TV Land Elvis Month Cut By 1 Week; GSN Honors Merv Griffin

Elvis Month on TV Land will now end August 26 rather than August 31. The week of August 27 TV Land had slated noon movies of Elvis, but they have now scrapped that, so the last weekday noon movie will be August 24. The afternoon line-up slated to start week of Sept. 3 will now start a week earlier (12-1pm I Love Lucy, 1-2pm Green Acres, 2-3pm Munsters/Addams Family, 3-4pm Leave it to Beaver, 4pm Bonanza). Also, starting a few days earlier is the midnight back-to-back airings of The Andy Griffith Show every night.

GSN will honor the late Merv Griffin with some tribute marathons. The GSN marathons are in two five-hour blocks Saturday, August 18 and Sunday, August 19 from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM ET. Saturday's Griffin tribute will feature an early Chuck Woolery Wheel of Fortune appearance, Vanna White's debut in 1982 and the show's first road trip to New York City. Sunday's Jeopardy marathon includes "The $1,000,000 Masters Tournament of Champions" episodes.
Additionally, during its black-and-white programming block Sunday night, the network is showcasing episodes of two classic series which Griffin himself hosted. At 3:00 AM, GSN will air the first nighttime episode of Play Your Hunch, (Griffin's first network hosting job) from 1960, in which Griffin sings. Following at 3:30 AM, is a 1961 To Tell The Truth episode featuring Griffin as its host filling in for a vacationing Bud Collyer.
Griffin had a very meaningful connection with GSN. When the network launched as Game Show Network on Dec. 1, 1994, he was one of the honored guests who flipped the switch launching the network.

ABC Pulls Knights and The Nine; TV Legend Merv Griffin Passes Away

Effective this Wednesday, ABC has pulled the burn-off episodes of the sitcom The Knights of Prosperity and drama The Nine. Knights returned last Wednesday with two all-new episodes. Two all-new episodes still remain in the vault. As for The Nine, it aired an episode each the last two Wednesdays, and four still remain in the can. ABC will replace The Knights with an extra repeat of According to Jim at 8:30, while The Nine essentially will get replaced by Primetime: Outsiders at 9pm, moving the new upcoming Primetime series NASCAR in Primetime from 9pm to 10pm, where The Nine was airing.
As for those remaining episodes of The Knights and The Nine, we can expect the remaining episodes to appear on abc.com. We are not sure how they will roll-out, but it will probably be every Wednesday until they finish, similar to what ABC did with Six Degrees and Day Break. We'll let you know...but it is too bad about The Knights, that was one good funny sitcom. It almost came back for a second season, but Ray Romano didn't sign on unfortunately.

We have some breaking news just in to SitcomsOnline, TV legend Merv Griffin just passed away this morning. Griffin died of prostate cancer, according to a statement from his the family that was released by Marcia Newberger, spokeswoman for The Griffin Group/Merv Griffin Entertainment. Griffin was recently hospitalized for a recurrence of the disease, which had been treated successfully more than 10 years ago.
Merv of course is known for his talk show The Merv Griffin Show that ran from 1962-1986 and for creating the hit game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Let's watch both of those shows tomorrow and see if they do a little tribute...both shows are on summer hiatus though, and will return with new episodes in September. Merv has appeared as himself on several sitcoms like Sanford & Son, Golden Girls, Hope & Gloria, and Newhart. Merv also produced the new Lifetime series Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead. He was recently seen on TV Land Moguls as the host, appeared on TV Land's ALF's Hit Talk Show, and appeared on Fat Actress.
He will be deeply missed and you can catch his newly produced series Merv Griffin's Crosswords in first-run syndication this fall. Hopefully that will still be coming on air as a tribute to him. Mr. Griffin was 82.