SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

Throwback ABC Studios Shows Head to ABC App; The Hoff's Birthday Marathon on El Rey

New Dancing with the Stars Cast Has Jaleel White, Melissa Gilbert; Fox Alters Monday and Thursday Schedule

Nick at Nite, Lifetime Schedule Updates; Flintstones Musical Episodes Marathon on Boomerang

Nick at Nite has made some schedule changes. First off, they removed Home Improvement weekdays at 6am this past Tuesday with more The Nanny, while Roseanne replaced Everybody Hates Chris' 2-3am hour, so Roseanne now airs 2am-6am every night. The rest of the changes are basically to Fridays and Saturdays, and they start this weekend. George Lopez now airs in the 9pm hour on Fridays, which is technically still Nickelodeon, replacing Everybody Hates Chris. George will also still air in the 10pm hour on Fridays. Then we have a block of The Nanny from 11pm-2am, as George's 1am hour is no more on Fridays. On Saturdays, Malcolm in the Middle and Everybody Hates Chris will air in new timeslots, with Malcolm in the 11pm hour and Chris in the 12am hour. George Lopez will be the lead-in and lead-out airing in the 10pm hour still and gaining the 1am hour. So The Nanny doesn't air at all on Saturdays now. Sundays is petty much the same as now, but The Nanny is 11pm-2am. And this Sunday (Oct. 25) there is a marathon of The Nanny all-night long from 8pm-2am and some encores from 2am-6am. As we mentioned, there is a Halloween stunt on Monday, Oct. 26 from 8-11pm, but now we have some time shifting. Glenn Martin and Malcolm in the Middle Halloween episodes are still in the 8pm hour, but now George Lopez's Halloween episodes are airing in the 9pm hour followed by an Everybody Hates Chris Halloween episode at 10pm and an encore of the Glenn Martin Halloween episode at 10:30pm. These three-hours will encore on Halloween night (Saturday, Oct. 31) from 10pm-1am.
So that should catch everyone up. View the updated Nick at Nite schedule and highlights. We'll have November info soon, stay tuned.

Moving on to Lifetime, it seems original sitcoms Sherri and Rita Rocks are underperforming with new episodes in the Tuesday at 10pm hour. So, Lifetime will move Rita Rocks to Mondays with a block of episodes airing 9pm-11pm, as new episodes will air from 10pm-11pm. Sherri will air Tuesdays with a block of episodes airing 9pm-11pm, and new episodes at 10pm. Lifetime is trying to get better ratings and a block of the same show usually does the trick.
Lifetime is also changing their daytime line-up starting Monday (Oct. 26). Reba's two-hour block goes from 10am-12pm to 8am-10am. Less than Perfect is now totally gone and off the schedule. Frasier moves up an hour from 9am-10am to 10am-11am and Will & Grace gets the 11am hour, as that was only airing at 8:30am in the mornings. In the afternoon, we now get three Wife Swap episodes, as 1-3pm remain but also 12pm is added replacing Medium. We also now get three episodes of Desperate Housewives from 3pm-6pm, shifting the three episodes of Grey's Anatomy to 6pm-9pm, as Medium is replaced at 8pm. Medium can now be seen weeknights at 12:30am & 1:30am. All is not lost for Medium, as it will get a Halloween marathon next Friday (Oct. 30) from 11am-8pm.
View the full updated Lifetime schedule.

Finally, In addition to making television history as the world's first prime-time animated series (ABC), The Flintstones also offered viewers many samplings of fun, culturally relevant music that delighted viewers throughout the show's six-year run. On Sunday, Oct. 25, these classic animated musical moments will return for a command performance as Boomerang presents a day-long marathon of the best of The Flintstones musical episodes: Bedrock 'N' Roll. From 8am-11pm (ET), America's favorite Stone-Age families--Fred, Wilma and Pebbles Flintstone plus Barney, Betty and Bamm-Bamm Rubble--will "rock out" to prehistoric beats while they welcome a number of celebrity guests, including Ann-Margaret (Ann Margrock) and James Darren (Jimmy Darrock).
Once again showing the depth and breadth of its incredible classic cartoon library, Boomerang presents a rollicking good time with a commercial-free marathon of 15 jamming episodes guaranteed to get your toes tapping. The seven-and-a-half hour rock block will be followed by an encore presentation so that music aficionados coast-to-coast can join in the fun.
View the highlights of some of the episodes airing.

