ABC Friday-night legacy: 1950s to 1970s Family-friendly comedies, which featured families with children as major characters, were a staple of ABC's programming dating back to the network's earlier sitcoms from the 1950s onward, such as
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (which premiered in 1952),
Leave It to Beaver (which moved to ABC in 1958, after spending its first season on
CBS),
The Donna Reed Show (which premiered in 1958),
The Flintstones (which premiered in 1960, but was largely an adult-oriented animated comedy until the birth of
Pebbles in 1963),
The Brady Bunch (which premiered in 1969), and
The Partridge Family (which premiered in 1970; that series and
The Brady Bunch became part of the Friday night lineup at that time).
Jim Janicek TGIF was created and executive produced by Jim Janicek. Prior to the official launch of the block, Janicek was employed as a writer and producer for
ABC Entertainment, who was in charge of promoting the network's Tuesday- and Friday-night comedy lineups. Recalling his childhood when his family would gather to watch
The Wonderful World of Disney, he was inspired to create a family-oriented comedy block. In 1988, Janicek began gaining support for his concept by approaching the studios and talent of independently produced ABC shows, promoting the synergy and potential success of the family block brand. With four ABC family-oriented comedy series on board, and the backing of network president
Bob Iger, the initial lineup for the block was created. Before ABC experienced its success on that night during the 1980s, its Friday night schedule consisted of hit comedies such as
Webster (which remained on Fridays until its cancellation by ABC in 1987, only to subsequently be renewed by
Paramount Television as a first-run syndicated series),
Benson (which would be cancelled at the end of the 1985–86 season) and ''
Diff'rent Strokes (which moved to ABC in 1985 after being cancelled after seven seasons by NBC, only to cancelled by ABC following its eighth and final season). The block of predominantly family-friendly situation comedies was inaugurated in the 1988–89 season with three series that were already part of the Friday lineup (Perfect Strangers, Full House and Mr. Belvedere) and a sophomore series new to that night, Just the Ten of Us (a spinoff of Growing Pains'', which originally aired on Tuesdays for its abbreviated first season in the spring of 1988). Since the
1987–88 season,
Perfect Strangers stars
Mark Linn-Baker and
Bronson Pinchot (in character as
Larry Appleton and
Balki Bartokomous, respectively) had been doing hosted
interstitials that were conducted from the
Perfect Strangers set, originally airing during the two-hour Wednesday sitcom block that their series was part of as that season began. In March 1988,
Perfect Strangers moved to Fridays, and the interstitials went with them. On Fridays, the hosted interstitial concept gained more traction before the family-friendly concept on that night was actually implemented. Pinchot and Linn-Baker would remain the sole hosts of the Friday lineup throughout the 1988–89 season. Meanwhile, ABC began reformulating its Tuesday night lineup which, for the past several seasons, had consisted of a comedy block from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Eastern Time followed by two hour-long dramas, most notably with the hit series
Moonlighting airing at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.
Moonlighting, then in its fifth season and starting to experience a considerable decline in its ratings (greatly thanks to the 1988
WGA strike, which delayed the premieres of many programs set to launch or return for the 1988 fall season), was placed on a temporary hiatus by ABC in February 1989 when the network decided to add a second hour of comedy offerings onto its Tuesday schedule. Janicek, in response, came up with the idea to promote the restructured lineup under a unified brand name,
Terrific Tuesday, to draw audiences to the changes, to reference the two additional sitcoms that were being offered, and especially as a nod to ''
Who's the Boss? and the freshman smash hit Roseanne'', which now served as a strong anchor for the expanded comedy lineup. The
Terrific Tuesday branding was a success, and ABC urged Janicek to continue the banner name for the following season. At the time of the network
upfronts that unveiled the upcoming fall schedule in May 1989, Janicek, as well as ABC, devised the notion of further promoting their family fun-themed Fridays with a brand name. Over the summer, ABC began promoting the Friday sitcoms under the experimental title, "The Friday Fun Club". While
Terrific Tuesday and
What-a-Wednesday were both on tap for the 1989–90 fall season, the Friday branding concept was to undergo a revision before September.
First run (1989–2000) Brand debuts As a result of ABC and Jim Janicek's plan for Friday brand familiarity, definitive changes occurred to the lineup on Friday, September 22, 1989. An opening sequence for the two-hour block was introduced, featuring animated mice against a gray background. The theme music, featuring a male vocalist and a
falsetto-tuned backup chorus, sang the lyrics, "Time for fun (thank goodness!)/Time for a good laugh (it's funny!)/Time, time, time, time for fun! (T-T-T-Time!)". The mice held up title cards containing the selected theme lyrics "Thank goodness" and "It's funny!" right in the way of an older mouse. The sequence concludes with the older mouse breaking a
grandfather clock with a mallet, which cut to the hosted interstitial. For the first time, another show's cast assumed hosting duties for the interstitials in place of the stars of
Perfect Strangers.
Dave Coulier,
John Stamos and
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (alternating as
Michelle Tanner) all appeared on the set of
Full House introducing the season and series premieres that night. As they began their first segment, the
TGIF name was officially introduced, in which its meaning, "Thank Goodness It's Funny", was re-emphasized from the theme lyrics. Coulier and Stamos also announced that a new policy, in which stars from the other three
TGIF programs would rotate hosting responsibilities along with them on a week-to-week basis, would begin. Rotating with
Full House that season were the casts of new arrival
Family Matters,
Perfect Strangers (whose first night its cast members hosted the Friday lineup under the
TGIF banner occurred on October 13, 1989) and
Just the Ten of Us. On the premiere night of
TGIF, the new (and ultimately short-lived) comedy
Free Spirit aired as a preview telecast at 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time, with
Just the Ten of Us reclaiming its time slot the following week. ) and Balki Bartokomous (
Bronson Pinchot) during an
interstitial for TGIF (1989) During the inaugural season of the format, the
TGIF logo was only featured at the start of every hosted segment, appearing in a design where each letter was encased in a tall gray box (as pictured to the right); the boxes would flip in at the bottom of the screen, stand still for a few seconds, and then turn out. One of the animated mice from the
TGIF title sequences was featured on some weeks within the live-action host segments, and was introduced by the actors as the lineup's mascot, known as "Friday the Mouse". Custom bumpers would appear after the final scene of each program, where normally a short cut of the show's title logo and theme would play, denoting the final commercial break. During the first season of
TGIF, the bumpers featured additional animations of the mice, including variants that featured the taller mouse popping out of the grandfather clock, a small mouse being dragged around by a running
chainsaw around it, the taller mouse walking towards the grandfather clock, thinking it over, and then backtracking, and the taller mouse popping up from the top and bottom of the screen on both sides of the show's title logo. The official title logo for the respective program (as opposed to the logo designs used mainly in network promotions for each show that were used in the block's bumpers in later years) was displayed on either side of the clock. The closing animation, which ran after the credits of the 9:30 program (usually
Just the Ten of Us), consisted of the same theme music, albeit with the lyrics, "See you next week... here for a good laugh", followed by a few instrumental notes. One such animation involved the taller mouse holding what looked like a parade float likeness of himself, as it flies out of control and he flies around with it. Another shows the mouse walking with a blowtorch and mask on, but he doesn't know that the plug comes lose, so he angrily walks back.
