ABC Family Changes Its Mind; George Segal to Star in TV Land Sitcom Pilot

Last Wednesday we mentioned a few ABC Family schedule changes happening this week, now one of them is not happening anymore. 8 Simple Rules is not coming back to the weekday 6pm hour starting Nov. 18 after all. Instead, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air will remain in the hour until further notice. As of now, 8 Simple Rules is not airing at all, but in October it aired on weekends (Sat 10-11am & Sun 11am-12pm). It is not airing now because of holiday movies. Stay with us and we'll let you know if it remains on weekends in January or if it gets a weekday slot. The other change we mentioned last week, will happen starting today, with What I Like About You returning to the schedule and airing weekdays in the 12 noon hour replacing one of the Full House hours (it will remain in the 3pm hour).

TV Land announced that George Segal -- esteemed comedy and drama actor on TV, stage and film -- has been tapped to star in the network's sitcom pilot Retired at 35. The sitcom, which was previously announced in October along with comedy pilot Hot in Cleveland, is TV Land's first foray into scripted comedy series and is being developed for TV Land PRIME.
Retired at 35 follows a successful businessman who decides to leave the rat race of New York City behind and move into his parents' Florida retirement home to reconnect with them, reevaluate his life and live the dream of retirement that so many are working towards. Segal will play the role of the father, who bonds with his son while showing him the glories of his newfound and liberated lifestyle.
Retired at 35 and Hot in Cleveland are in development for 2010 for TV Land PRIME along with the premieres of Everybody Loves Raymond and the reality series High School Reunion; First Love, Second Chance and She's Got the Look. TV Land PRIME is the network's primetime programming block designed to appeal to the attitudes, life stage and interests of people in their 40s.
Recently seen on the popular HBO series Entourage, and in ABC's Pushing Daisies, Segal starred for seven seasons as Jack Gallo in the NBC ensemble comedy Just Shoot Me! On the big screen, he was an Oscar-nominee for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and also starred in A Touch of Class, The Owl and The Pussycat with Barbra Streisand and Fun with Dick and Jane with Jane Fonda. He also starred on Broadway in Art, Rattle of a Simple Man and Gideon.
We'll let you know more casting for this sitcom (along with Hot in Cleveland) and if actually gets picked-up to series. If that happens, it will air for sure, but right now it is just a pilot.

ABC Cancels and Pulls Hank, CW Finalizes Mondays; TV Land Orders Season 3 of She's Got the Look

ABC has canceled the Kelsey Grammer sitcom Hank and will replace it immediately on the schedule as well. This is no surprise at all, especially since I announced on Tuesday that ABC has pulled all promos for Hank that were set to air during the CMA Awards last night. ABC will place repeats of Modern Family in Hank's Wednesdays at 8pm slot starting next week (Nov. 18). Repeats thus far scheduled in the 8pm slot for Modern Family are "The Bicycle Thief" on Nov. 18, "The Incident" on Nov. 25, and "Run for Your Wife" on Dec. 2. Of course Modern Family will be all-new still in its 9pm half-hour on Wednesdays.
As for Hank, the show aired only 5 episodes, and still has 5 more episodes to air. They had a 13 episode order, but ABC has stopped production. They finished taping an episode (#10) this week. Hank joins The Beautiful Life: TBL, Trauma, and Eastwick in freshman series cancelations. Still yet to hear its fates are Brothers and Three Rivers, everything else has been given additional episodes or full seasons. V just started and is doing great in the ratings, but it will only air for 13 weeks this season no matter what.
In other ABC schedule updates, as we mentioned the other day, Find My Family will launch on Monday, Nov. 23 at 9:30pm following the Dancing with the Stars performance finale. It will be a 30-minute preview, as one-hour episodes will air on Mondays at 9pm starting Nov. 30 through and including Dec. 21. Crime drama Castle wasn't originally scheduled to air on Nov. 23 in its 10pm slot, but it will now for the last Monday in November sweeps. Castle will be getting Saturday at 10pm repeats starting Dec. 12 through at least Jan. 9. And finally, Let's Dance will be scheduled on ABC in 2010, either mid-season or in the summer. It is just delayed due to the celebs other commitments during the holidays it couldn't launch Nov. 23.
Stay tuned for mid-season news very soon, as we find out when Lost airs!

Also, the other day we mentioned The CW's Monday plans, now we have actual dates. The CW Network announced it will air all-original episodes of three series - Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill and the new drama Life UneXpected – on Monday nights from mid-January through May 2010. The three series will air in a revolving schedule as follows:
The network's new drama series, Life UneXpected, will premiere Monday, January 18 at 9:00 p.m. ET as we mentioned, following the return of original episodes of One Tree Hill that night in the 8:00 p.m. timeslot. OK, we announced this part already the other day, but we now have it confirmed.
Then as we mentioned, Life UneXpected will move to the 8:00 p.m. timeslot, but now we have a date on that, it will be on March 8. Original episodes of the pop-culture sensation Gossip Girl will return on March 8 in its 9:00 p.m. ET time slot.
And finally, on April 19, after Life UneXpected has completed its initial 13-episode run, the Monday-night schedule will finish the broadcast season with One Tree Hill at 8:00 p.m. and Gossip Girl at 9:00 p.m.

TV Land announced that it has picked up the hit original reality model competition She's Got The Look for a third season and is moving the series production to Los Angeles, CA. Premiering in 2010, this season of She's Got The Look sets out to discover a beautiful, sophisticated and confident woman over the age of 35 who has the potential to transform herself into a model representing some of the most high-profile brands and highly-coveted campaigns in the fashion and beauty industry. Emmy Award-Winner Allison Grodner (Big Brother) returns as executive producer and has teamed up with executive producer Rich Meehan (Big Brother) in their first project together under their new banner, Fly On The Wall Entertainment. The show has also renewed partnerships with SELF Magazine and world-renowned modeling agency, Wilhelmina Models, Inc.
If you want to join the show, open casting calls for She's Got The Look begin Sunday, December 6 in Los Angeles, CA. Additionally, there will also be open casting calls in New York, NY on December 12, in Memphis, TN on December 13 and in Columbus, OH on December 15. Thousands of applications have already been received for the third season. For the most current information on casting, log onto TVLandPrime.com.
Stay with us for the premiere date announcement soon!

TV Land Brings Back Married with Children...Again; TV Guide/TV Land Acquire Curb Your Enthusiasm; Lopez Tonight Launches Tonight

TV Land is bringing back Married...with Children once again! Al Bundy and the rest of the Bundy family just love TV Land and will return this Saturday (Nov. 14) with weekly Saturday marathons along with airing Mon-Thurs in the 9pm hour and Mondays from 10pm-12am starting next Monday (Nov. 16). The sitcom has always done well on TV Land, but there are some issues with sister network Spike TV. They were the ones who acquired the series but ever since TV Land has tested the show, it has done well on TV Land. But something prevents it from airing on both networks at the same time...so Spike TV will remove the series again after this week. Spike will air it this week in the mornings (10am-12pm), then effective Saturday, it goes back to TV Land. The TV Land weekday airings will replace Andy Griffith in the 9pm hour and Cosby Show in the Monday 10pm-12a block.
Other changes starting Monday, Nov. 16 are also to weekdays. Leave it to Beaver and The Beverly Hillbillies replace Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in the 9am hour. Home Edition will still weekend mornings at 8am. In the 10am hour we get another The Beverly Hillbillies and All in the Family, replacing an hour of Good Times, which is now off the regular line-up. Sanford & Son remains at 11am, but at 12pm we now have Hogan's Heroes returning to the schedule and airing in the 12pm hour replacing All in the Family and Leave it to Beaver, which move to earlier slots as I mentioned. At 1pm, Gunsmoke takes over the hour replacing Beverly Hillbillies, which also move to earlier slots as I mentioned. Bonanza will air at 2pm instead of Gunsmoke, so Bonanza airs 2pm-5pm. And in the 5pm hour now will be Andy Griffith Show instead of Bonanza. Andy will lead into All in the Family and Sanford & Son hours from 6-8pm, as they are not removing those hours. Andy remains n the 8pm hour leading into Married...with Children at 9.
So, there you have it...the updated TV Land November schedule! View the full updated TV Land November 2009 schedule, if you're confused.

We have even more TV Land news! But this one is shared with the TV Guide Network. TV Land and TV Guide Network announced that they will jointly acquire basic cable rights to Curb Your Enthusiasm, the award-winning HBO comedy series produced by and starring Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. One of the most ground-breaking shows on television, Curb Your Enthusiasm has never before been seen on basic cable television and for the first time ever, this irreverent comedy series will be delivered to millions of new viewers by TV Guide Network and TV Land. In addition, both networks will acquire certain broadband, wireless and video-on-demand rights, bringing Curb Your Enthusiasm to multiple screens for fans to enjoy.
Curb Your Enthusiasm will air on TV Guide Network for a multi-year run starting February 2010. TV Land will begin airing the series in TV Land PRIME immediately following TV Guide Network's term in February 2013 (it could be a year later if HBO renews Curb for an eighth season).
We previously announced that Curb Your Enthusiasm launches in broadcast syndication on Tribune stations in Fall 2010, so TV Guide Network will have a seven month head start. WGN America will also air the series starting in Fall 2010, when locals start it, as we previously announced.

And finally, the wait is over. The time is now. The party starts tonight at 11:00pm, only on TBS, as they launch Lopez Tonight starring George Lopez! George's guests tonight are Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria Parker, talk show host and new American Idol judge Ellen DeGeneres, NBA all-star Kobe Bryant and rock legend Carlos Santana. And you won't want to miss the audience game that everyone will be talking about tomorrow, "Bullet Wound... Not a Bullet Wound?" Other guests for premiere week include Jamie Foxx, Marc Anthony, Queen Latifah, Oscar De La Hoya, Lisa Lampanelli, Kelly Osbourne and Larry David. In the coming weeks you'll see Charlie Sheen, Andy Garcia, Bill Engvall, Ted Danson, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and many more!
Lopez Tonight airs Mon-Thurs from 11pm-12:05am ET (with an encore at 2am ET) starting tonight, as George is bringing the party back to late night! Orale!
Tonight's premiere at 11pm will be simulcast on TNT and truTV as well.

TV Land December 2009 Includes 10th Annual Merrython; TNT Picks-Up Southland

This December on TV Land there are not many changes to the regular schedule, but of course we have the 10th Annual Merrython coming up filled with holiday episodes of all your TV Land favorites! But first, TV Land original series Make My Day returns Wednesday, December 2. It was pulled from the schedule in August but now will be burned-off with three weeks of episodes in the 10pm & 10:30pm half-hours. Amazing dreams really do come true when TV Land returns its new original comedic hidden camera series Make My Day on Wednesday, December 2 at 10:00 P.M. ET/PT on TV Land PRIME. The 30-minute series executive produced by Michael Davies provides an exciting window into the eventful day of an unsuspecting and deserving participant as hidden cameras capture the weird coincidences, extraordinary situations and surprise celebrity appearances that occur for them over the course of a seemingly "normal" day.
Kick start the holiday season with TV Land's 10th Annual Merrython on Sunday, December 13! TV Land delivers holiday cheer to our viewers during this all day marathon featuring holiday-themed episodes from classic series like Andy Griffith, All in the Family, Brady Bunch, Three's Company, Sanford & Son and Beverly Hillbillies together with modern favorites from Roseanne, 3rd Rock and The Cosby Show. Grab the eggnog, tune in with loved ones, and celebrate the holiday season with TV Land! It's three days of holiday magic on Sunday, December 13, 2009 from 6am-6am,
Thursday, December 24 from 8pm-6am and continues Friday, December 25 from 9am-9pm!
Saturday classic marathons continue in December with big blocks of Sanford & Son, Good Times, and Beverly Hillbillies. And the Friday night PRIME movies for the month are The Pelican Brief, Top Gun, and Planes Trains & Automobiles. Encore showings on weekends are of Crocodile Dundee II and City Slickers.
View the FULL TV Land December 2009 highlights with full Merrython details!

TNT has picked up the critically acclaimed series Southland, closing a deal with Warner Bros. Television that will bring the drama from Emmy-winning producer John Wells (ER, The West Wing) to the network in January. TNT has obtained exclusive rights to air all six episodes that have been shot for the second season, as well as the seven episodes from the series' first season. Southland will air on TNT Tuesdays at 10 p.m. (ET/PT), beginning with the very first episode of the series on Jan. 12. Southland aired on NBC in the first season and they picked up a second season but then decided to cancel it before it even launched its second season. It is unclear right now if TNT will make more than the 6 episodes produced for season two. It will depend on ratings of the first season and the new second season.
As of now TNT will air the series following repeats of Law & Order. TNT will give it a lot promos though on their Monday night original block of The Closer and Men of a Certain Age.

New Scrubs and Better off Ted Return to ABC in December; NBC Cancels Trauma, More Chuck; Roseanne's Wicked Halloween Bash on TV Land

Scrubs will return with an all-new season starting Tuesday, December 1 (as I expected), as the action will shift from Sacred Hearts hospital to the classroom and make med-school professors of John C. McGinley's Dr. Cox and Donald Faison's Dr. Turk, however their students will still make rounds at Sacred Heart. Eliza Coupe as intern Denise "Jo from Facts of Life" Mahoney will remain on the show. Joining the cast are Michael Mosley, Kerry Bishe and Dave Franco. Scrubs will air back-to-back episodes for its season premiere on Dec. 1 at 9:00pm & 9:30pm (airing after A Charlie Brown Christmas and the new special Disney Prep & Landing), before airing every Tuesday in the 9:00pm half hour. Most of the original cast will make appearances throughout the season, including Zach Braff as J.D., but this series will now focus on a new cast with McGinley and Faison now the stars. 18 episodes have been ordered for season nine, of which at least 4 or 5 will air in December before the holidays.
The new Scrubs will lead into the second season of the hilarious comedy Better off Ted. That will launch its second season on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 9:30pm. Unofficially 13 episodes have been ordered, but there is no confirmation of that. The first season had 13 episodes, with 7 airing in the spring and 6 in the summer. If you missed any of those 13 episodes, get the DVD coming out Dec. 1 or watch the last 5 episodes from season one on Hulu.

NBC has canceled freshman medical drama Trauma, which is airing Mondays at 9pm. The series has failed to draw any interest and will remain airing until it finishes its 13 episode order, as of now at least, but production has stopped for anything more than 13 episodes. If NBC sticks with the show on the schedule, the finale will be airing on Dec. 21.
Meanwhile, it looks like Chuck will return earlier than planned, as NBC has ordered 6 more episodes of the one-hour comedy. Originally 13 episodes were ordered, so now we have a total of 19. It is expected to return to Mondays starting in January now, instead of March. Stay with us for an official confirmation!

TV Land has stirred up a magical brew of Halloween-themed episodes of Roseanne to celebrate All Hallow's Eve on Saturday, October 31 from 10:00PM-2:00AM (ET/PT). Tune in to "Roseanne's Wicked Halloween Bash" for a haunting night of episodes, including when the Conners have a spooky night of fun with a Ouija board, a hilarious parody of the horror flick Rosemary's Baby, their annual Halloween party at the lodge and finally, a night filled with antics that leads to the arrival of a new family member -- Jerry Garcia Conner.
Episodes airing are: "BOO!," "Trick or Treat," "Trick Me Up, Trick Me Down," "Halloween IV," "Halloween V," "Skeleton in the Closet," "Halloween: the Final Chapter," and "Satan, Darling."

Cougar Town Special Marathon on SOAPnet, ION Television November 2009; TV Land Makes Changes to Yesterday's Changes

SOAPnet announced that it will air a four-episode marathon of ABC's hit comedy Cougar Town on Saturday, November 14 from 5:00PM to 7:00PM. The critically acclaimed series airs Wednesdays at 9:30PM ET/PT on ABC. They are doing this to attract even more new viewers to the program. The show has done very well in the ratings, especially in the 18-49 demo. The Cougar Town marathon will include four previous episodes ("Pilot," "Into the Great Wide Open," "Don't Do Me Like That," and "I Won't Back Down") previously broadcast on ABC earlier this season.
Courteney Cox stars as Jules, a recently divorced single mother exploring the honest truths about dating and aging in our beauty and youth obsessed culture. While most women in their twenties go through life experiencing the challenges and often humorous pitfalls of meeting men, Jules took on the responsibilities of marriage and raising a son. Now in her forties, she embarks on a journey to self-discovery whilst surrounded by fellow divorcees and singletons eager to live or re-live a time gone by.
Along for the journey are her friends and family: Laurie (Busy Philipps), the younger, feisty co-worker who encourages her to get out there and have some fun; Ellie (Christa Miller), the sarcastic, unapologetic confidante content with her life and marriage to her average, but loveable husband, Andy (Ian Gomez); ex-husband Bobby (Brian Van Holt), a classic under-achiever who'll test her patience as they attempt to raise their teenage son, Travis (Dan Byrd); and newly divorced neighbor Grayson (Josh Hopkins), who proves to be a catalyst of sorts for Jules.

This November on ION Television, we don't have any schedules changes, as of now, but we have a lot of movie premieres. ION airs movies Fridays in primetime and all-day on Saturday & Sundays (3pm-11pm). Movie premieres for the month are On Deadly Ground, Breach, Heist, Miami Vice, Out for Justice, Waterworld, Demolition Man, and The Rookie. Encore airings include Hunt for Red October, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Last Boy Scout, Batman Forever, Sphere, Pale Rider, Magnum Force, and The Enforcer.
So the regular weekday schedule will remain the same as it is now, with Reba at 4, Family Feud from 5-7p, Ghost Whisperer at 7, and in primetime Ghost Whisperer at 8, followed by various nights and times of NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Durham County.
See the full ION Television November 2009 schedule.

Yesterday we announced some TV Land schedule changes that starts today...and now they have made changes to those changes. Bonanza will still replace Gunsmoke at 3pm, leaving Gunsmoke only at 2pm on weekdays, but now Bonanza will remain in its 4pm and 5pm hours. That means All in the Family (originally scheduled to air 4pm) will now air back-to-back in the 6pm hour replacing Little House on the Prairie, which leaves the weekday schedule now. It will remain Sunday nights (early Monday mornings) from 4-6am. Sanford & Son (originally scheduled to air 5pm) will now get the 7pm hour, replacing Andy Griffith, Hogan's Heroes and Brady Bunch hours. Andy Griffith Show will still be replacing series from 8-10pm weekdays (Fridays it is 8-9pm), as we announced yesterday. However, Cosby Show will replace Andy's Monday block from 10pm-12am. Other little changes include two-hour episodes of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on weekends from 8-10am, Gunsmoke & Bonanza on Sundays are now 10am-3pm, and Andy Griffith is now 3pm-9pm on Sundays. M*A*S*H follows on Sundays from 9pm-11pm, as Roseanne gets an additional hour now on Sundays airing 11pm-2am. Also a personal bummer for me, the Three's Company marathon slated for this Saturday (Oct. 31) from 12:30pm-8pm, will be replaced by Sanford & Son and it gets two more hours, too, airing from 12:30pm-10pm.
See the full changes and the full TV Land schedule now.

TV Land Orders Sitcom Pilots, Schedule Changes This Week; NBC Orders Full Seasons of 3 Shows; Remembering Soupy Sales and More

TV Land has given cast-contingent pilot orders to the comedy series Hot in Cleveland and Retired at 35. This is TV Land's first foray into scripted comedy series and is being developed for TV Land PRIME, the network's primetime programming block designed to appeal to the attitudes, life stage and interests of people in their 40s.
Hot in Cleveland is written by Emmy Award-winning Suzanne Martin (Frasier, Ellen) and produced by Emmy Award-winner Sean Hayes' (Will & Grace) Hazy Mills Production.
Chris Case (Reba, Spin City) is the writer for Retired at 35 and Michael Hanel and Mindy Schultheis (Rita Rocks, Reba, Titus) are executive producers.
Hot in Cleveland revolves around three fabulous, eccentric, LA women of a certain age, and best friends whose lives are changed forever when their plane unexpectedly lands in Cleveland and they soon rediscover themselves in this new "promised land." Retired at 35 follows a successful businessman who decides to leave the rat race of New York City behind and move into his parents’ Florida retirement home to reconnect with them, reevaluate his life and live the dream of retirement that so many are working towards.
These are just pilot orders, it doesn't mean they will air and have been picked-up. It all depends on the cast and if the pilots came out good. So stay with us and you'll find out if they actually make it on air!

Also at TV Land, some changes are happening this week...and they are pretty good if you like classic TV! Starting tomorrow (Tuesday, Oct. 27), weekdays in the 4pm hour will now be more All in the Family, replacing an episode of Bonanza. All in the Family will also still remain in the 12 noon half-hour as well! In the 5pm hour, we now have an hour of Sanford & Son, replacing Bonanza. And Sanford & Son will remain in the 11am hour as well. Bonanza is now airing 6pm om Tuesdays (Little House remains on the other weekdays), Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7pm, and weekdays at 3pm now replacing an episode of Gunsmoke, which remains at 2pm. The other weekday changes in the 7pm hour is now The Andy Griffith Show, as Hogan's Heroes and Brady Bunch are not airing anymore on weekdays. Andy will also air from 8-10pm each weeknight (except Fridays it is 7-9pm). This means the primetime marathons from 9pm-12am are now cut to 10pm-12am, with Andy on Mondays, 3rd Rock on Tuesdays, M*A*S*H on Wednesdays, and Roseanne on Thursdays. Everything else is the same as it was before.

NBC has picked up the comedies Community (Thursdays, 8:00 p.m. ET) and Parks and Recreation (Thursdays, 8:30 p.m. ET) -- as well as the new drama Mercy (Wednesdays, 8-9 p.m. ET) -- for the rest of the season by adding nine additional episodes to each.
All three are doing so-so in the ratings, but NBC has picked them up anyway for full seasons. Parks and Recreation is in its first full season after launching mid-season last spring, while the other two are actually rookies. So far this season, Mercy has averaged a 2.1 rating, 5 share in adults 18-49 and 7.8 million viewers overall. Community has averaged a 2.6 rating, 5 share in adults 18-49 and 5.7 million viewers overall so far this season, that includes a stint at 9:30 p.m. after The Office. And Parks and Recreation has averaged a 2.1 rating, 5 share in adults 18-49 and 4.8 million viewers overall this season.
The jury is still out for NBC's Trauma, which has not heard its fate yet.

Finally, we leave you today with a recap of many stars that have passed away in the past week or so.
Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, has died. Sales died at Thursday (Oct. 22, 2009) night at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, said his former manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, Usher said. The comic's pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities lined up to take one on the chin alongside Sales. During the early 1960s, stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine received their just desserts side-by-side with the comedian on his television show. His greatest success came in New York with The Soupy Sales Show in 1976 -- an ostensible children's show that had little to do with Captain Kangaroo and other kiddie fare. Sales' manic, improvisational style also attracted an older audience that responded to his envelope-pushing antics. His sitcom credits included Hennessey, The Beverly Hillbillies, Love American Style, Love Boat, Wings and Boy Meets World. He appeared on many game shows as well such as What's My Line, I've Got a Secret, The Match Game, Hollywood Squares, Body Language, and more. Mr. Sales will certainly be missed. Let's throw a pie in someone's face or at least eat a pie in honor of him. Mr. Sales was 83.
Vic Mizzy, who composed the indelible theme music for The Addams Family and Green Acres died Saturday, October 17 in Los Angeles. For the The Addams Family theme, which became a long-remembered part of '60s pop culture, Mizzy played the harpsichord and sang the vocal parts (overdubbing his own voice three times) and coached the actors during the main-title sequence (including on-camera finger-snapping by the actors). The equally iconic Green Acres theme was performed by stars Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. Mizzy also wrote all the underscore for both series. His theme for Addams was reprised in the 1990s feature films. Mizzy also had many other 1960s and '70s sitcom themes that also included The Pruitts of Southampton, The Double Life of Henry Phyfe, Captain Nice, The Don Rickles Show and Temperature's Rising. He also wrote underscores for TV's Richard Boone Show and Quincy along with several TV movies including Terror on the 40th Floor. His film scores included the William Castle films The Night Walker and The Busy Body; five Don Knotts films: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Shakiest Gun in the West, The Reluctant Astronaut, The Love God? and How to Frame a Figg; and other films including The Caper of the Golden Bulls, Don't Make Waves and Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady? His TV and film scores will certainly remain on TV/film, but he will certainly be missed. Mr. Mizzy was 93.
TV director Linda Day passed away on Friday, October 23, 2009. Linda was the first woman to receive steady employment as a TV director. To her credit are more than 50 different series and 350 episodes including Married... with Children (for which she did the pilot and continued for more than two years), Archie Bunker's Place, Dallas, Kate & Allie, Alice, WKRP, Benson, Newhart, Too Close for Comfort, Facts of Life, Diff'rent Strokes, It's Your Move, Double Trouble, Small Wonder, Gimme a Break, Throb, Women in Prison, Major Dad, Top of the Heap, Teacher's Only, Mad About You, Who's the Boss?, Baby Talk, Almost Home, Thea, The Nanny, Unhappily Ever After, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Clueless. And that's just some of the shows! During the 1980's and part of the 1990's, Linda was one of the top 5 television directors currently then working. She will be certainly be missed and was a pioneer for women TV directors. Ms. Day was 71.

TV Land November 2009 Highlights; Lifetime Weekday Changes

This November on TV Land, there will be no schedule changes, as of now, but we have movie premieres and the annual Thanksgiving event! The regular schedule with changes that started in October will carry over into November. So Married...with Children is still not back on TV Land. Friday PRIME movie premieres for November are Crocodile Dundee II and Twelve Angry Men. Encores for the month are City Slickers and Footloose. TV Land will also premiere the big screen Dennis the Menace movie on Saturday, November 21 at 8am. Not sure why they didn't premiere it in primetime...could be a contract thing. Weekend marathon blocks continue in November, but Sundays are now the same every week with blocks of Hogan's Heroes, Beverly Hillbillies, TV Land Goes West and Andy Griffith Show. But on Saturdays they are different each week. We will see marathon blocks such as Brady Bunch, Sanford & Son, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Leave it to Beaver, and The Beverly Hillbillies.
As for stunts, all we have in November 2009 is the 3rd Annual Overstuffed Thanksgiving Weekend from Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 26) to Sunday, November 29. TV Land knows that once the holidays begin that you can always make room for one more - eating one more helping of food, giving one more gift or watching one more of your favorite classic TV shows! The 3rd Annual Overstuffed Thanksgiving Weekend will serving up four days filled with multi-packs of great TV. So gather the family around and feed your funny bone with multiple TV servings as well as a back-to-back double-features of some our viewers' favorite movies. With favorites The Andy Griffith Show, Sanford & Son, Little House on The Prairie, Beverly Hillbillies, Brady Bunch and Hogan's Heroes together with movies Crocodile Dundee II and Footloose, there will be something for everyone in the family!
It looks like a November to remember on TV Land! View the full TV Land November 2009 schedule and highlights!

Starting today Lifetime has made some minor schedule changes. The 12pm airing of Wife Swap will be replaced by Medium, but Wife Swap will still remain 1pm & 2pm. Then weeknights at 7pm starting tomorrow (because Project Runway marathon is today from 3pm-11pm) will be a third consecutive hour of Grey's Anatomy, replacing Medium. Grey's Anatomy's late night airing of 1:30am will be replaced by Medium starting tonight, though. So Medium gets a third airing, but it loses its evening slot. And finally on weekends, How I Met Your Mother was airing Saturday nights 1-2am, now that will be Sunday nights 1-2am instead.
As for original sitcoms Sherri and Rita Rocks, catch new episodes Tuesdays at 10pm & 10:30pm and then encores later that night at 1am & 1:30am. And for this week only, the comedies are encoring 10am-11am weekdays this week ONLY.

TV Land Acquires Raymond, Boston Legal for 2010, Borrows Home Improvement, Nanny; Nick at Nite Renews Glenn Martin

TV Land has landed the exclusive primetime broadcast rights for the Emmy® Award-winning comedy, Everybody Loves Raymond, from CBS Television Distribution beginning June 2010. The series ran in primetime for eight seasons, totaling 212 episodes and will premiere in TV Land PRIME, the network's primetime programming block designed to appeal to the attitudes, life stage and interests of people in their 40s. Additionally, the network announced three other new series to hit the airwaves in 2010: Boston Legal, Home Improvement and The Nanny.
Everybody Loves Raymond will be shared with cable network TBS, which airs the series in daytime and will still do so next June. Boston Legal will premiere on TV Land in the first quarter of 2010, while Home Improvement is being borrowed from sister network Nick at Nite and will be either on both networks or will move to TV Land by first quarter 2010. My guess is that it will totally move to TV Land. Home Improvement also airs in the daytime on TBS, so TV Land will only have evening rights. The Nanny will also be borrowed from sister network Nick at Nite and will be either on both networks or will move to TV Land, but this won't happen until third quarter 2010...next fall. Boston Legal is currently not on cable besides the weekend play on WGN America, though ION Television does have broadcast weekday rights.
These four series represent a continued commitment to build TV Land PRIME, the network's primetime programming destination dedicated to 40-somethings - a vibrant group with unmatched purchasing power and living in the most dynamic stage of their lives with relationships at work, with family and with friends all thriving. All of the programming in TV Land PRIME is hand-picked to appeal to the attitudes, life stage and interests of this important demo.

Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite has ordered a second season of 20 episodes of stop-motion animated series Glenn Martin, DDS, the first television series from Michael Eisner's Tornante Animation. The animated comedy series chronicles the offbeat adventures of the Martin family as they crisscross America in their tricked-out RV, encountering an array of bizarre situations and colorful locals. Ranked as the number-one program on Nick at Nite last quarter, the show features an all-star voice cast that includes Kevin Nealon as Glenn Martin, Catherine O'Hara as Jackie Martin and Judy Greer as Wendy Park.
Glenn Martin, DDS ranks as Nick at Nite's number-one program among total viewers average with 2.1 million total viewers each week, in third quarter 2009. In its first week, Glenn Martin, DDS reached a total of 11.3 million viewers and averaged 2.6 million (P2+) total viewers per telecast (Monday-Thursday, Aug. 17-20, 8 p.m.-8:30 p.m. [all times ET/PT]), according to Nielsen. The series also ranked as ad-supported cable's number-one co-viewed entertainment series in prime time for the premiere week with 40% of Adults 18-49 watching with at least one kid per household. Forty percent of Adults 18-49 watched with at least one kid 2-11 per household.
Season one has featured celebrity appearances, including Wendie Malick and Betty White, and will soon feature Bret Michaels, Chrissie Hynde, Gene Simmons, Sean Hayes, Jim Parsons, Estelle Harris and Don Johnson, among others.
Recently, Nick at Nite added hit series Everybody Hates Chris and Malcolm in the Middle, strengthening its slate of popular hit family comedies including the Emmy Award-winning series George Lopez, Home Improvement, The Nanny and Roseanne.

Don't forget ABC Comedy Wednesday starting tonight at 8/7 central! Today's blog is sponsored by Cougar Town, airing 9:30/8:30 central on ABC Comedy Wednesday. Because 40 is the new 20!

Schedule Changes for Next Week for TV Land, WGN America, Hallmark, TV One and ION

It's Friday and my oh my we have so many schedule changes taking place starting next week! So saddle up and get ready! First up, TV Land is removing Married...with Children again despite good ratings. Why? I think they are removing it because as I mentioned, sister network Spike TV will air it weekdays again starting Monday from 12-2pm. Who knew TV Land would remove it again? This Saturday is the last airing on TV Land (for now, knowing them) with the Saturday marathon. Starting next week, 3rd Rock from the Sun returns from the dead and will air Tuesdays 8pm-12am replacing the Married...with Children Tuesday block. The regular 8-9pm hour from Tues-Fri will also be replaced, with Hogan's Heroes on Wednesday and The Brady Bunch on Thursdays and Fridays. Actually those two shows will air 7-9PM, so they replace The Beverly Hillbillies in the 7pm hour...but that sitcom still airs in the afternoon at 1pm. The Saturday Married marathons will also be replaced starting Oct. 10 with various sitcoms. On October 10 we have Hogan's Heroes from 2:30-6pm, followed by a movie (Police Academy) until 8pm, then the M*A*S*H and Roseanne blocks have earlier start times, 8pm-11pm and 11pm-4am. Now TV Land has not announced yet if these changes are beyond next week, but I think they are.
View the updated TV Land October schedule.