Lifetime Makes Late Afternoon Changes; Retroality.TV Posts July 2009 Features; Remembering Harve Presnell

Starting today (Monday, July 6), Lifetime will make some last-minute late afternoon changes. Weekdays at 4pm will now be another episode of Wife Swap, replacing an hour of Reba. And if that wasn't enough, Wife Swap will also air at 5pm replacing an hour of Still Standing. Still Standing will still air in its 8am hour on weekdays, so not to fret. If you're keeping track, Wife Swap now airs weekdays from 2pm-6pm, that's four straight episodes every weekday! And finally the 6pm hour will now be an hour of Reba, replacing Less than Perfect. Less than Perfect is now only weekdays in the 9am hour. Reba will air primarily weekdays from 6-9pm, with some preemptions such as How I Met Your Mother on Mondays in the 7pm hour. Less than Perfect fans, don't worry you'll get a better slot than just 9am come September. And as a reminder, Grey's Anatomy and Medium join the weekday schedule this September, so you can sure bet that Wife Swap four-hour blocks are just for the summer. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for the Lifetime September schedule and many other fall line-ups in our fall schedule barrage blog posts. Don't you love that time of year?

The great Chris Mann has posted his July cover story and blog updates on his wonderful retro website Retroality.TV. This month's highlights includes a tribute to the incomparable Farrah Fawcett by Jack Condon, the author of the definitive Charlie's Angels Casebook that served as the basis of NBC's 2004 Behind the Camera TV movie about the series. Jack even has a whole room of Angels posters, which you can see on Retroality.
Chris will also post a Michael Jackson tribute on his blog, as well as part two of Holly Hallstrom's tell-all audio interview about Bob Barker and The Price is Right. This candid and no-holds-barred audio series will play out across several weeks this summer, Chris says. She even talks about working next door to the Three's Company stage during the late '70s/early '80s! She has some cool stories about working at CBS Television City during Price from the same era. She also talks about the showcase skits and how they made Price somewhat of a sitcom within a game show. We like sitcoms! Finally, she discusses Bob Barker's recent reported feud with Betty White, and his controversial appearance on GSN's recent Game Show Awards.
And soon he'll post an interview with tennis great Monica Seles (who was on Dancing with the Stars last fall), along with contributor Roselyn Sacco's review of Seles' new book Getting a Grip.
And Chris says he is planning exclusive video later this month, as well as lots of other goodies. Groovy! So check out Retroality.TV! Bookmark it!

Harve Presnell, whose booming baritone graced such Broadway musicals as The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Annie, and in many TV roles has died. The actor died Tuesday (June 30, 2009) of pancreatic cancer at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA.
He appeared in many TV series in his career. He was a regular on the series The Pretender, and guest starred in many series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ryan's Hope, Nash Bridges, Grace Under Fire, Star Trek Voyager, George & Leo, Two Guys and a Girl, The Outer Limits, Payne, Dawson's Creek, Frasier, The Practice, Charmed, Monk, ER, and was Lois Lane's father on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. He also appeared on all episodes of the short-lived sitcom Andy Barker, P.I. He appeared on the original pilot of Hope & Faith as Hope and Faith's father, but it never aired. His final role was a guest shot on Cold Case this past March.
Although he was best known for his roles in musical theater, Presnell also is remembered as William H. Macy's father-in-law in the Coen brothers' 1996 film
Fargo. Among his other movies were When the Boys Meet the Girls, The Glory Guys, Paint Your Wagon, Saving Private Ryan, Mr. Deeds, Patch Adams, Face/Off, and recently on Evan Almighty. He also won a Golden Globe in 1965 for Most Promising Male Newcomer, shared with George Segal and Topol.
He will be deeply missed. He is survived by his second wife, Veeva, six children and several grand children. Harve was 75.