Explosive success in the 1990s With the
TGIF moniker permanently in place, more changes in presentation occurred as the lineup grew in popularity. On September 21, 1990, the animated mice opening and accompanying theme music were dropped from the Friday block, in favor of a new graphics package that officially incorporated the new
TGIF name for the first time. With these new visuals came the "classic"
TGIF theme ("''It's Friday night/And the mood is right/Gonna have some fun/Show you how it's done, TGIF.''"). For most of
TGIFs run until the 1998–99 season, at least one series on the lineup was produced (and in some cases, developed) by the team of
Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett, whose relationship with ABC traces back to the premiere of
Love, American Style – produced by Miller and former producing partner Edward K. Milkis under a development deal with Paramount Television – in 1972. The first two series were
Perfect Strangers and
Full House, both of which were produced through Miller-Boyett's development deal with
Lorimar Television (absorbed into
Warner Bros. Television in 1993) and aired on the network's Friday night schedule prior to the launch of
TGIF. (The latter premiered in September 1987 as part of the network's Friday schedule, while the former concurrently was moved from Wednesdays to Fridays that month.)
Family Matters, a spin-off of
Perfect Strangers that debuted in September 1989 as part of the inaugural
TGIF lineup, originally centered solely on the family of Harriette Winslow (
Jo Marie Payton), who began as a recurring character on its parent series (where her cop husband, Carl (
Reginald VelJohnson), was also first introduced). Earning modest ratings early on, the series evolved into a major hit following the addition of breakout character
Steve Urkel (
Jaleel White) midway through its first season; the character's promotion to the main cast in its second season (gradually becoming the primary focus of the show), resulted in
Family Matters shifting from a "down-to-earth" family sitcom to a mix of conventional family comedy and
slapstick-driven storylines (with
sci-fi elements being weaved into plots in later seasons as Urkel was further developed from a proud nerd who served as the Winslows' annoying neighbor into a budding scientist and inventor). By this point, Miller-Boyett and Lorimar had ownership stakes in the block and were therefore responsible for the majority of programming duties. All four
TGIF shows featured as part of the block's
1990–91 Fall schedule were produced by them (a move that resulted in the cancellation of
Just the Ten of Us, despite it maintaining fairly decent ratings in its Friday slot), with
Perfect Strangers,
Family Matters and
Full House being joined by
Going Places, a comedy centering on the lives of four roommates (
Alan Ruck,
Heather Locklear,
Jerry Levine and
Hallie Todd) who write for a
Candid Camera-style
hidden camera show. Being a more adult-targeted entry in the 9:30/8:30
TGIF slot,
Going Places initially lagged behind its sister shows; a mid-season retool, one that placed an equal emphasis on juvenile characters and saw the adult leads' job setting switch to a
late-night talk show, improved ratings. (Ironically,
Perfect Strangers maintained a similar, virtually exclusive focus on adult characters even after moving to
TGIF and had abandoned plans to add child actress
Alisan Porter to its cast as a young neighbor to lead characters Balki and Larry after one episode that same season.)
Going Places was cancelled after one season in spite of its ratings increase, and was replaced in the
1991–92 season by
Baby Talk, a sitcom based on the film ''
Look Who's Talking that initially scored high ratings as a mid-season replacement – temporarily occupying Going Places
s time slot – in the Spring of 1991; however, ratings for the show collapsed in its second season, resulting in its cancellation. Also added as a midseason replacement in April 1991 was Dinosaurs'', a
Jim Henson Television-produced live-action comedy using
audio-animatronic puppetry, centering on the Sinclairs, a family of
anthropomorphic dinosaurs living in prehistoric
Pangaea; often touching upon sensitive topical issues (such as
environmentalism,
women's rights,
sexual harassment,
LGBT rights, censorship,
body image,
drug abuse,
racism and
peer pressure, sometimes through satire) seldom dealt with on family sitcoms of the time,
Dinosaurs spent much of its four-season run on
TGIF, up through the conclusion of its third season in 1993. Also joining the lineup for the 1991–92 season was another Miller-Boyett series,
Step by Step, a
star vehicle for
Suzanne Somers and
Patrick Duffy (the latter having come off an eleven-year run as
Bobby Ewing on the
CBS prime time
soap Dallas) that went on to become a
TGIF mainstay for the next six seasons. The
Brady Bunch-inspired comedy centered on two single parents (Duffy and Somers), each with three children (two of them played by former
Going Places co-stars
Staci Keanan and
Christopher Castile), who create a
stepfamily after marrying each other in the midst of a whirlwind romance while on vacation. (As a result of picking up
Step by Step and renewing
Baby Talk, ABC decided to move
Full House from Fridays to Tuesdays for 1991–92, having it lead off the latter night's lineup that included hit series
Roseanne,
Coach and freshman offering
Home Improvement.) During the most successful years of
TGIF, the main characters of one of the Friday prime-time sitcoms would "host" the two-hour block of episodes for that week. Always in character, they would introduce each show and comment on the proceedings afterward. Sometimes, characters from a series that did not air on the Friday schedule would appear to host. For example, in January 1996,
Daniel Hugh Kelly,
Betsy Brantley and other stars from the short-lived drama
Second Noah served as one-time-only guest hosts of
TGIF as a cross promotion for the new Saturday series. Occasionally, the hosts for the evening would find a common thread between each show. Each Fall from 1989 to 1996, cast members from various
TGIF shows co-hosted ABC's annual
Saturday morning preview specials, outlining the new programs being added to the network's
children's program lineup. (After
The Walt Disney Company began programming the Saturday morning lineup in 1997, in the wake of its prior acquisition of ABC, these preview specials were hosted for the remainder of
TGIFs run by the hosts of ''