Next up is WGN America. Starting Monday night, The Cosby Show will return to the WGN America regular line-up, as it was airing just Sundays. It will air Mon-Wed nights in the 4am hour replacing AFV, which only aired for a week there. And finally Toni On! New York will switch with Reno 911. Toni On! moves to Sundays at 5am, while Reno 911 moves to Mondays at 5am. That makes sense since now Reno 911 airs weeknights at 5am. Minor changes, but still changes!
Moving on to The Hallmark Channel, they get even more Lucy! Beginning Monday, October 5, I Love Lucy gets another hour. It will expand into 5-9pm, instead of 5-8pm. The 8pm hour addition replaces Touched by an Angel, which will still air from 9-11pm.

As for TV One, beginning on Tuesday October 6, TV One airs the sitcom For Your Love in the weekday morning 7am timeslot. The TV One original financial advice series Singletary Says previously announced for this time period will slide down a half hour and will now air weekdays at 7:30am. Finally, beginning on Thursday, October 8, TV One presents Thankful Thursdays with religious based sitcom Good News returning to the primetime mini-marathons airing Thursdays from 8pm to 10pm with encores from 3am to 5am until further notice, replacing the planned Sanford & Son marathons. Also of note, on Sunday, October 11 at 4pm, TV One encores the original special Living Single: The Reunion Show that reunites the cast of the popular TV One sitcom for a trip down memory lane.
The rest is the same as we previously announced for TV One October.
Finally, ION Television has announced the TBD slots on weekend afternoons will indeed be Reba starting this weekend. Reba will air in the 3pm ET half-hour this Sunday (Oct. 4).

ABC Fall Pilot Review: The Middle - Premieres September 30; TV Land Goes Brady Crazy This Week

The Middle - Wednesdays 8:30PM ET/PT on ABC
Premieres Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 8:30PM ET/PT

Emmy-winner Patricia Heaton stars in this warm and witty single-camera comedy about raising a family and lowering your expectations.

Frankie Heck is a superhero. Well, no, not an actual superhero - not unless you count getting her kids out the door for school every morning as a superfeat. Middle-aged, middle class and living in the middle of the country, this harried wife and working mother of three uses her wry wit and sense of humor to try to get her family through each day intact. Frankie has a job selling cars at the town's only surviving car dealer; her husband, Mike, is a manager at the local quarry.

In between juggling shifts and picking up fast food dinners eaten in front of the TV, Frankie and Mike raise their kids with love and solid Midwestern practicality. Axl is the oldest, a teenage jock who eats the family out of house and home and walks around in his underwear. Then there's Sue, their extraordinarily ordinary pre-teen daughter who fails at everything she tries with great gusto. Brick, the youngest son, is an odd kid whose best friend is his backpack. Together, they're putting THE MIDDLE on the map.

Cast Details:

* Patricia Heaton as Frankie Heck
* Neil Flynn as Mike Heck
* Charlie McDermott as Axl Heck
* Eden Shur as Sue Heck
* Atticus Shafer as Brick Heck
* Chris Kattan as Bob

Patricia Heaton (Frankie Heck) is perhaps best known for her role as Debra Barone on the award-winning series Everybody Loves Raymond. She won two Emmy Awards for the role and was nominated seven times. In addition to her Emmy wins, Heaton is also the recipient of the Best Comedy Actress Award from the Viewers for Quality Television, a SAG Award and three SAG nominations in the Best Actress category for her work on Raymond. Heaton most recently starred opposite Kelsey Grammer in the Fox comedy series Back to You. She also starred in the Hallmark Hall of Fame film, Front of the Class. Other television credits include a recurring role on ABC's popular series thirtysomething and prominent roles in the series Room for Two, Someone Like Me and Women of the House, as well as the television films A Town Without Christmas and Miracle in the Woods. Heaton produced and starred in the TNT/FourBoys Films production, The Engagement Ring, She also starred in the TNT/Neil Simon production of The Goodbye Girl and ABC's The Path to 9/11. Her feature film credits include Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Beethoven, New Age and Space Jam.

Neil Flynn (Mike Heck) just finished his eighth season as Sacred Heart Hospital's menacing janitor in the ABC comedy series Scrubs. Flynn can be seen interrogating Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, directed by Steven Spielberg, and is also well known for playing Lindsay Lohan's dad in the hit comedy Mean Girls. His other feature appearances include Hoot, Home Alone 3, The Fugitive, Chain Reaction, Rookie of the Year, Baby's Day Out and Major League. Equally adept at comedy and drama, Flynn has performed a variety of roles on television series, ranging from Seinfeld, The Drew Carey Show and That 70's Show to C.S.I., Boston Public and NYPD Blue. Other T.V. appearances include Arli$$, Ellen, Family Law and Smallville.

Charlie McDermott (Axl Heck) is a quickly rising star who will make his presence felt on both the large and small screen in 2009. On the big screen he has two new films in production: He'll join Chevy Chase, John Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson in United Artist's Hot Tub Time Machine, an absurdist comedy slated to open in February 2010; he will also star alongside Laura Linney and writer/director Leland Orser in Morning, opening later this year. McDermott began his career with M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver. Additional film credits include The Sex Drive, opposite Seth Green and James Marsden. Television credits include The Office, as the disinterested student who ignores Michael Scott (Steve Carell), ABC's Private Practice, Parks and Recreation, and Medium.

Eden Sher (Sue Heck) is best known for her work on the ABC comedy Sons & Daughters. She has also starred in Starz Party Down, ABC Family's The Middleman, Disney's Sonny With A Chance and Showtime's Weeds.

Atticus Shaffer (Brick Heck) was discovered by his manager in 2006 and soon landed a guest starring role in the series The Class. That role led him to the role of Brick in the original ABC pilot, The Middle. Several episodics followed, such as My Name is Earl, Days of Our Lives, Carpoolers, Out of Jimmy's Head and Human Giant. Perhaps best known for the bus stop scene he shared with Will Smith in Hancock, Atticus' other roles in feature films include The Unborn, An American Carol, Leaving Barstow and Opposite Day.

Chris Kattan (Bob) is best known for his many characters on Saturday Night Live, which he joined in March 1996, completing his seventh and final season in 2003. With numerous upcoming projects, he was recently seen in the Independent Film Channel's three-part miniseries, Bollywood Hero, in which he played himself in an otherwise fictional comedy. Other big-screen credits include Universal's Undercover Brother, Disney's Corky Romano" the script of which was based on a character Kattan developed, and A Night at the Roxbury, written by Kattan and Will Ferrell and produced by Lorne Michaels and Amy Heckerling. Kattan was also seen opposite Brendan Fraser and Bridget Fonda in Monkey Bone, and in The House on Haunted Hill, opposite Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Ali Larter and Taye Diggs and produced by Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis.


Pilot Plot:

#1 "Pilot" (Airs September 30)
Frankie is struggling in her career as a car salesperson because she has failed to actually sell a car. Sue has auditioned for show choir and, to everyone's shock, makes the team, but fails to mention that she's part of the stage crew. To top things off, Brick wants Frankie to come to his class presentation dressed as a superhero. Just when Frankie thinks she's got a car sold and her kids under control, she does show up to Brick's class dressed as a superhero -- but he's given her the wrong day -- and the car she thought she had sold is stolen right in front of her. Work and home have taken over Frankie's life... to the point that she barely recognizes herself and has even taken to coloring her hair with a magic marker. Her youth has faded and the day-to-day grind has worn her down, but it's family and the struggles they face together that keep Frankie and the rest of the Hecks one big happy mess.
Guest starring are Brian Doyle-Murray as Mr. Ehlert, Amy Farrington as Gail, Patricia Belcher as Mrs. Rettig, Jeanete Miller as Aunt Edie, Francis Bay as Aunt Ginny, Peter Breitmayer as Pete, Andy Kreiss as choir director, Ping Wu as Mr. Yamamoto, Mike Randleman as flight attendant and Robert Clendenin as P.A.
"Pilot" was written by DeAnn Heline and Eileen Heisler, and directed by Julie Ann Robinson.


Analysis:

ABC has had this pilot in development for a few years, so they have really believed in it and got to a point where they made it the best they could. Previously when it was in development, Ricki Lake was the star...now we have Patricia Heaton as the star and she shines in this role! This sitcom is about an average family living in "the middle" of the country in Indiana. If you liked Malcolm in the Middle, you are sure to like this. While that series was focused mainly on Malcolm, this series is all about Frankie Heck (Patricia Heaton). But that is not to say this isn't an ensemble, because the family is a key part of the show.

The pilot is excellent. Mike and Frankie Heck have three children Axl, Sue and Brick. They are all so unique and funny in their own ways. I think everyone in the entire country will love the youngest child, Brick. He is unbelievably funny! Even his name is pretty funny! Seriously, Frankie, Axl, and Brick...strange names, but funny! Frankie is a car salesman and of course a mom, where she has to juggle so many tasks. Brick has even called his mom a superhero for his class. What happens with that is actually very hysterical. Frankie also can't sell any cars and when you think she is about to, something very out of the blue happens that you'll never see coming. And at the dealership, Frankie's co-worker Bob (Chris Kattan) is there, but he hasn't really gotten any substance yet. He has now been made a series regular, where on this pilot he was just a guest star. We have two very fun men here in Neil Flynn as Mike Heck and Chris Kattan as Bob the car salesman. Just a wonderful cast and a hilarious family!

You've see some hilarious scenes in promos, such as Brick unknowingly tapping her teacher's breast when trying to get her attention, and the hilarious scenes just keep on coming on this show! Another scene that is hysterical is when Frankie is telling Brick to lick his frozen pancake because it will last longer! Everything in this pilot clicks very well and ABC now I think has 3 very good comedies on Wednesday nights, with only Hank (The Middle's lead-in) being the exception so far.


Conclusion:

This could quietly become one of the top comedies on the air right now. Modern Family is probably the best family comedy, but this should not be overlooked either. If you like sitcoms like Roseanne and Malcolm in the Middle, you'll love this one because it is a mix of both. I am from the Northeast, so I don't know if families are really like that in "the middle" of the country, but Heaton has said in interviews that she was born in Ohio (close to Indiana) and her family was so much like this. I'm sure people in the middle of the country will even like this show more since they can relate to this. In these tough times, we sure need a show like this! I never really liked Everybody Loves Raymond, but Patricia Heaton shines in this role...she plays it real and is funny. Neil Flynn was always hilarious on Scrubs and just seeing the janitor from Scrubs as a father is hysterical itself! I think the real show stealer in this is Atticus Shaffer as the young Brick. He pulls his pants down in public to go to the bathroom, he touches his teacher's breasts (not on purpose), and repeats stuff under his breath. He is like Dewey from Malcolm, but so much funnier!

The ratings should be pretty good for this show. This hour is pretty weak and the show is millions better than CBS's competing Gary Unmarried. Tune in tonight at 8:30pm for this new hilarious comedy on ABC Comedy Wednesday! You'll be saying "this is a winner" and like Brick, you'll say it under your breath, too!

Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):

Watchability: 4.5/5
Funniness: 4/5
Overall: 4.5/5

-- Reviewed by pavanbadal on 09/30/09

Discuss the show after you watch it on Wednesday, September 23 on our message board.

Related Links:

ABC.com Official Site

TV.com

epguides.com

Internet Movie Database

Wikipedia

The Middle Photo Gallery

Preview:

TV Land has made a slight change for the remainder of the week starting tonight. The Brady Bunch will air Wed-Fri this week ONLY in the 7pm hour instead of the usual back-to-back The Beverly Hillbillies. That is interesting as it seems last week's Brady Bunch anniversary must have did decent for them in the ratings. However, it just seems so strange they have Brady Bunch followed by Married...with Children! Talk about two totally different shows! I'm not sure what TV Land is doing, but their scheduling has been pretty weird the last year or two.
TV Land has also quietly returned Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in the weekdays at 9am hour, replacing Good Times, which now shifts to 10-11am, followed by Sanford & Son from 11am-12pm. Previously three episodes each of these two sitcoms were airing from 9am-10:30am and 10:30am-12pm.
Stay with us for more TV Land news. We hear more changes could happen next week, so keep checking back. We also have the TV Land November 2009 schedule to give you all, but we might wait a few days for that...just in case we have wholesale changes happening next week.

Married with Children Returns To Spike TV; TV Land Celebrates Brady and Cosby Anniversaries

Married... with Children is returning to Spike TV starting October 5! It will air weekdays at 1pm & 1:30pm replacing an airing of CSI: NY. This means CSI: NY will only now air weekdays at 2pm. The original CSI airs weekdays from 3-8pm. Married...with Children will continue to air on sister network TV Land as well this time. So you get Married on Spike in the afternoon on weekdays and Married on TV Land in primetime and weekends. Al Bundy likes!
In other changes, Unsolved Mysteries will also air on Sunday mornings from 9-11am starting Oct. 11. This is in addition to its return to the daily line-up airing Mon-Wed at 2am starting Sept. 28, as we previously mentioned
View the full and update Spike TV Fall 2009 line-up.

We mentioned that TV Land will do anniversary stunts for The Brady Bunch and The Cosby Show, and now TV Land has given the full details.
TV Land breaks out the bubbly this September to celebrate the milestone anniversaries of two of television's most beloved and celebrated sitcoms, The Brady Bunch and The Cosby Show. The network will pay homage to Mike, Carol and the whole Brady clan for the 40th anniversary of the launch of the series and will also celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Huxtables joining the TV fray with marathons of the most memorable episodes from both series, including the premiere episodes. Additionally, TVLand.com will honor the two series' with content such as extensive photo galleries, video clips of classic moments from each show, games and trivia.
The network will honor the 40th anniversary of the day when this lovely lady met this fellow and they became The Brady Bunch almost 40 years to the day beginning Monday, September 21, 2009 through Friday from 7PM-9PM ET/PT and Saturday, September 26 & Sunday, September 27 from 10AM-6PM ET/PT. Tune in to some of the funniest episodes including the September 26, 1969 pilot featuring Mike and Carols wedding when Tiger destroys the cake and other classics like Cindy's missing Kitty Karry-All doll, Greg and Marcia competing for class president, Jan in a brunette wig, a family trip to the Grand Canyon and many more! TVLand.com gets in on the anniversary action with exclusive web content on The Brady Bunch microsite which includes photo galleries, games such as the "Marcia Brady Football Toss" and Brady trivia, as well as video clips of favorite Brady moments and beloved musical performances. Additionally, in partnership with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's Archive of American Television, interviews with the cast and Brady creator Sherwood Schwartz will be featured. Fans will also be able to follow Barry "Greg" Williams, Susan "Cindy" Olsen, Geri Reischl ("Fake Jan" of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour), Wendy Winans (BradyWorld.com) and author and Brady expert Lisa Sutton on Twitter as they "tweet" throughout the anniversary marathon week. Sutton will also contribute to blog entries during the week to discuss subjects such as "Where are they now?" and "Brady Collectibles."
The festivities honoring the Huxtables Silver 25th anniversary will air with a marathon of extra-special episodes of The Cosby Show highlighting memorable moments on Wednesday, September 23 from 9PM to Midnight ET/PT. From the pilot episode which originally premiered September 20, 1984 when Denise goes on a date with an older merchant marine -- much to Cliff's dismay -- to Theo's disastrous designer shirt knock-off home-sewn by his sister, to the unforgettable staircase family lip-synch performance of Ray Charles' classic, "Night Time Is The Right Time," for Grandma and Grandpa Huxtable's Anniversary, viewers are sure to have a smile on their face – especially after Rudy steals the show. The Cosby Show is also featured at TVLand.com with a Cliff Huxtable sweater gallery, favorite video clips from the show and Cosby trivia about the cast and the loveable characters they played.
Congrats to our friend Wendy of BradyWorld.com on being featured on the Brady Bunch anniversary! As for The Cosby Show, WGN America will be doing a much better tribute this coming Sunday, as we mentioned.

TV Land and Hallmark Make Changes Starting Sept. 14; Chris Does Well for Nick at Nite; John Ritter Anniversary

TV Land and Hallmark Channel have both made some last minute schedule changes to its schedule starting this Monday (Sept. 14). TV Land's change is very minor, as it will add a third Sanford & Son in the morning at 10:30am replacing a Good Times airing. Good Times will remain 9am-10:30am, as Sanford & Son is now 10:30am-12pm. The previous changes that were set to happen on Sept. 14 for TV Land that we announced, will still happen.
Meanwhile, it wouldn't be a week without a Hallmark Channel schedule change. It seems like every week we have a schedule change now. This schedule change is a bit more drastic than the usual changes. The changes start this Monday (Sept. 14) with Paid Programming replacing The Golden Girls in the 8am hour. Not to worry is that The Golden Girls will retain that hour by airing at 12pm replacing the start of a movie. Golden Girls will now air between 9am-1pm every weekday morning. Murder, She Wrote returns to the line-up airing at 1pm (replacing the continuation of the afternoon movie) and 2pm (replacing a Little House airing). Little House has been cut to 3-5pm. The final change is in the late night, with another hour of The Golden Girls replacing an hour of Cheers. So, Golden Girls late night is now 11pm-2am, while Cheers is cut to 2-3am. Looks like Hallmark Channel thanks you for being a friend!

Nick at Nite's latest prime-time addition to its family-programming lineup, Everybody Hates Chris (Monday, Sept. 7, 10 p.m. ET/PT), scored 1.8 million total viewers in its Labor Day premiere. The series also drew double-digit gains with adults 18-49 (+25%) and women 18-49 (+20%) and ranked as the most-watched live action premiere for the net with adults 18-49 since the debut of Home Improvement (September 2007).
The premiere scored 1.8 million total viewers (+8 %) and double-digit gains over last year's like time period with adults 18-49 (+25%) and women 18-49 (+20%), averaging a 0.5 A18-49 rating and 592,000 viewers A18-49 and a 0.6 W18-49 rating and 372,000 viewers W18-49.
Chris has of course George Lopez as its lead-in, which is the #1 program on the network averaging well over 2 million viewers an airing.

And finally, today is September 11...we of course remember the lives of all the victims of the 9/11 attack in 2001, but we also remember the tragic passing of John Ritter on this date in 2003. I cannot believe it has been 6 years to this day that we lost such a great actor and more importantly a wonderful human being. The best way you can remember John today is by of course watching his great work on TV or DVD, or by saying something nice and funny to someone, but also by donating to the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health. I've made my annual donation today, and I think we should all do the same. We miss you John!

TV Land October 2009 Highlights; Retroality.TV's Totally Awesome Features for September

October 2009 for TV Land will be the same regular schedule that will start in September, as of now. There are some minor weekend time adjustments, but it is not a big deal. This October, Married...with Children's Saturday block goes from 5pm-10pm to 2pm-10pm, while Andy Griffith Show's Sunday block goes from 5pm-10pm to 5pm-12am. As a result, M*A*S*H's Sunday primetime airing gets shifted to Saturdays 10pm-1am replacing Cosby Show. That's all but there are plenty of highlights! First off, leading into Married on Saturdays will continue to be various classic marathons each week, in October on Saturdays we have 3rd Rock from the Sun, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Sanford & Son, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Three's Company...with time varying, but usually between 10am-2pm. Leading into Andy on Sundays will continue to be various classic marathons each week as well, in October on Sundays we get Hogan's Heroes, Bonanza, Good Times, and Gunsmoke.
TV Land invites you again for the annal event CASA Family Day. Spend the 6pm hour with your family around the family table during CASA's annual Family Day on Monday, September 28. This year an episode of Little House on the Prairie will air.
This Halloween be scared. Be very scared! Because it's Roseanne's Wicked Halloween Bash! Catch every single Halloween episode from Roseanne's run on Halloween night from 10pm-2am! What better way for a wicked Halloween bash? Michael Myers who?
Finally, the TV Land PRIME movies for October are Police Academy, Office & a Gentleman, The Mod Squad, The Bodyguard, and Private Benjamin.
View the TV Land October 2009 Highlights.

Chris Mann's Retroality.TV has many many new features coming this September that will something for everyone! The cover story for September will be about Susan Olsen's new book Love to Love You Bradys, a look at how the Bradys paved the way for reality TV! There will be another cover story as well! Chris Mann has part 1 of an explosive two-part, in-depth interview with Farrah's Story executive producer Craig J. Nevius. Two days before NBC premiered the special back in May, Nevius sued Ryan O'Neal and Alana Stewart, claiming they interfered in the project and barred him from carrying out the terms of his signed April 2008 contract with Farrah. Nevius also was barred from contacting Farrah during the last three months of her life. She died of course on June 25 after a three-year struggle with anal cancer. In part one of this exclusive interview, Nevius discusses his five-year friendship and business relationship with Fawcett--beginning with a failed Charlie's Angels reunion and then TV Land's Chasing Farrah--and his promise to help her win an Emmy (She and Nevius are nominated for their roles as executive producers in Farrah's Story). Part 2 of the story will post by Sept. 7, leading up to the Creative Arts Emmys on Sept. 12.
Also, coming this September to this wonderful and cool website is a story on why TV Land censors Sanford and Son from guest columnist John Wekluk. And Price is Right fans take note, part four of Holly Hallstrom's audio interview will be posted in mid-September. She discusses, among other things, Rod Roddy's tragic, lengthy battle with colon cancer and why Bob Barker's longtime on-screen sidekick was suddenly taken off camera--against Roddy's wishes--on The Price is Right in 2002. Was it "Come on Out" instead of "Come on Down" for Roddy? You'll want to hear this!
And finally, the home page of Retroality.TV will feature links to last month's exclusive Hollywood Show video interviews, including Chris' chat with Tanya Roberts (who discusses her husband's death after a long illness, as well as Farrah's passing), Three's Company's Jenilee Harrison (Cindy Snow), and his revealing four-part chat with Susan Olsen (who gives Chris Brady scoops on her book, the Jan and Marcia "feud" and a rumored Oprah reunion this fall). That Olsen video is perfect timing since one of the cover stories is on Susan Olsen!
So head on over to our pals at Retroality.TV! Chris Mann never disappoints!

New York City Locals Fall 2009 Schedules; A&E Buys Lifetime; Series High for Joan Rivers' TV Land Show

It's that time of year again...fall 2009 schedules for New York City stations! I have for you the full schedules for WNYW, WWOR and WPIX. Unfortunately, I couldn't obtain the schedules for WABC, WCBS, and WNBC at press time, but they rarely make changes. Independent WLNY's schedule also is not known at this time. Cold Case Files is coming to WLNY (M-F 1pm) and WCBS (TBD late night), though.
We'll start with WNYW's Fall 2009 schedule. New series this fall are Dr. Mehmet Oz at 11am & 3pm, Judge Jeanine Pirro at 4pm, and The Office at 7:30pm & 11pm. The Office will also air weekends, Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 11pm. Summer launches will continue in the fall with Wendy Williams Show continuing to air weekdays at 10am and Wedlock or Deadlock will move to 12:30pm (from 11am). Among the series leaving are Inside Edition, Morning Show with Mike & Juliet, Bananas and Scrubs.
Sister network WWOR will be making more changes than WNYW in Fall 2009. New series this fall are Dragonfly Mondays at 7am, My Name is Earl at 7:30am & 8am, America's Funniest Home Videos at 2pm, Everybody Hates Chris at 4pm & 4:30pm, Law & Order: SVU at 11:30pm, Deadliest Catch Saturdays at 4pm & 11:30pm, Bones on Saturdays at 8pm & 9pm, and Swap TV on Sundays at 11:30am. Joining the schedule from WPIX will be My Wife & Kids, airing weekdays at 5:30pm. Everybody Hates Chris will also air Saturdays at 6pm & 6:30pm. Among the series leaving are Animal Atlas E/I, Scrubs, One on One, Trivial Pursuit, UFC Wired, The Dead Zone, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Finally, we have WPIX's Fall 2009 schedule. New series this fall are Street Court at 1pm & 1:30pm, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? at 5pm & 5:30pm, Star Trek: The Next Generation at 3am, The Hills Saturdays 1pm & 1:30pm, The Brian McKnight Show Saturdays at 11pm, and Smash Cuts Sundays at 7pm & 7:30pm. Joining the schedule from WNYW/WWOR will be Scrubs, airing weeknights at 2am and Saturdays at 1am. Also, joining from WNYW is Inside Edition, airing weeknights at 6pm leading into the new PIX News at 6:30pm. CW Daytime now adds Best of Tyra Banks and The Tyra Banks Show at 3pm & 4pm, replacing Judge Jeanine Pirro and sitcoms Wayans Bros. and Jamie Foxx. Among the other series leaving are Judge Karen, My Wife & Kids, Sex and the City, The Jeffersons, and the '60s Star Trek.
View the FULL Fall 2009 schedules for WNYW, WWOR, and WPIX in New York City! Stay tuned for updates, if any. From New York, goodnight!

The Disney-ABC Television Group, Hearst Corporation and NBC Universal announced an agreement for A&E Television Networks to acquire Lifetime Entertainment Services. The parent company will retain the name A&E Television Networks, LLC (AETN), and its subsidiary will retain the name Lifetime Entertainment Services, LLC. The closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to occur in 2009. Financial terms were not disclosed.
AETN will now include: A&E Network, History, Lifetime Television, Lifetime Movie Network, Bio, History International, Lifetime Real Women, History en Espanol, Military History and Crime & Investigation Network.
Before the reshuffling, Disney-ABC and Hearst each held a 37.5% stake in AETN, while NBC Universal controlled the remaining 25%. Once the dust settles, Disney and Hearst will each hold an estimated 42.5% stake in AETN, leaving NBC with about 15.5%. Lifetime was a 50-50 joint venture between Disney-ABC and Hearst before AETN acquired it.

Wednesday night's episode of TV Land PRIME's original reality series, How'd You Get So Rich? averaged nearly 800,000 total viewers, making it the most-watched episode of the season to date, according to Nielsen Media Research. The telecast posted huge, triple-digit increases in rating and delivery among Adults 25-54 and Adults 40-54 in addition to total viewers over recent levels. It also witnessed gains over its 9:30 p.m. lead-in among A25-54 and double-digit gains among women 25-54. The new series, starring the hilarious and often outrageous Joan Rivers, takes viewers on a journey to meet millionaires who worked hard and struck gold as she tours the most lavish and extravagant homes and introduces them to folks who made a lot of money in really interesting ways the way only Joan can.
The episodes posted a 0.4 A25-54 rating and 426,000 viewers among A25-54, up a whopping 150% in rating and 148% in viewers in that demo versus the prior 4 week primetime average. The network averaged 771,000 total viewers, up 117% over recent levels. Among the network's core A40-54 audience, the premiere earned a 0.4 A40-54 rating and 240,000 viewers among A40-54, an increase of 153% in rating and viewers in that demo over recent levels in primetime.
The telecast posted increases among men and women 25-54 over recent primetime levels as well. Among women, it scored a 0.5 W25-54 rating and 247,000 viewers among W25-54, up 109% in rating and 111% in viewers in that demo versus previous four week primetime average. Among men the installment scored a 0.4 M25-54 rating and 179,000 viewers among M25-54, a triple digit increase of 218% in rating and 225% in delivery. How'd You Get So Rich? experienced appointment viewing as it lifted 8% among A25-54 over its 9:30 p.m. lead-in.

Fresh Prince Comes to Disney XD Fall 2009; Hallmark and TV Land Schedule Changes Starting Aug. 24

As we mentioned a few times, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is coming to Disney XD this September! We normally don't cover Disney XD, but since Fresh Prince is coming, we will this time. Similar to when Viacom had rights to Fresh Prince and Nick at Nite shared it with The N, now ABC Family will share it with sister network Disney XD. Both Nick at Nite and The N will lose rights to the show and will drop it at the end of this month...as Disney now gets full evening rights instead of just weekends.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air will launch on Disney XD with a three-night marathon event starting Friday, September 18, 2009 and running through Sunday, September 20, 2009! On all three nights, the marathon will air from 7pm-6am, with only season one episodes. As a result, most of them will air three times each. Season one had 25 episodes and they will go in order in this marathon event. Then starting Monday, September 21, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air will join the regular weeknight schedule and air weeknights at 7pm, 9:30pm & 10pm with encores at 12am & 2:30am. It will also air on weekends, both Saturday and Sundays in the 5pm hour and Sundays in the 7pm hour as well. Sister network ABC Family will air it weeknights in the 6pm hour and sometimes late nights on Saturday nights beginning at 11pm.
View the full Disney XD September 2009 schedule.

Hallmark Channel is making more changes. Beginning Monday (August 24) midday movies will replace Touched By An Angel at noon & 1pm, while a triple shot of episodes of 7th Heaven replace Little House on the Prairie from 2pm-5pm. Touched by an Angel will of course remain in primetime from 8-11pm, while 7th Heaven returns to the schedule but Little House on the Prairie leaves the schedule.
Meanwhile, TV Land will also make a schedule change starting Monday (Aug. 24). It's a very minor one, but still nevertheless a schedule change. Weekdays at 9am will now be another hour of Good Times, replacing Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. That show will still be on sister network CMT, so not to worry. Good Times will air now for two full hours from 9-11am, when there are no encores of How'd You Get So Rich. This change is through at least week of Sept. 21. Not sure yet if this will run into October schedule (which starts Sept. 28). Stay with us for more on TV Land in October.

TV Land and Spike TV Fall 2009 Updates; Lifetime Original Sitcoms Update; A Personal Message

Today we have a couple of updates to fall schedules we already gave you. Viacom strikes again. Yesterday we mentioned Married...with Children is returning to TV Land effective immediately. So yes this will indeed affect TV Land's September line-up that we originally gave you. Married...with Children will remain on the TV Land schedule this September as well! Starting Sept. 14 it will air weeknights 8-9pm and will join the weeknight 9pm-12am block on Tuesday nights. So this means Andy Griffith Show will not air weeknights 7-9pm anymore, as originally planned. Beverly Hillbillies will still fill the 7pm hour, as that change starts next week. Originally the 9pm-12am block from Mon-Thurs had Andy on Monday, Roseanne on Tuesday, M*A*S*H on Wednesday, and Cosby Show on Thursday. Now it will be Andy on Monday, Married...with Children on Tuesday, Cosby Show on Wednesday, and Roseanne on Thursday.
Also, Married...with Children will air on Saturdays as well in marathon blocks during the day instead of Andy Griffith, but that will remain on Sundays. Late Sunday nights from 4-6am will now be Brady Bunch airings. And since the Cosby Show primetime block goes from Thursdays to Wednesdays, the 25th anniversary marathon moves to Wednesday, Sept. 23.
View the fully updated TV Land September 2009 line-up.

And that's not all for changes! Spike TV's Fall 2009 line-up starts on Monday, Sept. 28, as we told you. There is one change now. Instead of Married...with Children from 9-11am on weekday mornings, we now get a morning movie. Why? You guessed it...sister network TV Land is now airing the show on weekdays and Saturdays as we mentioned above. But on Sundays, Spike TV will still air the show in the mornings and sometimes in the 1am hour on that night. Everything else for Spike TV Fall 2009 is the same as we previously relayed to you, so Unsolved Mysteries is still Mon-Wed nights at 2am.