Less Than Perfect Joins Lifetime; Samantha Who and In the Motherhood Return to ABC in June; More Lucy on Hallmark

The 2002-2006 ABC sitcom Less than Perfect starring Sara Rue, Andy Dick, Zachary Levi, Andrea Parker, Patrick Warburton, Will Sasso, and Sherri Shepherd is coming to Lifetime with all of its 81 episodes, including the 8 unaired episodes! It seems they picked the show up since they could be ordering an original sitcom starring Sherri Shepherd. They also did that with Cybill, since they could order an original sitcom (Alligator Point) starring another Shepherd, Cybill Shepherd (no relation to Sherri). Right now both are just ordered to pilot, but this could be good news for both. Cybill airs weekdays in the 8am hour, 5pm hour and 2am.
Less than Perfect lasted four seasons and was about a young female office employee (played by Sara Rue) and her co-workers. The sitcom will join the Lifetime line-up on Monday, June 1, airing in the 9am hour and 6pm hour. In the 9am hour, it will replace Reba. In the 6pm hour it will replace Still Standing. The morning airing of Reba will move to the afternoon in the 4pm hour, replacing an episode of Wife Swap. And recently Reba returned in the 8pm hour, replacing Will & Grace. So Reba is back to 7-9pm week nights, while Will & Grace 8-9pm airings moves to the 1am hour and it still has the 11am and 11pm hours. Also, starting Monday, June 8 in primetime we will get an Army Wives encore at 9pm leading into repeats of Desperate Housewives at 10pm each Monday. Desperate Housewives will also still air weekdays at 12 and 1pm. Movies remain in the 9-11pm block every other weekday, but Fridays is still Wife Swap. Army Wives returns for its third season on Sunday, June 7 for 18 episodes airing Sundays at 10pm.
So, the addition of Less than Perfect means Still Standing is totally off the schedule. Last month it seems, Lifetime removed Medium from Fridays at 11pm, so that is off the schedule, too. Medium is eligible to air five days a week starting this fall, as will Grey's Anatomy (which currently airs Sundays at 11pm), so Medium will likely return then. But the schedule may be less than perfect, but Less than Perfect is a great addition to the schedule!
View the full Lifetime June 2009 schedule and highlights.

ABC sitcoms Samantha Who? and In the Motherhood will return to the schedule on Friday, June 5 in the 9pm hour. Both sitcoms were pulled from the Thursday night schedule two weeks earlier than planned in April. Samantha Who? has 7 episodes remaining to air, while In the Motherhood has 3 more. For Samantha, this could be a slot it can air next season, as it is expected to return for a third season. The sitcom could be in a change of format, though. It is rumored to be changing to a multicamera set-up or a hybrid setup (mix of both single and multicamera). Why? This will cut costs. ABC also might do the same for Scrubs, giving it new life for a ninth season. In the Motherhood is not expected back, so this is just a burn-off. We will find out what all this means on Tuesday, when ABC announces their 2009-2010 schedule and pick-ups. Could Samantha Who? be part of a Friday comedy block in the fall? We shall see. If a Friday block is not in their plans then they should move these Samantha Who episodes to Wednesdays at 9:30pm in the summer instead of Surviving Suburbia. That would work better on Fridays at 9. Just my two cents.

Finally, we end the day with some classic TV news. Hallmark Channel has made a last minute schedule change that goes in effect this Monday (May 18). Replacing two episodes of Matlock, weekdays at 3pm & 4pm will be two-full hours of I Love Lucy! It seems like Hallmark has a love-hate relationship with Lucy. They give it a good slot, pull it, and then give it another good slot. Currently, the series was airing at 2:30am weeknights, and will remain in that slot, too. Everything else will remain the same as it is now. So Matlock is off the schedule again. I Love Lucy 3-5pm will lead-into M*A*S*H.

Stay tuned tomorrow for our blog DVD review of course and a special upfront rumblings edition. Upfront week is next week, so join us all next week. We have some WGN America schedule news as well!