View Full Version : How big of a draw was the original "Night Court"


TMC
01-21-2023, 05:05 AM
What I mean is that, Night Court has in the past, been written off (https://www.quora.com/Why-has-Night-Court-been-considered-the-black-sheep-among-NBCs-sitcom-dynasty-of-the-80s) as being the "black sheep" (https://www.avclub.com/night-court-was-the-black-sheep-of-nbc-s-sitcom-dynasty-1798262560) to NBC's "Must See TV" sitcom dynasty (at least during the 1980s, when they also had The Cosby Show, Family Ties, and Cheers).

But I recently read a comment elsewhere that argued that the original Night Court was kind of one of those things where I sort of vaguely know it from people bringing it up but there hasn't really been a lot of pop cultural osmosis with it. Let's put it this way, imagine if you randomly showed someone a screencap from, they probably wouldn't be able to identify it and they certainly couldn't tell you the plot of any episodes or anything.

So at the end of the day, was it a solid if unspectacular performer for NBC. The highest rated season (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Court#Episodes) for Night Court, was Season 4 (1986-87), when it ranked #7 in the Nielsens and earned a 23.2 ratings share. But other than that, it feels like the only real mention of it that most remember was the 30 Rock episode (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_with_the_Cast_of_Night_Court). The 30 Rock episode (https://screenrant.com/night-court-30-rock-same-universe-theory-explained/) in itself, is now morbidly hard to watch since Harry Anderson, Markie Post, and Charles Robinson are all now deceased, and thus, can't participate in the 2023 revival.