SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

Week 30: How the Sitcoms Did; 'Happy Days' S2 DVD Is Terrible

We don't have final four day network averages through Thursday, thus we won't give the final averages for the first four nights and an analysis. We do have How the Sitcoms Did, and final numbers for all sitcoms:

Last Sunday Sitcoms (counts for week of April 2-8)

• The War at Home (Fox) 2 episodes - Two repeats did 2.06 and 2.67 million.
  
• The Simpsons (Fox) - A repeat did 4.95 million, down two million from last week's repeat.
  
• King of the Hill (Fox) - A repeat did 4.69 million...nice retention from lead-in.
  
• Family Guy (Fox) - 5.47 million for an encore, not bad, but down from last week's repeat by more than a million.
  
• American Dad (Fox) - 4.98 million for a repeat beat the 8pm hour repeats.
  

Monday Sitcoms

• How I Met Your Mother (CBS) - A new episode did just 7.64 million, down a lot from normal numbers, but up a bit from the last new episode on March 19 (7.27 million).
  
• Old Christine (CBS) - A new episode built from the lead-in a bit and did 7.69 million.
• Two and a Half Men (CBS) - A new episode built from the lead-in a bit and did 13.46 million, down from its average of new episodes but up from the last new episode on March 19 (11.68).
• King of Queens (CBS) - The series returned and built on the lead-in in Households! In viewers it did 13.41 million.
  
• CW Monday Comedies: Chris, All of Us, Girfriends, The Game. Repeat of Chris started it off with 1.98 million, actually the lowest of the block. All of Us did 2.0 million, Girlfriends did 2.19 million and The Game did 2.15 million.
  

Tuesday Sitcoms

None.

Wednesday Sitcoms

• George Lopez (ABC) - 2 all-new episodes did decent, both did 6.36 million. 8pm was up from last week's 5.99 million, but 8:30 was down from last week's 6.53 million.
  
• According to Jim (ABC) - A repeat did just 5.05 million. This week it moves to 8pm with new episodes the rest of the way!
  
• In Case of Emergency (ABC) - Just 3.77 million for the final airing..
  
• 'Til Death (Fox) - A two episode finale from 8-9pm was way down from post-Idol numbers. 7.05 and 8.64 million. 8.64 million is pre-Idol tune-in...inflated numbers.
  

Thursday Sitcoms

• My Name is Earl (NBC) - The show returns after a long break and did just 6.67 million and a 3.0 A18-149 rating. What happened?
  
• The Office (NBC) - 7.71 million and a 4.1 18-49 rating built on Earl on BOTH!
• 30 Rock (NBC) - Lost nearly 3 million from lead-in. 5.07 million. This won't be an Office like success story likely.
  
• Scrubs (NBC) - Held almost all of the lead-in's ratings did 5.05 million and built on 18-49 from a 2.6 to 2.7 rating.
  

Friday Sitcoms
None.

Saturday Sitcoms
None.

Airing tonight (Sunday) are Fox comedies.

Summing it up. Two and a Half Men, King of Queens, The Office and 'Til Death 8:30 were impressive for the week (pathetic week). Everything else was OK (such as George Lopez, My Name is Earl) or just plain old terrible (such as 30 Rock and In Case of Emergency).


We first reported that the Happy Days opening theme "Rock Around the Clock" was replaced on the season two DVD by the "Happy Days" theme that started in season three and we also reported that music has also been replaced, but after we reviewed the set, it was even WORSE than we thought. Nearly all of the music is replaced. The season had over 50 popular songs and we only get about 5 of them, and they are not the major ones. Even "Blueberry Hill" is replaced on all episodes but just one. And the one where it is intact it is only briefly heard. What has CBS DVD done to this set? If the music issue is not enough, the video quality is very bad. We can see a lot of debris and flashing white dots on the film. Some scenes are likely edited out where music was played because the runtimes seem low on a few.
Todd and I went through all the episodes for the music search and we came up with a good list on what is intact and what isn't. The what isn't list is much much bigger. Click HERE to read the review. It is right up there with WKRP in the DVD Wall of Shame.
CBS DVD also didn't do a great job with the second season of Laverne & Shirley. Laverne is slightly better than Happy Days, but still bad. Mork & Mindy is the best and most complete of the three, as it used the least amount of music. Read those reviews: Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy.