I thought that a show had to have around 100 episodes or 3-4 seasons worth of episodes to be in syndication. I understand that older shows have longer seasons (30+ episodes), but shows like Munsters & Abbott & Costello only ran two seasons--I wouldn't think that they would have enough episodes to rerun. Could someone explain the rules of syndication?

The addams family had 64 episodes and the munsters had 70. Tv shows made more episodes in the 1950's and 1960's.

I think a show actually only needs 22 eps to be sold into syndication. I remember reading Barry Williams' "Growing Up Brady" book, where he mentioned that Filmation wanted to shoot five more episodes of the "Brady Kids" cartoon, so the total would come to 22, and could be shown in reruns.

The kids and their agent told them "no", but the studio produced them anyway without them.

Originally posted by BLT
I thought that a show had to have around 100 episodes or 3-4 seasons worth of episodes to be in syndication. I understand that older shows have longer seasons (30+ episodes), but shows like Munsters & Abbott & Costello only ran two seasons--I wouldn't think that they would have enough episodes to rerun. Could someone explain the rules of syndication?

Your thinking of local syndication. A show needs around 100 episodes and 4-5 seasons to enter local syndication, while the show is running on network primetime television still or has just finished.

Basically any show that has less than 100 episodes can be aired on cable now.

Police Squad has only 6 episodes, and Comedy Central use to rerun it, and all episodes are avalable on home video.

USA use to air a block of short lived shows, Working, My Two Dads, Men Behaving Badly, etc., TBS use to air reruns of Boosem Buddies.

Today TV Land airs Square Peqs every weekend. It only has 20 episodes. (though they have yet to air production episodes 17-20)

Gidget had very few episodes.
Someone mentioned Square Pegs. I would love to see that again!:)

"Fawlty Towers" only made 13 episodes (on purpose) and it's shown a lot, although it does get rather boring after you've seen each episode five or six times. I think (personal opinion) you really ought to have at least 75 episodes of a series for it to be successful in syndication - just so the fans don't get to remember each episode so clearly that they can't enjoy watching it again. The original "Star Trek" series only made 79.

Originally posted by Penny Lane
Gidget had very few episodes.
Someone mentioned Square Pegs. I would love to see that again!:)

Square Pegs can already be seen on TV Land in their "TV Land Kitschen" block on Saturdays/Sundays at 1:00am/Eastern.

Originally posted by Impressions
Square Pegs can already be seen on TV Land in their "TV Land Kitschen" block on Saturdays/Sundays at 1:00am/Eastern.

That's why I haven't watched it!:lol:

TBS use to air reruns of Boosem Buddies.

It still does weekends at 6:00 am