Post-Super Bowl Series Premieres Have Been Part Of Networks’ Game Plans

Ready for the big kickoff? Yes, there’s Super Bowl XLIV, which airs Feb. 7 on CBS (HD), but there’s also a kickoff of another sort after the game. For the first time since 2005, a network will be debuting a new series following the Super Bowl, with its traditionally massive audience. CBS is introducing Undercover Boss, a new reality series that follows high-level chief executives as they slip anonymously into the rank and file of their companies. While working alongside their employees, they see the effects that their decisions have on others, learn where problems lie in their organizations and get an up-close look at the good and the bad. In one episode we saw, one of the big shots even gets fired.

From what we’ve seen, Undercover Boss could be a winner. If nothing else, plenty of viewers watching the Super Bowl will at least be aware of it. Because of this audience potential, debuting a series post-Super Bowl is nothing new. Throughout the first 15 years or so of the Super Bowl telecast, many networks stuck with their regular Sunday night programming after the game, and during most of this last decade several networks have opted to air special episodes of already-existing hits. But CBS’ strategy this year recalls the programming trend from the mid ’80s through mid ’90s, which was to put out a new show after the game and hope that the large football viewing audience would pile on and turn it into a hit. As you can see from the following list of shows that debuted after the game, some of the pilot episodes made it into the end zone, while others barely reached midfield:

POSITIVE YARDAGE

The A-Team — NBC, Jan. 30, 1983 (following Super Bowl XVII). The successful post-S-Bowl launch of this high-octane series really set the trend of trying to debut a new series with such a powerful lead-in blocking for it. The action-packed A-Team was perfect viewing for audiences already revved up by adrenaline from seeing Washington’s John Riggins set Super Bowl records for rushing yards and rushing attempts. Mr. T and company ran pretty steadily themselves for about four years afterward.

Airwolf — CBS, Jan. 22, 1984 (following Super Bowl XVIII). Washington didn’t have nearly the same success as the year before when they made a return to the big game, but CBS tried NBC’s winning A-Team strategy and had similary positive results. The action series Airwolf lasted three seasons on the network after its post-Super Bowl debut.

The Wonder Years — ABC, Jan. 31, 1988 (following Super Bowl XXII). Chubby Checker’s halftime performance during this game gave viewers a retro ’60s flashback, and so did ABC’s “special preview” of this little series. The network took a gamble that football viewers wouldn’t only be drawn in to shows by explosions and action, and they were right. The nostalgic, quietly funny Years lasted six seasons.

Homicide: Life on the Street — NBC, Jan. 31, 1993 (following Super Bowl XXVII). In the process of getting blown out by the Cowboys, the Bills lost six fumbles. Meanwhile, the Cowboys’ Leon Lett had one of the most infamous fumbles in NFL history as he showboated his way toward the end zone. But NBC did not drop the ball when it decided to debut Homicide after this game. The crime drama held on tightly to its Friday night slot for six years.

Family Guy — FOX, Jan. 31, 1999 (following Super Bowl XXXIII). This show began, fittingly, with an episode that found its main character, Peter Griffin, at the Super Bowl. It was received well enough and played on a few years, but poor game management from FOX led to the network calling an ill-advised timeout on the series in 2002. Family Guy eventually returned from the locker room in 2005 and proved a game-winner for the network, and is still going strong in its Sunday night slot.

American Dad! — FOX, Feb. 6, 2005 (following Super Bowl XXXIX). Appropriately enough, the Patriots and the Eagles played the game leading in to the debut of Seth MacFarlane’s second animated series, about ultra-patriotic American Stan Smith. The comedy is still airing.

DOWN ON CONTACT

Brothers and Sisters — NBC, Jan. 21, 1979 (following Super Bowl XIII). After this closely fought, suspenseful game that was not decided until the final minute, perhaps viewers were looking for a chance to kick back and breathe again wit a good comedy. Instead, they got the premiere of Brothers and Sisters. No, this show has nothing to do with the current ABC Sunday night drama. It was one of a number of frat-based sitcoms that broke loose on the airwaves in the wake of the hit film Animal House. This one made it about half a season before being brought down. More entertainment might have been had from NBC’s pregame airing of the movie Black Sunday, about a terrorist attack on a Super Bowl.

MacGruder and Loud — ABC, Jan. 20, 1985 (following Super Bowl XIX). Ronald Reagan performed the coin toss via satellite before this game, on the same day he was sworn in for his second term as president. MacGruder and Loud, a drama about married police officers, barely lasted even one TV term — it ended three months after its post-Super Bowl debut.

The Last Precinct — NBC, Jan. 26, 1986 (following Super Bowl XX). The Bears Super Bowl-shuffled their way to a crushing defeat of New England as a lead-in to this Adam West comedy about police academy misfits. But NBC quickly shuffled the series out the door after only seven more episodes that began airing regularly that April.

Grand Slam — CBS, Jan. 28, 1990 (following Super Bowl XXIV). The most lopsided Super Bowl in history found the 49ers beating up on the Broncos 55-10. Given such an uncompetitive game, it’s likely many viewers may not have hung around on CBS long enough to see the series premiere of this comedy with John Schneider and Paul Rodriguez as mismatched bounty hunters Hardball and Gomez.

Davis Rules — ABC, Jan. 27, 1991 (following Super Bowl XXV). Super Bowl XXV was a nailbiter, with the Giants eventually beating the Bills 20-19 after a last-second field goal attempt by the Bills’ Scott Norwood went wide right. Davis Rules, a sitcom starring Randy Quaid and Jonathan Winters, likewise fought hard to stay in the game. After debuting post-Super Bowl, it was canceled by ABC following 13 episodes. Yet the show tried for a fourth-quarter comeback later that year, as CBS picked it up. But, like the Bills, it was just not to be for Davis Rules — CBS also axed it, after 16 episodes.

Extreme — ABC, Jan. 29, 1995 (following Super Bowl XXIX). 49ers quarterback Steve Young had a pretty extreme game, throwing six touchdowns en route to a 49-26 defeat of the Chargers. But ABC’s Extreme, starring James Brolin in an action-drama about the lives of a search-and-rescue patrol in the Rockies, did not connect with viewers as well as Young did with his receivers. It lasted less than 10 episodes.