Such enthusiasm!
Thank you all for taking such an interest.
Being a pop-cultural timeline like TWR, I did find in planning a lot of early changes hinged on what was happening at the nascent FOX network, which began broadcast operations (in earnest) in the fall of 1986 (although its primetime schedule did not commence until April 5, 1987). So let's start there:
Stupid Like a FOX
The Dog Pound
The Late Show (not to be confused with several other programs by that name) was the first-ever original series broadcast by the FOX network, although its abject failure has led FOX to retroactively award that milestone to their first
primetime series,
Married... with Children, which began broadcasting six months later. It was launched as a vehicle for Joan Rivers, who had been the permanent guest host for Johnny Carson. Through most of the 1980s, he was engaged in protracted contract negotiations with NBC - for whom he was one of their few proven draws until their primetime network schedule began taking off mid-decade. There were some rumblings that he might retire in 1987 - his twenty-fifth anniversary on
The Tonight Show - and NBC circulated a memo listing ten possible replacements for him. Rivers, despite being the permanent guest host, was surprisingly not among them. When she found this out, she was livid. She had turned down numerous opportunities to star in her own late-night show out of loyalty to Carson. Thus, when the new fourth network approached her hoping that she might headline their own attempt to do late-night, she jumped at the chance, debuting on October 9, 1986.
This might be a historical footnote but for an interesting wrinkle. Rivers herself crashed and burned on
The Late Show, not lasting a year in the job (she was fired in May). She'd burned her bridges with Carson, who took her decision to defect without consulting him
very personally and imposed a lifetime ban from her ever appearing again on
The Tonight Show, which was even honoured by his successors Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien - Jimmy Fallon, however, lifted the ban, and she appeared twice on his incarnation of the show before her death in 2014. The problem FOX faced was that they needed a new host. There was some talk of NYC-area "shock jock" Howard Stern getting the gig, but these fell apart. There was a short-lived rotation of guest hosts but producers quickly settled on a young African-American comedian named Arsenio Hall. He signed a 13-week deal while FOX worked on a replacement for
The Late Show. Problem was, it turned out Arsenio was a hit. And by the time plans for the replacement show hit a snag and the network realized they had a winner in Arsenio, he had already found other work (co-starring on his friend Eddie Murphy's film
Coming to America). FOX soldiered on with
The Late Show until they finally threw up their hands and cancelled it in 1988.
But Arsenio Hall returned to late-night with a syndicated talk show in 1989. And this man, with his impressive youth demographics and mastery of the cultural zeitgeist, did what no other hopeful before him could: he dethroned Johnny Carson. It didn't help that NBC didn't really need him any more - their primetime network schedule during the late-1980s and early-1990s was one of the most successful in television history. So Carson decided to retire in 1992, after
30 years instead of 25. His ratings recovered in his farewell year but by then it was too late, and Carson's last show aired on May 22, 1992. Although
Late Night host David Letterman was his preferred successor, the network (ironically) chose his
new permanent guest host, Jay Leno, which is a whole other story, but for the fact that the Leno-Letterman wars which would dominate the mid-1990s (Leno eventually emerged victorious) turned the former top dog, Arsenio Hall, into an also-ran. His decision to appeal more strongly to his black audience (not unjustifiable given the tense social climate of the early-1990s) would prove costly, particularly his interview with Louis Farrakhan in 1994; his show was cancelled later that year. (As has been the case for so many other '90s shows, a revival was attempted recently, but it was short-lived).
