-air continuity announcements and print promotions for its programs (with the exception of the initialized reference to its parent ministry featured within its logo), referring to it as simply "The Family Channel".
Fox affiliate WWPC-TV in Altoona, Pennsylvania (a satellite of WWCP-TV in Johnstown) breaks from its simulcast with WWCP-TV to become an ABC affiliate, returning ABC to Altoona/State College (and giving Johnstown its first full-time ABC affiliate) after Altoona/State College's previous ABC affiliate WOPC-TV went dark in 1982.
Dick Clark hosts his final episode of the game show Pyramid, ending his 15-year run as host of the program. Clark would make guest appearances on both the 1991 revival hosted by John Davidson and the 2002 revival hosted by Donny Osmond.
The Bonus Round in Wheel of Fortune now adopts a Three-and-a-vowel format, which was used till this day, with letters "R", "S", "T", "L", "N" and "E" provided immediately, and the time limit was reduced from 15 seconds to 10.
As part of a television special hosted by Patrick Stewart, called The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next, the first pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, called "The Cage" is broadcast in its entirety for the first time. In some markets, the airing of this special was delayed until October 15, 1988. Prior to this, footage of "The Cage" was incorporated into the Season 1 two-parter episode "The Menagerie".
ABC under the guidance of new executive producer Geoffrey Mason,[10] debuts fatter and wider graphics that gave off a cleaner, sharper look complete with a black border for their Major League Baseballcoverage. ABC also debuts a new energetic, symphonic-pop styled musical theme,[11][12] composed by Kurt Bestor,[13] which would become an all-compassing theme of sorts for ABC Sports during this time period.
A young Countess Vaughn (winner of Star Search) joins the cast of the NBC comedy 227 as Alexandria DeWitt, a young 11-year-old talented college student, whom the Jenkins' have as a houseguest for a year.
The last of Harding Lemay's "comeback" episodes are broadcast on the NBC soap opera Another World. In the final minutes of the episode, Australian actress Carmen Duncan assumed the role of the legendary bitch Iris Cory Wheeler, after the role had been vacated for many years by Beverlee McKinsey.
Australian-made 1986 cartoon television movie of King Solomon's Mines by Warwick Gilbert debuts on American television after multiple weeks of promotion and is one of the most-watched children's television shows of the year.[17]
Australian-made 1986 cartoon television movie of King Solomon's Mines by Warwick Gilbert airs for a second time and is the most watched program for children for the second Saturday in a row.[18]
CBS broadcasts Inside the Sexes, a documentary produced by The Body Human'sAlfred R. Kelman that features explicit content about human sexuality (including detailed visuals inside human reproductive organs), which prompts several CBS affiliates to broadcast the program with a parental warning at the beginning of the program, at a later time of the day. Some affiliates canceled their broadcast of the program.
CBS pays Major League Baseball approximately US$1.8 billion[19] for exclusive over-the-air television rights for over four years (beginning in 1990). CBS paid about $265 million each year[20] for the World Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the Saturday Game of the Week. CBS replaces ABC (which had broadcast Monday and later Thursday night baseball games from 1976 to 1989) and NBC (which had broadcast Major League Baseball in some shape or form since 1947 and the Game of the Week exclusively since 1966) as the national broadcast network television home of Major League Baseball.[21] It was one of the largest agreements[22] (to date) between the sport of baseball and the business of broadcasting. The cost of the deal between CBS and Major League Baseball was about 25% more[23] than in the previous television contract with ABC and NBC.[24] The deal with CBS was also intended to pay each team (26 in 1990 and then, 28 by 1993) $10 million a year.
December 18
A Very Brady Christmas airs on CBS and with a 25.1 rating and a 39 share, becomes the second highest rated television film of the year. Its success would soon lead to the creation of a new Brady Bunch series called The Bradys, which only lasts for six episodes.
A list of programs (current or canceled) that have accumulated enough episodes (between 65 and 100) or seasons (3 or more) to be eligible for off-network syndication and/or basic cable runs.
