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BET Adding Family Matters to Schedule in March; IFC Orders Second Season of Comedy Bang! Bang

Lifetime Fall 2008 Schedule; Last Minute Updates for TV Land and BET

It's time for another fall 2008 schedule! Today we will give you Lifetime's Fall 2008 line-up, which begins Tuesday, September 2. They will be adding Desperate Housewives repeats to the weekday line-up! The series up until then was airing once a week on weekends. Desperate Housewives also will be coming to local syndication this fall starting weekend of Sept. 20 in a two-year deal for weekend play, look for it on Fox-owned MyNetwork TV stations. On Lifetime, the series will air weekdays at 8:00am & 12pm ET/PT. The 8am airing will replace two episodes of The Nanny, while the 12 noon airing will replace the start of the movie, which slides to 1-3pm. The Nanny will now only air at 2am. Starting in October, Lifetime will repurpose the latest episode aired of Desperate Housewives on ABC about a week or two later on Lifetime. We don't have information on October yet, so we will let you know if it is in a slot other than 8am or 12pm.
Also, coming to Lifetime this September is the ABC reality series Wife Swap. Wife Swap will air weekdays at 3:00pm & 4:00pm ET/PT. At 3pm it will replace a movie and the 4pm airing will replace an hour of The Golden Girls. Golden Girls will still remain in the 9am hour and 1am hour. It was originally announced for October, but it will air earlier. There will be an Army Wives marathon on Labor Day from 11am-9pm. There are no other real changes, but I adivse you to view the full Lifetime September 2008 line-up!
Stay tuned tomorrow for another Fall line-up!

TV Land has made some one-time changes for this week, for more promotion for the original series Family Foreman. They will wraparound the series with The Cosby Show tonight from 8-10pm and again from 2-4am. Then on the weekend, Family Foreman encores will get a boost from The Jeffersons on Saturday from 1pm-4:30pm, while The Cosby Show will air out of the encores from 6pm-8:30pm and again from 1am-6am. Finally, this Sunday Cosby Show will be used from 11pm-6am following encores of Family Foreman. Check our TV Land July thread, for details. We'll keep you up to date, if TV Land does something similar for next week.
We mentioned before that BET now has a rotating sitcom wheel from 9-11am each weekday morning beginning this week, with Thea, Diff'rent Strokes, The Parkers, Girlfriends, and Sanford airing each day. BET aired Thea on Monday and Diff'rent Strokes on Tuesday this week, but now they have made a change. Diff'rent Strokes will air Wed-Fri mornings this week instead of the other three shows. No reason was given for the change. So what about next week? As of now, Thea is slated for Monday and Friday and Diff'rent Strokes Tuesday through Thursday. So it seems they are not going to air Girlfriends, The Parkers and Sanford in this wheel afterall. Check out the episode information for the remainder of this week and next week, if you want to know the episodes.

BET Adds Diff'rent Strokes, Malcolm and Eddie, Sanford, Thea; Remembering David Groh

Happy President's Day! We salute this holiday with some great sitcom news! I'm not sure if many of you know, but BET does air some sitcoms currently. They air Jamie Foxx Show, Wayans Bros., and In Living Color on weekdays and The Parkers and Girlfriends in blocks and marathons. Now more sitcoms are coming! BET will add the classic '80s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes to their line-up starting TOMORROW (Tuesday, Feb. 19). The show will air weekday mornings at 9:00am and 9:30am. Catch Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson from the beginning as BET will bring you the show in order starting with the first episode. This is not confirmed yet, but starting the week of Feb. 25 the show could also air at 3:00pm and 3:30pm, but we will let you know if that is the case. It won't air in that slot this week, we know that...so catch it in the mornings! Now the world don't move!

Also joining BET's weekday line-up tomorrow is the '90s sitcom Malcolm & Eddie. Don't miss the hilarious adventures of Malcolm McGee and his roommate Eddie Sherman...starring Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Eddie Griffin. The show will air right after Diff'rent Strokes in the mornings at 10:00am and 10:30am. It will also air at 4:00pm and 4:30pm, with an encore of the morning airings at 11:00pm and 11:30pm. As with Diff'rent Strokes, you can catch this show in order starting from the very first episode.

So what will happen to BET's other sitcoms because of this? You can catch The Jamie Foxx Show weeknight at midnight-1am and The Wayans Bros. from 3-4am weeknights. While In Living Color will air on weekends in a weekend block with two other new additions (see below). Girlfriends and The Parkers can still be seen in marathons and special blocks. Upcoming marathons for them include: The Parkers will get a President's Day marathon today from 10am-7pm, as BET promises to keep you laughing 9 hours straight with The Parkers BET marathon. Tune in for laughs from funny lady, Mo'Nique. Girlfriends will get a 12-hour marathon this Saturday (February 23) from 9am-9pm.

I mentioned earlier that the sketch comedy In Living Color will move to weekends only now. This change will happen the weekend of March 1. I believe one episode will air with an encore each weekend. Kicking off the weekend block is the BET return of the short-lived 1980 sitcom, Sanford. BET aired reruns of this short-lived sitcom in the past and now it makes its return! Redd Foxx brought back the irascible Watts junkman, Fred Sanford three years after leaving Sanford and Son. With Lamont away in Alaska, Fred was still trading barbs with Aunt Esther, along with a new cast of characters, including his roly-poly business partner Cal and a wealthy widow named Evelyn. 26 episodes were created. You can catch Sanford on BET late nights on Saturdays at 2:30am starting March 1 with an encore on Sunday mornings at 11:30am. Following Sanford, it is another short-lived sitcom and another show from BET's past, Thea! The short-lived 1993 ABC sitcom makes its return on BET with its 22 episodes. The show is about a widow that keeps her four kids in line with discipline and lots of love while holding down two jobs. It was the first series for Brandy Norwood and stars Thea Vidale. Thea will air Saturday nights at 3:00am and Sunday afternoons at 12 noon.
Following Sanford and Thea on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons is the aforementioned In Living Color at 3:30am on Saturday nights and 12:30pm Sunday afternoons.

BET is certainly getting better and we will keep an eye on them. All of its newest acquisitions (Diff'rent Strokes, Malcolm & Eddie, Sanford, Thea) are from Sony Pictures Television, which is a sign maybe they have some sort of deal with them. Let's hope more sitcoms join. If we have any updates, we will bring them to you, but for now discuss this great news HERE!


We leave you today with some sad news. David Groh best known for his role on the 1970's TV sitcom Rhoda as Rhoda's husband, died of kidney cancer last Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Groh became an instant celebrity in 1974 when he starred as the easygoing Joe Gerard opposite Valerie Harper's neurotic Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show spin-off. But by the third season of Rhoda the couple divorced and he was off the show. He has also guest starred on other series (mainly dramas) such as Police Story, Fantasy Island, Trapper John MD, Buck Rogers, Hotel, Simon & Simon, Kate & Allie, Hunter, LA Law, Spenser: Fore Hire, Room for Two, Sisters, Jake and the Fatman, Melrose Place, Baywatch, Law & Order, VIP, Walker Texas Ranger, and was a regular on Black Scorpion. On daytime TV he played D.L. Brock on General Hospital in the 80s. Groh appeared on Broadway in Neil Simon's Chapter Two and in Twilight of the Golds in 1993. He also had film roles in Two-Minute Warning (1976) and A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich (1978), among others. One of his last roles was a guest appearance on the sitcom Girlfriends.
David will certainly be missed by fans of Rhoda and other programs he appeared in. Mr. Groh was only 68.