TV Guide Fall Preview 1988 review. Did TV suck worse in 88?

I'm embarrassed to say this is what originally drew me to your channel.
Nostalgia. Oh yes 1972 that was the year David Carradine came on the air on Kung Fu.

I'll have to go searching for that one now.

1988 Hmm I liked Dear John
Oh Empty Nest was terrible.
Lots of depressing divorce and alcoholism shows in 1988.
Dumber than the A team. Yikes
didnt mind murphy brown
Liked Roseanne
Felt real,

Please don't stop doing these; they are always entertaining. Loved Roseane!

I most definitely was around and "Roseanne" was the top of that list, for me.

I remember watching Empty Nest along with Golden Girls with my grandma often during the early 90s

Lots of recovering alcoholics on tv in 1988 LOL

Putting a recovering alcoholic in your show was diversity in the 80s.

Love that the character is called Kevin Keegan. That would have been hilarious to Brit’s in 1988

SUPER DAVE!!!

Dear John, I'm surprised was a remake of a British show. I assumed it was an attempt to make Taxi in a teachers lounge. But then they decided they didn't want the bother of having a bunch of kids in the show so they went with the divorce angle. Every character looks like it could be a teacher stereotype. But ditch the school and make them all a bit crazier.
Taxi being the Mary Tyler Moore Show set in a rough NYC taxi garage, focusing more on Murray then Mary.

Unsolved Mysteries is something I never really watched because of all the crime to get through. I should check to see if anyone cut that out and just has the paranormal stories.

So many recovery alcoholics in shows. Wonder if it's the creator or writer's projecting?

8th grade for me. I think pretty much all I watched in any given week was ST:TNG and Ducktales.

This was a prime sitcom-watching era for me.

Just seeing the pictures from 1988, I can feel the 80s ending. Roseanne seems to be part of the shift. It is more of the 90s than 80s tonally.

Yes, I was around. Can't believe Chato has the temerity to say Dick Van Dyke was in something terrible.

I'm not saying Chato is wrong, just didn't like hearing it. 😄👍

I remember the Conners being the first TV family in our economic class. Their issues were very relatable and were handled realistically.
AND it was funny.
Dan beat the crap out of the abusive boyfriend
chef's kiss

I was young those days, but the Depends advert in that magazine has somehow caught my attention now. I wake up at 3 am now to pee. I'm definitely f***ed.

I believe my first wife and I watched the first episode of Annie McGuire. At one point in the episode, Annie is on the phone with her mother, talking about this guy she met. He seems perfect, except he's a Republican. We didn't bother with any more episodes.

I never saw the original Roseanne. I did watch the resurrected series, and liked it. I ditched it after they killed her off.

I even like looking at those old advertisements.

When the Devil from Night on Bald Mountain apologizes to Eisner in the beginning of one of those Disney episodes, Shrek was born.

I never did like Roseanne, but did enjoy Dear John, and Murphy Brown. In syndication there was Superboy, and a show called My Secret Identity I enjoyed.

You gotta think alot of these shows that only lasted a season or didnt even air an entire season would be lost to time without these TV guilds.
It probably likely alot of these shows werent released on DVD either, maybe someone taped a few episodes or decades later someone found the original airing tape and released it to the public but without all that theyd likely be lost media.

I imagine the modern day
equivalent would be a season of a straight to streaming show that got low numbers and never greenlight for a second season, while that show would be saved onto whatever streaming platform it really gets lost in the mix of a 1000 other shows destin for the same fate to be forgotten as many other shows before it.

The problem after 1987 was what Robocop 2 satirized, [ Steering Committees ].

Up until 1986 movies and shows could just put anything and everything out there so long as it was within the parameters of the G, PG, PG-13, R, X, XX, XXX rating system. Most people were fine with that.

Then between MTV, violent movies, and violent TV shows in prime time the Christian Right Cancel Culture was born. Then after 1986 every tv 📺 show, every movie, even commercials had to have a PTA-esque steering committees to review and rate everything.

That’s when the major suck factor came into everything.

Everything had at least 10 steering committees and then got diluted, watered down and sanitized as if the entire American audience was still in elementary school.

In the 2020s it’s been more left wing cancel culture.

This is why we have higher failure when it comes to tv shows and movies these days. 📺 🎥

Are TV executives getting kickbacks for the overproduction cost.
It is like there is graft going on like in politics and in the movie "The Producers."

Burying successful programs scripted Reality show inundation.

It's like they are wandering drug money.

I remember Dear John replaying as a kid. It was good. I also remember Empty Nest but as a kid I couldn’t remember the name.

Mr. T pities the fool who doesn’t watch T and T! :p

Too bad Susan Harris stopped writing sitcoms. We really need people like her in this era to write funny, compelling sitcoms. The jokes nowadays are so "tamed" because writers are careful not to offend people.

1988 was way too late for me. I was too busy struggling in the working world to watch much TV. I often worked 2nd shifts which interfered with prime time TV. Many of these I never heard of, but even the ones I have heard of, like Empty Nest or Midnight Caller, I never watched. But I was probably watching Perry Mason reruns in the mornings.

It's amazing how these old shows (that were conceived in a process similar to throwing darts at a dartboard) had very large fanbases and very long lifespans. Compare that to the shit that is being produced today. It's a testament to how much better the writing and the acting was in the past.

I love these videos. It always brings back memories and I love to pause and look at the old ads because they are a hoot.

The TV guide recaps are some of my favorites of all of your videos. Keep up the great work.

That’s weird Incredible Sunday was only 16 episodes. I remember that being on for a long time.
But I guess if they aired it once a week, then re- ran the entire thing, that would be eight months or so.

I forgot about Paradise with Sigrid Thornton... Aussoe girl done ... ok.

I still love Roseanne - stuff you all who hate her...!

I was 11, and loved the Super Dave show (mainly for the botched stunts tbh, I thought the use of dummy and VO was just hilarious). Didn't appreciate Einstein's dry wit until much later on Curb

Saw that you missed "Katts and Dog" which aired here in Australia. I remember it being a good show even if it wasn't the greatest.

Not much for a nerd like me good thing I was in the navy

You don't remember the Murphy Brown episode where she got pregnant and then VP Dan Quayle criticized her? This was a huge moment in TV history where a fictional show crossed over into the real world. Have to think this was news in Canada as well as the States.

"Quail to Murphy Brown" who can forget that clash of the TV theologians.

Stop living in the past. It’s 1991.

Wonder years ❤️

Didn’t Canada have like 2 tv channels and 4 radio channels chato!

New TV Guide, More please.

🤘

I absolutely love these! Thank you

My wife and I watched a one season series from 1994 called " Space Precinct ". That type of cop show could be done now. Just good guys and bad guys, with a few love interests thrown in. Check it out!

The main difference between now and then are the amount of comedies. It's hard to pull off so now they just produce dramas of every genre.

I remember so few of these. Now i see why.

"..Next, they're going to try and find the meat" ;)