Disney's One Saturday Morning''; ABC ceased producing annual Fall preview specials for its children's programming slate—becoming the last of the
Big Three networks to discontinue the practice—after the 1999–2000 season.) When
TGIF officially launched, weekly promos for the lineup were voiced by actor and resident ABC announcer
Robert Ridgely, who had mainly been voicing sitcom promos (including those for Fridays) for a few years before the brand was incorporated. Veteran television personality and announcer
Gary Owens (who had been with ABC since 1985 as a primetime promo voiceover) became the sole announcer for weekly
TGIF promotions beginning with the 1990–91 season. Owens remained as the "voice of
TGIF" until the end of the 1995–96 season. During the 1995–96 season, fellow voice actor and resident ABC announcer
Brian Cummings shared announcer duties with Owens (doing weekly promos for the lineup whenever he wasn't available). The following two seasons (1996–97 to 1997–98) had Kenny Jones (one of the main ABC announcers at that time, alongside Owens and Cummings) becoming the sole announcer while
Jerry Houser did it throughout the 1998–99 season. Also during the 1990–91 season,
Impel Marketing, in partnership with ABC, released a series of
trading cards featuring publicity shots featuring the stars of
Perfect Strangers,
Full House and
Family Matters to promote the block. After trying out three new series during the
1992–93 season that were canceled either because of poor ratings (
Camp Wilder and
Where I Live, the latter's occurring weeks after its October 1993 move to Saturdays for its short-lived second season) or network politics (
Getting By, which moved to NBC for its second and final season), the
1993–94 season saw the additions of three new comedies to the block, two of which would provide some needed stability to the lineup for most of the time up through the end of the 1995–96 season. The first was
Boy Meets World, a sitcom from
Dinosaurs co-creator
Michael Jacobs with similar underlying themes as the then-recently concluded ABC dramedy
The Wonder Years, centering around
Cory Matthews (
Ben Savage, the younger brother of
Wonder Years star
Fred Savage) as he navigates life with his family, friends and ever-present teacher and neighbor George Feeny (
William Daniels); the series—which was the longest-running
TGIF comedy series not produced by Miller–Boyett, and the only long-running sitcom to air on the block for the series' entire run—was a breakout ratings success and received favorable reviews from critics for its humor and handling of the complications surrounding the transition from childhood to adulthood. Moving from Tuesdays for its second season that year was ''
Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, a series from Full House
creator Jeff Franklin that debuted in September 1992 as a starring vehicle for comedian Mark Curry (playing NBA player-turned-teacher—and eventually, high school basketball coach—Mark Cooper), and co-stars Dawnn Lewis (previously of A Different World) and Holly Robinson (previously of 21 Jump Street). The concurrences of Cooper''s move to Fridays and Lewis's departure saw it retooled from a series about three adult roommates into more of a family-oriented comedy, which saw Curry and Robinson being joined in the main cast by
Raven-Symoné (previously of
The Cosby Show) and
Saundra Quarterman as Cooper's cousins,
Marquise Wilson (who recurred in the first season, promoted to main cast in the second season) as his pre-teen neighbor, and
Nell Carter as his childhood babysitter-turned-high school principal and boss. Serving as a Spring replacement for
Cooper in 1994 and
1995 was
Sister, Sister, starring
Tia and
Tamera Mowry as identical twins adopted at birth to parents with polar-opposite personalities (
Tim Reid and
Jackeé Harry) who are reunited during a chance encounter at a clothing store. Despite scoring decent ratings over its two seasons on the network (particularly among teenage viewers), ABC canceled
Sister, Sister in May 1995, a few weeks after its second season concluded. (It was subsequently picked up by fledgling “netlet”
The WB, where it ran for four additional seasons.)
Summer months During the first few years of
TGIF, the host interstitials varied during the Summer months. The regular hosting rotation continued with new segments during the Summer of 1990, the final months of the "mice" motif. For the late Spring and Summer of 1991, ABC decided to relieve the
TGIF stars of filming/taping segments from their respective sets. Instead, stars performed voiceovers for "TGIF Trivia", game-like segments made up of episode scenes and multiple-choice questions. The trivia quiz provided "A", "B" and "C" choices of events that the home viewer was supposed to choose from for a supposed "single" correct answer; in reality, all choices were correct in each round, as every scene featured was from an actual episode inclusion. Stars that narrated
TGIF Trivia included Heather Locklear (
Going Places),
Telma Hopkins (
Family Matters),
Jodie Sweetin (
Full House) and Melanie Wilson (
Perfect Strangers). For the late Spring and Summer of 1992, ABC ran a promotional contest that chose winners from around the country to host
TGIF for a week from their own homes. Those that were chosen were instructed to videotape their own segments from home, giving commentary on the shows that would air on the week they were scheduled to be featured. Families, individuals, groups of friends, couples, and most prominently teenagers were among the winners. The voiceover narration format from
TGIF stars returned for the late Spring and Summer of 1993. This time, however, a rotation of stars would simply voice previews over upcoming episode scenes. As with the "TGIF Trivia" format in 1991, a single star – among them,
Brandon Call (
Step by Step) and Jo Marie Payton (
Family Matters) – would handle the duties each week. Payton, in particular, had the distinction of having one of the weeks she did segment narrations on August 6, 1993, when
Perfect Strangers (where her
Family Matters character Harriette Winslow originated) aired its series finale. From 1994 to 1999, it would either be one (original on-camera host segments) or the other (voiceover narration format) during the summer months.
Spin-off concepts In the spring of 1991, with
TGIFs meteoric success, ABC president Bob Iger and Senior Vice President of Marketing of ABC Entertainment, Mark Zakaran appointed Jim Janicek to expand his branding work to other portions of the ABC entertainment schedule.
