What was on TV December 27th 1980 through January 2nd, 1981

We're back on track with TV Guide this week with a trip back to 1980 just before it became 1981.

The artwork for this ad looks familiar.  Wondering if it's one of Mad's/Cracked's/Crazy's artists.

Thundarr the Barbarian had premiered in Fall of 1980 and would run for 2 seasons.  I was a fan of the show, although post-apocalyptic themes always unnerved me a little, especially when they were going to happen in 1994 as according to this show.  The show design, production, animation and writing were all fairly good with contributions by some of the comic book and animation greats like Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Steve Gerber and Mark Evanier.

As for the AFX After Christmas sale, if I didn't get a slot car track for Christmas, I sure wasn't getting one after it!

I've mentioned "Drawing Power" before and its influence on me. Starring Bob Kaliban and Lenny Schultz as writers/animators of a cartoon studio, and always offering some educational nugget, their cartoons were produced by the same company that produced the popular Saturday morning in-between Schoolhouse Rock shorts.

I don't recall this, but I guess it was the beer equivalent of the "Pepsi Challenge".

The "Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo" was a spin off of "B. J. and the Bear" which was a ripoff of "Smokey and the Bandit".  In this ad we see Deputy Perkins (Mills Watson) is disgusted at the sight of two woman mud wrestling.

CBS' "Happy New Year, America" was their answer to ABC's "Rockin' New Year's Eve".  Note that they hadn't started calling it "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve" quite yet.  The only part I ever watched was the countdown to midnight.  Of course, it was only 11 pm in the mid-west, so I still had a hour to go at that point.  My usual ritual was to bang pot lids together which was kind of pointless since I was usually the only one outside in the neighborhood.

The Tournament of Roses parade was always a disappointment to me.  I guess I was expecting another Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  Instead, I got a bunch of trailers with generic flower displays.  Where's Snoopy???

The various bowl games were never of interest and in fact more of an aggravation to me as they displaced the normal programming schedule.  Never could find anything to watch on New Year's Day.

1980 also saw the debut of "Bosom Buddies" starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scholari as two evicted friends who find a new home in a hotel for women.  Okay, they made one adjustment...  I was a big fan of the show back then (still am), but if you had asked me back then which of the two would make it big, I would have put my money on Peter Scholari.  That's why I don't play the market.

I recall "It's a Living" was changed to "Making a Living" because real-life waitresses thought the original title implied their profession was less-than desirable. I had no idea Wendy Schaal was on the show (as a brunette). This would have been around the same time she was playing "Julie" on Fantasy Island as a blonde.

That's one heck of a Mickey Mouse chair.

Imagine the kid's disappointment when instead he received the chair shown in the tiny picture at bottom right.

"I don't want to look macho."  I just can't help it!