Flashback! See the Debut Cheers & Jeers Column From 1983

Cheers and Jeers 1983

For the 2015 Cheers & Jeers issue, we looked through the TV Guide Magazine archives to find the first-ever column that was published in the February 5, 1983 issue. See the shows and TV events that earned a thumbs up and down, and check out the original column layout below.


Cheers

To the writers and producers of Hill Street Blues, for the episode in which Lt.Ray Calletano (Rene Enriquez) says a banquet: “Why is it that when you’re dining here today to honor me as a Hispanic Officer of the Year, I look around and the only other Hispanics I see are Waiters and busboys?” it needed to be said.

Jeers

To Howard Cosell for his droning, pious lamentations during the Larry Holmes/Randall Cobb fight. It was a mismatch all right; but Cobb after all, was merely doing what Cosell has done make people wince while getting rich from the sport of boxing.

Jeers

To the producers of ABC Series The New Odd Couple: for recycling scripts from the series previous incarnation. Couldn’t a rich guy like Garry Marshall spring for all new stories?

Cheers

Three cheers, in fact—one to each network—for keeping their new fall series around long enough with viewers. Unfortunately, in some cases the network kept those new series around for all the wrong reasons—because it’s costly to drop a new show, for instance.

Jeers

CBS called its eight hour miniseries The Blue and the Gray “the star studded television event of the season.” The only trouble that in this saga about the Civil War—a war fought over slavery—almost all the stars where white.

Cheers and Jeers 1983