The Hump (1991) Janicek's first attempt to replicate the success of
TGIF came in August 1991, when ABC launched a three-hour comedy block on Wednesday nights for the 1991–92 season. Loosely known as
The Hump, via the tagline "Over the hump!" used in advertisements ("Three hours of non-stop laughs are guaranteed to get you over the hump!", "That'll get you over the hump!") and the use of a 1970s funk-flavored background jingle which chanted, "I've got to get over the hump", the format came complete with promos that used a special graphics scheme, differing from
TGIF and ABC's nights of regular, non-concept based lineups. The concept title was another play on a popular catchphrase, in which Wednesday is typically referred to as "
hump day" (being the middle of the work week, thus making it "over the hump" toward the weekend). From August to September 1991, the formation of
The Hump consisted of
The Wonder Years,
Growing Pains (in the month leading to its move to Saturday nights),
Doogie Howser, M.D.,
Davis Rules (which had been cancelled in May 1991, to be renewed by CBS for its second season),
Anything but Love and
Married People (which was cancelled in March 1991), which were all in summer reruns. For the new fall season, the lineup changed to feature
Dinosaurs at 8:00 p.m. ET (in
The Wonder Years former slot),
The Wonder Years at 8:30 (replacing
Growing Pains), new sitcom
Sibs at 9:30, and the new sitcom
Good & Evil at 10:30. The sitcoms that aired between 9:30 and 11:00 (
Sibs,
Anything but Love and
Good & Evil) were separately marketed from the first three
Hump shows as "comedies made specifically for adults". The "adult" promos for
The Hump exclusively featured the funk-styled song, whereas promos for the 8:00–9:30 p.m. shows, and the entire lineup in general, used the instrumental version of the 1991 jingle for ABC's "America's Watching" campaign. Unlike
TGIF and its future one-off concept
I Love Saturday Night,
The Hump did not use hosted interstitials or customized bumpers for the last commercial break of each show. With the cancellation of
Good & Evil in late October, which the network claimed was entirely due to its low ratings in its 10:30 p.m. slot (although many advocacy groups claimed it was due to the controversy surrounding the defamatory portrayal of a blind character), along with the lackluster first-month ratings for
Sibs, ABC was convinced that the three-hour comedy block was a failure. The network opted to give the 10:00 p.m. slot on Wednesdays back to an hour-long drama, the upcoming legal series
Civil Wars, during November sweeps.
The Hump concept aired for the last time on October 30, 1991, and ABC resumed promoting the Wednesday lineup in standard fashion.
Sibs went on hiatus, and
Anything but Love was moved back into its former 9:30 p.m. Eastern slot on Wednesdays. For the weeks of November 6 and 13, 1991, specials aired in the 10:00 p.m. slot, prior the premiere of
Civil Wars on November 20.
MCTV: More Cool TV (1991–93) At the start of the 1991–92 season, Janicek also brought the hosted programming block format to Saturday mornings, under the title
MCTV (
More Cool TV). This title indicated that after
TGIF on Friday nights, there was "more cool TV" just hours away on Saturday morning; this block ran from September 7, 1991, to January 23, 1993. Live-action stars of the network's Saturday morning lineup, most notably including the cast of ABC's
Land of the Lost revival, hosted interstitials every half-hour. The
MCTV segments at times were several seconds shorter than those shot for
TGIF. While an opening sequence and custom last-segment show bumpers were included, the theme music used was the instrumental version of ABC's 1991 "America's Watching" campaign. The latter music continued as a part of the
MCTV scheme in its second year, despite ABC having launched the "It Must Be ABC" image campaign at that time. Also notably airing on
MCTV was the cartoon
Hammerman, whose star,
MC Hammer, gave even more meaning to the Saturday morning lineup's moniker. Hammer himself appeared as host of
MCTV on a few occasions.
Hammerman was cancelled by the end of the 1991–92 season. In the fall of 1992, while the
MCTV branding continued in use during the Saturday morning schedule, promos for the lineup no longer referenced the "More Cool TV" tagline.
I Love Saturday Night (1992) Seeing how
TGIF dominated prime time on Fridays in the face of typical decreased television viewership on that night, Janicek and company felt that the same marketing power could translate into success for Saturday night. Saturday, as an even heavier social night not spent at home by viewers in the 18–49 demographic, resulted in most networks airing shows with older demographics, those with family appeal, or programs faltering in the ratings on other nights (or in the most political cases, shows that a network no longer has confidence in). NBC had claimed dominant victory on Saturday nights throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, with an eclectic mix of family-themed shows and sophisticated comedies aimed at an older audience (such as
The Golden Girls,
227,
Amen and
Empty Nest). ABC, however, had continued to struggle on Saturday nights. Through the end of the 1990–91 television season, recent programs such as
The ABC Mystery Movie and
China Beach had experienced a quick death after moving to Saturdays, leading to such bold decisions as moving the nationwide phenomenon
Twin Peaks to Saturday in order to shore up the lineup. After reformatting the Saturday night lineup for the 1991 fall schedule to include an hour of comedy followed by another established drama and a freshman drama, ABC announced plans for a Saturday
TGIF offshoot to premiere at mid-season. Titled
I Love Saturday Night, it launched to provide a new night and time for three of ABC's aging sitcoms, ''Who's the Boss?
, Growing Pains
(both of which had been comprising the Saturday 8:00–9:00 p.m. block since September 1991) and Perfect Strangers
(which was still highly rated, but moved to Saturday to help the declining ratings of Boss
and Pains
). The newcomer that rounded out the lineup was the Steven Bochco cartoon Capitol Critters. Premiering on February 1, 1992, the two-hour comedy block of I Love Saturday Night
coincided with Western drama The Young Riders, which had been airing Saturdays in the 9:00 p.m. Eastern hour, going on a three-month hiatus. Freshman dramedy The Commish'', meanwhile, remained at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
I Love Saturday Night was structured exactly like
TGIF, with hosts from each show rotating every week, down to its own set of branding graphics and a theme song. The intro to the lineup began with a red ABC logo encased inside an animated heart, which bounced around, and then off, the screen. Set against various-colored backgrounds (but most commonly blue), the lineup's title was then spelled out in the opening alongside views of animated suns, moons and palm trees. The theme song itself—with the lyrics
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y../ Saturday Night! / I Love Saturday / Saturday Night—even had a
calypso sound to it, with
Jamaican-style male vocals. The last two lines of the theme were often sung over the show bumpers that led into the last commercial break of each show. The
I Love Saturday Night lineup received heavy promotion, as ABC was valiantly trying to achieve any remaining life out of ''Who's the Boss?
and Growing Pains
especially, although both series had fallen out of the Nielsen Top 30 following their move to Saturdays (dropping to #76 and #75, respectively, in the ratings for 1991–92). Such efforts to revitalize both series had been undertaken at the start of the season; Boss
resolved the “will-they-or-won’t-they” plotline between lead characters Tony Micelli (Tony Danza) and Angela Bower (Judith Light), transitioning from an employee/boss relationship to a couple, while Pains
(which dealt with a showrunner change spurred by creative disagreements with series regular Kirk Cameron, who became a born-again Protestant Christian four years earlier, over plot material he considered inappropriate) added a new character, homeless teen Luke Brower (Leonardo DiCaprio, whose character was taken in by the Seaver family at the insistence of eldest son Mike, played by Cameron), in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to appeal to teenage female viewers. Those in the industry suspected that Perfect Strangers'' was moved to Saturdays not necessarily since it could have bolstered the lineup's performance, but because it was part of an ABC agenda to kill the series (ABC's explanation in its move from Fridays was that it did not fit the new
TGIF demographic, youth aged 10–18). Cast members from all three of the live-action shows hosted
I Love Saturday Night in rotation during the five-week run: • February 1, 1992: Mark-Linn Baker and Bronson Pinchot,
Perfect Strangers • February 8, 1992: Kirk Cameron,
Jeremy Miller and Leonardo DiCaprio,
Growing Pains • February 15, 1992: Judith Light, ''Who's the Boss?'' • February 22, 1992:† Mark-Linn Baker and Bronson Pinchot,
Perfect Strangers • February 29, 1992: Kirk Cameron, Jeremy Miller,
Ashley Johnson and Leonardo DiCaprio,
Growing Pains †
Capitol Critters and
Perfect Strangers did not air on this night, although Pinchot and Linn-Baker did host.
