Shit from the 90s #6: TGIF!

In 1988, ABC executives decided to revamp their Friday night prime-time schedule. Rather than use Friday night as the customary dumping ground for low-rated shows the network needed to burn through in order to fulfill their obligations, they tried something zany. They thought, “You know who’s watching TV on Friday nights? Families with young children who have nothing else to do!”

It was a good idea. No one with a social life watches TV on a Friday night, but families have no choice. The kids are too young to leave home alone. Parents are too lazy and too tired after a workday or watching the kids all day. Most parents have long had their adventurous and free-wheeling spirits broken by those same children years before. Millions of mothers and fathers saw the ads, turned to their spouses, and said with resignation, “You know what? Instead of taking the kids to the Ground Round, let’s order a pizza and watch Family Matters instead.”

The idea was simple enough, but ABC needed both content and a catchy name. The catchy name they stole from early 70s Akron DJ Jerry Healy, who initially would say “Thank God It’s Friday” during his rush hour broadcasts (courtesy Wikipedia). ABC, fearing reprisals from atheists, I suppose, changed the term to “Thank Goodness It’s Friday” for their block of programming. This, of course, led to innumerable dipshits using the phrase non-ironically throughout the 90s and even into today. It also gave name to a low-rent restaurant chain, T.G.I. Friday’s, now found on every street corner in America.

The content was easy, too. Families are the target audience, right? So why not make every show on TGIF chock full of bland, inoffensive, unfunny comedy that the entire family can halfheartedly pretend to enjoy? Most shows on TGIF were about families, and each tried to strike a balance between the characters and their wacky high jinks and those same characters learning life lessons with the help of their family unit. Many of the shows also had a bumbling knucklehead who would constantly do and say stupid things and annoy the main characters.

What’s interesting about TGIF is the idea that instead of doing “family things” like talking, playing games and simply enjoying each other’s company, real families would instead gather each Friday night to watch fake families do those things. There’s something off-putting about a product that markets itself specifically to families, but requires that those families do very un-family things (like sitting silently and watching television). If the shows had actually been good, I could understand blowing my family off for television, but in looking back the carnival of crap that was TGIF, I wish I could have some of that time back.

A Selection of TGIF Programs

Perfect Strangers
- Years active: 1986-1993
- Years in TGIF lineup: 1988-1992
- Premise: a naïve and crazed Greek shepherd named Balki comes to live with his straight-laced cousin in Chicago. Hilarity ensues as Balki constantly does foolish, un-American things, much to the chagrin and embarrassment of his cousin.
- Drawing card: Balki, played by Bronson Pinchot. The loveable dope was at the forefront of all ads and promotional materials for the show.

Family Matters
- Years active: 1989-1998 (1997-1998 season was on CBS)
- Years in TGIF lineup: 1989-1997
- Premise: follows a large, African-American Chicago-based family and their oft-hilarious trials and tribulations. The family includes people young and old and everything in between, setting up all kinds of opportunities for its members to gain valuable life experience. Nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel breaks things and annoys everyone.
- Drawing card: Urkel, played by Jaleel White. Steve Urkel became a legitimate sensation in the United States in the early 1990s based on his nasally voice, ridiculous appearance, and his throng of catchphrases. Honorable mention goes to Waldo Geraldo Faldo (Shawn Harrison), Eddie Winslow’s dimwitted friend.

Boy Meets World
- Years active: 1993-2000
- Years in TGIF lineup: 1993-2000
- Premise: a middle school (and later high school) boy copes with the transition of moving from boyhood to adulthood. Of course, he has a wonderful family and strong friends to help him each step of the way!
- Drawing card: Uh, I dunno. There wasn’t really a kooky sidekick who would spout off catchphrases. I guess Shawn Patrick Hunter (Rider Strong), best friend to main character Cory Matthews, best constitutes the BMW drawing card.
- Recommended viewing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgbvtZAYv1g&feature=related

Step By Step
- Years active: 1991-1998 (1997-1998 season was on CBS)
- Years in TGIF lineup: 1991-1996
- Premise: two already large families combine when single dad Patrick Duffy marries single mom Suzanne Somers. The show is spent detailing the uneasy tensions between the two sides of the newer, bigger family.
- Drawing card: Cody (aka “the Code Man”), played by Sasha Mitchell. Perhaps the archetype for “dumb and crazy TGIF sidekick”, Cody helped popularize the phrases “Dude!” and “Ch-yeah!” in the United States and abroad.

John Lacey