What were popular tv shows of the 1980’s

There were many popular TV shows in the 1980s.

Television was transformed in the 1980s. With the advent of cable, the three major networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — lost their monopoly on what Americans viewed in their living rooms besides 4 channels on UK TV. Channel 5 did not arrive til the late 1990’s.

In the late Seventies, Time Inc.’s Home Box Office became available. In 1980, Ted Turner unveiled the Cable News Network (CNN). Media baron Rupert Murdoch paid a billion dollars for Twentieth Century Fox and, with Barry Diller, created TV’s fourth network, Fox.

The decade was the golden age for primetime soap operas — Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, and Knots Landing all had their legions of faithful viewers. New life was breathed into the sitcom, with hit series like The Cosby Show, Cheers, Family Ties and the irreverent Married. . .With Children.The animated sitcom The Simpsons debuted in 1989, though Bart Simpson had previously made appearances on Fox’s The Tracey Ullman Show.

Top crime dramas like Magnum P.I. and Hill Street Blues enjoyed long runs in the 80s, while the innovative Miami Vice had a significant impact on television imagery. Programs like thirtysomething and Moonlighting appealed to the yuppie crowd. TV talk shows hosted by the likes of Geraldo Rivera and David Letterman became more provocative and occasionally outrageous.

Some of the most popular shows of the decade included:

1. Dallas: This long-running soap opera followed the lives of the wealthy Ewing family and their oil empire in Dallas, Texas.
2. The A-Team: This action-adventure series followed a team of ex-Special Forces soldiers who worked as mercenaries and took on various missions.
3. Cheers: This sitcom followed the lives of the employees and regular patrons of a bar in Boston called Cheers.
4. The Cosby Show: This sitcom focused on the Huxtable family, a middle-class African American family living in New York City.
5. Dynasty: This prime-time soap opera followed the lives of the wealthy and powerful Carrington family and their oil company.
6. Family Ties: This sitcom followed the Keaton family, a middle-class family living in Columbus, Ohio.
7. Full House: This family sitcom followed the lives of the Tanner family and their friends as they navigated life in San Francisco.
8. The Golden Girls: This sitcom followed the lives of four older women who lived together in Miami, Florida.
9. Growing Pains: This sitcom followed the lives of the Seaver family, a middle-class family living on Long Island, New York.
10. Knight Rider: This action-adventure series followed the adventures of a high-tech car named KITT and its human driver, Michael Knight.

Film wise, the Eighties was the decade of the sequel, and in some cases the sequel was as good as (or even better than) — and as commercially successful — as the original. Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones became an American icon in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Comic Eddie Murphy became a big star of the big screen with Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). Lethal Weapon(1987) and Die Hard (1988) defined the action flick, and both spawned hit sequels. Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo flexed America’s muscles and represented the nation’s renewed patriotic fervor inFirst Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988).