The Jaleel White Special—an hour-long variety special starring the
Family Matters actor—aired from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m., followed by ''Who's the Boss?
at 9:00 and Growing Pains'' in its regular 9:30 slot. Ultimately, the block was neither able to alleviate ABC's struggles with its Saturday prime time lineup or replicate
TGIFs success. Saturday night on ABC (especially up against NBC's powerhouse lineup of the evening) seemed a surefire place to send even a popular show into considerable ratings decline. This is exactly what happened, as ratings during the entire February sweeps period were the lowest of the season for ABC that night (save for
The Commish, which had become successful in its first season), with
Perfect Strangers experiencing the largest single-season ratings decline for a series (after averaging at #32 the previous year, it finished the 1991–92 season at #61 as a consequence of the midseason move to Saturday). After five dismal weeks in the
Nielsens, ABC had a rapid loss of faith in
I Love Saturday Night; the branding concept for the Saturday lineup was used for the last time on February 29, 1992. Beyond the quick demise of
I Love Saturday Night, the same lineup, more or less, continued on ABC for the remainder of the 1991–92 season.
Capitol Critters was cancelled in March; this caused the remaining three shows to switch slots in order to provide a choice time period for the
Head of the Class spinoff
Billy, which moved to the lineup (
Billy had previously been a part of
TGIF from its January 31, 1992 premiere until March).
Boss and
Pains, meanwhile, had announced the end of their runs in the spring of 1992, but both would remain on Saturdays until summer reruns. These shows aired their one-hour finales on Saturday, April 25, 1992, along with the series finale of
MacGyver, which aired on this night for one week only. Both
Perfect Strangers and
Billy would remain part of the lineup after
Boss and
Pains relocated. Two new sitcoms premiered on Saturdays that spring and summer:
Julie, starring
Julie Andrews (with a future
TGIF star, eventual
Boy Meets World cast member
Rider Strong, as Andrews's stepson), and the
David Lynch-produced comedy
On the Air. The failure of these programs, along with ABC's decision to not renew
Billy for a second season and the announcement that
Perfect Strangers was going on a long hiatus (concluding its run in the summer of 1993 with an abbreviated six-episode eighth season), halted attempts by ABC to program comedies or family fare – outside of movies – on that night. (
The Commish would run for four additional seasons, ending in January 1996.) Once every few years, ABC would again try to program such shows on Saturday nights with no success; for example, during the
1995–96 season, it scheduled
The Jeff Foxworthy Show and the
Marie Osmond–
Betty White vehicle
Maybe This Time during the 8:00 p.m. ET hour on that night (the former was replaced in February 1996 by the adult-skewing Tony Danza–
Lori Loughlin romantic comedy vehicle
Hudson Street, which was moved to Saturdays from its original Tuesday slot). The lone exception in this case was
The Wonderful World of Disney, which ABC revived after it was bought by Disney and eventually moved to Saturday nights in 2003 (replacing a more general-audience movie showcase that had been airing since the 1999–2000 season, after the network stopped offering first-run series on that night), where it ran until it was discontinued as a weekly film showcase in 2008.
Special events On November 23, 1995, ABC scheduled a music special for
The Beatles Anthology. To promote the special on the previous Friday (November 17), the respective opening theme songs for all of the
TGIF sitcoms were replaced with
Beatles songs, regardless of the individual shows' plot with the exception of
Boy Meets World, which used a song by
The Monkees as its theme that week (as the episode featured a guest appearance by the group's members). On May 9, 1997,
TGIF aired special episodes of two series (one on its regular lineup and another normally scheduled on Sundays) as part of ABC's "3D Week", a week-long event (running from May 6 to May 12) intended to promote the two-part miniseries
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (which aired on May 11 and 12) featuring special episodes of ABC shows incorporating
3D effects viewable with the aid of
special glasses available at
Wendy's restaurants. (
Boy Meets World,
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and
Step by Step, the latter of which ironically was preempted, did not feature episodes utilizing the 3D gimmick.) Hosted by Brandon Call and
Jason Marsden (as their
Step by Step characters J.T. Lambert and Rich Halke), it featured the eighth-season finale of
Family Matters ("A Pirate's Life For Me", also the last new episode to air on ABC due to the show's then-recently announced move to CBS for the 1997–98 season) and a new episode of
America’s Funniest Home Videos at 9:30 p.m. ET, which was original host Bob Saget's penultimate episode and featured appearances by most of his former
Full House castmates, sans the
Olsen Twins. (Saget's final episode as host, the $100,000 eighth-season finale, aired nine days later on May 18.) On May 16, 1997, the block aired an hour-long
magic special,
All-Star TGIF Magic (which aired in place of
Family Matters and
Boy Meets World in the 8:00 p.m. ET slot that week), coinciding with the May 19 airing of the special
David Blaine: Street Magic (the first of several magic specials featuring Blaine—who co-hosted that night's block with Call, as his
Step by Step character—that ABC aired into the 2000s). The special, hosted by
Caroline Rhea (who played
Hilda Spellman on
Sabrina at the time), featured current and past
TGIF stars performing magic acts including Bronson Pinchot (of
Perfect Strangers and, at the time of the special's broadcast,
Step by Step),
Jodie Sweetin (of
Full House), Ben Savage (of
Boy Meets World), Raven-Symoné (of ''Hangin' with Mr. Cooper
), Tia and Tamera Mowry (of Sister, Sister
, which by then was airing on The WB) and Jason Marsden (of Step by Step''); along with appearances by
Donna D' Errico,
Jonathan Lipnicki and R&B group
All-4-One. On November 7, 1997, all four
TGIF shows that night had a storyline (TGIF Time Warp, "Time Goes Insane Friday") in which Salem from
Sabrina the Teenage Witch (voiced by
Nick Bakay) caused the characters in each show to travel back to a different point in time – the result of the
warlock-turned-
anthropomorphic cat having swallowed a "time ball". On an episode of
Boy Meets World aired the previous week (October 31),
Melissa Joan Hart made a second cameo, as an aside, due to the episode in question ("The Witches of Pennbrook") featuring a plot involving a coven of witches—led by a character played by former
Full House co-star
Candace Cameron Bure—being thwarted from taking the soul of supporting main character Jack Hunter (played by
Matthew Lawrence); the cameo featured fellow main character Eric Matthews (
Will Friedle) describing the event and swearing off witches, not realizing that Sabrina is one. Musical group
Hanson hosted
TGIF on November 28, 1997 (during Thanksgiving weekend) as a tie-in to their half-hour music special
Meet Hanson. Between each show and leading up to the special's 9:30 p.m. ET broadcast, segments showed the group in the studio, "commanding" the shows to come on, and at one point even incorporating
TGIF into their mega-hit song "
MMMBop".
