TV Land Celebrates 50th Anniversary of The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Many Schedule Changes; Fox Picks Up New Girl For Full Season

Thursday, September 29, 2011

TV Land Celebrates 50th Anniversary of The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Many Schedule Changes; Fox Picks Up New Girl For Full Season

The Dick Van Dyke Show is turning 50! And to celebrate that milestone, TV Land will air a week-long marathon next week starting Monday, Oct. 3, the night of the premiere in 1961. The marathon will air Mon-Fri from 6-9pm with five classic episodes each night. That is a 3-hour block, so that should mean six episodes, but TV Land is off-the-clock, thus we only get five episodes. Then during the weekend of Oct. 8-9, TV Land will present 16 episodes per day from 12pm-9pm (off-the-clock, once again) to celebrate 50 years of magic. And if that's not all Rob Petrie for you, TV Land will also add the series to its regular schedule starting Monday, Oct. 10! But before we get to that, TV Land will bring back Scrubs and air the series weeknights at 9:00pm & 9:30pm starting Oct. 3. This means Everybody Loves Raymond will now be 10pm-12am instead of 9-11pm. The only other change is an extra Bonanza at 5pm, but for the week of Oct. 3 only. The rest of the schedule changes will start Oct. 10, which we will detail now.

The new schedule with The Dick Van Dyke Show will start Oct. 10 and the classic '60s sitcom will air three-hours a day: weekdays 10-11am, 1pm-2pm and 7-8pm. The schedule will now have Bonanza kick things off at 8am & 9am leading into Van Dyke. At 11am & 11:30am, TV Land will air Sanford & Son. Now 12pm & 12:30pm was, as of last night supposed to be Bewitched, but TV Land is now saying it will be another hour of Sanford & Son leading into more Dick Van Dyke at 1pm. IF Bewitched is listed back on at noon, we'll let you know. Back to the schedule, the TV Land Goes West Bonanza block will air from 2pm-5pm. From 5-7pm will be two more hours of Sanford & Son leading into an hour of Van Dyke at 7pm. TV Land was listing M*A*S*H at 5pm, but now they removed it (probably because they have rights from 7pm-7am only). Next we have primetime and Al Bundy and family are back again on TV Land with Married...with Children airing Mon-Sat from 8-9pm, leading into Scrubs. As mentioned, Raymond airs from 10pm-12am. The late night marathon blocks are no more and now we have a set schedule starting at 12 midnight with generally it being Roseanne at 12am, The Nanny at 1am, Three's Company at 2am, more Roseanne at 3am, more The Nanny at 4am, and Boston Legal at 5am.

Weekends will remain the same except The Andy Griffith Show returns, airing weekends from 4-6pm following Three's Company from 2-4pm. The Andy Griffith Show will be brought in to air before The Dick Van Dyke Show, which will air on weekends from 6-8pm. As mentioned, Married...with Children will air Saturday nights from 8-9pm, leading into Raymond from 9pm-12am. Sunday nights will still have M*A*S*H from 8-10pm into Raymond from 10-12. Late nights for weekends will have three series airing in two-hour blocks from 12-6am: The Nanny, Roseanne and Three's Company.

So this is a lot to digest. To recap, The Dick Van Dyke Show joins the schedule. Scrubs and Married...with Children return to the schedule, as does Andy Griffith Show (but on weekends only). Leaving the schedule for now will be The Jeffersons, Good Times, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and Home Improvement. And M*A*S*H will now only air in primetime on Sunday nights.
View and discuss this new TV Land Fall 2011 schedule (scroll down to Oct. 10)! Stay tuned tomorrow for our book review of The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book: The Definitive History of Television's Most Enduring Comedy by Vince Waldron, foreword by Dan Castellaneta (a.k.a. Homer Simpson) and introduction by Dick Van Dyke himself.

After two airings, Fox has ordered an additional 11 episodes of the new single-camera comedy New Girl starring Zooey Deschanel, bringing the series to a 24-episode season order. The comedy premiered as Fox's highest-rated fall sitcom debut in 10 years. Since it launched last week, the single-camera comedy has quickly established itself as Tuesday's No. 1 series among Adults 18-49 and this season's No. 1 new series among Adults 18-34, Women 18-34 and Teens. The series airs Tuesdays at 9:00PM ET/PT and will be all-new next week (Oct. 4). Then, the next two all-new episodes of the new comedy will air at special times (due to MLB Playoffs). The first is on a special night and time on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 9:30 PM ET/PT and then another new episode the following week on its normal night, but at a special time of 9:30 PM ET/PT on Tuesday, Oct. 18 with guest star Lake Bell.