It's fun to imagine what the world was like around the time we each entered it.
We were too young to remember anything, but thanks to a detailed history of TV ratings,
we know exactly which shows our parents were bummed about missing because they were too
busy giving birth to us.
Or too tired from taking care of us.
And they didn't have Hulu or Netflix to use for catch-up purposes!
Yeah, our parents were pretty much savages, but what were they watching on TV?
1972–1976: All in the Family
The social upheaval of the late '60s gave way to more social upheaval in the 70s, and
lots of families' family time suddenly consisted of parents arguing with their liberal offspring
about various hot-button topics.
All in the Family appealed to both sides.
Most of the action centered around Carroll O'Connor's Archie Bunker, a gruff but unexpectedly
lovable bigot, who butted heads with his hippie daughter and her husband, while wife Edith
tried to keep the peace.
All in the Family was one part sitcom, one part public affairs discussion, one part moving
drama, and it so resonated with Americans that it stayed atop the ratings all the way
into the disco era.
1977: Happy Days
Americans in the mid-'70s came down with a bad case of nostalgia for the late '50s and
early '60s.
Enter: Happy Days, a throwback about the wholesome Cunningham family.
The Andy Griffith Show's child star and future Oscar-winning director Ron Howard played wide-eyed
high schooler Richie Cunningham, who hung out at Arnold's Diner with friends like Arthur
"Fonzie" Fonzarelli, who was quite possibly the coolest character on television.
He wore a leather jacket, rode a motorcycle, could make a jukebox play by hitting it, and
summoned young women with a snap of his fingers.
They were different times.
1978–1979: Laverne and Shirley
A rare example of a spinoff doing was well as the show it spun off from, Laverne and
Shirley were first introduced in an episode of Happy Days, then got their own sitcom.
Penny Marshall's Laverne was edgy, Cindy Williams's Shirley was a bit more optimistic.
They were roommates, best friends, and co-workers at the Shotz Brewery in the late '50s and
early '60s.
Bubbling with energy, Laverne and Shirley balanced their time at the bottling plant
with hanging out at Laverne's father's restaurant and fending off the advances of their nerdy
and obnoxious friends.
1980, 1983, 1992–1994: 60 Minutes
60 Minutes has been a part of the CBS lineup since 1968, and the show's in-depth reporting
made it a pioneer in TV news.
It's produced a few moments of world-changing journalism, such as Mike Wallace's 1996 story
about tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.
But perhaps 60 Minutes' most famous segment has been the show-ending palate-cleanser "A
Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," in which the veteran humorously complained about whatever
he felt like.
"Not sleeping is not my problem" "Justin Bieber Lady Gaga, and Usher…. "who?!"
"When did bright colored plastic cows pigs and rabbits get to be art?
I don't like most of the stuff passing for art and it's everywhere"
1981, 1982 & 1984: Dallas
Primetime soaps were the biggest TV fad in the late '70s and early '80s, and the biggest
of them all was Dallas.
It centered around the Ewing family and their massive, Texas-based oil company, headed by
Larry Hagman's downright evil J.R. Ewing.
It also produced one of the most-watched TV events ever: the two-part "Who Shot J.R.?"
cliffhanger that got people tuning in the following season.
1985: Dynasty
By 1985, the popularity of Dallas had diminished, but audiences still wanted to see rich people
behaving badly on primetime television.
ABC happily obliged with Dynasty, starring John Forsythe as tycoon Blake Carrington.
Add in a much younger secretary-turned-wife, as well as Joan Collins as Blake's ex-wife
Alexis, and the show discovered exactly what people wanted to see: Alexis and her new rival
getting into arguments then slapping each other around while wearing extremely expensive
clothes.
1986–1990: The Cosby Show
With the recent allegations against Bill Cosby, it's easy to forget his show was once so well-loved.
Debuting on NBC in 1984 when the popularity of sitcoms was fading, The Cosby Show was
crafted to be a groundbreaking portrayal of a black family something that was rarely seen
on TV.
The Cosby Show often played fast and loose with sitcom standards and in doing so, changed
viewers' expectations.
Some episodes tackled heavy subject matter while others had almost no plot at all, and
just featured the family hanging out and showing how great it was for a family to be together.
It all came together to make The Cosby Show an unstoppable juggernaut.
1990: Roseanne
The Cosby Show wasn't alone as the most-viewed show on TV in 1990.
It also has to contend with Roseanne, another show that broke new ground in television representation.
Rarely had anyone attempted a show about a blue-collar Midwestern family with two working
parents.
But Roseanne was also the anti-Cosby Show, built around a family's financial struggles,
messy lives, and real-world problems that never resolved at the end of an episode.
Through it all, they still managed to stay a close knit family.
It was such an indelible portrait of a particular kind of American family that ABC revived Roseanne
for a short-lived 2018 run, more than 20 years after it initially went off the air.
1991: Cheers
Cheers was so different from other contemporary sitcoms that when it debuted in 1982, it was
nearly canceled, before taking home some Emmys in 1983.
By 1989, everyone was invested in what became the nation's favorite neighborhood bar and
the cast of characters who frequented it.
It was so popular, in fact, that it led to the also-successful spin-off, Frasier, launched
the career of Woody Harrelson, and gets a shout-out in scores of pop culture references.
1995 & 1998: Seinfeld
Finally, after years of shows about things, along came a show about nothing.
Except that Seinfeld was about something the hilariously dark and selfish impulses of some
nasty New Yorkers.
Based on Jerry Seinfeld's scattered observational comedy, it turned into one of the most intricately
written and inventive sitcoms ever made.
It also up-ended the traditional sitcom formula by featuring bizarre, classic moments, like
ordering from the Soup Nazi and messing up an operation by dropping a Junior Mint.
Americans loved the cleverly written storylines that somehow all connected at the end, and
it beat everything else on the air.
1996–1997 & 1999: ER
The fast-paced, ultra-realistic drama ER marked another shift in viewer tastes.
Breaking up the life-and-death tension of a big-city emergency room were scenes involving
the doctors' personal lives; moments that were just as captivating thanks to stars like
George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, and Noah Wyle.
ER was a mainstay of NBC's schedule for 15 seasons, and at times, it was the most watched
show on TV.