Remington Steele is resumed by NBC after a six-month hiatus. During the hiatus, the series' main actor Pierce Brosnan won the film role of James Bond, only to lose the role when NBC unexpectedly renewed the television series. Remington Steele adopts a TV-movie length format but only runs for a few installments before being canceled permanently.
January 17
NBC announces purchase of CBSaffiliateWTVJ, and stripped off WSVN, thus the switch did not take effect until two years later.
January 22
R. Budd Dwyer shoots and kills himself at a televised press conference. The decision by some companies to broadcast the footage results in a debate concerning journalistic ethics.
January 25
CBS' broadcast of Super Bowl XXI becomes the first NFL game to be broadcast in Dolby Surround sound and in stereo.[1] CBS also debuted the theme music (composed by Lloyd Landesman) that would later be used for their college football coverage during this game, as well as its open that was used through 1990.
In the very special episode of Valerie titled "Bad Timing", David and a former girlfriend debate whether to have sex.[2][3] The episode featured the first use of the word condom on a prime time television program.[4] Parental advisory warnings were issued in ads for the episode and NBC placed an advisory warning before the episode aired stating that parents may want to watch the episode with their children. Because of the episode's subject matter, some of NBC's affiliates either aired the show outside of prime time or refused to air it at all. The episode was later released to home video, especially for teachers and health educators to use as a tool to promote safe sex.
Amerika, the science-fiction drama miniseries, showing life ten years after the United States is defeated and occupied by the USSR, was broadcast on ABC.
James Coco makes his final recurring appearance as Tony Micelli's father–in–law, Nick Milano on the ABC sitcom Who's the Boss? Just one day later, Coco would die of a heart attack at the age of 56. The Season 4 episode "A Farewell to Nick" would later be produced in Coco's honor.
KETK-TV in Jacksonville, Texas signs on the air, giving the Tyler market its first full-time NBC affiliate. (NBC had previously been shared on KLTV with CBS (until KLMG-TV signed on in 1984), and later ABC which KLTV retains as a full-time affiliate.)
The forerunner to the Kids' Choice Awards, dubbed 'The Big Ballot', airs on Nickelodeon. The Big Ballot was actually aired over four consecutive weeks (with the movie winners, TV winners, music winners, and finally sports winners being announced for each week) as part of the movie review program Rated K: For Kids by Kids.
The Fox TV network makes its prime-time debut, marking the first time since 1955 that there were four U.S. networks with prime-time programming. The network debuted two shows, Married... with Children and The Tracey Ullman Show, which are broadcast three times each during the night so that viewers watching other networks can switch over and sample the shows.
Valerie Harper makes her final appearance as Valerie Hogan on what was initially called Valerie. After Harper was fired from the series following contractual disputes, the series was renamed Valerie's Family and finally, The Hogan Family come the fourth season.
May 6
Mr. Belvedere is canceled after three seasons; however criticism causes ABC executives to rethink the decision and renew the series for a fourth season. (Since the fall programming schedules were already set, Mr. Belvedere would not premiere until late October.)
Joan Rivers makes her final appearance as host of Fox's talk show The Late Show following her recent firing by the network. For the final show, the set is vandalized with toilet paper, slime, and shaving cream. Her guests are Howie Mandel, Pee-Wee Herman, then-fledgling comedian Chris Rock, Wendy O. Williams, and show stage manager Michelle Aller as her alter-ego Mavis Vegas Davis.[5][6] Soon afterward, the program is renamed The Late Show and features rotating guest hosts including Suzanne Somers, Richard Belzer, and Robert Townsend. After firing prospective guest host Frank Zappa, producer John Scura replaces him with Arsenio Hall, who would make his debut as a talk show host. Eventually, Hall is named the permanent replacement host in mid-1987.
CBS becomes the last American network to cease a chime intonation at the beginning of telecasts; satellite feeds have made the tones obsolete (their function was to signal to the affiliates to start broadcasting the network feed in synchronization with the others).
Actor Crispin Glover appears on Late Night with David Letterman to promote River's Edge.[7] To the surprise of Letterman and the audience, Glover appears wearing platform shoes and a wig. During the interview, Glover behaves erratically and nearly kicks Letterman in the face, causing Letterman to walk off the set.[7][8] Four years later, the film Rubin & Ed premiered, in which Glover has a starring role as titular character Rubin Farr. After the release of Rubin & Ed, some speculated that Glover was acting in-character as Rubin Farr during his appearance on Late Night.[7][8][9][10]
Dick Clark's American Bandstand is broadcast for the 2,751st and last time by ABC, after 30 years on the network. (It continued in syndication, then on cable for 2 more years.)
