Ten Notable Midseason Replacements — And the Shows They Replaced

3. The Young Riders—Twin Peaks

The first episode of Twin Peaks aired on April 8, 1990, a Sunday night, taking the timeslot of the critically adored ABC Sunday Night Movie. The pilot was such a big hit that ABC put the show on its Thursday night schedule, bumping The Young Riders to Monday night, replacing…eh, who cares? The Young Riders ain’t Twin Peaks.

4. The World’s Funniest—Futurama—Malcolm in the Middle

Futurama is the perfect example of a network messing with a good thing. The first episode premiered in March 1999, then eight episodes aired in April and May, then one in September, then one in October, followed by two more in November. Season two made even less sense, especially in a pre-DVR era, as it began in November 1999 and didn’t end until December 2000. At the beginning, it had a nice post-Simpsons time slot, which made too much sense for Fox, so the network put Malcolm (a decent enough show, but no Futurama) there instead, and moved Futurama 90 minutes earlier, to 7 p.m., previously filled by NFL games running too late/The World’s Funniest, hosted by the world’s second most famous James Brown.

5. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet/Shindig!—Batman

Four hundred and thirty-five episodes. That’s how long The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet ran for. The favorite show of grandparents everywhere is the longest-running live-action show of all-time, meaning that while It’s Polka Time and Ozark Jubilee came and went on ABC, Ozzie and Harriet remained strong—until the Caped Crusader came along and introduced America to camp and irony. But because every Batman was a two-parter (“Tune in tomorrow—same Bat-time, same Bat-channel”), the show that dared to ask “how do you make a dishonest shortcake?” also replaced Shindig!, which is actually kind of a shame. Just a few of the special guests on Shindig! were the Beatles, Sam Cooke, and the Who.

6. Totally Hidden Video—The Simpsons

There are times in life where we just have to take a leap of faith with Wikipedia (see: intro), and this is one of them. According to their television schedule page from 1989-1990, we can see that The Simpsons shared a timeslot with Totally Hidden Video, the most literally named show ever. It seems plausible; after all, Fox only aired three nights out of the week during this era. But on their Midseason Replacement page, it says the animated series replaced Booker, a short-lived 21 Jump Street spin-off. All we know is: The Simpsons certainly didn’t replace Alien Nation.