My Journey Through 1970s TV: Saturday Nights, 1977

The Saturday night supremacy of CBS in the seventies has finally ceased (how’s that for alliteration?). This would be the final year for both The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show, classics that once dominated in the ratings but had now dropped out of the top 30. Only one series ranked that high on this night, and it belonged to the network that would reign supreme throughout the second half of the decade. Come aboard – they’re expecting you…

ABC
Fish
Operation Petticoat
Starsky & Hutch
The Love Boat

As I wrote in my book When Television Brought Us Together (revised and expanded edition coming soon!) escapism was always one of The Love Boat’s selling points, even if viewers were escaping something as mundane as winter. From 1977 to 1987, the show embarked on each new season as autumn leaves began to fall and sailed through the months when days were shorter and weather forecasts promised blizzards and cold, bleak temperatures. To someone growing up outside of Chicago, those virtual vacations on Saturday nights were always welcome.

Add in one of the most likable casts of any ‘70s, series, exotic locations, and guest stars from other classic shows and the Golden Age of Hollywood, and it’s not surprising audiences liked The Love Boat enough to make it the #14 show in its first year.

Fish was a Barney Miller spinoff in which Abe Vigoda’s New York detective now went home to five racially mixed foster kids (two of them played by Todd Bridges and Denise Miller). The less said the better. 

Operation Petticoat seemed to have more promise with its mix of familar TV vets (John Astin) and comely newcomers (Jamie Lee Curtis, Melinda Naud), but it proved to be another example of a good film adapted into a watered-down series. It sank in less than two seasons.



CBS
The Bob Newhart Show
We’ve Got Each Other
The Jeffersons
The Tony Randall Show
The Carol Burnett Show

There may have been fewer folks watching The Bob Newhart Show in its final season, but that doesn’t mean the quality of the series dropped as well. Episodes like “Who Was That Masked Man?” and “’Twas the Pie Before Christmas” were as smart and funny as any shows from previous seasons. 

Likewise, the final year of The Carol Burnett Show was blessed by the addition of Dick Van Dyke as a series regular and featured the “Family” skit with Tim Conway’s now legendary elephant story, which has racked up more than 47 million views on YouTube.

We’ve Got Each Other starred Oliver Clark and Beverly Archer as newlyweds, with the twist being he worked at home and she went to work in an office. Adding this one to the ‘missed’ list, but from the few clips available online it looked like a strange show that proved once again why some actors are better suited to character parts than leads.

NBC
The Bionic Woman
NBC Saturday Night Movie

This was the third and final season for The Bionic Woman. It still surprises me that the series didn’t last longer given its popularity at the time. 

Lindsay Wagner would later play Jaime Sommers in three TV movies alongside Lee Majors as Steve Austin, the last in 1994 when the two characters were finally married.


Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)
Executive Suite (1976)
Ball Four (1976)
Young Dan’l Boone (1977)
Rafferty (1977)
Mulligan’s Stew (1977)
Big Hawaii (1977)
We’ve Got Each Other (1977)