Moving on to Lifetime, we first announced the premiere date for Lifetime's new original sitcom Sherri as October 5 on our Lifetime Fall 2009 schedule...now we have full details on that and the return of Rita Rocks.
The all-new, multi-camera comedy series Sherri, premieres Monday, October 5, at 7PM ET/PT on Lifetime Television. Sherri will bow as part of a one-hour comedy block paired with the returning Rita Rocks, starring Nicole Sullivan, at 7:30PM ET/PT. Both series will feature stripped original episodes for a full week in the 7PM hour. Sherri will then move into its regular timeslot Tuesdays at 10PM ET/PT, followed by Rita Rocks Tuesdays at 10:30PM ET/PT--both starting Oct. 13.
Sherri centers around a newly single mom, paralegal and part-time comedienne/actress who tries to get back into the dating scene and move on with her life after divorcing her cheating husband. Sherri finds solace and support among her girlfriends at the office while juggling her hectic life.
Sherri marks the first comedy series ever to be wholly owned by Lifetime. The Network has picked up 12 episodes of the program, to be produced in New York by Lifetime Television. Also starring in the series are Elizabeth Regen, Kate Reinders, Kali Rocha and Tammy Townsend. Classic TV stars Malcolm-Jamal Warner and James Avery will guest-star in multiple episodes.

Finally, I have a few personal news for you. Tonight's episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is the one I went to! Watch Night 5 tonight at 8pm ET/PT on ABC. Hint: I'm sitting close to where the contestant's spouse/family member sits, but in the third row instead of the first row. And finally, since 1997 I've been raising money for a Walkathon. This year I'm raising money online as well. So I'm asking you readers out there to help me out for my online portion and donate for a great cause that benefits so many causes, including the American Cancer Society. Any amount is good and you'll feel good for donating! So please donate today (I sound like Sally Struthers, don't I?)! You'll find all the info on that link...it is amazing. Please help us out!

TV Land Brings Back Married with Children; New RTV Station In Northwest Arkansas

We interrupt our fall schedule barrage blog posts for a special announcement! The Bundys are back! TV Land made a very last minute schedule change yesterday and aired a block of Married...with Children last night from 8:30pm-11pm. TV Land will also air the show again on Friday from 7-9pm and on Saturday a 12-hour marathon will air from 12pm-12am, replacing blocks of Green Acres and Andy Griffith. The final Green Acres block is on Aug. 22 from 6am-8:30am, as the contract for the series is expiring. So, after these special airings, Married...with Children will return to the TV Land line-up! Spike TV isn't airing it daily right now, but is scheduled to return it as of now starting Sept. 28...so it seems TV Land will air it daily until then at least. Effective next week, Married...with Children will air Tuesdays 8pm-12am, Wednesdays & Thursdays 8-10pm and Fridays 8-9pm. Essentially replacing Cosby Show and Roseanne slots. The Cosby Show's 7-8pm hour will now belong to The Beverly Hillbillies starting Monday (Aug. 17), while Cosby Show moves to 3-4am instead of another hour of Roseanne.
Also, there will be another 12-hour Married...with Children marathon on Saturday, Aug. 22 from 10am-10pm, replacing the scheduled Bonanza and Andy blocks. The series has done well for TV Land but had to be pulled because Spike TV (a sister network) was putting it back on the daily schedule. Right now Spike is only airing it Sunday mornings.
View the updated TV Land August 2009 changes. So how will this affect TV Land in September starting Sept. 14? We're not sure, but I expect changes to the original Sept. schedule. Looks like we'll have to update our TV Land fall schedule post. Will Married...with Children be a part of it? We shall see. Stay with us, as always!

KPBI-TV the full power MyNetwork TV affiliate in North West Arkansas will drop its MyNetwork TV affiliation this week and become a full-time Retro Television RTV affiliate! According to Greg Fess, President of KPBI, "I am very excited to be bringing the RTV Network to the NW Arkansas area. We love the family friendly programs that we have enjoyed over the years. We know that viewers will embrace this new programming on KPBI which has served the area for many years as a broadcasting leader."
RTV's Neal Ardman pointed to the success many full power primary stations are now having using RTV on the main channel as the primary and often only network. "We have enjoyed tremendous ratings success in several markets including Boston on WMFP, Knoxville on WMAK and WPXS in St. Louis. RTV offers what other networks can't. Along with fantastic shows like Magnum P.I. and Quincy, RTV provides most of its affiliates 24/7 centralized master control on a barter basis. The RTV model has to be the future of TV for the local station to survive," said Ardman. By providing the both the local and nation content on an individual stream the stations have little if any capitol cost in launching and the only ongoing cost is the actual cost of spot sales.

We hope to have a fall schedule for you tomorrow, pending approval. So bear with us, we are trying! We still have quite a few left to deliver.

Canada Cable Networks Fall 2009 Schedules; Joan Rivers' Show on TV Land Premieres Well

Today we put our full focus on cable stations up north... Canada, that is. We will take a look at some of the fall 2009 schedules for Canada including TV Land Canada, DejaView, CTS, TVtropolis, and SUN TV.
First up, we'll start with TV Land Canada. They will be adding the Canadian series The Red Green Show. Set in the fictional town of Possum Lake, Canada, this sketch/sitcom comedy series features the feats and foibles of Possum Lodge leader and hapless handyman, Red Green (comedian Steve Smith). Recurring characters include Harold, Red's techno-geek nephew and Bill, the resident naturalist. It will air Mondays through Fridays at 7am & 7:30am; repeats at 11:30am & 12pm, 7pm & 7:30pm, and 4am & 4:30am starting August 31.
Leaving the TV Land Canada line-up for now are 21 Jump Street, Dallas, Adventures in Rainbow Country, Swiss Family Robinson, and Adderly.
Among the highlights are The Red Green Show marathon on Canada's Thanksgiving. If you haven't caught TV Land Canada's latest new series yet, come and get acquainted by celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving in the great outdoors with Red Green and his cronies from 6am-12pm with two encores each from 12pm-6pm and 6pm-6am! Next, tune in to TV Land Canada on Christmas Eve starting at 5pm to kick-start the night with a double-bill of Lassie movies, then follow up with special holiday-themed episodes of your favorite programs Lassie, Happy Days, The Andy Griffith Show, and Hart to Hart. Then finally the next day, Christmas Day is a happy day, so spend with Fonzie, Chachi and the gang with a Happy Days marathon from 6am-5pm with an encore from 5pm-4am!
View the full TV Land Canada Fall 2009 Schedule.

Next up we have DejaView's Fall 2009 schedule. DejaView is removing The Rifleman, The Wonder Years, Good Times, The Ropers, Magnum P.I.. But since shows leave, new shows will join! Joining the schedule are The Rockford Files, Coach, Saved By The Bell, Silver Spoons. The first two are weekdays (Coach is weekends as well), while the latter two will air on weekends only. DejaView staples Three's Company, All in the Family, Who's the Boss?, The Cosby Show, and a few others will remain.

Then we have the TVtropolis Fall 2009 Schedule.
TVtropolis of course was known as PRIME previously. Their line-up features a mix of sitcoms, game shows, reality series, and more. They are a sister station to DejaView. Coming to the network this fall are Three's Company and Dawson's Creek. Yes, Three's Company will air on BOTH DejaView and TVtropolis! Mainstays Seinfeld, Married with Children, King of Queens, That '70s Show, Frasier, Friends, and Everybody Loves Raymond remain.

Next we have SUN TV and CTS TV. SUN TV will have series such as My Secret Identity, Caroline in the City, Dear John, Taxi, Dave's World, George Lopez, Becker, Alfred Hitchcock, Fame and Jimmy Kimmel Live. View SUN TV's Fall 2009 schedule.
CTS's fall line-up will not have any sitcoms anymore except for Family Matters. Sitcoms of recent years like The Hogan Family, Facts of Life, Family Ties, Full House, Amen, Fresh Prince, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, are now gone! Replacing these comedies are now dramas Promised Land, Little House on the Prairie and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. View the CTS Fall 2009 line-up.

Finally, Teletoon will add The Yogi Bear Show, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, Top Cat, Captain Caveman, Josie and the Pussycats, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Inspector Gadget and Beetlejuice to their schedule, but Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, The Tom and Jerry Show, Woody Woodpecker, Merrie Melodies, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and The Porky Pig Show are leaving. View the Teletoon Fall 2009 schedule.
And continue to monitor and discuss Canada's fall schedules on our message board with the help of members like Sal from Canada.

Wednesday night's premiere of TV Land PRIME's new reality series, How'd You Get So Rich? posted double-digit increases in rating and delivery among Adults 25-54 and Adults 40-54 a well total viewers over recent levels. It also witnessed double-digit gains over its 9:30 p.m. Roseanne lead-in as well as gains among women 25-54. The new series, starring the often outrageous and hilarious Joan Rivers, takes viewers on a journey to meet millionaires who worked hard and struck gold as she tours the most lavish and extravagant homes and introduces them to folks who made a lot of money in really interesting ways the way only Joan can.
According to Nielsen Media Research, How'd You Get So Rich? posted double-digit gains with a 0.3 A25-54 rating and 333,000 viewers among A25-54, up 29% in rating and 33% in viewers 25-54 versus the prior 4 week primetime average. The network averaged 650,000 total viewers, up 16% over the previous four week average. Among the network's core A40-54 audience, the premiere earned a 0.4 A40-54 rating and 203,000 viewers A40-54, an increase of 24% in rating and 26% in viewers 40-54 over the previous 4 week average.
The premiere telecast posted increases among Women 25-54 over recent primetime levels, scoring a 0.4 W25-54 rating 197,000 viewers W25-54, up 37% in rating and 38% in viewers W25-54 versus previous four week primetime average. How'd You Get So Rich? experienced appointment viewing as it lifted 35% among A25-54 over its 9:30 p.m. Roseanne lead-in.

Other TV Land news, The Beverly Hillbillies will air this Sunday night (Aug. 9) from 4-6am instead of The Andy Griffith Show. Andy Griffith has been extended on Tuesday, August 11 from 6-8pm, so it gets an extra half-hour on this date as it was scheduled for 6pm-7:30pm.

TV Land September 2009 Schedule; ABC and Fox Schedule Changes

TV Land has announced its September 2009 line-up. Is it their fall line-up though? We're not sure yet. Because this only covers Aug. 31-Sept.27. So TV Land could have something in store starting Sept. 28. There aren't much changes to the schedule. But before we get to that, we have to tell you The Andy Griffith Show will air Mondays 6-10pm and Sunday nights 4-6am now for all of August and a few times on Tuesdays (Aug. 4 and 25) from 6pm-7:30pm. Now that that is out of the way, we can tell you about September. There are only a few changes, mainly in primetime. Weekdays from 7-9pm will now be The Andy Griffith Show starting Monday, Sept. 14. It will lead into marathons on Mon-Thurs from 9pm-12am with more Andy on Mondays, Roseanne on Tuesdays, M*A*S*H on Wednesdays, and The Cosby Show on Thursdays. M*A*S*H's regular 5-6am Wednesday airings will be preempted for more Three's Company as a result of this change. Everything else is the same as August, except Little House is back Sundays 4-6am instead of Andy...for now. I say for now because the August Andy Griffith changes happened after the September schedule was released.
TV Land PRIME original series How'd You Get So Rich and Make My Day will have their season finales on Wednesday, Sept. 9. Weekends will still have classic marathons that have a classic show and Andy Griffith paired up. Those shows include Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, and Brady Bunch. Speaking of Brady Bunch, that is their 40th anniversary marathon. It's unbelievable that it has been 40 years since that "one day when that lady met that fellow" but it's true and TV Land is celebrating in grand style for one whole week. Beginning Monday, September 21 to Friday, September 25 catch episodes from 7pm-9pm and then if that isn't enough of this bunch, catch even more episodes on Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27 from 10am-6pm to round out the celebration. It's the best of the Bradys all week long and it will be positively groovy!!
That's not all for anniversaries! The Cosby Show is turning 25! Join TV Land PRIME Thursday, September 24 from 9pm-12am and say Happy 25th Birthday to The Huxtables as PRIME celebrate the years of laughter The Cosby Show brought to our TV screens. This quarter-century milestone marathon features extra-special episodes that highlight memorable moments from the series and pays special tribute to America's favorite sitcom family.
Finally, catch premieres of this month's movies on Labor Day (Monday, September 7 from 9am-6:30pm) if you can't wait for them every Fridays at 9pm! All-month long the network will air new movies and you can see them on Labor Day first...Private Benjamin, Airplane II, The Bodyguard and Field of Dreams.
So is this the fall schedule? Will something new be added on Sept. 28? We're not sure yet. But stay with us! And as usual, this schedule is subject to change, since TV Land always changes something. So again stay with us for that, if it happens. View the full TV Land September 2009 schedule and highlights.

ABC has altered its schedule a bit. Late yesterday just hours before The Bachelorette finale, they decided to air an instant special encore of The Bachelorette finale for Tuesday (July 28) from 8-10pm, preempting the season finale of The Superstars and an all-new episode of comedy Better off Ted. So if you missed the drama of the Bachelorette finale, you can watch it again leading into the special all-new After the Final Rose special. So with The Superstars season finale now on Tuesday, Aug. 4 from 8pm-9:30pm, the Scrubs repeats will no longer air...but it will air at 9:30pm on this date. The final two episodes of the season of Better off Ted were originally supposed to air July 28 and Aug. 4 at 9:30pm, will now air for an hour on Tuesday, Aug. 11 from 9-10pm following Night 3 of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. One other note, ABC will encore the pilot episode of summer hit Dating in the Dark on Monday at 9pm, shifting the all-new episode to 10pm. The show will air new episodes at 10pm starting the following week now. See the announcement we made on this last night in a list form.
Also at ABC, we announced on Friday on our message board that Shark Tank is scheduled to air additional airings on Sundays on August 30, September 6 and 13, 2009 at 9:00 PM ET/PT. Shark Tank is also still scheduled to air on Sundays on August 9, 16 and 23, 2009 at 9:00 PM ET/PT after Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, as planned. However, Shark Tank is no longer scheduled to air on Tuesdays, effective August 25, 2009 in the 8:00 PM ET/PT slot. Tuesdays at 8PM starting Aug. 25 is now TBD. Shark Tank will move to Tuesdays at 8PM this fall now, likely Sept. 22 or 29. 13 episodes have been ordered and six will air in the "summer" season.

Fox has made some changes to its fall line-up. They are moving the premieres of So You Think You Can Dance and Glee up a week to Wednesday, Sept. 9, while pushing comedies Brothers and 'Til Death back slightly. Brothers will now premiere with back-to-back episodes in the 8pm hour on Friday, Sept. 25, while 'Til Death will take over the 8:30pm Friday slot the following week on Friday, Oct. 2. Fox will air more Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader episodes Fridays at 8pm now on Sept. 11 and 18. If you missed the special pilot of Glee this past May, Fox will re-air it on Wednesday, Sept. 2 and again on Friday, Sept. 4 at 9pm. Glee will also encore its first two episodes on Friday, Sept. 11 and 18 at 9pm.

TV Land August 2009 Schedule; Bio TV July Premieres; Scrubs Joins MTV

This August on TV Land we will have more weekend Classic Marathons along with some schedule changes (primarily weekday mornings) and the premiere of two new original series. First let's start with the schedule changes. Cosby Show will get the primetime block of 8-11pm on Tuesday nights starting Aug. 4, replacing Roseanne, while Roseanne takes Wednesday nights now from 8-10pm replacing Cosby Show...a flip-flop basically. Roseanne also gains Thursdays from 9pm-12am since She's Got the Look's season will be over.
The weekday morning changes begin on Monday, August 10. Kicking off mornings now will be Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in the 9am hour replacing an episode of All in the Family and Sanford & Son. At 10am we get back-to-back Good Times replacing The Jeffersons. At 11am we get back-to-back Sanford & Son replacing Good Times. In the 12pm hour we now get an episode each of All in the Family and Leave it to Beaver replacing Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. So basically everything changes times only, but The Jeffersons is totally removed and Beaver is in. Why? Because The Jeffersons' contract is up after Aug. 31, and we don't have official word yet but it seems they will not renew since it is not listed on the regular schedule. More on The Jeffersons below. The only other change is Monday nights from 10pm-12am will now be M*A*S*H instead of Roseanne.
TV Land will have two all-new half-hour original series this August. They will air in the 10pm hour on Wednesdays starting Aug. 5. First up is How'd You Get So Rich? Sure, the economy is in the tank, but like it or not, there are still millionaires out there -- and they didn't all get rich by stealing your money (thanks for nothing, Wall Street). They made their fortunes by inventing Billy Bob Teeth and Butt Paste. Enter Joan Rivers and her money-obsessed new show, How'd You Get So Rich? Then we have Make My Day at 10:30pm. This comedic hidden-camera series provides a window into one day in the life of an unsuspecting participant. Tune in as cameras capture the action as they experience weird coincidences, extraordinary situations and surprise celebrity appearances for one whole day. Make My Day is a 30-minute series produced for TV Land by Embassy Row (Power of Ten, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?), Monkey Kingdom and Sony Pictures Television. Michael Davies serves as the executive producer.
As for the weekend Classic Marathons, they will continue in August! We get two marathons a day and Andy Griffith Show is always the second one. Joining Andy are shows like Leave it to Beaver, Bonanza, Beverly Hillbillies, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Green Acres, and The Jeffersons. The latter two could be farewell marathons since they are expiring at the end of the month. Tune in on Aug. 9 from 11am-5pm for The Jeffersons and Aug. 15 from 12pm-5pm for Green Acres (and a special block from 6am-8:30am on Aug. 22). They both seem gone to me, but that will be confirmed in September.
Next it's the M*A*S*H Flashback Weekend the weekend of Aug. 21-23 in primetime. TV Land PRIME is taking M*A*S*H fans back to where it all began. The event begins on Friday at 10pm in the PRIME Movie block, when PRIME looks back at the feature film that inspired the series. Relive all of the unforgettable moments, and enjoy extra M*A*S*H commentary and trivia in the breaks from TV Land's own PRIME Players. PRIME is even taking you all the way back to the series premiere as the Flashback Weekend continues with three nights of back-to-back episodes from the first season of the hit show. So for that weekend sit back, kick back, and flash back with TV Land's M*A*S*H Flashback Weekend!
Finally, the movies for the month are Clue, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, M*A*S*H, and Doc Hollywood.
View and discuss more on TV Land August 2009.

Bio TV this July will have all-new Biography episodes of your favorite series. On Tuesday, July 7 at 10PM we get an all-new Biography on Full House. It was one of the most popular family sitcoms of the late 80s and early 90s. Over the course of eight wildly entertaining seasons, Full House enthralled audiences, created iconic teen idols, and launched the ever-expanding Olsen Empire. In this hour, Bio TV steps behind the scenes and hear from former cast members what it was like to grow up in one of TV's wackiest, most unconventional families. Join us as Bio TV opens the doors and go on a special tour of the Tanner Family's Full House.
We get the Biography premiere on David Letterman at 10pm on Wednesday, July 29. A former TV weatherman who once predicted hail stones "the size of canned hams," David Letterman was a struggling stand-up comic and TV writer when guest shots on shows such as The Gong Show caught the attention of Johnny Carson. As a result, he eventually became the permanent substitute host for the The Tonight Show. When Carson retired, however, Letterman lost a mano-a-mano battle for the coveted seat to Jay Leno and he left NBC, landing at CBS and his own late night show. Along the way, Letterman has overcome a determined stalker, emergency quintuple bypass surgery, and several failed relationships, before finding a measure of happiness in his marriage to his longtime girlfriend and the birth of their son.
These are just the premieres, there will be plenty of other TV/sitcom related Biography encores such as Diff'rent Strokes, Facts of Life, The Partridge Family, John Stamos, Bob Saget, Dana Plato, Bill Cosby, Mackenzie Phillips, Valerie Bertinelli. The Truth Behind the Sitcom Scandals airing for the month is an episode with The Jeffersons & One Day at a Time. They will also the reunion A Cosby Show: A Look Back.
Coming in August, three all-new Biography episodes of three classic sitcoms and more! Stay tuned in the coming weeks!

Finally, it looks like Scrubs is joining MTV beginning Monday (July 6, 2009). Scrubs will air weekdays in the 4pm hour on the Viacom owned network. MTV also recently began airing reruns of Degrassi weekdays in the 10am hour (from Viacom's The N) and recently aired Futurama in the 4pm hour for a few weeks (from Viacom's Comedy Central). Talk about Viacom sharing! This is getting crazier everyday. Because of the MTV addition, Comedy Central will remove the weekday afternoon slots of Scrubs (2:30-3:30pm), but it will still air weekdays 7-8pm.
Scrubs was supposed to join the weekday line-up on Viacom's Spike TV starting July 6, but maybe because of this change it didn't happen. Scrubs is airing for at least until end of July on MTV. There is word Scrubs will appear on Spike TV at a later date, so stay tuned for that. Spike did air a few Thursday late night airings and Sunday morning airings for a few weeks.

TV Land Classic Marathons on Weekends Continues; Remembering Gale Storm

We have some minor TV Land schedule changes to tell you about. First off, Married...with Children is indeed airing tonight from approx. 8-11pm ET/PT for its last "scheduled" airing on TV Land. We have said that many times before, too, though and it always returns. Starting next Monday (July 6), TV Land will air another night of PRIME movies from 8-10pm, with Roseanne getting the 10pm hour. PRIME Monday movies scheduled for July are the premiere of History of the World and encores of Doc Hollywood, National Lampoon's Vacation, and National Lampoon's European Vacation.
Now as we all have seen the last few weekends, TV Land is having marathons on weekends during the day and now they will continue in July as well now. This past weekend was Married...with Children, but it was abbreviated because of the Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson tributes. These marathons are called "Classic Marathons" and will consist of a classic show followed by an Andy Griffith Show marathon, so yes, Andy will still be on weekends only. The first show airs usually from 11am-5pm, with Andy from 5-10pm, but the times vary. The weekend of July 4-5 will be Leave it to Beaver and Andy (with the scheduled "Roseanne 4th of July Feuds & Fireworks" marathon from 8pm-6am both nights). July 11-12 it will be Hogan's Heroes and Andy. July 18-19 its The Brady Bunch and Andy on Saturday, while Bonanza gets the nod on Sunday with Andy. Finally on July 25-26 it will be The Jeffersons and Andy on Saturday, and Sanford & Son and Andy on Sunday. Those are classic shows indeed! We will have TV Land August 2009 soon, but it is expected these marathons on weekends will continue as well. Stay tuned for that.
For the full schedule and more, view our updated TV Land July 2009 schedule & highlights.

We keep losing famous people. We have lost Billy Mays, the infomercial guru yesterday at the age of 50, but we won't cover his life here. We will however cover the life of Gale Storm, who passed away as well. Gale Storm, whose wholesome appearance and perky-personality made her one of early television's biggest stars on the comedy My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show, died Saturday (June 27, 2009) at a convalescent hospital in Danville, CA. My Little Margie debuted on CBS as a summer replacement for I Love Lucy in 1952. It quickly became an audience favorite and moved to its own slot on NBC that fall. The premise was standard sitcom fare: Charles Farrell was a business executive and eligible widower, Storm was his busybody daughter who protected him from predatory women. After the series ended its 126-episode run in 1955, she moved on to The Gale Storm Show, which lasted until 1960 on CBS and later on ABC. This time she played Susanna Pomeroy, a trouble-making social director on a luxury liner.
After her comedies, she moved on to become a singer basically, but she did have some TV roles as well. She guest starred on Burke's Law, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote.
She will certainly be missed and let's hope one day My Little Margie is on DVD! Gale was 87.

Remembering Farrah Fawcett, Charlie's Angels Marathon on WGN America Among the Tributes; CBS and NBC Fall 2009 Premiere Dates

As everyone already knows, Farrah Fawcett passed away yesterday. We mentioned it on our blog yesterday that we would do a tribute for her today and we will keep our promise!
Farrah Fawcett, who soared to fame as a national sex symbol in the late 1970s on television's Charlie's Angels and in a swimsuit poster that showcased her feathery mane and made her a generation's favorite pinup, died Thursday (June 25, 2009) Fawcett, whose celebrity overshadowed her ability as a serious actress, was diagnosed with a rare anal cancer in 2006, died about 9:30 a.m. PT at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica.
Three months after she was declared cancer-free in 2007, doctors at UCLA Medical Center told her the cancer had returned, spreading to her liver, and she repeatedly sought experimental treatment in Germany.
As an actress, Fawcett was initially dismissed for her role as Jill Munroe in Charlie's Angels, one of the "jiggle" series on ABC in the late 1970s. Fawcett quit the series that brought her initial fame in 1977 after a single season, saying producers were preventing her from growing as an actress. With Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, Fawcett played a private investigator. She returned for 6 episodes as a special guest star.
She transformed her career and some popular perceptions in 1984 with The Burning Bed, a NBC television movie about a battered wife that brought her the first of three Emmy nominations. She further established herself as an actress in the play and later feature film Extremities in 1986, about a rape victim who takes revenge on her attacker. In 1989 she starred in the ABC TV mini-series Small Sacrifices opposite Ryan O'Neal, giving her an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination. Her other Golden Globe nominated roles on TV-movies include ABC's Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story and NBC's Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story.
Among Farrah's other cedits includes the short lived CBS sitcom in 1991 called Good Sports starring her and boyfriend Ryan O'Neal, and guest appearances on many other TV series over the years such as Mayberry RFD, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun, The Partridge Family, Owen Marshall, The Girl with Something Extra, McCloud, Apple's Way, Marcus Welby, S.W.A.T., The Brady Bunch Hour, The Battle of the Network Stars, Larry Sanders Show, Ally McBeal, and So noTORIous. And recurring appearances on Harry-O, The Six Million Dollar Man, Spin City, and The Guardian. She had her own reality series in 2005 on TV Land called Chasing Farrah, where she made her last rounds on talk shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Show with David Letterman, Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Regis & Kelly. During the 2006 Emmy Awards, the same year she was diagnosed with cancer, she and her fellow Charlie's Angels paid tribute to the late Aaron Spelling on stage. Recently she documented Farrah's Story for NBC about her daily life with anal cancer.
Farrah will certainly be missed as there were two primetime specials on her last night on ABC and NBC at 10pm. Take some time this weekend to watch tributes and marathons dedicated to Farrah. Her death was overshadowed by the untimely death of Michael Jackson, but she is certainly not forgotten. She was 62.

As we mentioned yesterday, there will be a lot of tributes and marathons to Farrah this weekend, so let's go over them here. The biggest one is on WGN America where they will air Charlie's Angels on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we get the two most famous episodes she did probably, the first episode and "Angels in Chains." in primetime from 8-10pm ET (5-7pm PT). Then on Sunday, WGN America will air a Charlie's Angels marathon from 5-10pm ET and 11pm-2am ET during their Outta Sight Retro Night. Eight episodes will air on this day including "Lady Killer" and "Blue Angels." And if you're in Chicago, Me-TV will air Charlie's Angels all next week, Mon-Fri at 11am and 12pm CT featuring some of her best Charlie's Angels performances as Jill Munroe. All week long, Chicago viewers will see back-to-back episodes of Charlie's Angels, highlighting Fawcett's first and only full season - along with her guest appearances from the third and fourth seasons.
TV Land will also air Charlie's Angels on Saturday but from 7-9pm (first episode and "Angels in Chains") and also air the first two episodes of its 2005 original series Chasing Farrah in primetime on Saturday from 9-10pm ET/PT. The series chronicled her daily life as one of the most recognized stars in the history of celebrity. TVLand.com will feature a Memorial Spot, which will also run on-air, and an Obituary section.
Bio TV will salute Farrah by reairing her Biography episode this Monday at 10pm, retitled Biography Remembers: Farrah Fawcett. Before that, Bio TV will air Biography episodes of Aaron Spelling and Charlie's Angels at 8 and 9pm, as a lead-in. And Michael Jackson fans, Biography Remembers: Michael Jackson will follow at 11pm on Monday (in addition to its already scheduled airings on Saturday at 10 and 11pm).
Movie wise, BET will air her last movie The Cookout from 2004 on Saturday at 8:30pm and again on Sunday at 1:30pm. BET is currently airing Michael Jackson programming all-day today, as are most other music channels like VH-1 Classic. Other movies airing for Farrah are The Burning Bed on Tuesday, June 30 on ENCORE Drama and Dr. T and the Women on TMC later in the week. This TV will air two classic TV movies of her. Beginning this Saturday, THIS tv Network remembers the television and film career of Farrah Fawcett. She was a critically acclaimed movie actor. This week, THIStv Network pays tribute to her life and career with two of her finest ABC TV-movie performances in The Nazi Hunter: Beate Klarsfeld Story at 2pm on Saturday and Small Sacrifices at 4pm on Saturday, with encores during next week for both.
And if you missed the documentary Farrah's Story, NBC and Oxygen will re-air it. NBC will air it tonight from 8-10pm ET/PT and Oxygen on Saturday starting at 3:30pm.
We will keep you up to date if we hear anything else. View the full list.

We mentioned some Michael Jackson tributes above, and we would also like to pay tribute to Michael a bit. There were lots of tributes yesterday for him with ABC and NBC airing specials at 9pm and CBS at 10pm. ABC also devoted Nightline to Michael last night. ABC will have another special 20/20 on Jackson tonight at 9pm, while NBC will air yet another Dateline special tonight at 10. TV Land will reair the 1992 five-hour miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream on Sunday, June 28, 2009 from 2pm–7pm ET/PT with an immediate encore presentation from 7pm–12am ET/PT, breaking into its regularly scheduled Married...with Children marathon. Fox will reair a Michael Jackson themed episode of American Idol from this past season on Monday from 8-10pm ET/PT. We mentioned Bio TV will reair his Biography multiple times and nearly all the music channels are playing his videos or is doing special programming on him. Michael was only 50.

Back to some news--we have the CBS and NBC Fall premiere dates now, joining ABC, Fox, and The CW.
CBS's new season roll-out officially begins on Monday, Sept. 21 with How I Met Your Mother moving to 8:00 PM, ET/PT, the premiere of the new comedy Accidentally on Purpose at 8:30 PM, ET/PT, the seventh season premiere of television's number one comedy Two and a Half Men at 9:00 PM, ET/PT, the third season premiere of The Big Bang Theory in its new time period of 9:30 PM, ET/PT and the eighth season premiere of CSI: Miami at 10:00 PM, ET/PT.
NCIS begins its seventh season on Tuesday, Sept. 22 at 8:00 PM, ET/PT, followed by the new NCIS: LA spin-off at 9:00 PM, ET/PT and the freshman drama The Good Wife at 10:00 PM, ET/PT.
CBS returns its Wednesday comedy block on Sept. 23 with the fifth season of The New Adventures of Old Christine at 8:00 PM, ET/PT and sophomore comedy Gary Unmarried at 8:30 PM, ET/PT, followed by the fifth season premiere of Criminal Minds at 9:00 PM, ET/PT and the sixth season premiere of CSI: NY at10:00 PM, ET/PT.
Survivor: Samoa, the 19th installment of the hit reality series, will debut a week prior to the formal start of the season, on Thursday, Sept. 17 at 8:00 PM, ET/PT). CSI returns for its 10th season on Thursday, Sept. 24 at 9:00 PM, ET/PT followed by the new night and time period premiere of last season's No. 1 new hit The Mentalist at 10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT.
The Network's top-rated Friday lineup returns on Sept. 25 with the fifth season premiere of Ghost Whisperer at 8:00 PM, ET/PT, the CBS debut of the popular drama Medium at 9:00 PM, ET/PT, followed by the sixth season premiere of NUMB3RS at 10:00 PM, ET/PT.
CBS's Saturday schedule premieres Sept. 26 with the return of 48 Hours Mystery at10:00 PM, ET/PT, preceded by two hours of crime repeats from 8:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT.
60 Minutes returns for its 42nd season on Sunday, Sept. 26 at 7:00 PM, ET/PT, followed by a special two-hour debut of the 15th edition The Amazing Race from 8:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT and the seventh season premiere of Cold Case in its new time period of 10:00 PM, ET/PT. Premiering a week later on Sunday, Oct. 4 is the new drama Three Rivers at 9:00 PM, ET/PT.

