Random "Broadcasting & Cable" items...

[RMF]

[quote name=\'colonial\' post=\'195628\' date=\'Aug 31 2008, 03:21 PM\']
There were at least a dozen first-run sitcoms that aired exclusively in syndication in the 80s.  
[/quote]

Coming up with exact figures will be difficult (Are the soap-spoofs of the late 1970s sitcoms? Do we count new episodes being made for shows previously on a network? How about imports?), but I've counted somewhere between 35 and 50 programs that meet that description that aired between the early 1950s and the late 1980s, and I suspect that my list is not all-inclusive.

[Jimmy Owen]

I would consider "Mary Hartman" a first-run sitcom that ran five days a week in syndication.

[mmb5]

The Erickson Syndicated book lists over 50 syndicated comedies for the 1980's, but there's three big caveats there:

1. He included the first couple years of FOX as syndication
2. He included British imports
3. He included pay cable shows that were later syndicated

But, in looking over the list, there's at least 20 bona-fide syndication only series in there.


--Mike

[TimK2003]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'195784\' date=\'Sep 1 2008, 11:45 PM\']
I would consider "Mary Hartman" a first-run sitcom that ran five days a week in syndication.
[/quote]


It was Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman that wiped out the strip of weekly game shows seen on Cleveland's WJW-TV 8 in the late 70s...

...And it is Mary Hart's man, Mary Hart's man who is sitting on some great old game show tapes that will probably never see the light of day again.

[cmjb13]

Tyler Perry's House of Payne is one of the worst shows I've seen. When it premiered last year, I decided to watch after TBS plugged the hell out of it. Awful, awful show.

Some reviews:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/re...-of-payne_N.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7060502782.html

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1195678,00.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/3...yne.html?cat=39

http://www.unclebarky.com/reviews_files/40...074d9d-184.html

[urbanpreppie05]

The biggest problem with this show is the pacing. He's producing the showas if he was making a stage play.  Then there's also the writing, the acting, and, so much more.

Granted, I watched an episode a few weeks ago. Its improving. Not by much, but it's improving.

/I know we need minorities better represented in sitcoms
//but not like this