- Jiminy Glick: Why was it called Fridays?Larry David: Well, because it was just like Saturday Night Live—Jiminy Glick: But not funny.Larry David: But not funny, yes!
Fridays was a Sketch Comedy television series produced by ABC. Lasting from April 1980 to April 1982, it was regarded (and in a lot of ways was) a blatant attempt to compete with the massively successful Saturday Night Live on NBC: it featured a parody news segment; musical guests; and starting in its second season, celebrity guest hosts (including George Carlin, the show's first such host, had also hosted the premiere episode of SNL in 1975). Comedian Jack Burns served as the show's announcer and introduced musical acts onscreen.
The show was initially poorly-regarded by critics for being an obvious knockoff of SNL that relied on more vulgar, lowbrow shock humor (some ABC affiliates refused to air it after just a few episodes). However, opinion began to reverse later in the year as SNL was going through its disastrous sixth season, with both critics and viewers complimenting Fridays' edgier, inventive material (most famously Andy Kaufman's 1981 hosting stint that ended with a Worked Shoot fight on stage) and its forays into pointed political satire (Ronald Reagan and Moral Guardians being frequent targets). The show was also noted for embracing new genres of rock music compared to SNL at the time. But this wasn't enough to keep ABC from putting Fridays in a midnight timeslot to make way for the increasingly popular news show Nightline, and cancelling the show at the end of its thirdnote season.
Fridays is nowadays remembered as the first of numerous failed attempts by non-NBC networks to successfully compete with SNL. However, interest in Fridays has been revived in recent years, helped by the fact that despite its short run, it was the starting point for Larry David and Michael Richards, who were both cast members. Shout! Factory released highlights from Fridays on a five-disc DVD set in 2013, and has since made the entire series available for streaming to outlets like Tubi and YouTube.
Fridays includes examples of:
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Several of the sketches play around with this trope:
- One sketch shows a little girl (played by Melanie Chartoff) losing a tooth and eager to give it to the Tooth Fairy, only for her parents (Michael Richards and Maryedith Burrell) to admit that the Tooth Fairy isn't real. From there the girl learns that her parents aren't real either because they're actors, and her bedroom isn't real because it's a set.
- Another sketch follows a couple who rent an apartment in Hollywood that comes with a studio audience.
- Darker and Edgier: A feature of the show that tended to either upset or please the critics, depending on the time and the quality of the humor. Many of the sketches (especially in the first season) showed gore, cannibalism, disgusting behavior, and blasphemy. But as the second season developed, the show won some plaudits for ambitious writing, namely sociopolitical humor that was more hard-edged than SNL was known for at the time.
- Moral Guardians: Routinely and savagely mocked. A particularly good example is the first sketch from the February 1981 Andy Kaufman appearance, a Show Within a Show ostensibly interrupting Fridays: The Moral Majority Comedy-Variety Hour, backed by the Christian conservative organization founded by Jerry Falwell that was influential in the early '80s (but has since disbanded). A punk band performs Bowdlerized songs, a commercial break advertises a book burning in the style of a monster truck rally, and a magician makes the sole black member of the audience disappear.
- Ms. Fanservice: Melanie Chartoff was certainly treated as one; her intro in the opening sequence shows her lounging in a hot tub.
- Very Special Episode: Unusual for a sketch comedy show at the time, the series had its serious, somber moments:
- The episode which aired after the assassination attempt against President Reagan showed all nine cast members gathering together to discuss how they felt during previous similar incidents, including the Kennedy assassination.
- One sketch, played mostly straight, showed a punk rocker (played by Michael Richards) arguing with his father about his lifestyle, with the father disowning his son and the rocker giving a heartfelt defense of the punk generation. The sketch takes a swerve to humor when the rocker discovers that his father was being literal: he's not his biological son on account that they have different hair colors.
- Worked Shoot: The infamous fight between Michael Richards and Andy Kaufman — probably the one thing Fridays is remembered for — was staged, as was Andy's apology the following week.