NBC kicks off the Fall 2009 season with NBC Sunday Night Football, beginning September 13 with a classic match-up: the Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers. Then on Monday, September 14 the primetime debut of The Jay Leno Show from 10-11 p.m. ET/PT kicks off its new weeknight hour. On Tuesday, September 15 from 8-10 p.m., The Biggest Loser returns with all new two-hour episodes, featuring more inspiration and real-life drama as this season's contestants challenge themselves to reach their weight-loss goals. Then the premiere of the network's night of comedy on Thursday, September 17, as Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday (8pm) and new series Community (9:30) join Parks and Recreation (8:30) and Emmy winner The Office (9pm). Emmy winner 30 Rock returns to the Thursday comedy line-up on October 15 at 9:30, as Community moves to 8pm on Oct. 8.
A two-hour Heroes will start the actual premiere week on Monday, September 21 from 8-10 p.m. and the new high-octane Trauma will premiere the following Monday, September 28 from 9-10 p.m. ET, as Heroes moves to 8pm. The compelling family drama Parenthood premieres on Wednesday, September 23 from 8-9 p.m. ET leading into Law & Order: SVU from 9-10 p.m. ET. On Fridays, beginning September 25, the venerable Law & Order returns for a record 20th season at 8 p.m., followed by the acclaimed drama Southland at 9 p.m. ET. Beginning September 26, Saturdays in primetime will be a showcase for Dateline NBC at 8 p.m. ET and encore presentations of Trauma at 9 p.m. ET and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit at 10 p.m. ET. In addition, Saturday Night Live returns for its 35th season on September 26 from 11:30 p.m.-1:00 a.m. ET/PT.

TV Land's Married Block This Thursday; Mr. Troop Mom Scores for Nick at Nite; Bio Remembers Ed McMahon

Tomorrow (Thursday, June 25) TV Land has added a Married...with Children block from 5:52pm-9pm ET/PT. Yes, it starts at 5:52pm replacing Little House on the Prairie, then an hour each of The Cosby Show and Roseanne. Married... with Children is doing well for TV Land and keeps getting extra airings. Don't forget the previously scheduled weekend marathon this week as well (Saturday 9:30am-8pm and Sunday 8am-2am).
Episodes for this Thursday's block are from season four with episodes 73-77 and 79, after Marcy gets divorced from Steve. After the end of this week, the show is currently not scheduled for TV Land but don't be surprised if TV Land makes changes and adds it in again. We'll let you know if they do of course!

The premiere of the original TV movie Mr. Troop Mom on Nick at Nite on Friday, June 19, 8-10pm ET/PT, was basic cable's number-one original TV program for the night, drawing 4 million total viewers. With kids and tweens, the two-hour telecast was number-one on both broadcast and cable on Friday, and placed as cable's number-one original TV program with adults 18-49, with it being the third highest-rated telecast in 18-49, behind only USA's NCIS and Nick at Nite's George Lopez (both aired at 10pm). It averaged a 0.9 A18-49 rating (1.1 million A18-49).
It was the number-two overall telecast with 4 million behind only USA's NCIS repeat at 10pm which did 4.42 million. The two-hour premiere set a new record as the Nick's highest-rated and most-watched original TV movie (not based on an existing series) with total viewers and Adults 18-49.
Mr. Troop Mom — created in partnership with Warner Premiere and George Lopez Presents — stars George Lopez as ace attorney Eddie, who is M.I.A. for most events in his 13-year-old daughter Naomi's (Daniela Bobadilla) life. When Eddie volunteers for the Spring Action Classic — where Naomi goes up against mean-girl Skylar (Jianna Ballard) — treacherous rope courses, cutthroat canoe soccer and slippery slimeball wars are just the start of his introduction to the great outdoors and into his daughter's heart.
George Lopez can be seen weekdays at 10 p.m. on Nick at Nite on his self titled show George Lopez, which is the number-one rated series on Nick at Nite.

Finally, Bio TV will salute Ed McMahon this Saturday with a Biography Remembers episode of his Biography episode. Bio TV will air the Biography at 10am and 4am this Saturday (June 27). The episode is titled Ed McMahon: America's Sidekick, first aired in 1998 it has interviews with Ed, Dick Clark, Jay Leno, Jack Klugman, Sinbad, and Jerry Lewis. Harry Smith hosts and narrates.
Heeeere's Ed McMahon! Bio TV profiles his half-century in show business, which includes stints as dog-food pitchman, Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show, and host of Star Search, where he helped the careers of Sharon Stone, Rosie O'Donnell, Dennis Miller, and Sinbad.

TV Land Adds Married with Children Weekend Marathon and First 2 Weeks of July Change; Emmy Awards Changes Date Again

Previously on "TV Land Schedule Changes," Bree wanted Orson to stop stealing, oops wrong show...we told you the changes from June 15-28, now we have June 27 through July 12! This is like a soap opera, isn't it? The weekend of June 27-28 will now have a change now. It will have a Married...with Children marathon primarily. Al Bundy and family will air from 9:30am-8pm on Saturday, June 27 and from 8am-2am on Sunday, June 28. That's a whole lotta Bundy! Encores of movies Grease and Grease 2 will also air on Saturday, June 27, with Roseanne blocks as well. Then the regular schedule starting Monday, June 29 is pretty similar to the changes that started on June 15, but just a few things. For weekdays, the 12pm hour is now back to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, replacing Leave it to Beaver/Beverly Hillbillies. But Beverly Hillbillies will air in the 1pm hour, so that means TV Land Goes West (2 episodes of Gunsmoke & Bonanza each and one Little House) goes from approx. 1:30pm-7pm to now more on the clock from 2pm-7pm. This means Beaver is now weekends only again if they have a marathon. Mondays from 8pm-11pm will now be yet more Roseanne replacing Married...with Children, so Married is now off the regular schedule, but not to worry as it returns to Spike TV weekdays on July 6. So it looks like (for now I guess) Married (which is doing decent for them) will have its last TV Land airing during that weekend marathon (June 27-28). I expect we will see more soon as they keep bringing it back and changing the schedule, so stay tuned. Everything else on weekdays is the same as it is now, so yes, Andy Griffith is not on weekdays through July 12.
On weekends we get marathon blocks ("Andy & Friends" as I'd like to call it). But first, from 6-8am on both days we now see more Roseanne, so that replaces Star Trek, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and whatever else pops up weekend mornings usually. But remember, as of now this is through July 12 only. The weekend of July 4-5 will see Leave it to Beaver and Andy Griffith. On Saturday, July 4, we see Beaver from 11am-3pm and Andy Griffith from 3pm-8pm. On Sunday, July 5 we see Beaver from 12pm-3pm and more Andy from 3pm-8pm. As previously announced, Roseanne July 4th Feuds & Fireworks Marathon airs from 8pm-6am on both nights. The weekend of July 11-12 will see more marathons. A special SpongeBob SquarePants block will air on Saturday, July 11 from 10am-12pm, as SpongeBob is getting ready for his 10th birthday on Nickelodeon with "The Ultimate SpongeBob SpongeBash." We will have more on that during our Nick at Nite July schedule & highlights very soon, as SpongeBob will have about a 50-hour non-stop marathon on Nick/Nick at Nite from July 17-19. Back to TV Land, it's more marathons as the weekend of July 11-12 it is Hogan's Heroes and Andy Griffith. Hogan's Heroes on both days will air from 12pm-5pm while Andy will air both days from 5pm-10pm. Regular weekend schedule will air elsewhere. So is TV Land trying to phase Andy out by airing it only on weekends? Sound off on our message board and also you can view these changes in a list form. Remember TV Land keeps releasing schedules two weeks at a time, so as of now this is through July 12 only. Stay tuned for more!

The 61st Primetime Emmy Awards has been re-scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 20 from approx. 8:00-11:00 PM, live ET/delayed PT) on CBS. That was the original date and now CBS has gone back to that after moving it to Sunday, Sept. 13. But September 13 is the same day for the MTV Video Music Awards. So CBS had to move it back to the original Sept. 20. date. CBS moved it to Sept. 13 originally because of an NFL game from 4-7:30pm ET. To present The 61st Primetime Emmy Awards as close as possible to its scheduled 8:00 PM start, 60 Minutes is planning a flexible broadcast following CBS Sports late afternoon NFL game. So we will finally see a shortened 60 Minutes or possibly preempted totally in the East if the game goes over 7:30pm ET.
Remember nominations will be announced Thursday, July 16 at 5:40 AM PT from the Television Academy's Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood. You can watch it live on CBS's Early Show.

TV Land Schedule Changes Starting June 15; RTN Coming to Los Angeles and Louisville

We gave you the schedule changes that started on TV Land on June 1, but we also told you that was only for weeks of June 1 and 8. Now TV Land has announced the schedule for at least the weeks of June 15 and 22. So let's go through it! Weekdays from 9am-12pm is the same as the previous two weeks with '70s sitcoms. The changes begin at 12 noon. First, TV Land Goes West is not extended anymore on Mondays. Airing weekdays at 12 noon is an episode of Leave it to Beaver, followed by Beverly Hillbillies, both replacing back-to-back Andy Griffith episodes. At 1pm, we have another Beverly Hillbillies remaining, followed by TV Land Goes West intact from 1:30pm-7pm. Then in the 7pm hour we get back-to-back Cosby Show episodes instead of Andy Griffith, as this means Andy Griffith is off the weekday line-up--wow! Then primetime from 8-11pm is heavily changed with Married...with Children on Mondays, Roseanne on Tuesdays, The Cosby Show/She's Got the Look encore on Wednesdays, Roseanne/She's Got the Look premiere & encore on Thursdays, and Cosby Show/PRIME Movie on Fridays. The PRIME movie is now at a new time of Fridays at 9PM. And airing from 11pm-4am now is all Roseanne every weeknight. There are a few She's Got the Look encores mixed in, though. Still that's a lot of Roseanne in late night! But off the clock is still remaining, so all these times are approximate. An hour of Three's Company and M*A*S*H airs at 4am and 5am respectively.
As for weekends, they have only announced what is airing the weekend of June 20-21, as they have not given an update on the weekend of June 27-28. On Saturday, June 20 we have: 6-8am PRIME Movie, 9am-12pm Beverly Hillbillies, 12pm-10pm Andy Griffith Show, 10pm-12am The Cosby Show, 1am-4am Roseanne, 4-6am Three's Company. And on Sunday, June 21 we have: 6am-8am Gunsmoke, 8am-12pm Bonanza, 12pm-10pm Andy Griffith, 10pm-12am M*A*S*H, 12am-2am Married...with Children, 2-3am Roseanne, 4-6am Little House on the Prairie. Whatever hours that are missing here will be encores of She's Got the Look. If I were to guess, we will see something similar to this weekend schedule the following weekend as well. So it looks like Andy Griffith is removed from weekdays (except for a sighting on Tuesday, June 23 from 8-9pm) but will dominate on weekends, or at least for the weekend of June 20-21.
Technically this schedule is through Friday, June 26...so stay tuned for any updates as usual! View the schedule starting Monday, June 15 in a list form, and also join in on our discussion! And don't forget to tune into the Married...with Children marathon this weekend on both days from 8am-10pm!

RTN (Retro Television Network, now called RTV) announced that it will retrofit KHIZ in Los Angeles beginning TODAY (Friday, June 12). KHIZ is actually located in Barstow, CA. The station, part of the Multicultural group, will begin airing the Retro TV lineup on its digital as well as several hours a day on its primary. Retro Television has secured major markets in recent weeks, as it went live three weeks ago on the Multicultural station WMFP in Boston and announced last week a deal to bring Retro TV to New York via WSAH TV on July 1.
Retro Television celebrates four years on the air on July 1 and now reports a national clearance of 80% of the US, with the Los Angeles market now included. Retro TV's Neal Ardman said "we are thrilled with our growth these last few months. What better market to launch concurrent with the digital switch then Los Angeles. Everyone at Multicultural has been a pleasure to work with and we look forward to a long prosperous relationship."
Also, Retro TV is coming to Louisville, KY! WBNA-DT in Louisville will now also join the Retro TV family. Originally supposed to go on-air on July 1, now WBNA-DT will go on the air as early as this coming Monday, sources say. WBNA, an ION affiliate, is owned by Evangel World Prayer Center (Word Broadcasting Network, Inc.). Retro TV is reportedly going to air on channel 21.2 or 21.4, so check it out on Monday.
If you still don't know by now, Retro TV airs great shows from the past like Adam 12, Leave it to Beaver, Night Gallery and rarely seen shows like Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew and Voyagers. Retro TV now provides both custom local feeds for its affiliates or a typical national network type feed at the stations choice.

And don't forget television makes the switch to digital today at 12:30pm ET! Hope you made the switch!

ABC Fall 2009 Premiere Dates; Futurama Returns in Mid-2010; TV Land Changes Night and Time for Originals

ABC has announced most of the premiere dates for the 2009-2010 season. Additional premieres will be announced at a later date. Most of the series will launch or return for premiere week (Sept. 21-27), but there are some before and after. Saturday Night Football returns on Saturday nights at 8pm ET starting Saturday, Sept. 5. 20/20 will launch its new season (it never has repeats though) on Friday, Sept. 11 at 10pm. Then we move on to premiere week. Dancing with the Stars kicks-off premiere week and the new season for ABC on Monday, Sept. 21 from 8-10pm followed by the season premiere of Castle at 10pm. Dancing with the Stars will also air on Tuesday, Sept. 22 from 8-10pm leading into the series premiere of The Forgotten. Airing at 8pm on Tuesdays will be Shark Tank starting Aug. 25 (with special airings after Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on Sundays at 9 on Aug, 9, 16 & 23), but Shark Tank is preempted on Sept. 22, but will return Sept. 29 at 8. On Wednesday, Sept. 23, a special Dancing with the Stars: The Results on a special night & time of 8pm will lead-into the comedy premieres of Modern Family & Cougar Town. No word yet what will air at 10pm on this night, as ABC has not announced when new drama Eastwick will launch. Dancing with the Stars: The Results will move to its regular Tuesdays at 9pm slot the following week (Tues., Sept. 29). On Thursday, Sept. 24, ABC launches the premiere of Flash Forward at 8pm followed by the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy. ABC has not announced yet when Private Practice will launch. On Sunday, Sept. 27, ABC will have a two-hour season premiere of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition from 7-9pm, followed by the season premiere of Desperate Housewives at 9pm. No date for Brothers & Sisters has been announced yet.
Premiering out of premiere week will be new comedies Hank and The Middle on Wednesday, Sept. 30 in the 8pm hour. Also, AFV will launch its new season on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 7pm, as Home Edition moves back to the regular 8pm hour. Premiering in week three will be the two-hour season premiere of Ugly Betty from 8-10pm on Friday, Oct. 9, before moving to its regular 9pm slot the following week. And Supernanny launches its new season in week four at 8pm on Oct. 16. That's good to launch the Friday series a bit later as Friday ratings tend to be very low until its gets cooler.
So, to recap so far no premiere dates for Brothers & Sisters, Private Practice and new drama Eastwick. Why? I think ABC might be mulling a special preview for Eastwick. If I were to guess, Eastwick would get a special premiere on Sunday, Sept. 27 at 10 following Desperate Housewives, with Brothers & Sisters launching its new season the following Sunday at 10 (Oct. 4). Eastwick would have its Wednesday premiere on Sept. 30 at 10. During premiere week they might have a special at 10pm on both Wednesday, Sept. 23 and Thursday, Sept. 24 to fill those vacant spots, so maybe Private Practice will not launch until week two (Thursday, Oct. 1). Just my guesses. We also don't know yet what is airing on Fridays the first two weeks from 8-10pm? Maybe special encores of something during the week?
View the premiere dates in list form. We'll inform you as soon as we know about the missing premiere dates.

20th Century Fox Television, the animation powerhouse that brought Family Guy back from the dead five years ago, has done it again: Matt Groening and David X. Cohen's brilliantly subversive animated sci-fi comedy Futurama will return to production on 26 new half-hour episodes more than six years after the series aired its last original episode. The move comes on the heels of the series' blockbuster performance on DVD and on Comedy Central.
The new episodes will be available in mid 2010 to be shown on Comedy Central. However, Twentieth Century Fox Television retains the option to license the original runs of the new episodes to a broadcast network as well.
Futurama was a staple of Fox's Sunday night animation block from 1999 to 2003 before ceasing production on original episodes. In June 2006, Comedy Central acquired the rights to the existing 72 episodes of the series, which the channel began airing in January 2008, and four recently-produced extended length Futurama adventures: "Bender's Big Score," "The Beast with a Billion Backs," "Bender's Game" and "Into the Wild Green Yonder," which enjoyed enormous success both on Comedy Central and in DVD release. This new deal marks the show's return to episodic series production on original episodes. Futurama becomes only the second series in the history of the medium to go back into production based on the strength of its DVD sales and repeat airings on cable.

TV Land announced today that it is making changes to its summer schedule as upcoming original series How'd You Get So Rich? starring Joan Rivers and the comedic hidden camera series Make My Day will now premiere on Thursday, August 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT and 9:30 p.m. ET/PT respectively.
It was previously announced that they would premiere on Wednesday, August 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and 10:30 p.m. ET/PT. The series' will premiere in TV Land PRIME, the network's new primetime programming block designed to appeal to the attitudes, life stage and interests of people in their 40s.
Premiering on Thursday, August 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, How'd You Get So Rich? stars the notoriously uncensored gossip diva Joan Rivers as she explores the lifestyles of the fabulously rich and lucky in this 30-minute, six-episode series. Following How'd You Get So Rich? is the premiere of the six-episode show Make My Day at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT. This comedic hidden-camera series provides a window into one day in the life of an unsuspecting participant. Tune in as cameras capture the action as they experience weird coincidences, extraordinary situations and surprise celebrity appearances for one whole day.
It seems Thursdays at 9PM is the new hour for TV Land originals, as TV Land also launches the second season of She's Got the Look tomorrow (June 11) on the night and time.

TV Land and Hallmark Last Minute June Changes; CBS To Air Unaired Worst Week Episode

TV Land June 2009 schedule - take three! And action! Yes, TV Land has changed its June schedule once again. As of now the changes are just for this week and next week (weeks of June 1 and 8) and are in effect starting TODAY, as we mentioned on our message boards this weekend. The new schedule will have TV Land Goes West on Mondays now from 11:30am-7pm with Gunsmoke and Bonanza and now Little House on the Prairie will air at approx. 5:30pm. I say approx. because TV Land is really off the clock now. From Tuesdays-Fridays, the western block will start at 1:30pm and run to 7pm with the same three shows. This means The Beverly Hillbillies will be only approx. 1pm now, as it loses 1:30pm and 6pm. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is totally gone for now it seems.
In primetime for the week of June 1, we have The Cosby Show in the approx. 8pm hour and Roseanne in the approx. 9pm hour. A different show will air from approx. 10pm-12am each night with Married...with Children returning on Monday, Roseanne on Tuesday and Thursday, and The Cougar/She's Got the Look Preview on Wednesday. Then at approx. 12am we have Married...with Children (just once in the hour, so it won't likely start until late except on Wednesdays when we have two episodes in the hour). At approx. 1am we have another Married...with Children, followed by M*A*S*H at 1:30am, and hour each of Roseanne, Three's Company, The Cosby Show and M*A*S*H follows from 2am-6am. So this week is a major overhaul and Three's Company returns to weeknights, at least for a week.
The Roseanne "launch" marathon is still on from Friday, June 5 to Friday, June 12 from 8pm-6am. However, this weekend (Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7) we have an Andy Griffith Show marathon from 8am-8pm, leading into Roseanne. The week of June 8 has the same daytime line-up as June 1, but primetime and late night is all Roseanne, as mentioned as the marathon continues. The weekend of June 13-14 will have more all-day marathons. Married...with Children will air both days from 8am-10pm, so this show seems like it will stay on TV Land as it is doing well for them. The weekend schedule that was in effect before will remain from 10pm-6am on this weekend of June 13-14. Now starting Monday, June 15, we don't know yet what TV Land will do. Will they have the same daytime schedule as the previous two weeks and the same primetime/late night schedule as week of June 1? Will we see marathons every weekend all-day? We will let you know as soon as we do, but for now view the weeks of June 1 and June 8 schedules for TV Land and discuss this!

As for Hallmark Channel, the June changes are not as drastic. The changes are in primetime starting tonight. The 8pm weekday hour will now have the return of Touched by an Angel. The series was only off for a week or two and now it returns in a much better slot of 8pm replacing two episodes of The Golden Girls. Those two episodes of The Golden Girls will move to the 11pm hour, replacing Murder, She Wrote, which is now off the line-up for now. So if you're keeping track, The Golden Girls now airs from 8am-11am and 11pm-2am every weekday. Nothing else is changing, so expect the schedule as it was. Good news for Lucy fans as they are not messing with the I Love Lucy timeslots so far!

Finally, CBS has scheduled an unaired episode of the canceled comedy Worst Week for this Saturday at 8:30pm. CBS had one leftover episode still yet to air, that is titled "The Party." The episode will have a repeat of Old Christine as its lead-in at 8pm. So get those DVR's rolling Worst Week fans because you have one more episode left and surprisingly CBS is airing it!
In other CBS updates, 48 Hours will air at a special time of 8pm (instead of the usual 10pm slot) on Saturday, July 11, so the two-hour finale of Harper's Island can air from 9-11pm on that night. Harper's Island is not expected back, so that is a series finale.

TV Land Updates June 2009 Schedule; TV Land July 2009 News; Susan Olsen's New Book and Website

The original TV Land June 2009 schedule that we gave you previously is now being changed due to the last minute changes that happened in May. So TV Land will not return Scrubs and 3rd Rock from the Sun after all in June. The changes that started in mid-May will continue in June (including off-the-clock programming) but two things: Married with Children is not on Thursdays because of She's Got the Look and the TV Land PRIME movie will return to Fridays at 10.
View the complete updated TV Land June 2009 schedule.

Moving on to TV Land July 2009, the schedule for June will spill into July as well...but with one thing removed: off-the-clock programming. It seems everything will be back to normal times starting the week of June 29, but of course that can change.
As for July highlights, season 2 of She's Got the Look continues to air Thursdays at 9pm on TV Land PRIME. They're back again... and this time the stakes are bigger and better as 12 gorgeous women 35-and-over grace TV Land PRIME in season 2 of the modeling competition series that's like no other...She's Got the Look! For one very lucky winner, a second chance for a supermodel career, a life changing contract with the world famous Wilhelmina Modeling Agency, and a spread in Self magazine awaits. Watch the nationwide search, follow the drama as the number of contestants dwindles, and root for your favorite to win it all. Join in on the fun on a new night and time starting Thursday June 11, 2009 at 9pm for eight straight weeks through July 30.
This 4th of July, spend your evening with Roseanne! It's the Roseanne "4th of July Feuds & Fireworks" marathon! Spend 4th of July with Roseanne and you'll get different types of fireworks on this 4th of July weekend. The fireworks begin Saturday, July 4 at 8pm to 6am and the same on Sunday, July 5.
For the first time ever, TV Land will broadcast a new AFI Life Achievment Award special. The 37th AFI Life Achievement Award, the highest honor for a career in film, which will be presented to Michael Douglas at a gala tribute in Los Angeles on Thursday, June 11, 2009. The program will air Sunday, July 19, 2009 from 9pm-10:30pm on TV Land PRIME.
TV Land PRIME movies on Friday nights includes encores of National Lampoon's Vacation Movie, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Another 48 Hours, and Doc Hollywood. Meanwhile, TV Land will premiere the movie Born on the 4th of July on Friday, July 3 from 12pm-3pm with an encore on Sunday, July 5 from 9am-12pm. Other than all this, it is a quiet July for TV Land with no regular schedule changes...as of now, that is.
View more on TV Land July 2009.

Cindy Brady now has a website! Yes, The Brady Bunch kid is now on the internet. Susan Olsen announces the launch of a new website to promote her upcoming coffee table book, Love to Love You Bradys, which will be released in September by ECW Press (www.lovetoloveyoubradys.com). This new publication focuses on the rarely seen Brady Bunch Variety Hour and dares to ask: "How does America's favorite family end up in history's worst show?" It features over 80 exclusive interviews with cast, crew, and production staff including the Brady Bunch, Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz, Sid and Marty Krofft, Bruce Vilanch, Rip Taylor, and Paul Shaffer. Susan's co-author is Ted Nichelson with art direction by 'Bradyologist' Lisa Sutton.

SitcomsOnline.com 2009-10 Upfront Preview: The CW; ION and TV Land Start 'Whisperer' and 'Roseanne' Early

The CW is dropping Sundays this fall, so they will only program Mon-Fri. With only 10 hours a week of programming, space is limited. And to make things worse, they have 0 sitcom pilots in development, so all of their new series pick-ups will be dramas.
Here is the SitcomsOnline.com The CW 2009-10 preview:

New Series Already Picked-Up: None.
New Series We Think That Are Almost Good To Go: Melrose Place (drama), The Beautiful Life (drama), and Vampire Diaries (drama).
New Series Perhaps Picked-Up for Mid-Season: Body Politics (drama) and Gossip Girl: Lily (drama).

OUR FALL 2009 PREDICTION:

Mondays
8:00PM Gossip Girl
9:00PM Vampire Diaries (NEW!)

Tuesdays
8:00PM 90210
9:00PM Melrose Place (NEW!)

Wednesdays
8:00PM America's Next Top Model
9:00PM The Beautiful Life (NEW!)

Thursdays
8:00PM Smallville
9:00PM Supernatural

Fridays
8:00PM The Game OR One Tree Hill
9:00PM One Tree Hill OR Privileged

Comments: The CW needs help and they need to improve ratings. With zero comedy, they are not a balanced network and have similar types of shows. For Mondays, Gossip Girl will likely continue to be leading off Mondays and they can try new drama Vampire Diaries at 9pm, as One Tree Hill can help another night. This block needs to do more than 3 million. Tuesdays should have the classic remake with 90210 and now Melrose Place. Melrose needs to do much better than 90210, which hasn't done too well, especially this spring. Wednesday will of course have America's Next Top Model followed possibly by a drama that is focused on models called The Beautiful Life, a new series from Ashton Kutcher. That could be the fit The CW was looking for, instead of wasting the timeslot with repeats of 90210. Thursday is The CW's best night I think...with Smallville and Supernatural, nothing needs to change here. Fridays will have to change, though. They need to be more aggressive. The CW could redevelop sitcom The Game into a one-hour comedy, as they have mulled the idea. I think they should go for that and it would be a nice way to start off the night. At 9pm instead of the Top Model repeats, how about being more aggressive and airing One Tree Hill? I'm not sure if that goes well with The Game, but nothing on the schedule with The Game goes with it but Top Model. The CW is not likely to bring back Everybody Hates Chris for a fifth season. Look for that in syndication next fall with repeats on Nick at Nite and BET. Reaper is the only other on the bubble show with a shot, but I don't see it returning. It is said ABC Studios is shopping the series for first-run syndication, and perhaps it would air on CW stations on Sundays with new episodes, since affiliates are now going to program Sundays this fall. A long shot of happening, though. People keep saying Privileged has a shot...why? With those terrible numbers it had, it has no shot I think unless Fridays is an option instead of The Game. Which come to think of it, that makes sense and could go well with One Tree Hill.
For midseason, they should for sure pick-up The Body Politic. It sounds actually good and has a nice cast including Gabrielle Union, Tim Matheson, Jay Hernandez, and Brian Austin Green. It is said the Gossip Girl spinoff called Lily starring the gorgeous Brittany Snow is being passed, but I think they will need it come midseason, so they should order 6 episodes. If not, they will order another drama like Light Years to fill the void.
You can say goodbye to the following shows Stylista, Reaper, Privileged, Everybody Hates Chris, 13: Fear is Real, 4Real, Easy Money, In Harm's Way, Valentine.
The CW needs help for sure, I think they should start each weeknight with a proven show (Gossip Girl, 90210, Top Model, Smallville, The Game/One Tree Hill). It baffles me why they had no sitcoms in development. Too many dramas that are centered for female teenagers is too much.
Discuss your thoughts on our prediction and feel free to make suggestions of your own.

Remember, next Thursday (May 21) is the actual date when we will find out The CW's plans for the 2000-10 season. So, come on back next Thursday and we will let you know the details and you can see how much we were right (or wrong). Stay tuned on Saturday for our annual "weekend before upfronts rumbling."
And as a reminder, stay tuned next week for all the final schedules released by all the networks! We will put them up as soon as they are released by the networks, so this will be your home to see them first!


We have some schedule news! First, ION Television will launch Ghost Whisperer in June! It was slated to begin in the fall, but will start earlier than expected. The show will air Mondays at 8pm starting Monday, June 1, 2009. It will replace two Reba episodes. Reba will continue to air weeknights in the 7pm hour and at times in the 8pm hour Wed-Fri, depending on the movies. For fans of Ghost Whisperer, or if you want to watch the show for the first time, the first five episodes will air in June (June 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29). So this is an update to the ION Television June 2009 schedule we previously announced.
Ghost Whisperer will lead into two episodes of NCIS at 9 and 10pm on Monday nights.

Elsewhere, TV Land made a very last minute schedule change YESTERDAY that was in effect immediately! Some of you probably saw Roseanne airing from 9-10pm and 12-1am, airing between The Cougar. Roseanne was not set to launch on TV Land until June 5, so it started on May 13--three weeks earlier than planned. Roseanne will leave Nick at Nite effective immediately because of the change. It was only airing late nights on weekends anyway. Family Matters takes over the Roseanne slots on Nick at Nite. View the updated Nick at Nite May 2009 schedule.
Back to TV Land, we also told you before that a second Married...with Children marathon was set for Thursday, May 14 (tonight) from 10pm-1am, and now TV Land has made that a weekly thing. So look for The Bundys every Thursday night in TV Land PRIME. Also, starting tomorrow the 6pm weekday hour will now be The Beverly Hillbillies, replacing Hogan's Heroes and Green Acres, which are leaving a few weeks earlier than planned. In the 7pm hour will be The Andy Griffith Show, as that show will air 7-9pm now. Though on Mondays it will still air its 7pm-12am marathons. Roseanne will air Tues-Fri in the 9pm hour and 12-1:30am on most nights. On Fridays, Roseanne will air from 9pm-2:30am, which means the TV Land PRIME Movie is gone. Will it remain in June? That still remains to be seen.
On weekends, Roseanne is airing 1am-4am on Saturday nights and 1-3am on Sunday nights. Hogan's Heroes gets a half hour airing a week now, airing Sundays at 10am. The Cosby Show seems to be airing with Roseanne a lot, and gains the 11pm-1am slot on Saturday nights. And Three's Company moves from 1am-4am to 4am-6am on Saturday nights. Looks like 3rd Rock from the Sun is totally gone on this schedule!
View the FULL new schedule that is in place now! Couple of points, TV Land will be going "off the clock" starting tomorrow...so the timings of shows will be way off. Just giving you a heads up, if you're taping something. And we're not sure what this means for June, as we already announced a schedule for that. As of now, these new changes are through the end of May. We will update you on any updates to the TV Land June schedule as soon as we get it. Stay tuned!

Come on back tomorrow for news on a sitcom coming to Lifetime in June!