September 7
The original series of Disney's well known animated series DuckTales begins airing on ITV in the UK before being shown in its normal country.
September 7
CBS begins broadcasting its prime time programs with stereo sound dubbed CBS StereoSound.
The final episode of Down and Out in Beverly Hills, an adaptation of the 1986 film of the same name, airs on Fox. It has the distinction of being the first ever show to be cancelled by Fox; 5 of the 13 produced episodes did not air.[11]
The pilot episode for the sitcom Second Chance airs on Fox. In the opening scene, as a throwaway joke, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is shown being judged after his death, with the date given as July 29, 2011. In the year after the Berlin discotheque bombing and the U.S. response, the 1987 pilot was playing off Gaddafi's prominent negative perception by the American public. Twenty-four years later, by coincidence, Gaddafi's death (on October 20, 2011) occurred within three months of the "predicted" date and was from the same cause (multiple gunshot wounds).[12]
Once a Hero, the show's lowest rated program of the season holds its last aired episode on ABC. The following week, specials replaced it until the debut of Sable in its time period on November 7.
Bob Barker stops dyeing his hair brown and appears on The Price is Right for the first time with white hair. He is given a minute-long standing ovation by the audience.
October 16
Max Headroom makes its final airing on its Friday night timeslot on ABC. The previously unaired episodes will later burn off in its Thursday night time slot during the 1988 WGA strike on ABC, replacing Probe. The fourth season opener of Mr. Belvedere and the premiere of Pursuit of Happiness will replace Headroom two weeks later, on October 30 on its Friday night time period.
October 24
ABC allows Game 6 of the World Series between the Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals to be played at 3 p.m. CT (4 p.m. ET) on Saturday afternoon – the only day game of the series, and the last World Series game to date to be played in the daytime (although as the game was played in the Metrodome, the game took place under artificial illumination all the same).
The third season of Punky Brewster begins after the series was off the air for over a year and a half. After NBC cancelled it at the end of the 1985–86 season, the show would continue production throughout the 1986–87 season leading up to its return to the air via first-run syndication.
During a showing of the Doctor Who story "Horror of Fang Rock", PBS member station WTTW-TV Channel 11 in Chicago is interrupted for 88 seconds by a pirate television transmitter overriding the station's transmission signal to broadcast a video of himself in a Max Headroom mask being spanked. The similar incident (for 15–20 seconds) occurred during WGN-TV's newscast when it showed the mask moving up and downwards.
The very first Survivor Seriesprofessional wrestling event is broadcast on pay-per-view. That same night, the World Wrestling Federation's competitor, Jim Crockett Promotions held their fifth annual Starrcadesupercard event. Jim Crockett Promotions had previously aired Starrcade only on closed-circuit television. To compete with Starrcade, the WWF introduced the Survivor Series event, and held it on the same night as Starrcade. The WWF also limited the amount of pay-per-view providers that would carry Starrcade by not allowing providers to carry WrestleMania IV if they did not carry Survivor Series exclusively. Only a small amount of providers carried Starrcade, and it drew a 3.30 buy rate while Survivor Series drew a 7.0 buy rate.
December 7
Remote Control, MTV's first original non-musical program and first game show makes its debut.
SuperStation WTBS airs the 1983 film A Christmas Story[14][15][16] for the very first time. Turner Broadcasting (as both an independent company and, from 1996 onward, as a subsidiary of the company presently operating as Warner Bros. Discovery) would maintain ownership of the broadcast rights to A Christmas Story. Beginning in the mid-1990s, they would air the film increasingly on both TBS and TNT throughout the holiday season annually.
^Smith, Lory (1999). Party in a Box: The Story of the Sundance Film Festival. Gibbs Smith. p. 3. ISBN978-0879058616. The movie starred Crispin Glover as Rubin - he was actually in the Rubin character the infamous night he nearly karate-kicked off David Letterman's nose.
^Carter, Reon (June 25, 1987). "WKCH joins fourth network". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. Knoxville, Tennessee. p. B7. Archived from the original on November 30, 2021. Retrieved November 29, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
