We take for granted now the ability to watch TV on our schedule, but 50 years ago every program decision came with the knowledge that there might be something good on another network that we’d have to wait until summer reruns to catch. Which of these series got your vote in 1976?
ABC
Happy Days
Laverne & Shirley
Rich Man, Poor Man Book II
Family
With Happy Days ranked #1 for the season, followed by Laverne & Shirley at #2, ABC stakes its claim as the most popular network of the second half of the decade.
Season four of Happy Days opened with the fondly-remember three-parter “Fonzie Loves Pinky,” featuring those dreaded demolition derby villains the Malachi brothers, and Roz Kelly as the Fonz’s one true love, Pinky Tuscadero. If you were the right age, it probably ranked as one of the most awesome things you’ve ever seen on television.
By now the family-oriented stories and subtler humor were supplanted by stories that kept television’s most popular character in the spotlight in nearly every episode. A poster of Henry Winkler as the Fonz became the best-selling poster of all time – though that would not last for much longer.
Rich Man, Poor Man Book II continued the saga of the Jordache family. It’s classified as a miniseries but with 21 episodes it held its timeslot from September to March and ranked as the 21st most popular show of the season.
Family was ABC’s only Tuesday series to finish outside the top 25, which is ironic because it’s also the best series of the night on any network. I wrote this about it a few years ago: After 20 years of sensationalized reality TV, the idea of dramatizing the normal low-key reality of life with one Pasadena family now seems like an incomplete pitch; what’s the hook? Is the father psychic or is the mother leading a double life? Does the son have superpowers? Is the daughter trans or a pop singer or something else that will bring in a broader demographic?
When the writing and the acting are as perfect as they are here, no other incentive should be necessary. To watch Family is to be wholly drawn into the joys and sorrows and relationships of fictional characters, and to believe that every word they say is extemporaneous and could not possibly have been typed by someone else months earlier.
CBS
Tony Orlando & Dawn Rainbow Hour
M*A*S*H
One Day at a Time
Switch
M*A*S*H ranked at #4 in the Nielsens and One Day at a Time, in its first full season, finished at #8. Those without VCRs, you had decisions to make.
Rich Man, Poor Man Book II continued the saga of the Jordache family. It’s classified as a miniseries but with 21 episodes it held its timeslot from September to March and ranked as the 21st most popular show of the season.
Family was ABC’s only Tuesday series to finish outside the top 25, which is ironic because it’s also the best series of the night on any network. I wrote this about it a few years ago: After 20 years of sensationalized reality TV, the idea of dramatizing the normal low-key reality of life with one Pasadena family now seems like an incomplete pitch; what’s the hook? Is the father psychic or is the mother leading a double life? Does the son have superpowers? Is the daughter trans or a pop singer or something else that will bring in a broader demographic?
When the writing and the acting are as perfect as they are here, no other incentive should be necessary. To watch Family is to be wholly drawn into the joys and sorrows and relationships of fictional characters, and to believe that every word they say is extemporaneous and could not possibly have been typed by someone else months earlier.
CBS
Tony Orlando & Dawn Rainbow Hour
M*A*S*H
One Day at a Time
Switch
M*A*S*H ranked at #4 in the Nielsens and One Day at a Time, in its first full season, finished at #8. Those without VCRs, you had decisions to make.
Adding “Rainbow Hour” to the title and a weekly monologue from George Carlin was not enough to save Tony Orlando & Dawn’s variety series – just as well given the poor decision to focus more on comedy than music in this, its second and final year. Thankfully Switch still had a couple more seasons of shows built around clever con games. For me this was as good a series as The Rockford Files – I just wish it would have stuck around as long.
NBC
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Police Woman
Police Story
The unfortunately named Baa Baa Black Sheep (which became Black Sheep Squadron in its second season) starred Robert Conrad as Marine Corps aviator Greg “Pappy” Boyington, who commanded a squadron in World War II known as the Black Sheep. The stories were loosely based on the real exploits of the group. Conrad always excelled at these heroic types, and kept busy in the 1970s in shows like The Duke and A Man Called Sloane. Sometimes I think he took those parts just to keep getting invited back to the Battle of the Network Stars.
Police Woman and Police Story were in the middle of their successful runs, the latter series in particular maintaining a remarkably high level of quality for an anthology examining different aspects of police work.
While NBC failed to place any of these shows in the top 30, those who opted for this lineup were also in for a perfectly fine evening of television. Maybe viewers would need two VCRs.
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)
Tenafly (1973)
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)
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