Change/end of first run (1996–2000) The Walt Disney Company purchased ABC corporate parent
Capital Cities Communications in September 1995, and, after finalizing the sale the following year, began reshaping ABC to its preferences beginning in 1996, refocusing its attention towards programming toward teenagers and adult audiences. That block failed to boost CBS's fortunes on Friday nights, with both the lineup and all four of its shows (including the Bronson Pinchot vehicle
Meego—which joined the two fellow Miller-Boyett series that were central to the new lineup—and
The Gregory Hines Show) only lasting one season. The success of
Sabrina the Teenage Witch prompted ABC to surround it and
Boy Meets World with two other supernatural-themed shows as part of "the new TGIF" for 1997–98. The fantasy sitcoms joining the lineup that fall were
You Wish, a series from
Boy Meets World creator/showrunner Michael Jacobs about a genie (
John Ales) living with a family; and
Teen Angel, centering on a teenager (
Mike Damus) who died during an eating challenge that returns to Earth as his best friend's (
Corbin Allred) guardian angel. Neither show was as endearing with audiences as the
TGIF shows that earned long runs in previous years, and were also disliked by critics, even with the return of
Maureen McCormick (known for her earlier role as
Marcia Brady on
The Brady Bunch) and the addition of established sitcom star
Jerry Van Dyke (coming off his role as Luther Van Dam in the long-running ABC comedy
Coach and who, unusually, had supporting roles on both new shows) to the network's Friday night lineup. The
TGIF lineup began to experience sagging ratings throughout 1997–98 in part due to the audience fracture caused by its new competition from CBSs
Block Party, which was enough to hurt ABC's ratings dominance on Fridays even though the rival block itself was a failure. Even
Boy Meets World and
Sabrina the Teenage Witch (despite both shows reaching their peak viewership averages during that season) started to experience declining ratings due to strong competition from
Dateline NBC and three successful midseason replacements to the ill-fated
CBS Block Party:
Unsolved Mysteries (which moved to CBS after a nine-season run on NBC), the
Bill Cosby-hosted
Kids Say the Darndest Things and the revival of
Candid Camera; with the more formidable competition, after eight years, ABC ended the season dethroned as the top-rated network on Friday nights ironically by CBS, which recovered from the
Block Partys initial failure by the Spring of 1998, with the help of the three aforementioned midseason replacements as well as the
Don Johnson police procedural
Nash Bridges. Although
You Wish and
Teen Angel were designed in concept to mesh with
Sabrina on the lineup (while conversely making
Boy Meets Worlds usually "down-to-earth" concept seem out of place with the other three shows), neither of the two freshman comedies lasted a full season:
You Wish was pulled in November after seven episodes (six additional episodes produced before its removal from the network's schedule were burned off from May to July 1998), while
Teen Angel lasted 17 episodes before ending in February (both shows returned to the lineup on May 22 for a summer run, which ended in September). With no additional family-oriented sitcoms ordered for that season to replace the cancelled shows, save for a two-week run of the more adult-skewing family comedy
Hiller and Diller, ABC simply aired repeats of
Sabrina the Teenage Witch and
Boy Meets World for the rest of that season (at 8:00 and 9:30 p.m. respectively, leading into new episodes of those series) until May 15, 1998 (season finale of TGIF's 1997–98 season). As part of a network-wide rebranding toward a simplified graphics package, ABC retired the traditional
TGIF logo and phased out the theme song. After a moribund 1997–98 season, the
1998–99 season saw two promising shows in
Two of a Kind, a starring vehicle for
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen centering on a widowed college professor (
Christopher Sieber) who hires one of his students (
Sally Wheeler) to help take care of his twin daughters, and ''
Brother's Keeper'', an "
Odd Couple"-style sitcom centering on a widowed college history professor (
William Ragsdale) who agrees to let his irresponsible pro-football player brother (
Sean O'Bryan) move in with him and his son (
Justin Cooper), per a stipulation in his brother's contract with the
San Francisco 49ers. ABC thought that the Olsen twins' return to ABC would help boost the block's foundering ratings, and decided to have
Two of a Kind lead off the night in the 8:00 p.m. slot. Both shows had respectable ratings throughout the season, although viewership for
Two of a Kind gradually declined as the season progressed after a promising start; however, it and ''Brother's Keeper
were both cancelled in May 1999 (repeats of both shows ran until July 16; The Hughleys
& Home Improvement
filled their spots from July 23 to September 17), marking the second season in a row that the block failed to generate a hit among its freshman shows. The cancellation of Two of a Kind
—which was the last series to be produced by the studio until the 2016 debut of Full House
reboot Fuller House''—also marked the end of ABC's 27-year relationship with Miller-Boyett Productions and its various iterations, and therefore any involvement with the block they had left (Miller-Boyett and Warner Bros. had their stakes terminated by then). With the block continuing to struggle to generate new hits and ratings for
Boy Meets World and
Sabrina the Teenage Witch continuing to fall, it seemed that the end of the original TGIF was in sight. What would become the final season (1999–2000) of
TGIFs original run saw additional changes: the hosting segments and skits were officially dropped, and the "TGIF" name was only used for the promos and bumpers; adult-skewing family sitcom
The Hughleys (starring comedian
D.L. Hughley as the Black owner of a successful Los Angeles vending machine business, who moves his family to a predominantly white middle-class neighborhood) was moved from Tuesdays to Fridays for its second season, while the new comedy
Odd Man Out (a vehicle for then-rising teen actor
Erik Von Detten, about a teenage boy navigating life with his widowed mother, aunt and three sisters) joined the lineup after being heavily promoted in the summer of 1999 as a last-ditch effort to save the dying block. In March 2000, ABC launched the reality music competition series
Making the Band (acting as a mid-season replacement for
Odd Man Out) in the midst of the late 1990s–early 2000s
boy band craze. The show featured boy-band impresario and eventual convict
Lou Pearlman putting together a new boy band that became
O-Town, which would go on to have a couple of successful songs. All four sitcoms that ABC aired on Fridays that season experienced varied fates:
Sabrina the Teenage Witch and
The Hughleys were both cancelled by ABC and revived by The WB and UPN, respectively (
Sabrina ended its seven-year run in 2003, while
The Hughleys was cancelled after four seasons in 2002);
Boy Meets World voluntarily ended its run after seven successful seasons; and
Odd Man Out was cancelled outright by January 2000 after 13 episodes. The final night of new programming aired on May 5, 2000: that evening featured the hour-long series finale of
Boy Meets World, followed by what was billed as "ABC's series finale" of
Sabrina the Teenage Witch (as it had just been picked up by The WB for a fifth season), which aired as a two-episode block consisting of the series’ fourth season finale—the final original episode of
Sabrina to air on ABC—and a repeat episode. Repeats of both series continued throughout the summer, with repeats of
Sabrina continuing to air until August 25, and repeats of
Boy Meets World continuing until September 8, 2000 (when ABC aired the first and only original network rerun of that show's series finale) along with the finale of
Making the Band (which was later revived on
MTV in 2002, following its cancellation by ABC). ABC retired the "TGIF" brand shortly thereafter.
