SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

The Hub has made some slight schedule changes to its sitcom line-up for the first time. Before we get into that, weekend mornings saw some changes begin this past Saturday (Feb. 12), with the "Huboom" block added to weekend mornings. Classic Batman airs in the 6am hour followed by classic G.I. Joe at 7am and classic Transformers at 7:30am. This block will continue to air Mon-Thurs starting at 11:30pm as well. The 6am weekend Batman airings are just encores of the 3am airings on early Saturday and Sundays. There are some other changes on weekend mornings, but that are just the animated series moving to different times like Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? moving from 9am to 10:30am.
The change that concerns us more is the sitcom change starting tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb. 15). Family Ties and Happy Days will be switching timeslots, so Family Ties moves to the 10pm hour with an encore now at 4am and Happy Days moves to an earlier time to the 8pm hour with an encore now at 2am. Tonight, The Hub has Valentine's Day themed episodes from 9pm-11pm of The Wonder Years, Doogie Howser and back-to-back Happy Days. Everything else remains as is, on the Mon-Thurs changes sitcom wise. Friday nights remain the same with the comedies airing from 2am-4am (Doogie Howser, Happy Days and back-to-back Batman). Saturday nights has those still plus The Wonder Years in the 1am hour still. And Sunday nights has all those plus Family Ties in the 12am hour still.

Finally, we have some sad news to report again. Betty Garrett, a veteran actress who started her career on such MGM musicals as On The Town and Take Me Out to the Ballgame, but is more known for her television work on All in the Family and Laverne & Shirley has died. Garrett died early Saturday morning (Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011) at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center of an aortic aneurysm. Just last Wednesday, Garrett went to dinner with friends and afterward taught a weekly musical comedy class at Theatre West, the nonprofit theater she helped found in North Hollywood half a century ago. Her death was first reported by KABC in Los Angeles and then a friend of Betty's confirmed it.
Garrett was best known on TV for her roles on two popular 1970s sitcoms, as landlady Edna Babish on Laverne & Shirley and as Archie Bunker's neighbor Irene Lorenzo on All in the Family. In 1975, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress on Television for All in the Family. She has also guest starred on many other series such as The Fugitive, The Love Boat, Mr. Merlin, Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls, Harts of the West, The Good Life, Townies, Union Square, Boston Public, Becker (for which she was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2003) and Grey's Anatomy in 2006.
We will let you know if there will be any on air tributes to her, but you can catch All in the Family Sun-Thurs at 9pm & 9:30pm and Saturdays 7pm & 7:30pm on Antenna TV, along with airings on TV Land weekdays in the 6pm hour. Coincidentally, TV Land had scheduled the start of season four (when Betty joined the series) starting this Thursday (Feb. 17), so you can catch her first episode then at 6pm. And Laverne & Shirley airs Mon-Thurs at 11:30pm on The Hub. Betty will be deeply missed, especially by her sitcom fans. Ms. Garrett was 91.