SitcomsOnline.com 2009-10 Upfront Preview: Fox; TV Land Schedules Married with Children Mini-Marathon

Fox usually has a hard time in the fall, and depend a lot on American Idol and to a lesser degree 24 in January. This year is likely to be the same thing, but if Glee hits big after American Idol next week, Fox could have two hits in the fall and have a much better fall than usual, as House is the only big hit in the fall for fall.
Here is the SitcomsOnline.com Fox 2009-10 preview:

New Series Already Picked-Up: Glee (drama), The Cleveland Show (animated sitcom)
New Series We Think That Are Almost Good To Go: Sons of Tucson (sitcom), Brothers (sitcom) and Human Target (drama)
New Series Perhaps Picked-Up for Mid-Season: Maggie Hill (drama) and Masterwork (drama)

OUR FALL 2009 PREDICTION:

Sundays
7:00PM NFL Overrun / Animated Encores
8:00PM The Simpsons
8:30PM American Dad!
9:00PM Family Guy
9:30PM The Cleveland Show (NEW!)

Mondays
8:00PM House
9:00PM Human Target (NEW!)

Tuesdays
8:00PM Fringe
9:00PM Brothers (NEW!)
9:30PM Sons of Tucson (NEW!)

Wednesdays
8:00PM Glee (NEW!)
9:00PM Kitchen Nightmares

Thursdays
8:00PM Bones
9:00PM Lie to Me

Fridays
8:00PM Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
9:00PM Don't Forget the Lyrics! / 'Til Death

Saturdays
8:00PM Cops
8:30PM Cops
9:00PM America's Most Wanted

Comments: As I keep saying, it'll be once again a tale of two seasons within a season for Fox. Their mid-season line-up will probably be a lot different from fall, since 24 and American Idol come in January. House will likely still lead-off Mondays, leading into a new drama, perhaps Human Target. If that doesn't hit, they could always replace it with 24 in January. As for Tuesdays, I think the J.J. Abrams drama Fringe will likely be on a short leash and will kick off the night leading into two comedies, with one of them being the Michael Strahan comedy Brothers, which could get big promo push on Sundays with the NFL on Fox. Fringe will leave I think in January when American Idol comes, and perhaps a new drama will be used at 9pm (like Masterwork or Maggie Hill) or the comedies can stay if they hit. On Wednesdays, I think they will start with Glee but they really don't have anything to pair it with in the fall. It is perfect for American Idol. The best best would be something light, like Kitchen Nightmares. Since Hell's Kitchen will be airing in late summer, a new season of that wouldn't be airing in the fall I would think. Maybe in January again? If so, it would be on another night. And if Glee hits, it could remain in this slot all season and be a lead-in to American Idol Results. Good combo. I think Bones would likely remain on Thursdays at 8pm, but something more compatible needs to air with it, as currently the show following it at 9pm has a totally different audience. I think Lie to Me at 9pm on Thursdays is probably the best option. 5th Grader and Don't Forget the Lyrics will probably return to Fridays for the fall, with 'Til Death mixing in at some point unfortunately. Saturdays...do I need to ever talk about that? Fox will never change that. As for Sundays, animation domination will continue of course with the addition of The Cleveland Show, the Family Guy spin-off, but Sit Down Shut Up is likely dead after horrible ratings.
And so many series are goners next season we think: Prison Break, Dollhouse, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Do Not Disturb, King of the Hill, Sit Down Shut Up, The Moment of Truth, Hole in the Wall, Osbournes: Reloaded. I think Secret Millionaire is worth trying again in December. Everything else seems to be returning for Fox.
So, we have the usual...Fox hopes to do decent in the fall and explode in the winter/spring. Will American Idol fall more next season? It very well could.

Remember, next Monday (May 18) is the actual date when we will find out Fox's plans for the 2009-10 season. So, come on back next Monday and we will let you know the details and you can see how much we were right (or wrong). Stay tuned next week for the official fall line-ups for all the networks.
Discuss your thoughts on our prediction and feel free to make suggestions of your own!

A few weeks ago, TV Land aired Married with Children for a mini-marathon since they were honoring it at the TV Land Awards, the ratings must have been decent for it because now TV Land will air another mini-marathon this coming Thursday (May 14) from 10pm-1am ET/PT featuring classic episodes preempting the regular M*A*S*H. TV Land is borrowing the episodes from Spike TV, which is a sister station that airs the show regularly. They are owned by Viacom.
The episodes will be from seasons two-four. In the second season opener, the Bundy's go to a sleazy, dumpy motel in Dumpwater Florida. Trouble heads their way when an axe murderer, who hates tourists, arrives. Then in the conclusion, Peg is kidnapped by the axe murderer and it's up to Al to save her. Other episodes include: A nice weekend away for the Rhoadeses and the Bundys turns into misery for the men when Peg, Kelly, and Marcy all have their periods at the same time; Al grows his hair when his barber dies, and fears he is turning into a "sissy" just because he has to go to salons; Marcy's dead aunt's ashes end up in the Labor Day hamburgers, in the classic Labor Day episode; and Al's pride and "do-it-yourself" beliefs annoys the rest of the family when Al decides to fix the leaking roof himself.
TV Land should air this series regularly in primetime, it sure beats some of the shows that are airing there, including all the reality originals. Married would work well with the upcoming Roseanne. Whoaaaaaa Bundy!

ION Television June 2009, Acquires More Warner Movies; TV Land Heats Up This Summer

I'm back after a day off. Todd filled in nicely, as usual. Well anyway, we have news on ION Television June 2009 today. But first they made some May schedule changes. On Wednesdays we now get primetime movies from 9-11pm following Reba. So Boston Legal will only be Tuesdays (8-11pm) now. And on Sundays it will be M*A*S*H every Sunday from 6pm-11pm! M*A*S*H will still air weekdays in the 5pm hour as well. Primetime movies will now be Wed-Sat, with times varying. View the updated May schedule.
Now for June 2009, those changes are also in June. There are no other changes. So weekdays still looks like this: Quantum Leap, M*A*S*H, Family Feud, Reba from 4pm-8pm. In primetime, we have Reba in the 8pm hour every weekday but Tuesday, NCIS from 9-11pm on Mondays, Boston Legal from 8pm-11pm on Tuesdays, primetime movies from 9-11pm on Wed-Fri. We have many June movie premieres: Assassins, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Batman, Just Cause, Major League II, Sudden Impact, Pacific Heights, and True Crime. Encore airings are The Outlaw Josey Wales and Young Guns II.
View the full ION Television June 2009 schedule.

Sticking with ION, reinforcing an aggressive commitment to build its primetime schedule with high-profile, event-driven programming, ION Television has acquired a major new feature film package from Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution (WBDTD) which includes exclusive windows for multiple Oscar winner The Departed and acclaimed hit Ocean's Thirteen. The movies will air immediately beginning this month, with broadcast runs as far out as 2010.
This announcement underscores ION Television's continued positioning as a leading network destination for "A-list" feature films. This movie package expands upon ION's current roster of hit films from WBDTD, which will now boast nearly 70 titles. In addition to The Departed and Ocean's Thirteen, the new WBDTD film package features a dozen hit movies, including Heat, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro and directed by Michael Mann; The Matrix Reloaded, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Ann Moss, written and directed by The Wachowski Brothers and produced by Joel Silver; The Perfect Storm, starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg; Passenger 57, starring Wesley Snipes; and Assassins, starring Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas and Julianne Moore, produced by Joel Silver and directed by Richard Donner; among many other films.

TV Land's got a scorching summer schedule kicking off this June that includes the premiere of three original reality series, an exciting celebrity-filled tribute to Michael Douglas as this year's recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, blockbuster movies and the addition of Roseanne -- all premiering in TV Land PRIME, the network's new primetime programming block designed to appeal to the attitudes, life stage and interests of people in their 40s.
The network's summer schedule kicks off on Friday, June 5 with a week-long launch event of the hilarious sitcom Roseanne starring Roseanne Barr. Then, on Thursday, June 11, a new season of the TV Land hit She's Got the Look” -- a reality show modeling competition searching for the next great supermodel over the age of 35 -- kicks off. Both of these we have mentioned alrady. On Sunday, July 19 TV Land will air a special presentation of the AFI Life Achievement Award honoring celebrated actor Michael Douglas. And on Wednesday, August 12, TV Land premieres two brand new original series back-to-back with How'd You Get So Rich? -- starring Joan Rivers -- and the hidden camera show Make My Day. TV Land's signature Friday night PRIME Movie block will continue to air star-powered movies all summer long including Born on the 4th July, Back to School, Driving Miss Daisy, Another 48 Hours and Doc Hollywood.
View more on these summer series and specials!

TV Land June 2009 Has Roseanne; ABC/Disney Now on Hulu

This June on TV Land they will launch sitcom Roseanne in TV Land PRIME, launch the second season of reality series She's Got The Look on a new night and time, and spend Father's Day with TV Land Rough n Rugged.
TV Land PRIME welcomes Roseanne to the network with a week long, primetime marathon beginning Friday, June 5. The marathon will air 8pm-1am each night and encore 1am-6am each night through Friday, June 12, before the series joins the regular schedule on Saturday, June 13. Roseanne is the quintessential sitcom about a working class family that put the "Real in TV" long before reality television became the norm. Travel back in time with the "Queen of Comedy" as TV Land PRIME chronicles the Conner family's ups and downs, laughs and love, and dreams - both real and imagined.
Roseanne will air Saturdays from 9pm-11pm & 2am-4am; Sundays from 12am-2am; Mon-Tues & Thurs 11pm-2am; Tues-Fri from 8pm-10pm (except 9-10pm on Thursdays); and Wednesdays & Fridays 1-2am. That's a whole lotta Roseanne! And good news for classic TV fans because Leave it to Beaver is renewed and on the June schedule airing Saturdays from 12-2pm. Three's Company is unfortunately off the line-up for now with the addition of Roseanne, as will be Hogan's Heroes & Green Acres. The other big change is late nights on weeknights. 2am-6am all get changed, with The Cosby Show airing in the 2am hour, 3rd Rock from the Sun will only air now at 3am, followed by the return of Scrubs at 3:30am, followed by M*A*S*H at 4am, Sanford & Son at 4:30am, The Jeffersons at 5am, and Good Times at 5:30am. So this does mean M*A*S*H is just once a night on weeknights, but it will still air on Sunday nights, but now 9pm-12am. We have the full schedule for you to click on below...so keep reading!
They're back again... and this time the stakes are bigger and better as 12 gorgeous women 35-and-over grace TV Land PRIME in season 2 of the modeling competition series that's like no other...She's Got the Look! For one very lucky winner, a second chance for a supermodel career, a life changing contract with the world famous Wilhelmina Modeling Agency, and a spread in Self magazine awaits. Watch the nationwide search, follow the drama as the number of contestants dwindles, and root for your favorite to win it all. Join in on the fun on a new night and time starting Thursday June 11, 2009 at 9pm for eight straight weeks through July 30. Encores of the show will air Thursdays at 10pm & 1am; Fridays at 12 midnight; Saturdays 10am & 1am; Sundays 3am; Mondays 11am; Tuesdays 2am; Wednesdays 10pm; and the next Thursday at 12 noon.
But before the premiere on June 11, catch a sneak peek at She's Got the Look season two on Wednesday, June 3 at 11pm following the finale of The Cougar.
It's Dad's Day and TV Land has 12 hours of rough rugged entertainment planned that will keep dad glued to his seat. Starting with a 7-hour block of movies featuring fights and sports, a classic Mel Brooks comedy and a 4 hour western block featuring popular episodes of Bonanza and Gunsmoke, Dad is sure to appreciate that you've kept him busy doing his most favorite thing: sitting on the couch and watching good manly TV! Catch the movies Slapshot 2, Slapshot, and History of the World Part 1.
Other TV Land PRIME movie premieres for the month are Another 48 Hours and Driving Miss Daisy.
View the full TV Land June 2009 schedule, with full highlights and one-time adjustments.

Hulu and The Walt Disney Company announced that Disney, through a subsidiary of ABC Enterprises Inc., has agreed to join NBC Universal, News Corporation and Providence Equity Partners as a joint venture partner and equity owner of Hulu, a leading online aggregator of video content. Upon closing, the agreement will enhance Hulu's programming lineup through the expanded online distribution of Disney's most popular current and library primetime series and library feature films. In particular, full-length episodes of hit current and library programs like Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Private Practice, Ugly Betty, Scrubs, Greek, Hope & Faith, Less than Perfect, Wizards of Waverly Place, Phineas and Ferb, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, General Hospital, The View and The Secret Life of the American Teenager will soon be streamed on Hulu on an ad-supported basis.
· Full-length episodes of ABC primetime programs like Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Samantha Who?, Scrubs, Private Practice and popular late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!
· Full-length episodes of hit ABC Family series like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Greek
· Popular series from ABC Daytime and SOAPnet like General Hospital and The View
· Classic series from ABC's library like Hope & Faith, Less than Perfect, Commander in Chief, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire and past seasons of the megahit Dancing with the Stars
· Select hit programs from Disney Channel like Wizards of Waverly Place and Phineas and Ferb which can be easily accessed from a new DISNEY location in the Channel section of Hulu.com
· Popular library titles from The Walt Disney Studios
· Short-form content including webisodes, sneak peeks and episode recaps from ABC Entertainment, ABC Family and SOAPnet
That is a lot and this is huge! ABC/Disney has bought 30% of Hulu. There is no date yet when all of this will appear, but we will let you know.

Stay tuned tomorrow for our regular blog DVD review and a look at what we think will be picked-up by NBC for both new and returning series. NBC has their "infront" on Monday and will announce what they will pick-up, but an actual schedule won't be announced until upfront week (week of May 18). NBC continues to be the oddball with this "infront" stuff.

TV Land Changes May Schedule; Adult Swim Acquires British The Office

Today we were supposed to give you TV Land June 2009, continuing our June week, but now TV Land has edited their May schedule. We will have to delay the June schedule until tomorrow or next week. So stay tuned for that. TV Land has changed their May schedule a bit starting May 4. Among the changes are more Gunsmoke & Bonanza on weekdays now extended from 2pm-6pm from Tues-Fri. This means the Monday block is now from 12pm-6pm. Evening sitcoms now start 6pm with Hogan's Heroes moving to the 6pm half-hour, followed by Green Acres at 6:30pm. The Beverly Hillbillies remains in the 7pm hour.
TV Land Goes West is added also on Saturdays from 1pm-7pm, just like how it airs on Sundays, with two Gunsmoke episodes followed by four episodes of Bonanza. This means the TV Land movie encores are now just Saturdays at 6am. The Brady Bunch on Saturday mornings is now 9am-11am, with Leave it to Beaver from 11am-1pm leading into the westerns block. Beaver also airs 7-8pm on Saturdays, followed by blocks of Andy Griffith from 8pm-11pm, M*A*S*H from 11pm-1am, and Three's Company from 1am-3am. Sundays has an extended Hillbillies from 10am-1pm leading into the westerns. Andy follows from 7-10pm, then M*A*S*H from 10pm-1am, Hillbillies from 1am-3am, and now only an hour of Brady Bunch (in the 3am hour).
It is not many changes, but this make schedule more of a regular schedule, especially on weekends with shows getting set time slots now. What does this mean for June? We will have to wait and see, but we know one thing, Roseanne is joining the TV Land PRIME line-up. But for now, view the full updated TV Land May 2009 schedule.

The Office, the BBC series that spawned the NBC comedy of the same name, is returning to American television on Adult Swim. The Turner-owned network, which shares channel space with Cartoon Network, has acquired both seasons of the British comedy, as well as The Office Christmas Special and will start airing them this summer.
Created, written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, The Office is about the day-to-day lives of employees in the Slough, Bershire branch of the fictitious Wernham Hogg Paper Company. The series' main character, David Brent, as portrayed by Gervais, is familiar to office workers everywhere. As regional manager of the company, Brent fancies himself as a great team leader using humor to win the loyalty of his staff. In reality, he is belittling, smug, sexist, insensitive, patronizing and unthinkingly offensive.
Adult Swim also airs the BBC hit The Mighty Boosh, since March 29. They recently secured the rights to Look Around You.
The U.S. version of the series airs in repeats on sister station TBS.

Remembering Bea Arthur, Kim Weiskopf; Hallmark Channel, WE tv, TV Land, Me-Too All To Air Tributes for Bea

Today we will cover everything Bea Arthur (with a tribute to Kim Weiskopf as well). As you all I'm sure know by now, Bea Arthur has died. Beatrice Arthur, the tall, deep-voiced actress whose razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star in the hit shows Maude and The Golden Girls and who won a Tony Award for the musical Mame, died Saturday (April 25). Arthur died peacefully at her Los Angeles home with her family at her side. She had cancer but that is the only detail we know. Arthur first appeared in the landmark comedy series All in the Family as Edith Bunker's outspoken, liberal cousin, Maude Finley. She proved a perfect foil for blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), and their blistering exchanges were so entertaining that producer Norman Lear fashioned Arthur's own series, known of course as Maude. Maude scored with television viewers immediately on its CBS debut in September 1972, and Arthur won an Emmy Award for the role in 1977. The show ended in 1978, as Bea thought it was time for the show to end after six seasons. Then came The Golden Girls from 1985-1992, and it was another groundbreaking comedy, finding surprising success in a television market increasingly skewed toward a younger, product-buying audience. She played Dorothy Zbornak, one of four older friends living in Miami. The show moved to CBS in 1992-93 and was titled The Golden Palace, but Bea didn't sign on for it. Bea did guest star in a two-part episode. In 2003, Lifetime reunited the cast for the special The Golden Girls: Their Greatest Memories. And in 2008, the cast reunited again on the 2008 TV Land Awards accepting the Pop Culture Award.
Even before television, Bea had a major career in plays on Broadway. Arthur's biggest Broadway triumph came in 1966 as Vera Charles, Angela Lansbury's acerbic friend in the musical "Mame," directed by Tony-winning director Gene Saks, who was also her husband of 28 years. They divorced in 1978. During 2001 and 2002 she toured the country in a one-woman show of songs and stories, ... And Then There's Bea.
In between Maude and The Golden Girls, Bea had a failed sitcom. In 1983, she starred in the ABC sitcom Amanda's, an Americanized version of John Cleese's hilarious Fawlty Towers. She was cast as owner of a small seaside hotel with a staff of eccentrics. It lasted a mere 10 episodes, with three episodes unaired.
She was also in films. Among the movies she graced were That Kind of Woman (1959), Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), Mel Brooks' The History of the World: Part I (1981), For Better or Worse (1995). Her TV movies include the ABC TV movie My First Love in 1988 and the NBC TV movie P.O.P. in 1984.
Among her guest appearances on television are the The Golden Girls spin-off Empty Nest, Ellen, Beggars & Choosers, Dave's World, a.k.a. Pablo, Laugh-In, and she appeared on a rare special recap episode of Soap as an "angel." In recent years, Arthur made guest appearances on shows including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Futurama and Malcolm in the Middle. The latter was very popular.
Bea will certainly be missed by millions and millions fans around the world. TV Land has created a 30-second on-air and online promo remembering her. TV Land will air both of her appearances on All in the Family on Tuesday and Wednesday at 9am, the episodes "Cousin Maude's Visit" on Tuesday and the back-door "Maude" pilot that aired as an All in the Family episode on Wednesday. Too bad TV Land isn't airing regular Maude episodes as a tribute. Me-Too in Chicago will air Maude, though! All this week in the 9-10pm CT hour, Me-Too Chicago airs "Remembering Maude: A Tribute to Bea Arthur." View the episode schedule. Lucky fans in Chi-town.
Hallmark and WE tv air The Golden Girls regularly multiple times a day. Hallmark will pay tribute to Bea with a Memorial Day marathon and WE tv pays tribute to Bea tonight and Thursday, see below for more details on both. Watch a video celebration of her life and career. Bea lived a long life and was 86.

Hallmark Channel has announced it will pay tribute to legendary star Bea Arthur with an all-day Golden Girls "Memorial Day Marathon" on Monday, May 25 from 6:30am-2:30am, featuring episodes focusing on Arthur's character Dorothy Zbornak, a gruff, wise-cracking divorcée who shared her Miami home with her mother and two loopy friends. Golden Girls plays daily on Hallmark Channel: Monday-Friday, 8-10 a.m., 7-9 p.m., 12-2 a.m., Saturdays 6-9 a.m., and Sundays 8:30-10 a.m. View their press release. UPDATE: We get marathons SOONER now on Hallmark! At the Studio City, CA home of Hallmark Channel, fans of the classic comedy Golden Girls flooded the network's Viewer Services department today with parenthetical appreciation for the channel's announcement of a Memorial Day Tribute to Bea Arthur. The qualifier to the announcement included these sentiments: more, sooner, please. And now Hallmark has listened! Hallmark Channel responded by hand-selecting the "Best of the Dorothy Zbornak Episodes" which begin running Tuesday, April 28 (7-9pm) and continue, Wednesday, April 29 (7-9pm), and Thursday, April 30 (7-9pm) in the normal Golden Girls timeslots, but also on Sunday, May 3 (8:30am-3am) a full day event is planned! This is all in addition to the previously announced Memorial Day marathon on, Monday, May 25 (6:30am-2:30am.). We don't have episode info yet for the Memorial Day stunt, but Hallmark has released the 5 day stunt episodes for this week! Thank you for being a friend, Hallmark!
WE tv airs the show weeknights from 5-7pm ET, with primetime marathons from 6pm-12am on Monday nights, so that includes tonight. They also air the show sometimes on Thursday late nights. WE tv announced today two special nights of programming to honor Bea Arthur. "WE Remember Bea" will feature a marathon of favorite The Golden Girls episodes both Monday, April 27 from 5pm-12am ET and Thursday, April 30 from 9:30pm-1am ET. The acclaimed actress, known for her quick wit and willingness to embrace controversial issues was the centerpiece of the comedic series, which won more than 38 awards during its run. "WE Remember Bea" will be comprised of episodes which center on Bea Arthur's colorful character Dorothy Zbornak and key related storylines from the series. See the episode info for tonight's marathon.
WE tv already had a scheduled Golden Girls Memorial Day marathon from 10am-6am, so we have two networks airing a marathon on The Golden Girls on May 25.

We also have lost Kim Weiskopf, a TV comedy writer whose credits included Three's Company and Married...with Children, died of pancreatic cancer Wednesday (April 22) at his home in Encino. He launched his career in the early 1970s, with longtime writing partner Michael S. Baser, he wrote for series such as One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Melba, Carter Country, We Got It Made, and Good Times, the latter show leading to their first staff-writing position.
The writing duo went on to write and produce three seasons of ABC's Three's Company before being hired to create the TV series 9 to 5 for ABC, which was based on the movie. They then developed an updated, syndicated version of the '70s series What's Happening!! called What's Happening Now!!, though he had never worked with the original series.
Weiskopf's also wrote and produced for Rachel Gunn, R.N., Full House and Married...with Children, without Baser. Kim appeared in interviews for the E! True Hollywood Story episodes of both Three's Company and Married...with Children. He had an uncredited appearance on Married...with Children on an episode playing Lucky the Dog in a 1996 episode.
He is going to be missed, especially by fans of Three's Company and Married...with Children. Kim was 62.

Rodney Episodes on CMT; 2009 TV Land Awards Show Details; ABC Note

This coming weekend on CMT (Friday, April 24 through Sunday, April 26) is Rodney Carrington Weekend on CMT. Included in that weekend will be episodes of his sitcom Rodney, which aired on ABC for two seasons from 2004-2006 and lasted 44 episodes. There were six unaired episodes though, but unfortunately we still do not get to see any of them here. Instead, CMT will air six season one episodes. The episodes will premiere on CMT on Friday from 9pm-12am. Various encores of these episodes will air on Saturday from 5:30-7:30pm and Sunday from 8pm-11pm. The episodes airing are: "Teacher" with guest star Christine Lakin (Step by Step), "Halloween," "Dream Lover" with guest star Sofia Vergara, "It's Up It's Good," "Charity Ball," and "Rodney's Affair."
To kick off the weekend, Rodney Carrington will also host the CMT Top 20 Countdown on Friday, April 24 at 11:00am ET/PT. CMT will also air Rodney's one hour Comedy Central special Rodney Carrington Live at the Majestic at 12 midnight (ET/PT). On Sunday April 26, CMT will air the feature film Beer for My Horses starring both Rodney and Toby Keith at 6:00pm and 11:00lm (ET/PT).
Also, a DVD package consisting of all 22 episodes from the first season of Rodney, will be sold exclusively in Wal-Mart as of May 19. Hopefully that package will soon also be available as a regular DVD!

It was an unforgettable and star-studded evening as celebrities from television, film and music came out tonight for the taping of the 2009 TV Land Awards which will premiere on Sunday, April 26 at 8pm ET/PT on TV Land during a special presentation of TV Land PRIME. Appearances included Will Ferrell (presenter for Pop Culture Award), Matthew McConaughey (presenter for Hero Award), Martin Sheen (presenter for Impact Award), Teri Hatcher (presenter for Future Classic Award), Amy Poehler (presenter for Legacy of Laughter Award), Jimmy Kimmel (presenter for Legend Award), Cyndi Lauper, Angela Bassett (presenter for Entertainer Award), Reba McEntire (presenter for Anniversary Award), Jamie Lee Curtis (presenter for Fan Favorite Award), Dr. Phil McGraw (presenter for Innovator Award) and more. This year's honorees included Don Rickles (Legend Award), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Lucille Ball Legacy of Laughter Award), M*A*S*H (Impact Award), Married With Children (Innovator Award), ER, (Icon Award), Home Improvement (Fan Favorite Award), Magnum P.I. (Hero Award), Sid and Marty Krofft (Pop Culture Award), Knots Landing (30th Anniversary Award), Two and a Half Men (Future Classic Award), and Earth, Wind & Fire (Entertainer Award).
An entertaining videotaped parody/show open by host Neil Patrick Harris which took him through his own version of The Twilight Zone, traveling through TV hits spanning from The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Love Boat, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Happy Days - featuring an appearance by Marion Ross, Baywatch and finally Survivor where he comes face to the show's host Jeff Probst.
There was also a heartwarming taped tribute to Don Rickles by close friend and fellow icon Bob Newhart. Neil Patrick Harris performed the song "I'll Take TV," written by acclaimed Academy Award-nominated composer Marc Shaiman (Hairspray, Sleepless In Seattle).
Read more about the 2009 TV Land Awards, and tune in on Sunday (April 26) at 8PM!

As we mentioned on Friday on our message board and yesterday here on our ratings report, ABC will air two all-new episodes of the comedic cop show The Unusuals this week. ABC will air The Unusuals on a special night of Tuesday (April 21) at 10pm following Dancing with the Stars: The Results. That means new romantic comedy-drama Cupid will be preempted this week, but is slated to return the following Tuesday (April 28). The Unusuals will also air on its regular night of Wednesday this week at 10pm, following a Lost Special. The show has a 10 episode order, and thus far has aired two episodes--so after this week four will air in all. So it is slated to air through June 17, unless ABC decides to double up each week, if it does much better than Cupid. But for now, tune in this week! It is a well done show!

TV Land Makes Early Evening Changes; TV Land Announces Presenters and More for TV Land Awards

TV Land has announced some last minute schedule changes. The first one begins tonight, with Thursdays 10pm-12am now M*A*S*H instead of The Jeffersons. Now next week that won't happen since the already scheduled Married...with Children stunt is airing, but M*A*S*H will air tonight and April 30. The rest of the changes are to the weekday late afternoon/early evening line-up starting Tuesday, April 21, 2009. At 4pm ET/PT we get a second episode of Bonanza replacing two episodes of Green Acres. Bonanza will remain at 3pm as well. Then from 5-8pm we had three episodes each of Beverly Hillbillies and Hogan's Heroes, but now we have will some changes. In the 5pm hour we get two episodes of Hogan's Heroes replacing back-to-back Beverly Hillbillies. In the 6pm hour we now get Green Acres replacing one Hillbillies and one Hogan's Heroes. Then finally in the 7pm hour we get two episodes of Beverly Hillbillies replacing back-to-back Hogan's Heroes.
So nothing is replaced in the weekday schedule, but some time shifting, while Bonanza gets an extra episode and Hogan's and Hillbillies get an episode reduced.
See our TV Land April 2009 schedule and highlights, if you haven't seen it.

Sticking with TV Land, they announced that legendary producers Sid and Marty Krofft will receive the Pop Culture Award at the 2009 TV Land Awards, and Will Ferrell, star of the upcoming film Land of the Lost, Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives), Amy Poehler (Saturday Night Live, Parks and Recreation), comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel (Jimmy Kimmel Live!), Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween) and TV talk show host and psychologist Dr. Phil will be among the presenters at the evening's celebration.
Additionally, music stars Cyndi Lauper and David Cassidy will perform in the tribute to Sid and Marty Krofft. The two-hour show, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, will tape this Sunday (April 19) at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City and will air on TV Land during a special presentation of TV Land PRIME on Sunday, April 26th at 8PM ET/PT.
Medical drama ER has been added as an honoree at the 2009 TV Land Awards. ER, one of television's longest running dramas, will be presented with the Icon Award for the way that it changed television with its fast-paced steadi-cam shots as well as for its amazing and gritty storylines. The Icon Award is presented to a television program with immeasurable fame and longevity. The show transcends generations and is recognized by peers and fans around the world. Cast members Alex Kingston, Anthony Edwards, Linda Cardellini, Ellen Crawford, Laura Innes, Kellie Martin, Mekhi Phifer, Parminder Nagra, Shane West and Yvette Freeman will all be in attendance to accept the award.

Other stars scheduled to appear so far: Don Rickles, Julia Louis-Dreyfus; cast of Home Improvement Tim Allen, Zachary Ty Bryan, Debbe Dunning, Richard Karn, Patricia Richardson, Taran Noah Smith; cast of Knots Landing Lisa Hartman Black, Kevin Dobson, William DeVane, Constance McCashin, David Jacobs, Michele Lee, Don Murray, Donna Mills, Michelle Phillips, Ted Shackleford, Joan Van Ark; cast of Magnum P.I. Larry Manetti, Roger E. Mosley, Tom Selleck; cast of Married with Children Christina Applegate, David Faustino, Ted McGinley, Ed O'Neill, Katey Sagal; cast & crew of M*A*S*H Alan Alda, Allan Arbus, William Christopher, Larry Gelbart, Mike Farrell, Jeff Maxwell, Burt Metcalfe, Gene Reynolds, David Ogden Stiers, Loretta Swit, Kellye Nakahara Wallet; and cast & crew of Two and a Half Men Mark Burg, Jon Cryer, Conchata Ferrell, Angus T Jones, Chuck Lorre, Charlie Sheen, Holland Taylor.
TV Land previously announced additional honorees for this year's show including Don Rickles (Legend Award), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Legacy of Laughter Award), Married With Children (Innovator Award), M*A*S*H (Impact Award), Home Improvement (Fan Favorite Award), Magnum P.I. (Hero Award), Two and a Half Men (Future Classic Award) and Knots Landing (30th Anniversary Award).

NBC Mid-Season Preview: Parks and Recreation - Premieres April 9; NBC Pulls Kings; TV Land Renews High School Reunion

Parks and Recreation - Thursdays 8:30PM ET/PT on NBC
Premieres Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 8:30PM ET/PT

From Emmy Award-winning executive producers Greg Daniels (NBC's The Office, King of the Hill) and Michael Schur (NBC's The Office, Saturday Night Live) comes a new mockumentary that looks at the exciting world of local government. The new half-hour comedy will examine the mundane but necessary ways that people interact with their government, and ask why it's frequently so complicated -- as everyone knows from standing in line at the DMV, applying for home construction permits, or trying to get the city to fix a pothole.
The documentary cameras follow Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler, NBC's Saturday Night Live, Baby Mama) a mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana. In an attempt to beautify her town -- and advance her career -- Leslie takes on what should be a fairly simple project: help local nurse Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones, NBC's The Office, Unhitched) turn an abandoned construction pit into a community park. Opposing them are defensive bureaucrats, selfish neighbors, real estate developers, and single-issue fanatics -- whose weapons are lawsuits, the jumble of city codes, and the very democratic process that Leslie loves so much.
Leslie is alternately helped and undermined by her colleague, Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari, Human Giant, Scrubs), who cheerfully exploits his government position for personal gain. She is also thwarted by her boss Ron Swanson, who is philosophically opposed to government in any form.
Helping Leslie and Ann navigate the Pawnee bureaucracy is charismatic city planner Mark Brendanawicz, whose outlook has been soured by 15 years of public service.
If they can pull it off, Leslie hopes that she also will have inspired her uninterested college intern April (Aubrey Plaza, Mayne Street) and April's whole generation - all the while moving one step closer to her ultimate goal: becoming the first female president of the United States.
Parks and Recreation is a production of Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios. Along with Daniels and Schur, Howard Klein also serves as executive producer for the series.

Cast Details:

* Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope
* Aziz Ansari as Tom Haverford
* Rashida Jones as Ann Perkins
* Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson
* Aubrey Plaza as April Ludgate
* Paul Schneider as Mark Brendanawicz

Emmy Award nominee Amy Poehler stars as mid-level bureaucrat Leslie Knope on the new NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. The new series is a half-hour mockumentary that looks at the exciting world of local government.
The year 2008 was a very busy year for Poehler. Between her seventh season of NBC's Saturday Night Live (and her fourth as the co-anchor of Weekend Update), a trio of films and a new animated project for Nickelodeon, she was very active. Poehler received her first Emmy nomination in 2008 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Saturday Night Live. Due to a change in eligibility, this is an unprecedented nomination, making her the first performer in SNL history to land a spot in this category.
Poehler could be seen starring opposite Tina Fey in Universal Pictures' hit comedy film Baby Mama and also lent her voice to the animated film Horton Hears a Who! with Jim Carrey and Steve Carell. Poehler had a starring role in the ice-skating comedy Blades of Glory, alongside Will Ferrell, Will Arnett and Jon Heder, and she also provided the voice to the boxoffice smash hit Shrek the Third as Snow White. Her other feature credits include the hit comedy Mean Girls, Mr. Woodcock, Southland Tales, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, The Ex, Wet Hot American Summer and Envy.
Poehler has made memorable appearances on television ranging from NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien (as recurring character Stacey, Andy Richter's little sister), Arrested Development, Wonder Showzen and Undeclared. She also was a voice on O'Grady and The Simpsons.

Aziz Ansari (Tom Haverford) is poised for 2009 to be his breakout year with a new television series, a trio of films, and a headlining comedy tour. Before the new series premieres, Ansari will appear in a handful of features. He recently began production on Judd Apatow's upcoming comedy Funny People, opposite Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, and also has roles in I Love You, Man with Paul Rudd, and opposite Rogen and Anna Faris in Observe and Report.
Ansari is best known for his role on MTV's hit sketch comedy series, Human Giant. The series is based around comedy sketches performed by Ansari, along with Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer. Many of their sketches have become Internet sensations and have popularized the trio with young people all across the U.S. Last year, Ansari also had a memorable guest-starring role on Flight of the Conchords, in which he portrayed a racist fruit vendor. He can also be seen in a multi-episode arc on Scrubs.

Rashida Jones (Ann Perkins) can be seen in the feature film I Love You, Man for writer-director John Hamburg, starring opposite Paul Rudd and Jason Segal. She recently completed her starring roles in the independent features Life in Flight (with Patrick Wilson and Amy Smart), and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (with Max Minghella) -- both set for release later this year. Her past film credits include Little Black Book, opposite Holly Hunter, Kathy Bates and Brittany Murphy.
Jones caught attention of audiences and the industry alike when she portrayed the ambitious saleswoman, Karen Filippelli, in NBC's Emmy Award-winning comedy NBC's The Office, opposite Steve Carell. She also starred as Kate on Unhitched a half-hour comedy from the Farrelly brothers. Her previous television credits include David E. Kelley's Boston Public as Louisa Fenn and Jorge Zamacoma's Wanted as Detective Carla Merced. She also appeared in Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks, If These Walls Could Talk II, The Chappelle Show and the British television series NY-LON. Jones was also a weekly correspondent on the talk show Vibe TV.

Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson) received his B.F.A. in theater from the University of Illinois and has performed at Chicago’s famed Goodman and Steppenwolf theaters. He was a series regular on American Body Shop and has appeared on 24, Deadwood, Will & Grace, Monk, The West Wing, CSI: NY and NYPD Blue. He recurred on George Lopez as Randy.
His feature credits include Wristcutters, Patriotville, The Go Getter, Sin City, and Miss Congeniality 2. Nick can next be seen in the feature films Men Who Stare at Goats with George Clooney and Ewan McGregor and All Good Things with Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst.

Aubrey Plaza (April Ludgate) is originally from Wilmington, Del., and is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is an actor, writer and comedian. She has been performing improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater since 2004. She also recently began performing stand-up and has appeared at the Laugh Factory and The Improv.
Plaza stars in the upcoming comedy features Funny People, directed by Judd Apatow, and Derrick Comedy's Mystery Team which debuted at Sundance. She can also be seen in the hit online series The Jeanne Tate Show, and ESPN's Mayne Street. Plaza will next star in the Universal feature Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, directed by Edgar Wright.

Paul Schneider (Mark Brendanawicz) will next be seen in Bright Star directed by Jane Campion as well as Sam Mendes Away We Go opposite John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. Schneider was lauded for his performance in Lars and the Real Girl opposite Ryan Gosling as well as The Assassination of Jesse James with Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. His directorial debut Pretty Bird starred Billy Crudup and Paul Giamatti and screened in competition in Sundance in 2008. He has also received critical acclaim for his work in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, All the Real Girls and The Family Stone.


Pilot Plot:

#1 - SERIES PREMIERE--MAKE MY PIT A PARK - From Emmy Award-winning executive producers of The Office comes a new mockumentary that looks at the exciting world of local government. The documentary cameras follow Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) a mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana. In an attempt to beautify her town Leslie takes on what should be a fairly simple project: help local nurse Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) turn an abandoned construction pit into a community park. Leslie is alternately helped and undermined by her colleague, Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), who cheerfully exploits his government position for personal gain. She is also thwarted by her boss Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) who is philosophically opposed to government in any form. Helping Leslie and Ann navigate the Pawnee bureaucracy is charismatic city planner Mark Brendanawicz (Paul Schneider), whose outlook has been soured by 15 years of public service. If they can pull it off, Leslie hopes that she also will have inspired her uninterested college intern April (Aubrey Plaza) and April’s whole generation – all the while moving one step closer to her ultimate goal: becoming the first female president of the United States.

#2 - REPORTER - LESLIE HAS TROUBLE WITH A REPORTER - When Leslie (Amy Poehler) invites a reporter to do a story on her park project, she and her committee have trouble staying on message. Leslie calls in Mark (Paul Schneider) to help save the story, but he only makes the situation worse. Meanwhile, Tom (Aziz Ansari) kisses up to his boss (Nick Offerman). Rashida Jones and Aubrey Plaza also star.

Analysis:

Unfortunately, we were unable to obtain any screener copies in time for review. The show looks pretty funny from the promos and 5-minute preview they've posted online. I've always liked Amy Poehler and Rashida Jones, so I will be tuning in to watch the premiere. I'm not too familiar with the rest of the cast. NBC is set to air 6 episodes.

Here are some external reviews:

The Hollywood Reporter
Entertainment Weekly
Variety
Newsday
San Francisco Chronicle
Zap2it

More on Google News

Discuss the show after you watch it on Thursday, April 9 on our message board.

Related Links:

NBC.com Official Site

Knope Knows - A Parks and Recreation fansite

TV.com

epguides.com

Internet Movie Database

Wikipedia

Parks and Recreation Photo Gallery


Sorry we couldn't give you our take on the pilot. If we somehow get the pilot before airing, we will edit it in and let you know. Thanks for the preview, Todd! Anyway, back to the news...NBC has pulled Kings from the Sunday line-up. NBC will dethrone to Kings to Saturdays at 8PM effective Saturday, April 18. Kings will not air this week. NBC will replace Kings' Sundays at 8PM airings with an expanded Dateline from 7-9PM. Kings is just the latest NBC bomb. NBC says they will air all the episodes, so that should last it into June. Kings lasted only 4 weeks on Sundays.

TV Land announced that it has picked up its successful reality series High School Reunion for a third season. Over 1 million people have been watching the current season, which airs its final episode tonight (April 8) at 10pm ET/PT. Now viewers can tune in as Las Vegas' Chaparral High School's Class of 1989 will experience a reunion like no other. Set on the garden isle of Kauai, the classmates of Chaparral -- some of whom haven't seen each other in over twenty years -- will have the unique opportunity to finally settle a score, find new love or rekindle an old flame and reconnect during this luxurious getaway. High School Reunion is produced for TV Land by Mike Fleiss through his NEXT Entertainment production company in association with Warner Horizon Television. High School Reunion is set to debut its third season on TV Land, with eight episodes, in the third quarter of 2009, on TV Land during TV Land PRIME, the network's primetime destination block.
Season two of High School Reunion has been averaging 883,000 total viewers with a median age of 45. Among A25-54, it has been posting a 0.5 rating and 554,000viewers 25-54 and among A40-54 a 0.6 rating and 343,000 viewers among 40-54.

TV One May 2009 Says That's My Mama; Rickles To Be Honored at TV Land; Ape-Reel Fool's on Boomerang; Sitcom Hint

Originally there was supposed to be an Easter marathon on TV One for the classic but short lived '70s sitcom That's My Mama, but then they decided to pull it. I had thought they pulled it because they wanted a better night for it like Mother's Day, and I was right...we will indeed get the marathon on Mother's Day now!
Beginning at 1pm on Mother's Day (Sunday, May 10), the classic sitcom That's My Mama comes to the TV One airwaves with an all-day marathon. The classic sitcom which starred Theresa Merritt in the title role as Eloise "Mama" Curtis took place in Washington D.C. and centered around Clifton Curtis, Mama's son and young barber, he had inherited the family barbershop from his late father, Oscar Curtis. Mama wanted the best for her son and that meant a woman in his life, so she often tried finding him a mate even though he enjoyed bachelor life. The series also stars Clifton Davis and Jester Hairston (who both went on to star in another TV One favorite Amen), Ted Lange (who went on to star in The Love Boat), Lynn Moody (Roots), and Theodore Wilson (Sweet Daddy from TV One's Good Times). The marathon ends at 7pm...but after an original special at 7pm, we get more sitcom mom fun! Concluding the Mothers Day festivities, TV One airs a "Mothers Day Comedy Marathon" beginning at 8pm consisting of Mothers Day themed episodes of TV One sitcom favorites Living Single, Half & Half, and The Hughleys. It's good to see The Hughleys get some play, as the series has been off the regular schedule. The marathon runs until 1am, but encores until 6am. That's My Mama is not scheduled to join the regular line-up in May...hopefully it will at a later date. The Mama marathon is an hour shorter than the originally planned Easter marathon, though.
On Saturday, May 16 beginning at 12pm, TV One says Happy Birthday to a superstar as they offer their annual birthday tribute to Grammy Award winning entertainer Janet Jackson by airing an all-day marathon of "Good Times: The Janet Years," featuring episodes when a young Janet played the Evans neighbor, Penny who after being abused by a violent mother was eventually adopted by Willona. The marathon runs until 8pm, with select episodes encoring from 12am-6am.
TV One goes retro for Memorial Day weekend beginning on Saturday, May 23 with series, movies, and marathons that will take viewers on a trip back in time for a weekend full of laughs, romance, danger, and action. Movies will kick off on Saturday. Then on Sunday, May 24 beginning at 1pm to 7pm, TV One presents an action-packed marathon of the '80s crime drama series A Man Called Hawk starring Avery Brooks in the title role of the tough talking and street fighting Hawk. Keeping the retro theme going on Sunday, May 24 beginning at 8pm, TV One pays homage to actor/comedian John Witherspoon (who is the roastee at a TV One Celebrity Roast premiering the next night) with the airing of episodes of sitcoms Martin and Living Single as well as the Robert Townsend Tinseltown parody Hollywood Shuffle. On Memorial Day itself (Monday, May 25), beginning at 10am, closing out retro-weekend on TV One is a marathon of '70s sitcom Sanford & Son starring the late Redd Foxx as cantankerous junk dealer Fred Sanford and Demond Wilson as his son Lamont who run a junk business in a Los Angeles Watts neighborhood. The marathon runs until 9pm and select episodes encore from 1am-6am.
As for regular schedule changes, beginning on Monday, May 4 and continuing until further notice, the TV One weeknight overnight sitcom block has changed and will now air the following line-up: 3:00am Half & Half (replacing Living Single), 3:30am Martin (replacing Living Single), 4:00am Half & Half and 4:30am Martin (replacing Half & Half).

It's April Fool's Day, so what better way to celebrate this day then to give you news about Don Rickles! Multi-talented Don Rickles, the world's most beloved "outrageous comic," actor and author will be bestowed the Legend Award at The 2009 TV Land Awards. The Legend Award is presented to an entertainer or a television show that has stood the test of time and ranks among the most memorable and celebrated in television and movie history. The 2009 TV Land Awards, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris will tape on Sunday, April 19 at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City to air on TV Land during a special presentation of TV Land PRIME on Sunday, April 26 at 8pm ET/PT. Previous recipients of the Legend Award include The Carol Burnett Show, Cheers, Garry Marshall, The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
TV Land previously announced additional honorees for this year's show including Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Legacy of Laughter Award), Married with Children (Innovator Award), M*A*S*H (Impact Award), Home Improvement (Fan Favorite Award), Magnum P.I. (Hero Award), Two and a Half Men (Future Classic Award) and Knots Landing (30th Anniversary Award).
View more on the awards and Don Rickles.

Spend a primate-packed day with Boomerang as the commercial-free network celebrates "Ape-Reel Fool's Day" today! The big star of the day is everyone's favorite fun-loving (and well-dressed) gorilla, Magilla. Debuting in 1964, The Magilla Gorilla Show chronicles Magilla's antics in Mr. Peeble's Pet Shop. This classic cartoon will air in three-hour blocks on Wednesday, April 1, at 9 a.m. (ET) and 5 p.m. (ET), and again overnight at 2 a.m. (ET). So, yes this story didn't publish until 1pm ET, but you have time to catch these encores!
But not all the animated apes are as amiable as Magilla, as Mojo Jojo of The Powerpuff Girls will prove. This most evil of apish villains will wreak havoc at 7 a.m. (ET), 2 p.m. (ET) and 10 p.m. (ET). Other classic cartoons--The Flinstones, Scooby Doo, Pink Panther, Dexter's Laboratory and Top Cat also will join in the fun with monkey-themed episodes and simian guest stars. On The Flintstones, a mix-up at the Bedrock pharmacy has Fred taking strange pills that don't help his allergy but turn him into an ape. Tune in today at 3pm ET and other encores like 9pm!

And no foolin' we have some sitcom acquisition news for the next two days. Stay tuned tomorrow to find out what sitcom ION Television has acquired and on Friday to find out what sitcom Lifetime has acquired. Both networks will start airing these sitcoms this May! What can they be? You'll have to join us the next two days!

TV Land May 2009 Highlights, TV Land Awards Honorees; George Lopez Talk Show Coming to TBS in November

For May 2009 on TV Land we really don't get any schedule changes, but the schedule seems more consistent, especially from 10pm-6am now. Airing from 10pm-12am will be The Andy Griffith Show (Mon); The Cosby Show (Tues); The Cougar (Wed); The Jeffersons (Thurs) and TV Land PRIME Movie (Fri). Usually from 12-6am we will get back-to-back episodes of sitcoms 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Cosby Show, Sanford & Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and M*A*S*H. Nothing else really is different.
As for stunts, viewers get to spend some time with Mom and "The Cos" just in time for Mother's Day when TV Land PRIME gives moms everywhere the nite off on Thursday, May 7 from 9pm-1am! PRIME presents a special Cosby Show marathon salute to Mom with episodes that feature Cliff struggling to entertain the kids and keep the household in order as he indulges his wife Clair with some well deserved time away from Huxtable family mayhem.
The eight-episode original series The Cougar starring Stacey Anderson, a stunning 40-year-old successful realtor from Scottsdale, Arizona, continues Wednesdays at 10pm on TV Land PRIME.
On Memorial Day (Monday, May 25), it's been six weeks since single sophisticated cougar Stacey embarked on her prowl to find her perfect cub. Prior to the season finale and Stacey's final pick on Wednesday, June 3, come relive all of the romance, laughs, tears and heartbreaks with a marathon of the first six episodes of The Cougar. Tune in to see additional footage and dramatic deleted scenes as well as get an inside scoop on what everyone from Stacey to Vivica to the guys were really thinking.
TV Land PRIME movies for the month are Witches of Eastwick, Patriot Games, The Fugitive, and The Twilight Zone. Risky Business gets some weekend place and on Memorial Day.
View the full TV Land May 2009 schedule (with a generic schedule and also adjustments).
As for the honorees for this year's TV Land Awards, TV Land announced today that it will pay tribute to M*A*S*H, Married with Children, Home Improvement, Magnum P.I., Knots Landing and Two and a Half Men at the 7th Annual TV Land Awards. Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, the two-hour show will tape on Sunday, April 19, at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City and will air on TV Land during a special presentation of TV Land PRIME on Sunday, April 26th at 8PM ET/PT.
All of this year's honorees are cultural icons representing a cross-section of classic and modern television that viewers love. The Legacy of Laughter Award will be presented to television actress and Seinfeld alum Julia Louis-Dreyfus. M*A*S*H will be honored with the Impact Award. The Innovator Award will be given to the unconventional Fox sitcom Married with Children, as we mentioned yesterday TV Land will showcase six classic episodes in honor of this on Thursday, April 23 from 9pm-12am. The classic CBS primetime soap opera Knots Landing celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and will be recognized for its place in television history. The Fan Favorite Award will be presented to Home Improvement, and the action drama Magnum P.I., which launched the career of Tom Selleck as a leading actor, will be bestowed with the Hero Award. Finally, the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men will be awarded the Future Classic Award.
View more details on this year's honorees!

The late-night landscape is about to shift when comedian and actor George Lopez headlines a new talk show for TBS. The program, from 2.2 Productions, paraMedia Inc. and Telepictures Productions, in association with Warner Horizon Television, will bring the excitement back to late night with an outdoor street-party atmosphere and a high-energy crowd. The fun will include visits from celebrity guests, live music and comedy acts and the benefit of George's own flair and personality. Lopez and Jim Paratore (Warner's The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Bonnie Hunt Show) serve as the executive producers for the not-yet-titled series, which will air on TBS Mondays-Thursdays at 11 p.m. (ET/PT), beginning in November 2009.
While high-energy, Lopez's new series will feature a casual environment that invites guests to engage fully with the crowd, giving audience members the chance to interact with the guests, ask questions and walk away feeling as though they've experienced something new. The new talk show represents Lopez's return to series television after co-creating, writing, producing and starring in Warner Bros. Television's groundbreaking hit sitcom George Lopez, which ran for six seasons on ABC. George Lopez remains a hit with viewers in syndication on both broadcast stations and cable's Nick at Nite, ranking as one of the top-rated shows on the network and among the top five comedies and top 20 weekly programs in syndication. George Lopez is one of only four off-net comedies to post weekly ratings gains among households from the 2007–08 to 2008–09 season.
Lopez continues to work steadily and his most recent film credits include the box-office hit Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Swing Vote, Henry Poole Is Here and Balls of Fury. He will next be seen starring opposite Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door and Mr. Troop Mom, with Jane Lynch. In August, Lopez will film his second HBO Comedy Special, Tall, Dark and Chicano.

TV One Adds South Central, Removes 'Mama' Marathon; TV Land Adds Married with Children Marathon for April

We gave you TV One April 2009 highlights already, which included the That's My Mama! Easter marathon, but now some changes will occur. And the Mama! Easter marathon has been pulled. Instead TV One will air the six-hour miniseries Alexs Haley's Queen starring Halle Berry. No word if the That's My Mama marathon will be rescheduled, but something tells me maybe for Mother's Day? We should have TV One May 2009 soon, so we will let you now if that is the case.
As for regular schedule changes, beginning on Saturday, April 4, the TV One Saturday night lineup has changed in the 10pm and 10:30pm timeslots and will now air the critically acclaimed short-lived comedy-drama series South Central, a serio-comic show about the struggles of a family residing in South Central Los Angeles, to the Saturday nights. Joan Mosely, an independent-minded single mother, must find a way to make ends meet while still keeping a close eye on her teenage children, Andre and Tasha. The series stars Tina Lifford, Larenze Tate, and Jennifer Lopez. The series aired last month in a marathon block and it looks like it di well for TV One!
Then beginning on Saturday, April 11, the serio-comic series South Central has also been added to the TV One Saturday morning comedy block in the 10am and 10:30am timeslots. The Saturday morning lineup will now air as follows: back-to-back episodes each of All About the Andersons, The PJs, All of Us, Good Times, South Central and Sanford & Son all from 6am-12pm. So this means short-lived comedy Where I Live has been removed from the TV One schedule. Its last airings are April 4 from 7-8am.
Originally on Sunday, April 19 at 5pm was supposed to be an encore of TV One's original special Living Single: The Reunion Show, which reunites the cast of the long running sitcom Living Single for a trip down memory lane including backstage gossip, set secrets, guest star tales, and bloopers for a night of fun and fond memories, but now has been rescheduled for 10pm and 2am that night. The show also has an additional encore airing on Friday, May 1 at 12am.
Finally, on Saturday April, 25 from 8pm to 10pm to conclude the "Good Times Favorite Episodes" 24-hour mega-thon, TV One airs viewers choice episodes of the sitcom Good Times which are episodes viewers picked as their favorite on the TV One website. So now the marathon is two more extra hours...26 to be exact!

TV Land has also done some editing to their April line-up! The biggest change to the schedule is an addition of a Married...with Children marathon! Yes, Al Bundy on TV Land for one-night only on Thursday, April 23 from 9pm-12am on TV Land PRIME! This is all in anticipation of the cast reunion during the 2009 TV Land Awards on Sunday, April 26, TV Land is offering viewers 6 of the most popular episodes from this outrageous series. If you're wondering how TV Land is airing this series, well because sister station Spike TV airs the show, so TV Land is borrowing it for one night. It looks to be a good love and marriage for TV Land!
Speaking of the 2009 TV Land Awards, the show will now start at 8pm ET/PT instead of 9pm.
As for other changes, TV Land will not have CSI: NY in April on Thursday nights. It was only for March. Instead we will have The Jeffersons from 10pm-12am, 3rd Rock from 12-1am, Cosby Show 1-2am, and Sanford & Son 2-3am.
Finally, a M*A*S*H weekend marathon has been added for the weekend of April 18-20. On late Friday, April 17 from 2am-5am we get the M*A*S*H series finale followed by the regular 5-6am airing. Then the fun really begins on Saturday and Sunday from 8pm-6am, and concludes Monday (April 20) from 8pm-12am!
View more on the updated TV Land April 2009 schedule. Stay tuned for TV Land May 2009 highlights and schedule tomorrow.

Hallmark Channel April 2009, Two Shows Dropped; TV Land Makes Last Week's Schedule Change Until Further Notice

Originally Hallmark Channel had no changes set in store for April 2009, but now we have some changes. The two shows being removed from the line-up are not two shows you would think that would be removed either. And no it isn't I Love Lucy or Cheers! Effective Monday, March 30, Hallmark Channel will remove both Little House on the Prairie and Walker, Texas Ranger from the line-up. Now they can't expiring I think, since they were originally on the schedule, but I'll find out. The weekdays 10am airing of Little House will actually be replaced by back-to-back I Love Lucy! Lucy gets to keep its weeknights at 2:30am slot, too! The 11am episode of Little House will be replaced by another airing of Touched by an Angel, so that will now air back-to-back from 11am-1pm. The third and final airing of Little House at 3pm will be replaced by two episodes of M*A*S*H. M*A*S*H also will air now 4-5pm replacing The Golden Girls, but it seems Golden Girls is doing well as they will now air it weekdays 6-7pm replacing M*A*S*H. M*A*S*H. will air now 3-6pm, so it moves and also gains another hour. The Golden Girls doesn't gain any slots, but it gets a better evening slot of 6-7pm, in addition to its other weekday airings from 8-10am and 12am-2am. Finally, Walker, Texas Ranger will be replaced at 7p and 8pm with more episodes of 7th Heaven! 7th Heaven will also still air in the afternoon at 1pm and 2pm as well...and these won't be encores, so four episodes a day. There will be no changes to the weekend line-up this time, well except that NASCAR Angels is gone from Sundays at 8am, so Golden Girls will take that half-hour, and that show will now be 8am-10am on Sundays.
See the full Hallmark Channel April 2009 schedule.

TV Land has made it official this week. At the very least for the rest of March the changes we saw last week will be in effect for at least the end of this month. The big change was having CSI: NY on Thursday nights from 10pm-4am. Mainly the late night schedule is effected. Monday nights we see Cosby Show from 12-2am and encoring 3-5am. Tuesday nights will see more Cosby Show from 1-3am. All three of the nights will have an encore of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition at 5am. Wednesday nights will see two hours each of Jeffersons and M*A*S*H from 2-6am. Fridays will see more changes during the early evening portion. The Beverly Hillbillies is 6-7pm, Cosby Show will lead into the movie from 8-10pm and encore 2-4am, and M*A*S*H will air 1-2am and encore 5-6am. Yes, this is all very confusing. I suggest you keep checking the schedule adjustments on our TV Land March 2009 thread.

FamilyNet Now Available On TVUNetworks; TV Land Adds CSI: NY Marathon for Tomorrow

A few weeks back we mentioned FamilyNet had acquired a few CBS Paramount shows (Family Ties, Happy Days, My Three Sons, and Early Edition), now we have gotten word from them if you don't receive the channel on TV...you can watch it online! Yes, FamilyNet's "made-for-families", entertainment programming will now be available to all U.S. broadband users who have downloaded TVUPlayer on http://www.tvunetworks.com/. This is not to be mistaken with TV4U.com. FamilyNet airs this classic programming 6pm-10pm and 11pm-3am, so download that TVUPlayer and search FamilyNet's channel and watch it live! It is channel 735. Among the other channels are Nickelodeon (west feed), CBS and CW affiliates from San Francisco, KNBC from Los Angeles, Comedy Central (west feed), Sci Fi Channel and so much more including international channels! It was interesting to watch George Lopez on The CW San Fran last night at 9pm ET, which is 6pm PT. Now when you're not around a TV, you can watch some real TV channels online!

TV Land keeps changing their primetime schedule with marathons of various shows. Tomorrow (Thursday, March 12), they will try CSI: NY from sister station Spike TV from 10pm-4am. Three episodes will air with encores following. TV Land has aired some episodes of the original CSI previously as well. The TV Land schedule from about 10pm-6am on weekdays is a big mess. Andy Griffith Show has basically taken over from 7-10pm on weekdays (except Cosby Show is Fridays 8-10pm, but 10pm-4am is strange. For example this week: Monday 10pm-12am is Andy Griffith and 12-2am and 3-5am is Cosby Show. Tuesday 10pm-12am and 1am-3am is Cosby Show. High School Reunion is 10pm-12am on Wednesdays, followed by 3rd Rock in the 12am hour, Jeffersons from 2-4am and M*A*S*H from 4-6am. This Thursday it is CSI: NY from 10pm-4am, as originally it was Beverly Hillbillies. And on Friday from 10pm-12am is of course the TV Land Movie.
Check out the minor adjustments for the week of March 9-15 for TV Land. I'm sure changes are coming to the minor adjustments for the rest of the month, so stay tuned.

Good Ratings for Wednesday's High School Reunion for TV Land; Network Notes Includes Seinfeld Reunion on Curb?

TV Land's original series High School Reunion averaged nearly 1 million total viewers for this past Wednesday's 10 p.m. telecast, making it the most-watched episode of the season to date, according to Nielsen Media Research. The telecast also gave TV Land double-digit gains over previous week's airing across the network's target demo, Adults 25-54, and among the network's core audience of Adults 40-54.
Wednesday's installment -- the third episode of the new season of High School Reunion -- posted a 0.6 rating and 592,000 viewers among A25-54, up 30% in rating and 32% in viewers over previous week in the 25-54 demo. Among the network's core A40-54 audience, the episode posted a 0.8 rating and 452,000 viewers, up a whopping 82% in rating and 81% in viewers over previous week in the core 40-54 demo. It also scored double digit gains among total viewers with nearly 1 million (954,000 total viewers), up 38% over previous week, with a median age of 48.
The telecast posted huge gains with Men 25-54 and Women 25-54 over previous week. Among M25-54, it scored a 0.5 rating and 271,000 viewers, up 49% in rating and 48% in viewers over previous week's episode in M25-54. Among W25-54, it posted a 0.6 rating and 321,000 viewers, up 20% in rating and viewers versus last week in W25-54. Adding those two up, you get the 592,000 viewers among Adults 25-54.

It's time for a round of network notes! Multi-platinum singer/songwriter Jewel and Access Hollywood host Nancy O'Dell have withdrawn from Season Eight of ABC's Dancing with the Stars citing injuries. Jewel was diagnosed with a fractured tibia in both legs, O'Dell a torn meniscus. The injuries were sustained while training for the competition.
Jewel and O'Dell will appear on the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars, this Monday (March 9) at 8:00 p.m., ET/PT to address their injuries. The women were paired with professional dancers Tony Dovolani and Dmitry Chaplin, respectively. Additional changes to the cast will also be announced during Monday's premiere...so watch it LIIIIVE (as Tom Bergeron would say)!
ABC is ending Life on Mars after it finishes its 17 episode run on April 1. No fooling. The show hasn't done too well in the ratings since the move to Wednesdays following Lost. The show did a bit better in the fall on Thursdays after Grey's Anatomy, but maybe the hiatus between the two was the downfall for the show, as it was off the air for two months. It is too bad, because the show is wonderful and has top-notch actors.
The show is based on a British series of the same name. What's more, the U.S. version will end up more closely resembling its British predecessor, which lasted for 16 episodes and also was a close-ended series. While the British series spawned a sequel of sorts, called Ashes to Ashes, no such plans are in the works Stateside.
Ensuring a definitive ending for Life on Mars might also make it easier to promote the show's 17-episode run as a DVD release or, possibly on a cable network should the series land an off-net run in reruns. ABC also had an actual ending on the series Day Break a few years ago and since then it has been released on DVD and also airs weekly in reruns on TV One. So Life on Mars will go out properly, as producers will be able to write and shoot a definitive ending to the saga. Groovy!
Finally, the four main stars of the hit '90s NBC comedy Seinfeld will appear together, playing themselves, in a multi-episode arc on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm alongside creator Larry David, who created both series. Yes, Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards all reunite! The episodes are part of Curb's upcoming seventh season. 10 episodes have been ordered for the seventh season but there is no premiere date yet or how many episodes they will appear in.

Neil Patrick Harris to Host 7th TV Land Awards; M*A*S*H All-Star Weekend on TV Land; Big Bang and Men Renewed for Multiple Seasons?

Acclaimed television, stage and movie actor Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Doogie Howser, M.D.) has been named the host of the 7th Annual TV Land Awards. As mentioned previously, the 90-minute TV Land Awards will be taped on Sunday, April 19 at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City and air in TV Land PRIME on Sunday, April 26 at 9pm ET/PT.
This year, the ninety-minute show will honor legendary artists from the entertainment industry, feature exhilarating musical performances, reunite some of the most iconic celebrity TV casts and of course, the fan favorite -- the perennial TV Land Awards parody that always highlights the year's most-talked-about events. TV Land has not yet announced any honorees, but as soon they do...we will tell you.
Read more about this and more about Neil Patrick Harris.