This is where the WI comes in. Arsenio Hall being named as the
permanent host of
The Late Show in 1987 would make FOX a major player in late night (notably, apart from the short-lived - and even
more disastrous -
Chevy Chase Show in 1993, FOX has never again attempted to re-enter the arena)
and in all likelihood gives the nascent FOX network a
huge hit a couple years ahead of schedule. (
Married... with Children and
The Simpsons both put FOX in the map in the 1989-90 season IOTL.) This could lead to Carson retiring earlier (he renegotiated his contract on an annual or biennial basis) and perhaps lead to Leno, who had been his guest host since 1987, being passed over for the "hipper" Letterman. (This being before NYC was cleaned up, he would still probably have to move to Burbank - of course when CBS poached him IOTL he had the clout to insist on staying in the Big Apple.) Who replaces Letterman on
Late Night is another question. IOTL, the recently departed SNL repertory player Dana Carvey was the hot favourite but declined out of admiration for Letterman, leading them to take a chance on an unknown former SNL and
Simpsons writer named Conan O'Brien. O'Brien wouldn't be a factor ITTL even if it
were 1993, for reasons which will soon be made apparent. Carvey, likewise, is still in the midst of his SNL run in 1989-90 and his best years there are still ahead of him.
More importantly for Arsenio, the oversight of FOX network executives will rein him in to an extent; Farrakhan would
never be a guest of
The Late Show with Arsenio Hall. But Arsenio would probably become a major figure in the entertainment industry through 1988. If he can overtake Carson despite FOX's patchier infrastructure (FOX was mostly UHF channels whereas Carson airs on 210 VHF stations coast-to-coast), it will be a
major blow to Carson and probably see him bowing out by 1990 or even 1989.
You're Thinking Right
Any
Simpsons fan worth their salt knows the story of their genesis: Matt Groening, who was meeting with James L. Brooks to discuss adapting his popular
Life in Hell comic strip into animated shorts for the new variety show
The Tracey Ullman Show, realized
as he was in the waiting room that this would mean signing away all his rights to the comic, so he hastily sketched replacement characters based on his own family. (Groening has a remarkable business savvy - he made a
mint on the merchandising for the
Simpsons characters and - as anyone who has seen official artwork knows - requires that his name always appear on it.) But I'm willing to say that's a burst of inspiration which could easily be butterflied. So for whatever reason, plans fall through and Groening leaves without having sold anything.
The Tracey Ullman Show goes to air with only one recurring cartoon short,
Dr N!Godatu, which doesn't even last through the end of the first season. Without
The Simpsons launching during the show's fourth season, Ullman's two key sidekicks, Julie Kavner and Dan Castellaneta, are able to devote all of their energies to the continuing success of
The Tracey Ullman Show. So my guess is that soldiers on for a good few more years, say until 1994 (eight seasons) - which is when
In Living Color was cancelled IOTL.
Although this brings us to
In Living Color. In the early-1990s, FOX was "the black network" - home to not only
In Living Color but also
Martin and
Living Single among others. But would
In Living Color have aired on a network that already
had a popular variety show (with an all-white cast, I might add)? IOTL,
The Tracey Ullman Show was cancelled in 1990 (after its first and only season without Simpsons shorts), and
In Living Color premiered that same year. It's hard to imagine it finding a home on one of the other three networks. It would be all wrong for the geriatric CBS, and NBC doesn't need to take a risk when they're riding so high. ABC, maybe? Or cable - 1990 is late enough for a berth on cable. Maybe HBO, even. I'm willing to entertain suggestions.
As for Tracey Ullman, she fulfills her dream of becoming the next Carol Burnett, winning a handful of Emmys and possibly getting a sitcom deal after the variety show ends. Or starting a movie career. Or a popular stage run on Broadway. Julie Kavner continues working as a character actress. Dan Castellaneta gets a scene-stealing supporting role on a popular late-1990s sitcom and wins an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. And
The Simpsons never comes to be. And the impact of that one butterfly on the rest of the 1990s would be incalculably massive.
(The name of this section - and of the TL - comes from the theme song of
The Tracey Ullman Show,
"You're Thinking Right", composed and performed by George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic.
I've always liked that title for a no-Simpsons TL).
---
That's enough for today. I did have several other topics of discussion, but it's so dense, every single topic has so many things going on, and it's like poetry, it's sort of - they
rhyme. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one. Hopefully it'll work. It's stylistically designed to be that way and I can't undo that, but I can diminish the effects of it. It's gonna be great.
Yes, I had to get in a few more digs at George Lucas. No, I'm not sorry.
(And I think this is sufficient to generate some discussion before I continue.)