Post-TGIF (2000–2002) In September 2000, ABC relaunched its Friday sitcom block under the
Working Comedy banner for the 2000–01 season: the block featured fading comedies
Two Guys and a Girl and
Norm, and freshman sitcoms
The Trouble with Normal and
Madigan Men, which underperformed. This lineup only lasted one year, with all four shows being cancelled by the end of the season (
The Trouble with Normal lasted only five episodes; its replacement, the found-humor filler
Dot Comedy,
was pulled after only one). ABC then opted to run dramas and reality shows such as
The Mole (which only lasted three weeks); it would, however, bring back family-friendly fare to the night in June 2001 with a revived weekly version of ''
America's Funniest Home Videos (which had been airing for the previous two years as a series of specials after a failed retool following the 1997 departure of original host Bob Saget under successors John Fugelsang and Daisy Fuentes), before eventually moving the show back to its former longtime Sunday timeslot for the 2003–04 season to accommodate the revived TGIF''. By then, Friday nights were the second-weakest night of the week for television viewership (behind Saturdays), with only a few shows receiving attention, such as CBS's
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which premiered on Friday (in contrast to the other major broadcast networks, CBS has maintained strong ratings for its Friday evening programming for the most part since then). This meant that for the first time since the 1988–89 television season, ABC promoted Friday night lineups in a standard fashion between 2001 and 2003. In the summer of 2001, Disney acquired Fox Family from
News Corporation and
Saban Entertainment, renaming the channel ABC Family. Disney head
Michael Eisner hoped to use ABC Family, which became a sister network to ABC and Disney Channel with the purchase, to
repurpose ABC network shows. To meet that end, he decided to revive the
TGIF block on ABC Family to create additional revenue for ABC's family sitcoms. This effort hit a roadblock due to the fact that ABC did not own the syndication rights to all of its programs. As such, the "new" ABC Family
TGIF block, which debuted on March 1, 2002, consisted of the recently acquired dramedy
State of Grace, in addition to reruns of ABC's
According to Jim and, unusual for what was meant to be a sitcom block, repeats of the drama
Alias. Due to poor advertising sales, complaints from ABC affiliates, and show producers concerned that the new block would hurt syndication revenue, ABC Family's
TGIF was pulled after a few short weeks.
Second run (2003–2005) TGIF returned to ABC on September 26, 2003; the relaunched block received heavy promotion in advance, including a promo spot employing the
Village People pop tune "
YMCA" (sung as "T-G-I-F"), featuring all the casts of all four family comedies seated on a humorously elongated living-room couch. The initial lineup for the revived
TGIF featured returning comedies
George Lopez and
Life with Bonnie (both of which were comedian-led starring vehicles, respectively for
George Lopez and
Bonnie Hunt), and freshmen series
Married to the Kellys and
Hope & Faith (the latter serving as a vehicle for
Kelly Ripa, who continued to host the
Disney-distributed syndicated talk show
Live with Regis and Kelly concurrent with her sitcom role). That season's lineup met with only moderate success, seeing a consistent second- or third-place showing against a popular CBS drama lineup that included
Joan of Arcadia and
JAG. For the majority of the
TGIF revival, the block aired without a host – thereby differing from the concept of the original 1989 to 2000 version.
Hope & Faith was the only show from the previous season that remained on the Friday lineup for the 2004–05 season (
George Lopez was moved to ABC's Tuesday comedy block, before being shifted back to its original night of Wednesday; while
Life with Bonnie and
Married to the Kellys were both cancelled), with
8 Simple Rules moving from Tuesdays to anchor the lineup, joined by freshman comedy
Complete Savages and returning workplace sitcom
Less than Perfect (transplanted from Wednesdays). By early 2005, ABC had stopped actively promoting the
TGIF name. ABC discontinued the
TGIF block for the second time on September 16, 2005; this came despite CBS's cancellations of both
Joan of Arcadia and
JAG in May 2005. For the 2005–06 season,
Hope & Faith continued to air on Friday nights (before moving to Tuesdays, where it ended its run after three seasons amid low ratings opposite
Fox powerhouse
American Idol), while
Less than Perfect was renewed as a midseason replacement (returning in April 2006, joining
Hope & Faith on Tuesdays, where it met the same fate).
Post-2005 In recent years, Friday nights on ABC have been primarily used to air reality programs (such as
Shark Tank), occasional encores of the network's dramas and comedies, and ABC News human interest programming (such as
Primetime: What Would You Do?).
20/20 remains a stalwart of the Friday night schedule to end the evening. Those
TGIF series that had reached, or come close to, the
100 episodes necessary to be
syndicated were offered to local stations for a time period, after which they were sold to
cable channels.
Disney Channel aired re-runs of
Boy Meets World from 2000 to 2007 and briefly in 2014 (with select episodes from later seasons – particularly, seasons 5-7 – being edited and three other episodes being omitted altogether due to mature subject matter) – the latter instance was part of a programming stunt to promote its sequel series,
Girl Meets World, focusing on the children of the earlier sitcom's principal characters Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence-Matthews (and airing in the same Friday night time slot as its predecessor). ABC Family has rebroadcast episodes of
Boy Meets World (2004–2007, 2010-2015 and since 2024),
Full House (2003–2012, and briefly during 2013),
Step by Step (2001–2010),
Family Matters (2003–2009),
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (2007–2011) and
8 Simple Rules (2007–2014).
MTV2 also aired
Boy Meets World (2011–2018) through a separate syndication deal; beginning in 2016, it shared the rights to
Boy Meets World with
TeenNick, which used the series as a lead-in to its own 1990s block,
The Splat.