We continue you our TV Land news with a reminder for this weekend. Long before "Johnny" took "Baby" out of the corner in Dirty Dancing and "Opie" and "Richie Cunningham" added director extraordinaire to his résumé, Patrick Swayze and Ron Howard both paid guest visits to M*A*S*H's 4077th. On Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8 from 8pm-4am ET/PT, catch both of these stars - along with a medley of your other favorite film and television icons - on TV Land when the network becomes a virtual celebrity central during the "M*A*S*H Weekend Marathon." This twenty-four episode showcase features guest appearances by John Ritter, Laurence Fishburne, Teri Garr, Blythe Danner, Leslie Nielsen and more. Throughout the marathon, there will be no shortage of antics, pranks and escapades that still captivate viewers, making M*A*S*H one of the most successful shows ever seen on television.
Check out the schedule of episodes for this weekend!

Finally rumor has it that CBS has ordered three more seasons of TV's top sitcom Two and a Half Men and two more seasons of the red-hot sitcom The Big Bang Theory! CBS has not made it official yet, but as soon as they do, we'll let you know the specifics. Both shows are owned by Warner Bros. and produced by Chuck Loree. Remember this is just a rumor right now, and this same source was quoted in saying that Evangeline Lilly of Lost was auditioning for pilots, meaning she would be leaving the show...which was NOT true. She confirmed that last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

TV Land April 2009 Highlights, Includes 7th TV Land Awards; JustMyShow.com Interviews Cliff Huxtable's Father

It will be a busy April for TV Land this April, 2009. They will conclude the eight-episode season of High School Reunion, with the finale on Wednesday, April 8 at 10pm. If you missed any, you can catch all 7 episodes from 9am-4pm on April 8 leading up to the eighth and final episode at 10pm of the Chandler High School Class of 1988. Then a week later, TV Land launches another eight-episode original series, The Cougar, on April 15. Stacey Anderson, a stunning 40-year-old successful realtor from Scottsdale, Arizona, is the "Cougar" in TV Land's new original series The Cougar. The eight-episode series is hosted by Vivica A. Fox and follows Anderson as she searches for love among a pool of 20 eligible twenty-something men.
As for reruns and movies, realize your action-movie dreams the weekend of April 3-5, with TV Land PRIME's "Truth, Justice & the Harrison Ford Way." The bankable box-office star Harrison Ford and American movie icon, hit the cinematic trifecta three years in a row with Patriot Games in 1992, The Fugitive in 1993, and Clear and Present Danger in 1994. For three nights in a row beginning Friday, April 3, TV Land PRIME delivers Harrison Ford to viewers in each of these heart-stopping thrillers: On Sunday, April 3, from 10pm-1am, Harrison Ford teams up with Tommy Lee Jones in the mother of all manhunts, The Fugitive. On Saturday, April 4 from 10pm-12:30am, Harrison Ford brings Tom Clancy's character Jack Ryan to life as the American hero who foils an assassination attempt on a member of the British Royal Family by the IRA which proves to have very personal consequences in Patriot Games. Finally, Harrison Ford reprises his role as Jack Ryan on Sunday, April 5 from 10pm-1am in Clear and Present Danger. Jack Ryan finds himself entwined in an illegal covert operation against a Columbian drug cartel and faces off against some surprising political adversaries. Don't miss Harrison Ford in his "Prime"--no pun intended!
Then we take some time to do some spring cleaning--Cosby Show style! Raising children is not only hard work, it can be messy too, and the Huxtable kids prove to be no exception to that rule. From Theo's kitchen floor 'surfing' to Rudy and Peter's showdown with "The Juicer" to Olivia's crayon cleaning caper, the kids keep Cliff & Claire on their toes and flush with cleaning products that will tackle whatever the clean-up job requires. Let the clean-u begin on Thursday, April 9 from 9pm-1am!
The 7th Annual TV Land Awards show rolls out the red carpet on Sunday, April 26 at 9pm. Watch TV Land PRIME spread our wings further as the 2009 awards embraces and recognizes "more than television" with a star-studded night featuring a list of who's who in television and film. And, to deliver the most viewers possible and build excitement leading up to the awards show, at 2pm, TV Land will kick off the fun with a 7-hour marathon of perennial favorite The Andy Griffith Show featuring red-carpet interstitials from the award show. Still the host for the awards has not been announced along with major honorees, so check back with us!
Besides the Harrison Ford movies, other TV Land PRIME movies for the month include Tom Cruise in Risky Business and Jack Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick. Movie encores for the month include The Twilight Zone and and Cocktail.
There are no regular schedule changes as of now, so expect the same stuff as February and March. View the full TV Land April 2009 highlights!

Eric of JustMyShow.com is back after a year to do a new interview for his podcast! This time it is Earle Hyman, who played Russell Huxtable (Cliff's dad) on The Cosby Show. He also did the voice of Panthro in the hit '80s animated series Thundercats! Feel the magic, feel the roar!
Tony and Emmy nominated actor Earle Hyman has been acting on the stage and screen for over sixty years. While highly respected in classical theatre, he is perhaps best known for the role of Bill Cosby's father, Russell on The Cosby Show.
Among the topics you'll hear Earle talk about is a place near and dear to him, The Classical Theatre of Harlem, and him in Three Sisters alongside his former Cosby castmate Sabrina LaBeauf through March 8, 2009 in Harlem.
So without further adieu, head on over to JustMyShow.com to listen to this podcast! Get that James Brown song stuck in your head that the Cosby Show family sang to Grandpa and Grandma Huxtable and that catchy Thundercats theme in your head as you listen to Earle!

TV Land Reveals Stunning 'Cougar'; ABC Moves Scrubs Wednesday Premiere Up a Week

Stacey Anderson, a stunning 40-year-old successful realtor from Scottsdale, Arizona, has been named as the "Cougar" in TV Land's new original series The Cougar. The eight-episode series, which is hosted by Vivica A. Fox, follows Anderson as she searches for love among a pool of 20 eligible twenty-something men. The one-hour elimination dating series is executive produced by Mike Fleiss (The Bachelor) through his NEXT Entertainment production company in association with Warner Horizon Television and premieres on April 15th at 10:00 pm ET/PT on TV Land PRIME.
For years, Stacey has believed that society has placed a double standard on women who date younger men, and she is here to prove that age is nothing but a number. Stacey's dating experiences have led her to believe that men her age and older live under the pressure of a "ticking clock," which dampens their spontaneity and zest for life. Essential to Stacey's personal success is her upbeat optimism and zeal, which have not been tainted by life's adversities. She believes that younger men have the same spirited zest for life, a demeanor Stacey finds crucial for her future love interest to possess, a love interest that she plans to find on The Cougar.
In her spare time, Stacey gives back to her community by helping to acquire affordable land for the nonprofit organization Habitat for Humanity. She also enjoys an active lifestyle by playing tennis, golf, hiking and swimming.
Stacey is currently a realtor who, in only her first year in the commercial real estate business, was ranked in the top 1% of realtors nationwide for sales over 50 million dollars.
Check out the stunning photograph of this Cougar! Meowww!

Meanwhile, ABC has announced it will move the new night and time premiere of Scrubs up a week from March 18 to March 11. Scrubs is on the move to Wednesdays at 8pm and will lead-into new sitcom Better off Ted starring Jay Harrington. Though Ted will still start in its original date of March 18, so we get an encore episode of Scrubs on March 11 at 8:30pm. As of now, Scrubs is still slated to air in its Tuesday at 9pm hour on March 3 and 10 with encore episodes. This coming Tuesday is President Obama's Address to Congress.
In other ABC schedule updates, a two-hour episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is slated for Sunday, Mach 29 from 8-10pm, leading into an encore of Desperate Housewives at 10pm. So no new Housewives that week, but it will be new on March 8, 15 and 22 that month. And finally the annual showing of the classic The Ten Commandments will air on Saturday, April 11 from 7-11pm on ABC.

7th Annual TV Land Awards Date Confirmed; Hallmark Acquires Movies; TMZ Renewed Through 2011

We were the first ones to announce the date for the 7th Annual TV Land Awards, but now TV Land has made it official and also announced a new venue for the awards. TV Land announced today that the seventh annual TV Land Awards will be taped at a new venue, The Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studios on Sunday, April 19. Last year's TV Land Awards was taped at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, CA. The telecast premieres in TV Land PRIME on Sunday, April 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Throughout the ninety-minute telecast, TV Land will honor legendary artists from both television and movies, feature exhilarating music as well as never-before-seen reunions of some of the most iconic celebrity casts from TV and movies, and of course, the fan favorite -- the perennial TV Land Awards parody that always highlights the year's pop culture moments.
We will have MUCH more on the TV Land Awards in the coming weeks, such as the honorees, the reunions, the parody, and of course the host!

Hallmark Channel saddles up for more "Rough 'n' Ready" weeks and more mystery movie marathons with the acquisition of the Emmy Award-nominated CBS mini-series Comanche Moon and two additional CBS Stone Cold movies starring Tom Selleck, all from Sony Pictures Television, for air on The Hallmark Channel.
In addition, the acquisition deal brings a roster of 18 classic musicals to Hallmark Movie Channel, the spinoff network. Titles in the deal for Hallmark Movie Channel the 24-hour sibling network to Hallmark Channel which airs "the very best" of family friendly theatrical feature films include Bye, Bye Birdie, starring Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Ann-Margret and Maureen Stapleton; Funny Lady, starring Barbra Streisand, James Caan, Omar Sharif, Roddy McDowall and Ben Vereen; Oliver!, starring Oliver Reed and Jack Wild; Pal Joey, starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak; and, Pennies From Heaven, starring Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. The musicals will become part of a franchised block on Hallmark Movie Channel.
As for The Hallmark Channel, it is known for its success in programming a uniquely appealing mix of original movies like the four original holiday premieres which each delivered over a 3.0 HH rating the very best of family-friendly theatrical feature films; and, a line-up of classic and beloved off-network series including 7th Heaven, Little House on the Prairie, M*A*S*H, and The Golden Girls which begins March 1.

Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution (WBDTD) has renewed its entertainment news half-hour, TMZ through 2011 in nearly 100% of the country, reports B&C.
In November, Warner Bros. announced that the Fox station group had picked up TMZ for two more years. The Fox stations served as the show's launch pad in Sept. 2007. Over the past four months, the following station groups also have reupped: Sinclair Broadcast Group, Tribune Broadcasting, Barrington Broadcasting, ComCorp, ACME Television, Grant Communications, Gray Television, Raycom, Hoak Media, LIN TV, Lambert Broadcasting, Newport Television, Max Media, Media General, Meredith, New Age Media, New Vision Television, Newport Television, Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Northwest Broadcasting, Pappas Telecasting and Smith Media, among others.

BET Premieres The Game One Week Earlier, Adds Sitcom Marathons in March; TVLandPRIME.com Adds High School Reunion Content; Boomerang News

We were the first ones to announce that BET had acquired sitcom The Game to its lineup starting Feb. 23, now BET will move up the premiere up a week to Feb. 16...that is this Monday! They will launch the series now with a marathon, too. The President's Day The Game marathon will air from 9am-6pm on Monday (Feb. 16) featuring the first 18 episodes of the series. It will also start airing in the regular line-up the following day (Tuesday, Feb. 17) airing weekdays 12-1pm and Thursdays 10-11pm. The weekdays 12-1pm hour will replace The Steve Harvey Show, which now goes off the line-up. Originally The Game was going to air 1-2pm, but now that is not happening, and Hell Date will remain 1-2pm. The Game will also have a block on Saturday, Feb. 21 from 1pm-4pm. Then starting Monday, Feb. 23, The Game will also air weekdays 5-6pm in addition to its 12-1pm slot, so cutting Smart Guy's late afternoon block in half to just 4-5pm. The Game was originally going to air 11pm-12am, but Judge Hatchett will now remain in that slot.
Starting February 28, BET will have sitcom marathons all March long on weekends! On Saturday, Feb. 28 from 9am-8pm we will have an all-day One on One marathon! For the following weekend (March 7-8), we will have Family Matters! Sister station Nick at Nite's series returns to BET for another marathon airing. The marathon airs Saturday, March 7 from 12pm-8pm, following the Proud Family block and Proud Family Movie. Family Matters will also air Sunday, March 8 from 12pm-4pm. The weekend after that (March 14-15), we get more Urkel and company with Family Matters once again on Saturday, March 14 from 2pm-5pm and Sunday, March 15 from 12-2pm. So a shorter block that weekend, but still a whole lotta Urkel on BET. Next, the weekend of March 21-22, will feature another sitcom from sister station Nick at Nite! This time catch Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on Saturday, March 21 from 4pm-10pm and again on Sunday, March 22 from 4pm-8pm. The final weekend in March (March 28-29), will have yet more Fresh Prince! This time just on that Saturday (March 28) from 6pm-10pm.
So that's BET's sitcom update for you! Of course, as usual, this is subject to change. We will keep you up to date on further developments and we will also provide episode info for those weekend sitcom marathons in March on our message board thread for this. So stay tuned!

TVLandPRIME.com kicks off the second season of TV Land's hit reality series High School Reunion, from Warner Horizon Television, with exclusive and exciting content for the program, which premieres on Wednesday, February 18, 2009, at 10 p.m. ET/PT. The TV Land original eight-part reality series premieres on TV Land PRIME, TV Land's new primetime programming destination designed to appeal to the attitudes, life stage and interests of people in their 40s.
The High School Reunion microsite is jam-packed with interesting features this season, such as a user-generated "Digital Yearbook," extended and deleted scenes from the show, behind-the-scenes video taken by the cast, personal photo galleries, video cast bios and weekly blogs from cast members revealing juicy gossip from the reunion. Additionally, visitors will be able to enjoy full streaming episodes online the day after they premiere on-air, as well as streaming '80s radio and '80s trivia.
View more information about this, the new cast, and more.

Boomerang will ring-in Valentine's Day with a network premiere of It's Valentine's Day, Johnny Bravo on Saturday, Feb. 14, at 8 p.m. (ET). The half-hour animated special follows a six-hour marathon of dating-themed episodes of Johnny Bravo, one of the first three original series created by Cartoon Network in 1997.
Johnny Bravo is a buff, girl-chasing-mama's-boy who can't seem to get a date in spite of his good looks and an even better hairdo. On Saturday, February 14, (Valentine's Day), Johnny Bravo's funniest dating disasters will be showcased in a six and a half-hour marathon beginning at 2 p.m. (ET) on the commercial-free Boomerang network. The marathon will culminate with the network premiere of the special, It's Valentine's Day, Johnny Bravo at 8 p.m. (ET).
In this very special episode, we learn that Valentine's Day is in fact Johnny Bravo's birthday also, which might explain his penchant for amorous antics. He yet again strikes out with the ladies until his "mama," Bunny Bravo, sets him up on a blind date with a real "knock-out"-literally. Meeting the girl of his dreams turns out to be a true nightmare during what should be the most romantic night of the year. A plethora of guest stars appearing in It's Valentine's Day, Johnny Bravo include former Saturday Night Live cast member Molly Shannon, "New Kids on the Block" heartthrob Joey McIntyre, The Brady Bunch's Maureen McCormick and former teen idol Donny Osmond.

Sci Fi Launches Early Edition, Highlander; Vivica A. Fox Hosts The Cougar On TV Land

Last year we announced Sci Fi Channel had struck a deal with CBS Paramount to air stuff from their library. So far we have seen Seven Days and Star Trek: The Next Generation air the most in regular airings with marathons/blocks of The Sentinel, Friday the 13th: The Series, and Mork & Mindy. Now coming in March will be two other series from the deal: Early Edition and Highlander. Early Edition will air weekdays at 4:00pm ET/PT starting Monday, March 9, while Highlander will get an all-day marathon on Thursday, March 19 from 8am-1am. The 2007 movie Highlander: The Source will air from 9-11pm that night. Though I am getting reports the Highlander marathon has been delayed to a future date, if that is the case we will let you know...but Early Edition is a firm go to air weekdays at 4pm starting March 9.
Early Edition followed the adventures of a man (Kyle Chandler) who mysteriously receives each Chicago Sun-Times newspaper the day before it is actually published, and who uses this knowledge to prevent terrible events each day. The series aired from 1996-2000 on CBS.
Highlander is based on the movies of the same name. The series aired from 1992-1998. Short-lived spinoff Highlander: The Raven followed from 1998-99 and Sci Fi has the rights to air that, too, but hasn't scheduled it yet. Among the other series from the CBS Paramount deal that have yet to appear on Sci Fi are Charmed, The Invaders and Ghost Whisperer, but the latter can't launch until fall 2009.
Let's hope Mork & Mindy returns at some point for another block or better yet...the regular schedule. Friday the 13th: The Series and The Sentinel usually air once a month in the daytime rotation (8am-4pm).

TV Land announced that film and television actress Vivica A. Fox will host the upcoming TV Land original series The Cougar, a one-hour elimination dating series set to premiere April 15 on TV Land PRIME. Executive produced by Mike Fleiss (The Bachelor) and Warner Horizon Television, The Cougar is an eight-episode series in which an accomplished, beautiful and sexy woman hunts for love from a pool of eligible younger men.
Also in 2009, Fox returns as Larry David's new houseguest in HBO's hit comedy, Curb Your Enthusiasm and also co-stars with Jessica Simpson, Cheri Oteri and Steve Guttenberg in the upcoming feature comedy Major Movie Star.
The Cougar will air Wednesdays at 10:00PM ET/PT starting April 15 following the run of High School Reunion from Feb. 18-April 8. The season finale of The Cougar is slated for Wednesday, June 3. After that, TV Land will launch a second season of She's Got the Look, continuing the search for the next great Supermodel that is 35 or over! Once again eight episodes will air, just like High School Reunion and The Cougar.
And finally, the TV Land Awards are back to April. Last year they aired in June and were scheduled to air June 14 this year, too. But they have been rescheduled for April. The awards will premiere on Sunday, April 26 in TV Land PRIME.

TV Land and ION Schedule Special Brady, M*A*S*H Marathons; CW, ABC Family Announcements

TV Land has scheduled a marathon of The Brady Bunch on President's Day (Monday, Feb. 16) from 10am-2pm ET/PT. Who needs George Washington and Abraham Lincoln when you have Marcia Brady! Watch episodes such as Greg and Marcia both running for student body president. The hiding of the school goat and a hair tonic turns Greg's hair orange. View the episodes airing in this special marathon.
ION Television has pulled the movie The Diplomat for this Sunday (Sunday, Feb. 8), and replaced it with a special M*A*S*H block from 7-11pm ET/PT instead. M*A*S*H will also air in its regular 6-7pm airings on this date as well, so it is an all M*A*S*H night on ION from 6-11pm. Among the episodes airing is the two-part episode "Our Finest Hour," when newscaster Clete Roberts, reprising an earlier interview appearance, returns to update Korean War conditions when he conducts a series of television interviews with the leading characters of the 4077th. View the full schedule for this date.

The CW is making a few changes to its midseason schedule. Beginning Tuesday, March 3, freshman drama 90210 moves to a new timeslot on Tuesday nights, with encore episodes through March 24. The series will move up an hour to 9:00pm ET/PT from 8pm ET/PT. Then eight consecutive original episodes will air from March 31 through the season finale on May 19. Since 90210 is moving to 9pm, the second-season premiere date of the devilish dramedy Reaper moves up to Tuesday, March 3 (8:00-9:00 p.m. ET). All 13 original episodes will air consecutively through the season finale on May 26.
Finally, the season finale of the critically acclaimed freshman drama Privileged will air on Tuesday, February 24 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. Encore episodes of Privileged will continue to air on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT from January 28 through February 18. Then the new season of America's Next Top Model will premiere on Wednesday, February 25 at 8:00 p.m. ET.

ABC Family announced the pick-up of three pilots: the one-hour scripted drama Perfect 10, the single camera half-hour 10 things I Hate About You, based on the 1999 hit film, and the multi-camera half-hour Ruby and The Rockits. Each has been given a 10-episode order.
In addition, original series Greek and Lincoln Heights will return in summer 2009 for a third and fourth season respectively. However, Kyle XY will NOT return for a fourth season and the show will end its run in March. The network also has two original movies, Au Pair 3 Adventure in Paradise, (as we mentioned in our March highlights) starring Gregory Harrison and Heidi Saban, and another as-yet-titled original movie starring Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence, both to debut in early 2009.
Perfect 10, is a one-hour scripted drama, created and written by Holly Sorensen, who also serves as executive producer. The pilot was directed by Steve Miner. Set in the world of competitive gymnastics, Perfect 10 follows a group of teen Olympic hopefuls as they train and prepare for their day in the spotlight. The cast includes Chelsea Hobbs as gymnastic newcomer 'Emily Kmetko,' Ayla Kell as top gymnast 'Payson Keeler,' Josie Loren as the beautiful gymnast 'Kaylie Cruz,' and Zachary Burr Abel as the gym's resident hottie, 'Carter Anderson.' Peri Gilpin returns to series television in the role of 'Kim Keeler,' the mother of one of the female gymnasts.
10 Things I Hate About You is a half-hour, single-cam series with director Gil Junger (who also directed the 1996 feature film) and executive producer and writer Carter Covington. Based on the hit movie, the Stratford sisters, Bianca (Meaghan Jette Martin) and Kat (Lindsey Shaw), are two very different people, which is evident as they start at their new high school with very contradictory goals. Kat is a strong-willed, in-your-face feminist who is looking to save the world and get out of high school as fast as she can. Bianca is a social butterfly whose only concern is that she is popular, at any cost. As they both start a bumpy year at Padua High, can each girl get what she wants in the end, as they navigate the popular crowd, boys and their over-protective Dad? The original series will also star Larry Miller, who reprises his film role as the girls' father, and Ethan Peck (grandson of Gregory Peck) has been cast in the role of 'Patrick" (portrayed by Heath Ledger in the film).
Ruby and The Rockits is an ABC Studios half-hour multi-cam comedy series executive-produced by Shaun Cassidy and Marsh McCall. Ruby and The Rockits follows Patrick Gallagher, a former teen idol who has chosen to lead a quiet life with his wife and two sons. But when his former Rockits band mate and brother, David, shows up unexpectedly with his new-found teenage daughter in tow, the Gallagher family's life becomes anything but normal. David, who refuses to give up his past glory days, comes to Patrick for help raising Ruby while he continues to perform. Patrick must now put the past with David behind them in order to help raise Ruby and keep order within the rest of the Gallagher clan. Ruby and The Rockits was written by Shaun Cassidy and Ed Yeager, with teleplay by Ed Yeager (the pilot was directed by Ted Wass). Alexa Vega, Austin Butler, Patrick Cassidy, and former teen idol David Cassidy star.
No time frames for these have been announced yet, but don't forget the first two original sitcoms launch on ABC Family this March!

TV Land March 2009 Highlights; NATPE Day 3 Updates, Mother Cleared for Fall 2010 Syndication

This March on TV Land, there won't be any regular schedule changes, and the schedule will remain as it is in January and February, as of now. We do have plenty of March 2009 highlights, though! High School Reunion season two continues on airing Wednesdays at 10pm. It will launch Feb. 18 and air into all of March. This year friends will be reunited, enemies will confront each other, and a secret will be revealed that could forever change the legacy of the Chandler High School Class of 1988.
What do Ron Howard, John Ritter, Laurence Fishburne, Patrick Swayze and Shelly Long have in common? They're all Hollywood celebrities visiting the 4077 for two days of drama, laughs and romance in TV Land's M*A*S*H Guest Star Weekend marathon airing Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8. Don't miss 24 episodes featuring your favorite stars - some of whom were just beginning their careers - together with special 2-part episodes starting at 8pm both nights and lasting until 4am.
Take a vacation from the winter doldrums and go on Spring Break with TV Land, Hawaii style! Pack up your grass skirts and floral shirts and head to Hawaii Saturday, March 14 starting bright and early at 6am with Elvis, the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition gang, George and Louise Jefferson, Fred Sanford, The Brady's with Don Ho. Then at 2pm, relive the first 4 weeks of Chandler High School's 20-year reunion set against the beautiful backdrop of, you guessed it, Hawaii! Kick back and relax during this fun-filled, tropical event. Just be sure to leave the Tiki behind. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, and Brady Bunch, what more can you ask for? Not to mention Elvis and High School Reunion. Paradise indeed!
On Monday, March 23, the High Commander of comedy, Dick Solomon, and his team of extra-terrestrial jesters have a "PRIME" mission for viewers: tune in for a week-long marathon of laughter of 3rd Rock from the Sun beginning each night at 9pm that week. Viewers won't want to miss this 3rd Rock tour-de-force that begins with the series premiere, continues with every multi-part episode – including season cliffhangers and guest star appearances – then culminates with the series finale on Sunday, March 29. Start training for The Big 3rd Rock-athon now because TV Land is playing through this super-sized series snapshot over seven action-packed nights – only on TV Land PRIME!
The TV Land PRIME movies for the month are Big Shots and Revenge of the Nerds. Awesome!
View the full TV Land March 2009 highlights and information.

We have some third day updates from NATPE, as today is the last day for the conference. It looks like talk show Marie is now a firm go. It got some buys yesterday. Program Partners has cleared the Marie Osmond talk show on NBC Universal-owned WNBC New York and Tribune’s KTLA Los Angeles. WCIU in Chicago is expected to sign on shortly. Program Partners says the show has been cleared for 70% of the country thus far. The show will tape in Las Vegas. What better city for this entertainer?
How I Met Your Mother is now a firm go for reruns on local stations starting in Fall 2010! It is cleared in 75% of the country for a fall 2010 debut. Clearances include the Fox Television Stations in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and in 23 of the top 25 markets, including Philadelphia and Dallas (stations from Hearst-Argyle, Tribune, CBS Television, Raycom, Gannett, Cox, Belo, Hubbard and Bahakel). Not bad at all. The series will also be available as a daily strip in fall 2010 on cable on Lifetime. Until then, Lifetime can only air it once a week.
The weekly series Wild About Animals and Awesome Adventures have been cleared to return next season in 29 of the top 30 markets so far, including the Fox O&O station group. Another series, Whaddyado, has been cleared to return for another year in 27 top markets including the CBS Television Stations group for the CW and MyNetwork stations. All three series are doing well this season.
If we have any updates from today that we missed, we will bring that to you tomorrow to wrap NATPE up.

TCA Winter 2009 Press Tour: ABC; TV Land Acquires AFI Life Achievement Awards

This is the final day of the TCA Winter 2009 Press Tour and ABC will get to close it off. In the morning after breakfast we had Disney Channel and Disney XD shows go up to the panel (Aaron Stone, Sonny with a Chance, and JONAS). The ABC executive session followed shortly after with ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson. We learned a lot of new things! Premiere dates for the midseason comedies however were still not announced but the cast of and crew of each had their own panels. If I were to guess, dates for the comedies will be final as soon as Fox announces it is moving American Idol Results to Wednesdays at 9 sometime in March. That would lead ABC to possibly air the comedies in the hour to avoid Idol. I'd guess Scrubs and The Goode Family would fit, though he said Goode might not launch until May now. They could strip Scrubs on two nights even rather than double-pumping on one night, pairing it on Tuesdays with Better Off Ted maybe or Samantha Who? Just my guesses. McPherson all but confirmed that In the Motherhood would air after Dancing with the Stars this spring. That series also has lined up the lucious Stacy Keibler to guest star! McPherson is frustrated by Samantha Who's ratings, as it hasn't retained as much of its Dancing with the Stars lead-in as he would like, but it is still a hilarious show. Personally, I think it is a better fit with Scrubs, something younger for it. Speaking of Scrubs, he says he has been very pleased with the ratings but it seems this will be its last season since Zach Braff is leaving and he can't imagine the show continuing without him. He also stressed he would like to go back to the comedies of the past such as Roseanne and Home Improvement style, so look for comedy in that vein next season. No word on when the final According to Jim episodes will air, as twelve are left. He still is saying never say never ending for this show. A joke I think. And finally as for the hoopla of ABC picking-up King of the Hill, McPherson says it isn't happening!
Other than that, we learned mainly about storyline questions for the hot ABC dramas, so I won't give that away since it could be spoilery for some. Let's just say, if you don't like the Denny-Izzie ghost storyline, keep watching...you have no idea what is happening. He did say he was very happy with Private Practice and the crossover episodes between that and Grey's Anatomy should be big. Still no idea when they are officially airing, but I have a hunch they start on Feb. 12 (or maybe March sweeps?). There are still no airdates for the final Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone episodes. There is a rumor saying June, though. McPherson says he loved all three and it is too bad Nielsen didn't either. He was also happy that Marc Cherry decided to extend Desperate Housewives beyond season seven. He was also happy with the Boston Legal finale and it ended their own way, while Dancing with the Stars was a blast, especially Cloris Leachman. The upcoming edition he says has a good core group. Can't wait until it is announced! And as Nina Tasler of CBS said, McPherson is pleased with what NBC did at 10pm. Less of a bidding war now.
After the executive session we had a panel for the upcoming single-camera sitcom Better Off Ted. Then it was time for lunch and a viewing session of Lost with a question & answer with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse! Probably the most anticipated session of all of TCA. The third episode of the season was screened for the press prior to the q&a, as the press has already saw the first two episodes (like me...it is great stuff!). After that, panels for many other upcoming spring series were up: The Unusals, Castle, In the Motherhood, The Goode Family, and Cupid. Launch dates for the new dramas The Unusuals, Castle, and Cupid were already announced from ABC early last month. To recap, The Unusuals will launch Wednesday, April 8 at 10pm following Lost. Castle will launch with Dancing with the Stars' new season on Monday, March 9 at 10pm, while Cupid will air Tuesdays at 10pm following Dance's results show.

The AFI Life Achievement Awards are moving from USA Network to TV Land starting this year. TV Land has signed a four-year deal to showcase the awards annually. The 37th Annual AFI Life Achievement Awards will be taped on Thursday, June 11, 2009 in Los Angeles and will honor Michael Douglas. The event will be telecast on TV Land PRIME about 6 weeks or so later on Sunday, July 19, 2009 in primetime.
USA Network has had the awards since 2002. Previously the awards were on broadcast television on CBS, NBC, and ABC. The AFI Life Achievement Award is the highest honor for a career in film.

TV Land Changes Late Afternoons; TCA Winter 2009 Tour: Cable; 66th Annual Golden Globe Winners

TV Land will be making last minute schedule changes beginning today. We relayed you these changes on our message board, but would like to make it more widespread here. TV Land will alter its late afternoon schedule beginning today at 4pm. Weekdays in the 4pm hour will now be Green Acres, as the series returns to weekdays. The Beverly Hillbillies returns to early evenings, airing in the 5pm hour, causing Hogan's Heroes to move into the 6pm hour, shifting the Andy Griffith two-hour block to 7-9pm rather than 6-8pm. The 8pm Andy hour replaces Cosby Show, but Cosby Show is still heavily featured in PRIME. Rural sitcoms now air weekdays 4pm-9pm and 60s shows in general from 1-9pm with Hillbillies (1-2pm) and westerns still on from 1-4pm. TV Land will also change their late night schedule a bit. Sanford & Son and The Jeffersons will each take an hour from 2-4am, replacing Three's Company. Three's Company will remain on Saturday nights from 2-4am. So now on weekdays, we get Paid Programming in early mornings from 6-9am, '70s sitcoms from 9am-12pm, lunch hour at home at noon with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, '60s TV from 1-9pm with westerns and sitcoms, TV Land PRIME from 9pm-2am, and '70s sitcoms from 2-4am.
We still have more changes, though! Monday nights now starting tonight will be Andy Griffith Show from 7pm-1am, while Tuesdays from 11pm-2am will be M*A*S*H/M*A*S*H specials. The Cosby Show will air in the 9pm hour, but on Tuesdays it will also air in the 10pm hour, which means Scrubs is totally off primetime now because of these Monday and Tuesday night changes. It wasn't airing Wed-Fri anyway. The final batch of changes are for Sundays, with the Beverly Hillbillies block being extended to 2pm, so 10am-2pm now rather than 10am-12pm. The Brady Bunch will air late Sundays now from 2am-4am instead of Beaver, which will remain 5-7pm earlier in the day.
Head on over to our TV Land January 2009 thread to see these changes, the rest of January info we announced, and to discuss this!

