The Weekend Edition

What's Friday night for you these days? Date night? How about Saturday evening? Another night doing shots at the bar with your friends, or perhaps a tasteful grown-up party, complete with canapé and chardonnay? But it wasn't always that way. There was a time when, once the weekend rolled around, that meant it was time to pop the popcorn and settle in for a long night of quality television. Two of them, in fact. I am, of course, talking about ABC's TGIF and Nickelodeon's Snick.

TGIF started first, way back in 1989. I was 4, and probably not watching a whole lot of Full House quite yet. The iteration I know best began in the 1993 season with Family Matters, Step By Step, Boy Meets World and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (which I don't actually remember ever watching-- maybe 9:30 was my bedtime at 8 years old). In the following years, the line-up fluctuated, introducing us to classics and one-season wonders alike: Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Dinosaurs, Teen Angel and several more that lasted such a short time that I can't even name them.

According to ABC's fall schedule, Friday nights in the 2010-2011 season will be filled by a show called Secret Millionaire (sounds like an instant hit, what with "millionaire" in the title), another hour-long called Body Of Proof (let me guess-- it's about dead bodies and evidence and justice and some law and maybe a little order, too, if there's time), followed by everybody's grandmother's favorite show, 20/20. Sounds like a party. No wonder our generation drinks a lot-- our weekend TV choices have gone significantly downhill. To be fair, though, 20/20 has filled the 10 o'clock hour of ABC's Friday night since 1987. We just stay awake a hell of a lot later these days. ABC can't really be blamed for our skewed sleep schedules.

So Friday night, oh what a night. But I always looked forward even more to Saturdays. Snick premiered in 1992 with Clarissa Explains It All, Ren & Stimpy, Roundhouse and Are You Afraid Of The Dark. Favorites, all. I loved the shows that began in the ensuing years, too-- The Adventures of Pete & Pete, The Secret World of Alex Mack, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo (somebody got a little formulaic with their titling, eh?), All That, Kenan & Kel, Space Cases (starring a pre-Firefly Jewel Staite on-- you guessed it-- another spaceship). And who could forget that iconic orange couch?

(Incidentally, Nickelodeon ran a contest in 2002 and apparently gave away the couch in question, filled with $25,000 and 6000 cookies, which means that I definitely quit watching Snick a few years too early, because that would have been totally awesome to win. However-- think of the crumbs!)

Based on sheer number of quality (or at least, nostalgia-inducing) shows alone, Snick wins by a landslide. Boy Meets World really carried TGIF for me. Would anyone from our generation pick our childhood Fridays over Saturdays? I defy you to find that person and bring them to me, so I can sit them down and make them watch my Pete & Pete DVDs until they see the truth.

In any case, our grown-up weekends will never really compare. I love drink specials and dancing as much as anyone, but I'm not sure if it would quite get the approval of the Midnight Society. They're a tough crowd to please, you know.