Nick at Nite has aired
Full House (2003–2009, 2010–2011 and 2012–2021),
Perfect Strangers (2003),
Family Matters (2009–2013) and ''
Hangin' with Mr. Cooper (2014–2015). Ion Television, before its transition to an all-drama lineup, ran Perfect Strangers
(only during October 2007) and Hangin' with Mr. Cooper
(2007–2008). Prior to its replacement by Discovery Family in October 2014, the Hub Network also aired Step by Step
and Sister, Sister
(which only spent a brief portion of its original ABC run as part of the TGIF'' block) for several months that year. On July 27, 2017,
Hulu and
Warner Bros. Television (whose
parent company previously owned a 10% share of the service through
Turner Broadcasting System) announced that Hulu would acquire the digital rights to the library of series owned by Warner Bros., that originally aired on the block; this includes the block's most popular shows, such as
Family Matters,
Full House,
Perfect Strangers, and ''Hangin' with Mr. Cooper
. Notable shows not included are Sabrina the Teenage Witch (owned by CBS Media Ventures), Dinosaurs,
and Boy Meets World'' (both already owned by Disney).
Return of comedy to Friday nights (2012–2017) On May 15, 2012 (during the upfronts unveiling its
2012–13 schedule), ABC announced the return of family-oriented comedies to its Friday night schedule starting that November, by pairing
Last Man Standing and freshman sitcom
Malibu Country together from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time, along with returning shows
Shark Tank and
20/20. The
TGIF name was not revived, however, with the hour being advertised as
ABC Comedy Friday for that season.
Happy Endings moved to the 8:00 p.m. hour (with back-to-back original episodes) on Fridays on March 29 after
Last Man Standing and
Malibu Country ended their respective seasons; that move was effectively criticized as a
burn-off maneuver due to both the double-episode scheduling and ABC choosing not to renew
Happy Endings (which had been suffering from declining ratings in its previous Tuesday slot earlier that season) for a fourth season two months later. Due partly to the continued strength of
Shark Tank and
20/20 (and to a somewhat lesser degree,
Last Man Standing), ABC became a challenger for CBS's usual dominance on Friday nights starting with the 2012–13 season. However, the successes of
Last Man Standing and
Shark Tank on in their respective Friday slots did not do much to help shore up ratings for the comedies slotted between them in the 8:30 p.m. Eastern time slot, all of which struggled and were eventually cancelled. The one-hour family comedy block returned for the
2013–14 season, with sophomore series
The Neighbors joining
Last Man Standing, where the former floundered. Another freshman comedy,
Cristela (a starring vehicle for co-creator
Cristela Alonzo), joined
Last Man Standing on Fridays for the
2014–15 season, only to also be cancelled after the conclusion of its first season. Yet another sitcom,
Dr. Ken (a star vehicle for former doctor turned stand-up comic
Ken Jeong), joined
Last Man Standing on the block for the
2015–16 season. (Of the four sitcoms paired with
Last Man Standing on Fridays,
Dr. Ken was the only series that returned for an additional season, getting a second season renewal for the
2016–17 season.) Both
Dr. Ken and
Last Man Standing were canceled in May 2017, with their Friday stablemate
Shark Tank being moved to Sundays for the 2017–18 fall season. The changes culminated in ABC choosing to revamp its Friday night lineup – despite continued strong ratings for
Last Man Standing and
Shark Tank in their respective slots – to focus on drama series, with ABC filling the first two hours of its Friday lineup with returning series
Once Upon a Time and freshman
Marvel superhero drama
Inhumans for the 2017–18 season. (In the case of
Last Man Standing, its cancellation was cited as being due to the expiration of a contract between
20th Century Fox Television and ABC, in which 20th Century Fox Television covered the show's production costs, after ABC declined to negotiate license fees to prevent it from having to handle production costs going forward.)
TGIT (2014–2018) ABC paid homage to the
TGIF phrase and branding when it began marketing its Thursday night lineup for the 2014–15 season, consisting entirely of dramas created by
Shonda Rhimes (''
Grey's Anatomy, Scandal,
and How to Get Away with Murder''), as "TGIT" (Thank God It's Thursday); other than the similarity in name and both airing on the same network, the two blocks are in no way related, and due to their completely divergent
parental ratings, meant for different audiences.
Station 19 joined TGIT when that show premiered in 2018.
Third run (2018–2019) After experiencing mediocre ratings on Fridays, ABC made several programming moves that resulted in the discontinuance of its Friday drama block after one season. In February 2018, ABC announced that
Once Upon a Time (which had been experiencing declining viewership throughout its run, with its most noted declines taking place since its fifth season) would end after seven seasons. That May, the network cancelled
Inhumans after one season, while giving another Marvel series,
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which replaced
Inhumans for the 2018 midseason), a sixth season renewal for ABC's summer 2019 schedule. For its
2018–19 schedule, ABC announced it bring back comedies to the Friday night slot, with the lineup consisting of returning family sitcoms
Fresh Off the Boat and
Speechless, along with the game show
Child Support (which experienced decent viewership for its inaugural season in the winter of early 2018). In July 2018, ABC confirmed that the block would reinstate the "
TGIF" name when the lineup debuted on October 5. Unlike the previous incarnations, the block only consisted of an hour of sitcoms, as
Child Support (which maintained some comedic elements) occupied the 9:00 p.m. hour. The first promo debuted during
Fresh off the Boat on August 10, 2018, featuring new graphics and using an updated version of the 1994–96 variant of the block's original theme. In a twist,
Last Man Standing – which was picked up by
Fox for a seventh season after a one-year sabbatical – competed against the
TGIF block, leading off an hour-long comedy block (Fox's first attempt at airing sitcoms on Fridays since a short-lived effort in the
fall of 2009) called
Fox Funny Friday, airing in the same timeslot that ABC carried it for most of its original run. For its season premiere, the child casts from
Fresh Off the Boat and
Speechless hosted the lineup: the segments were featured in the middle of each show, including the outro. For the 2019 midseason, the block was reduced to one hour, as ABC permanently expanded
20/20—which had shifted away from its traditional newsmagazine roots a few years earlier to focus mainly on
true crime stories—to two hours. In September 2019, the
TGIF name was once again retired, no longer being mentioned in promos and bumpers, with the block being referred as to "ABC Friday Night"; the remaining sitcoms were dropped by the spring of 2020 in favor of the returning
Shark Tank. ==Lineup history==