CBS Block Party

CBS Block Party was a programming block that aired on the CBS television network during the 1997-1998 television season. The block was similar to, and was intended as direct competition to, ABC's TGIF lineup and aired on Friday nights from 8pm-10pm ET. Although the block was canceled after one year, the resulting audience fracture caused what turned out to be irreparable harm to the previously dominant TGIF, eventually clearing the way for CBS to dominate the Friday night lineup beginning in the next decade.

When ABC (a network that was in the midst of an overhaul as The Walt Disney Company took over the network) canceled the long-running shows Family Matters and Step by Step, CBS picked them up, paying a $40 million sum to earn the rights to the shows, and made them the cornerstones of the new "Block Party." Two new family comedies were added. The first was a new production from Miller-Boyett Productions (the production company behind Family Matters and Step By Step among other TGIF series), Meego. Meego, in addition to being produced by TGIF alumni, also starred a TGIF alumnus: Bronson Pinchot, who previously starred as Balki Bartokomous in Perfect Strangers and as Jean-Luc Rieupeyroux in the sixth season of Step by Step (Pinchot even used a similar accent to the one he used for the Balki character); Meego also featured well-known contemporary child stars Michelle Trachtenberg and Jonathan Lipnicki. The second new series was The Gregory Hines Show, an eponymous sitcom featuring entertainer Gregory Hines; CBS head Leslie Moonves described the Hines show as being more mature and edgy than the other shows in the block, but still family-friendly enough that children could watch comfortably.

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