The Television Critics Association's (TCA) winter 2009 press tour began last week. We haven't covered it yet because the cable portion (Jan. 8-10) has been very stale and nothing really noteworthy has come out of it. Coming up tomorrow the broadcast networks begin their portion, with Fox on Tuesday, CBS on Wednesday, NBC on Thursday, and ABC on Friday. Here is a recap of cable:
Cable portion started midday on Thursday, Jan. 8, after PBS's 1 1/2 day tour. WE tv kicked off the cable portion with a lunch session. WE tv was followed by fellow Rainbow Networks AMC, IFC, and Sundance. Among the highlights were Breaking Bad launching its second season on AMC later this year. The National Geographic Channel closed out the day.
On day two (Friday), select MTV Networks are on hand: Nickelodeon, Spike TV, Comedy Central, LOGO and MTV. Among the highlights were Nickelodeon's upcoming CGI series Penguins of Madagascar, launching in March. A&E was next as it promoted The Beast, the new drama starring Patrick Swayze. He was not on hand, as you all know, as he was hospitalized for pneumonia. He is batling Pancreatic Cancer. His series launches this Thursday. Comcast's E! and style. followed, as E! announced Keeping Up with the Kardashians returns in March. HBO followed with many new series and movies announcements, along with returning series announcements such as for In Treatment. Discovery Networks closed out the day as Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet relayed their upcoming programming.
Finally on Saturday, we had BET, BBC America, Starz, Travel Channel, and Current. This was a total bore with nothing really noteworthy, and many cable networks were not here including TV Land, Nick at Nite, Lifetime, Hallmark, ABC Family, and more. No wonder it wasn't exciting!
Stay tuned this week for updates from the broadcast portion...which will be much better.

The 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards were last night. For the television portion, cable ruled big time in drama as HBO won nearly everything. AMC won one award. 30 Rock was the only show that won for broadcast and swept comedy. Here are the television winners:

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
30 Rock (NBC)
Californication (Showtime)
Entourage (HBO)
The Office (NBC)
Weeds (Showtime)
WINNER: 30 Rock (NBC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who? (ABC)
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty (ABC)
Tina Fey, 30 Rock (NBC)
Debra Messing, The Starter Wife (USA Network)
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds (Showtime)
WINNER: Tina Fey, 30 Rock (NBC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock (NBC)
Steve Carell, The Office (NBC)
David Duchovny, Californication (Showtime)
Kevin Connolly, Entourage (HBO)
Tony Shalhoub, Monk (USA Network)
WINNER: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock (NBC)

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Dexter (Showtime)
House (Fox)
In Treatment, (HBO)
Mad Men (AMC)
True Blood (HBO)
WINNER: Mad Men (AMC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters (ABC)
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU (NBC)
January Jones, Mad Men (AMC)
Anna Paquin, True Blood (HBO)
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer (TNT)
WINNER: Anna Paquin, True Blood (HBO)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Michael C. Hall, Dexter (Showtime)
Jon Hamm, Mad Men (AMC)
Hugh Laurie, House (Fox)
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors (Showtime)
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment (HBO)
WINNER: Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment (HBO)

View the FULL list of television nominees and winners...and to discuss this.

TV One February 2009 Highlights; Few TV Land Overnight Changes for Jan. and Feb.

We're in January still, but we have highlights for February 2009 for TV One! There will be a few notable items sitcom wise for TV One in February. On Saturday February 14, beginning 12pm through 9pm, TV One celebrates Valentines Day with a Martin marathon that chronicles the romance and marriage of Martin & Gina. Viewers will experience the highs and the lows of their loving relationship concluding with their romantic Caribbean wedding. Select episodes will encore from 2am-6am later that night.
On Sunday, February 22, beginning at 7pm and running to 11pm, TV One brings back the much loved and critically praised dramedy South Central in a four-hour mini-marathon that will remind viewers of the special nature of this before its time groundbreaking series. The first eight episodes will air. The series was set to launch on TV One a few months back but was delayed but now it is airing! South Central was a short-lived series about the struggles of a family residing in South Central Los Angeles. Joan Mosely, an independent-minded single mother, must find a way to make ends meet while still keeping a close eye on her teenage children, Andre and Tasha. In addition, she has taken in Deion, a five-year-old foster child with special needs. A critically acclaimed but extremely short-lived series, South Central is now perhaps best remembered as one of the earliest acting roles for Jennifer Lopez, who had a recurring role as Joan's co-worker at the co-op. The marathon will have an encore play beginning at 2am through 6am.
There is no word yet if South Central will have a regular slot on the schedule, but maybe it will in March? We will let you know. But for now enjoy the marathon! There will be no other changes or marathons in February, so new additions like The Jeffersons and Sanford & Son remain in their current slots that will start Jan. 5. If you're reading this on Jan. 2, then you can catch the Sanford & Son 24-hour launch tonight at 9pm on TV One.

TV Land will be making a few overnight changes in January and February, mostly on Fridays. Fridays in January only we will have the TV Land PRIME Movie be until 12:30am each Friday in January, so following the movie will be 3rd Rock from the Sun from 12:30-1:30am, while M*A*S*H will be shifted a bit to 1:30am-2:30am. Also, for these four Fridays, The Brady Bunch will air 5-6am (early Saturdays), so these two episodes will encore later in its 10am-12pm block on Saturdays.
Then in February, on most Wed-Fri nights we now have Scrubs and Just Shoot Me! in the 5am hour for February instead of M*A*S*H (and no more Brady Bunch on Fridays). Scrubs/Just Shoot Me! will start out by just Friday the first week, then expands to Thursdays the following week, and by the time High School Reunion launches the third week, we will have Wednesdays added. M*A*S*H will still encore Monday and Tuesday nights in the 5am hour starting the third week of February.
These are very minor changes, but still are changes to be made a note of.

TV Land February 2009 Highlights; The PJs and King of the Hill Come to Adult Swim

This February on TV Land will see the return of High School Reunion on TV Land, with its second season on TV Land! High School Reunion is back for an unforgettable second season airing Wednesdays at 10pm starting February 18. This year friends will be reunited, enemies will confront each other, and a secret will be revealed that could forever change the legacy of the Chandler High School Class of 1988. But first...counting down to that big February 18 second season premiere, TV Land PRIME will bring you all of the action from season one every Wednesday at 10p starting on January 7 through February 11. A marathon of the entire first season will also air in a President's Day event on Monday, February 16th.
The weekend of February 12-15, TV Land will celebrate Valentine's Day and President's Weekend with a marathon of The Cosby Show! Tough teachers, school projects, homework, getting your driver's license, dating, parties, Prom, graduation, etc... Going to class wasn't all bad and TV Land PRIME is taking viewers back to school during the "Cosby Show Old School Marathon" from Feb. 12-15, 8pm-2am each night. Walk down memory lane as Denise, Theo, Vanessa and Rudy experience the growing pains of approaching adulthood and give Cliff and Clair more than one reason to look forward to an empty nest. Your assignment is to tune in each night at 8pm all Presidents Day Weekend on TV Land, and then go online to test your Cosby family skills with the Cosby Show trivia game. Class dismissed!
Other TV Land February 2009 highlights include a couple of overnight marathons of Three's Company on a few Saturdays (Feb. 14, 2am-6am and Feb. 21, 12-5am). TV Land PRIME movies for Friday nights include the premieres of Broadcast News and Revenge of the Nerds, along with an encore of Jewel of the Nile.
There will be no regular schedule changes, as of now, so the schedule in effect for January will remain. View the complete TV Land February 2009 highlights.

The other day we told you Adult Swim (late night block on Cartoon Network) has picked up a live-action British comedy for Sunday nights, now we have more Adult Swim news. Adult Swim has picked-up the rights to two animated series...The PJs (short lived Fox/The WB series starring the voice of Eddie Murphy) and King of the Hill. The PJs will premiere tonight (Monday, December 29) and will air in the 10pm hour (encores in 2am hour) for the next three nights before the long-running series King of the Hill takes over the slot starting January 1 everynight. The PJs will then will move to Saturday nights at 12 midnight starting January 3. And I know I will get asked this, so I will say it...yes, The PJs will remain on TV One and King of the Hill will NOT remain on FX but will remain on local stations. Both deals for Adult Swim are not exclusive, but King of the Hill is exclusive for cable. King of the Hill's last airing on FX is Wednesday at 4:30pm.
King of the Hill will lead-into episodes of Family Guy five nights a week at 11pm. Now all Adult Swim needs to acquire is The Simpsons! It is amazing how that series has still not gotten a cable home. Even American Dad! (Fridays 11pm & 3am) is on Adult Swim for crying out loud. Other acquired series on Adult Swim are The Oblongs (1:30am) and Clerks: The Animated Series (Fridays 12am and 4am).

TV Land Brings Back All in the Family, Other Minor Changes; CMT's Mama's Family Block on Dec. 27-28

We gave you many updates already for TV Land January, now TV Land has made some minor changes to its January line-up. First, starting January 2, weekdays in the 5pm hour will now be more Hogan's Heroes, replacing Leave it to Beaver. So, Hogan's Heroes will air weekdays from 4-6pm, four episodes in a row. Beaver will only air on weekends as a result of this change, Saturdays 8-9am and Sunday nights 2-4am. Also starting Sunday, Jan. 4, TV Land Goes West gets extended to 2-7pm instead of 2-6pm, an extra Bonanza episode is added replacing essentially Hogan's Heroes in the 6pm hour on Sundays. It will be three Bonanza episodes from 2-5pm and two Gunsmoke episodes from 5-7pm.
Finally, effective Monday, January 5, All in the Family returns to the regular schedule airing weekdays at 9am replacing an episode of Sanford & Son. Sanford & Son will continue to air weekdays at 9:30am. All in the Family will go in order from the beginning but the first episode will be skipped. Boy the way Glenn Miller played!
View full schedules and highlights for TV Land January 2009.

Mama's back! Well for one weekend, that is. Mama's Family returns to CMT for a special weekend block on Saturday, December 27 and Sunday, December 28 from 10pm-2am ET on both nights. As you all know, Mama's Family airs from time to time on CMT, mostly in special marathon blocks. Episodes 17-32 will air on these two nights, so from "Naomi and the Stork" to "Mama's Birthday." I think CMT has not aired anything after season two, though they might have aired a few episodes in early season three.
Mama's Family was last seen on CMT on a Saturday this past September with an eight episode marathon. CMT briefly aired it weekday afternoons in summer 2007.

Next week is Christmas, but that won't stop us. As always, we will have a story everyday...including lots of great stuff early in the week, such as WGN America's January 2009 changes. Can that channel get any better? Find out Monday! But before that join us this weekend for a blog DVD review of Password and our last ratings report for 2008 on Sunday!

TV Land Removes Four Sitcoms; TBS Schedules New Sitcom Meet the Browns for January and My Boys for March

We gave you details on TV Land's changes coming in January starting Dec. 29 and told you Paid Programming would be expanded and moved to 6-9am, so Designing Women, Mad About You, Murphy Brown and Just Shoot Me would move back to 4-6am instead of 3-5am. Now TV Land will remove these four sitcoms all together. Starting Monday, Dec. 29, we now get another hour of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in the 4am hour followed by more M*A*S*H in the 5am hour. Yes, Designing Women, Mad About You, Murphy Brown and Just Shoot Me will be off the regular line-up totally now, so watch them these next few weeks all you can. Just Shoot Me will still air in the weekend "TV Land.Comedy Month," on Jan. 17 from 2-6am. For regular airings, these four do not have return dates. If they shall returns, we will certainly let you know.
View the rest of TV Land's January 2009 schedule and highlights.

After bringing his unique style to TBS with the enormously popular sitcom Tyler Perry's House of Payne, Tyler Perry is preparing to add to his successful track record with a spin-off based on characters of his popular play and hit movie, Meet the Browns. The series stars David Mann as the fun-loving but sometimes crass Downtown Leroy Brown, who also appeared in several episodes of House of Payne on TBS. This series opens with Leroy Brown trying to fulfill his father's dying wish by opening a retirement home. Helping him out are his daughter, Cora (Tamela Mann); his nephew Will (Lamman Rucker), a doctor; Will's wife, Sasha (Denise Boutte), a nurse; Carmen Martinez (Jeanette Sousa), a beautiful young social worker; and Jesus Hernandez (Antonio Jaramillo), a maintenance engineer studying to be a lawyer. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns comes to TBS from Debmar-Mercury. As he does for his other series, Perry is once again serving as executive producer and director, as well as occasionally writing.
Meet the Browns launches Wednesday, January 7 airing back-to-back episodes for five weeks, as 10 episodes have been ordered, through and including February 4. House of Payne will lead-into the series from 8-10pm and lead-out as well from 11pm-12am, giving it an ample lead-in.
TBS has also scheduled all 10 episodes of Meet the Browns the weekend of Feb. 21-22, as part of a Tyler Perry marathon, in case you miss any. The first two will encore on Saturday, Feb. 21 from 9-10pm, following two episodes of House of Payne from 8-9pm. Then TBS will air the movie Diary of a Mad Black Woman at 10pm followed by a House of Payne marathon from 12:30am-8:30am on Sunday. Then the remaining eight episodes of Meet the Browns will follow from 8:30am-12:30pm, followed by another airing of Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and finally more House of Payne from 3-8pm...so it is all Tyler Payne for 24-hours!
Meanwhile, My Boys will return in March for a third season! This critically acclaimed comedy stars Jordana Spiro as PJ Franklin, a 20-something sports writer looking for love while also trying to maintain her close connection with her friends, most of whom are guys. Co-starring with Spiro is the show's top-notch ensemble cast, including Jim Gaffigan, Kyle Howard, Reid Scott, Michael Bunin, Jamie Kaler and Kellee Stewart. My Boys premiered on TBS in November 2006, ranking as ad-supported cable's #1 original sitcom of the year. This year, the show averaged 1.5 million viewers, up 14% when compared to last summer. My Boys comes to TBS from creator Betsy Thomas.
Speaking of third seasons, just a reminder, TBS's popular late-night comedy 10 Items or Less, a loosely scripted look at life behind the scenes at a family-run grocery store, returns for a third season on Tuesday, Jan. 6 at 11pm. It is co-created by acclaimed comedy improv actor John Lehr. It delves into the offbeat lives of the employees at Greens & Grains. In addition to Lehr, the series stars Kirsten Gronfield, Chris Payne Gilbert, Greg Davis Jr., Christopher Liam Moore, Roberta Valderrama and Robert Clendenin, as well as new cast member Kim Coles. 10 Items or Less is written and executive-produced by Lehr and director Nancy Hower.

Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna Show on TV Land Soon?; Remembering Paul Benedict (Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons)

Celebrity couple Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin are possibly ready to expose their lives to the cameras in an unscripted project for TV Land.
The network has ordered a pilot presentation of a project that would follow the lives of the husband-and-wife duo along with their two daughters. The project is executive produced by Jason Carbone. Both Hamlin and Rinna appeared on separate seasons of Dancing with the Stars as well.
Should TV Land go forward with the project, said to have generated interest from a few cable networks, it will go straight to a half-hour series pickup targeted for a 2009 debut.
While that series might not be picked-up yet, there is some hard news for the actual schedule. The weather outside may be frightful but TV Land is keeping viewers warm throughout the winter season with a hearty helping of touching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition episodes, exciting theatrical releases in Friday PRIME Movies, the second season premiere of the hit reality series High School Reunion and the spring premiere of the much-anticipated elimination dating series The Cougar during its TV Land PRIME programming block. Additionally, TV Land will air a hilarious New Year's Day marathon and ring in 2009 with Jan-centric episodes of The Brady Bunch.
We have mentioned all that, but just a reminder of some of the stuff to come!

Paul Benedict, the actor who played the wacky English neighbor Harry Bentley on the sitcom The Jeffersons, has died. But his death is pretty mysterious. Benedict was found dead Monday (December 1) on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts...his brother, Charles said authorities were still investigating the cause of death.
Benedict began his acting career in the 1960s in the Theatre Company of Boston, alongside such future stars as Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino.
Benedict went on to appear in a number of movies, including a role as the oddball director in The Goodbye Girl with Richard Dreyfuss.
But he was known primarily for his role as the crazy neighbor to George Jefferson on The Jeffersons from 1975-1985. The accented speech that he used even offstage led many to assume that Benedict was British, but in fact he was born Sept. 17, 1938, in Silver City, N.M. His other TV credits include guest roles on All in the Family (the backdoor pilot episode for The Jeffersons), Maude, Harry O, Kojak, Murder She Wrote, A Different World, Tales from the Crypt, Morton & Hayes, Seinfeld, Guiding Light, The Drew Carey Show, and a recurring role on Sesame Street as "The Mad Painter" in the early 1970s.
His other movie roles include After the Sunset, The Man with Two Brains, The Addams Family Movie, Cocktail, and Arthur 2. On Broadway he played opposite Al Pacino in the 2-man Broadway play Hughie (by Eugene O'Neill) in mid '90s and in 2000 he played Mayor Shinn in The Music Man.
We will certainly miss him. He was wonderful and hilarious on The Jeffersons, and let's hope TV Land does a tribute marathon for him. If they do, we will certainly let you know. If not, as a tribute to him, let someone walk on your back! Leave your memories of Paul Benedict on our message board. Mr. Benedict was 70.

TV Land January 2009 Highlights; NBC Revises January 2009 Schedule

TV Land has announced their January 2009 schedule and highlights, and as expected, I Love Lucy is not on it, as its contract has expired. Also, Paid Programming is continuing, but it will move from 5-7am to 6-9am starting Monday, December 29. So, the 7-9am show will be knocked off, as M*A*S*H's morning slot and Night Court's slots are removed...which means Night Court is off the line-up for now. Late nights will be affected a bit too, as Three's Company will now air four in a row from 2-4am, as the modern sitcom block moves from 3-5am to 4-6am, with Designing Women, Mad About You, Murphy Brown and Just Shoot Me, since Paid Programming will move to 6-9am. Replacing I Love Lucy on weekday afternoons is essentially two Beverly Hillbillies episodes, so Hillbillies is back on weekdays. I Love Lucy aired a lot on weekends, and replacing it will be Green Acres and Brady Bunch on Saturdays, as both of those shows return. And on Sundays more Beverly Hillbillies will replace Lucy in the mornings, while Leave it to Beaver will replace it in the late night block. Also, Star Trek is back once a week on Sundays at 6am, though it sort of is airing in December, on some Thursdays at 7am.
As for stunts, New Year's Day is "Jan" 1st. Jan, Jan, Jan. It's a new year and this year it's all about Jan from The Brady Bunch. On January 1, beginning at 12pm through 6pm, TV Land celebrates everybody's favorite middle-child with a 6-hour marathon of Brady episodes featuring none other than the positively groovy Jan Brady! Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, indeed!
High School Reunion is coming back for an unforgettable second season in mid-February. But first...counting down to that big February 18 second season premiere, TV Land PRIME will bring you all of the action from season one every Wednesday at 10pm starting on January 7. A marathon of the entire first season will also air in a President's Day event on Monday, February 16.
He was handsome. He was dangerous. He was rock n' roll. He was 'The King.' He was Elvis! TV Land PRIME celebrates the life of a true American original on January 8, when Elvis would have celebrated his 74th birthday. Explore the enduring legacy of rumor and innuendo that still surrounds the epic entertainer with a special episode of TV Land's Myths & Legends, and take an intimate look at the life and times of Elvis as told by his family, during a special presentation of Elvis by the Presleys. Also, prior to the PRIME event, TV Land will host a PRIME preview presentation of the marathon on Saturday, January 3 from 2-6pm, featuring both the Myths & Legends episode and the Elvis by the Presleys program, as well as a special presentation of the iconic concert, Elvis's '68 Comeback Special!
This January, viewers will laugh out loud all month long on TV Land and TVLand.com during TVLand.Comedy Month. Each Saturday in January starting January 10, TV Land will feature marathons of popular comedies like 3rd Rock from the Sun, Sanford & Son, Beverly Hillbillies, Leave it to Beaver, The Jeffersons and The Andy Griffith Show, serving as a promotional platform for these titles and more online. In January, TVLand.com will stream more full episode content than ever before! This includes the launch of new series to TVLand.com, including The Jeffersons, Leave it to Beaver and Sanford and Son. And there's more! For all of their current online series favorites, all episodes available will be streaming for the first time on TVLand.com. And don't miss the limited one-month offering of full episodes of Just Shoot Me.
Finally, the TV Land PRIME Movies for January are all 80s classics such as Cocktail, Jewel of the Night, and The Color of Money. Tom Cruise is among the stars you'll see.
View the COMPLETE TV Land January 2009 schedule and highlights.

NBC has announced its January 2009 schedule and it will have the series premieres of Superstars of Dance (debuting January 4) and Howie Do It (January 9), the returns of The Biggest Loser: Couples (January 6) and Friday Night Lights (January 16). NBC will broadcast the original movie event The Last Templar Sunday and Monday, January 25-26, 9-11 p.m. ET both nights. Specials include Saturday Night Live Sports Extra on Sunday, January 4 (7-9 p.m. ET) and Saturday Night Live Film Festival on Sunday, January 18 (9-11 p.m. ET). Dateline NBC also will broadcast a Presidential Inauguration Day Special on Tuesday, January 20 (10-11 p.m. ET). Here is a look at how NBC will look in January (pre-Super Bowl):

NBC January 2009

MONDAYS (beginning January 5)
8-10 p.m. - Superstars of Dance (premieres Sunday, January 4 from 9-11 p.m. and the season finale airs Monday, January 26 from 8-9 p.m.)
10-11 p.m. - Momma's Boys
(Chuck and Heroes return in February, after the Super Bowl)

TUESDAYS (beginning January 6)
8-10 p.m. - The Biggest Loser: Couples
10-11 p.m. - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
(Special on Jan. 20: Dateline NBC: Presidential Inauguration Special from 10-11 p.m. ET)

WEDNESDAYS (beginning January 7)
8-9 p.m. - Knight Rider
9-10 p.m. - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Encores (Life returns in February after the Super Bowl)
10-11 p.m. - Law & Order

THURSDAYS (beginning January 8)
(No changes)
8-8:30 p.m. - My Name Is Earl
8:30-9 p.m. - Kath & Kim
9:00-9:31 p.m. - The Office
9:31-10 p.m. - 30 Rock
10-11 p.m. - ER

FRIDAYS
8-9 p.m. - Howdie Do It (series premiere January 9)
9-10 p.m. - Friday Night Lights (beginning January 16) (Lipstick Jungle has its finale on January 9)
10-11 p.m. - Dateline NBC (beginning December 5)

SATURDAYS (beginning January 10)
8-11 p.m. - Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit encores

SUNDAYS
January 4:
7-9 p.m. - Saturday Night Live Sports Extra
9-11 p.m. - Superstars of Dance (series premiere, special night)

Sunday -- January Event Specials
January 11: 7-8pm TBD and 8-11 p.m. - The Golden Globe Awards
January 18: 7-9pm TBD and 9-11 p.m. - Saturday Night Live Film Festival
January 25: 7-9pm TBD and 9-11 p.m. - Mini-Series: The Last Templar (also on Monday, January 26)
February 1: approx. 6:15-10 p.m. - Super Bowl XLIII and 10-11pm TBD (post-Super Bowl show)

NBC will announce their full midseason series and revised schedule at a later date. Many series will be premiering after the Super Bowl in February, such as the return of Medium, new series Kings, and the winter premiere of Heroes. NBC will also officially announce their post-Super Bowl timeslot series soon.

2008 Network TV Holiday Specials; TV Land Schedule Changes Includes Paid Programming?; NBC Kills Crusoe to Saturdays

Can you believe the holiday season is nearing? Thanksgiving is this week, which means Christmas is right around the corner! And then it will be 2009 a week after that. Time flies! Anyway as I mentioned, I have put together our annual network television (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CW, MyNetwork TV) holiday specials list that we all like to watch every year like Frosty the Snowman and A Charlie Brown Christmas, new classics like Shrek the Halls and we even get some new specials this year like A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa. Sure the network holiday line-ups are not as detailed as some cable networks like ABC Family, but the main holiday specials are still on network television! These are just actual holiday related specials and movies, not movies or specials airing during the holiday season on broadcast network television:

ABC
Tuesday, Nov. 25, 8-9pm: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving/This is America Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers
Thursday, Nov. 27, 8-9pm: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving/This is America Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers ENCORE
Friday, Nov. 28, 8-10pm: ABC Friday Movie of the Week: The Polar Express
Monday, Dec. 1, 8-9pm: Shrek the Halls and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated)
Tuesday, Dec. 2, 8-9pm: Santa Claus is Comin' to Town
Friday, Dec. 5, 8-10pm: ABC Friday Movie of the Week: Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (live-action)
Monday, Dec. 8, 8-9pm: A Charlie Brown Christmas
Tuesday, Dec. 9, 8-9pm: America's Funniest Home Videos Christmas Special
Saturday, Dec. 13, 8-9pm: America's Funniest Home Videos Christmas Special ENCORE
Saturday, Dec. 13, 9-11pm: ABC Saturday Movie of the Week: Surviving Christmas
Sunday, Dec. 14, 8-10pm: ABC Sunday Movie of the Week: The Santa Clause 2
Monday, Dec. 15, 8-9pm: I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown
Tuesday, Dec. 16, 8-9pm: A Charlie Brown Christmas ENCORE
Saturday, Dec. 20, 8-9pm: I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown ENCORE
Saturday, Dec. 20, 9-11pm: ABC Saturday Movie of the Week: Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat
Monday, Dec. 22, 8-8:30pm: Shrek the Halls ENCORE
Tuesday, Dec. 23, 8-9pm: Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated, expanded edition)
Tuesday, Dec. 30, 8-9:30pm: Happy New Year, Charlie Brown and Rudolph's Shiny New Year
For other non-holiday related movies and specials airing during the holiday season on ABC, view our schedule.

CBS:
Wednesday, Dec. 3, 8-9pm: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Friday, Dec. 12, 8-9pm: Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns
Friday, Dec. 12, 9-10pm: The Flight Before Christmas (NEW!)
Saturday, Dec. 20, 8-10pm: CBS Saturday Movie: Elf
Tuesday, Dec. 23, 8-9pm: 10th Annual Home for the Holidays with Faith Hill
For other non-holiday related movies and specials airing during the holiday season on CBS, view our schedule.

NBC:
Wednesday, Dec. 3, 8-9pm: Christmas in Rockefeller Center
Friday, Dec. 5, 8-9pm: Greatest Holiday Moments: TV & Film Countdown
Wednesday, Dec. 10, 8-9pm: Little Spirit: A New York Christmas
Friday, Dec. 12, 8-9pm: Greatest Holiday Moments: Songs of the Season Countdown
Saturday, Dec. 13, 8-11pm: NBC Movie of the Week: It's a Wonderful Life
Wednesday, Dec. 17, 8-9pm: A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa (NEW!)
Friday, Dec. 19, 8-10pm: Greatest Holiday Moments: TV & Film Countdown and Greatest Holiday Moments: Songs of the Season Countdown
Monday, Dec. 22, 8-9pm: Greatest Holiday Moments: Hilarious Home Video Countdown
Tuesday, Dec. 24, 8-11pm: NBC Movie of the Week: It's a Wonderful Life
Wednesday, Dec. 25, 10-11pm: Greatest Holiday Moments: Hilarious Home Video Countdown
For other non-holiday related movies and specials airing during the holiday season on NBC, view our schedule.

Fox:
None
For other non-holiday related movies and specials airing during the holiday season on Fox, view our schedule.

The CW:
Friday, Dec. 5, 8-9pm: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
Friday, Dec. 5, 9-10pm: The Story of Santa Claus
For other non-holiday related movies and specials airing during the holiday season on The CW, view our schedule.

MyNetwork TV:
Saturday, Dec. 6, 8-10pm: MySaturday Night Movie: Miracle on 34th Street
Monday, Dec. 8, 8-10pm: MyMonday Night Movie: Blizzard
Tuesday, Dec. 9, 8-10pm: Olive the Other Reindeer and Santa's Funniest Moments
Wednesday, Dec. 10, 8-10pm: MyWednesday Night Movie: Home Alone
Tuesday, Dec. 16, 8-10pm: Soul of Christmas
Wednesday, Dec. 17, 8-10pm: Christmas is Here Again and Santa's Funniest Moments
Thursday, Dec. 18, 8-9pm: Wrestlemania Holiday Special
Monday, Dec. 22, 8-10pm: The Spirit of Christmas
Tuesday, Dec. 23, 8-10pm: MyTuesday Night Movie: Babes in Toyland
For other non-holiday related movies and specials airing during the holiday season on MyNetwork TV, view our schedule.


TV Land has edited their line-up a bit effective immediately. I announced the changes on Saturday on our message board, but in case you didn't see that...they are adding Paid Programming from 5am-7am on weekday mornings. It started today. No reason was given and it will last at least until the end of December. So, this means Star Trek is off the regular schedule, but it will air sometimes on Thursdays at 7am. M*A*S*H will air every other weekday in the 7am hour, followed now by a full-hour of Night Court at 8am. Back-to-back sitcom episodes will last until 1pm with Sanford & Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times and I Love Lucy from 9am-1pm. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will be indeed staying at 1pm on weekday afternoons. The other changes are in primetime. After The Cosby Show block from 8-10pm, we now will get Scrubs from 10-11pm as 3rd Rock from the Sun moves to 11pm-1am, with a four episode block now. M*A*S*H will assume the 1am hour now while Three's Company moves up an hour to 2-3am. The 4-6am block of Designing Women, Mad About You, Murphy Brown and Just Shoot Me will all move up an hour to 3-5am, as mentioned Paid Programming will assume the 5-7am hours now.
Weekends will not see many changes, but I advise you to view our one-time-only schedule dates for November and December. You can see the full list of changes starting Nov. 24 in the November highlights, too.
The Beverly Hillbillies only airs on weekends now, primarily on Sundays from 12-4am...view our highlights for details. And yes, there is NO paid programming on Saturdays and Sundays. Paid Programming is just weekdays. If you notice on the December highlights, the last three days of December, the paid programming will be 6-9am instead of 5-7am. Not sure if that will continue into January or not, but we'll let you know soon.
In the November schedule highlights, you'll notice the Thanksgiving marathon has been edited a bit, with CSI now included in the marathon this Saturday and Sunday night in primetime. CSI was originally supposed to air this week in the 11pm-1am hours, as it did last week, but TV Land has decided to air them in holiday weekend marathon block instead. After that, CSI will not be scheduled on TV Land in the near future, unless another schedule change happens.

Effective Saturday, December 6, struggling Friday drama Crusoe will move to Saturdays at 8:00pm ET/PT. It aired its last Friday airing this past Friday at 9pm and it continued to bomb for NBC. Six episodes still remain, so NBC will have to deal with more bad ratings until then, unless they pull it. It'll of course do worse on Saturdays, but NBC was airing low-rated Knight Rider repeats in the Saturday slot anyway, so expectations are lower.
Because of the change, Fridays will see newsmagazine Dateline added, but not in Crusoe's slot. Dateline will air Fridays at 10pm against ABC's 20/20, while current 10pm slot holder Lipstick Jungle moves to Fridays at 9pm. Don't understand that move. Dateline would be better at 9pm, as Lipstick Jungle is also doing terrible and is on its last four episodes, so that series will air its last episode on Jan. 9. NBC has not announced what will happen to Fridays after that. In fact, NBC will likely see many changes in January and the rest of midseason, and we'll let you know as soon as we do. The schedule NBC announced last April for this winter is of course going to change, so I don't understand why NBC announced it last April in the first place.