ABC Fall 1978 Posters: Thursday

To promote its Fall 1978 line-up ABC commissioned a series of seven posters–one for each night of the week–depicting characters from its new and returning shows. Check back every day this week for a look at one of these posters. Today we’ll examine the Thursday poster.

Thursday on ABC in the fall of 1978 featured four half-hour sitcoms and one hour-long dramas

  8:00PM Mork & Mindy (New)
  8:30PM What’s Happening!!
  9:00PM Barney Miller
  9:30PM Soap
10:00PM Family

The network rolled out its Thursday programming in two waves. The first wave consisted of three special hour-long episodes airing on September 14th: the series premiere of Mork & Mindy aired from 8-9PM, followed by the fifth season premiere of Barney Miller from 9-10PM, and finally the second season premiere of Soap from 10-11PM. The following week the third and final season premiere of What’s Happening!! aired from 8:30-9PM and the fourth season premiere of Family ran from 10-11PM.

Here’s the ABC poster for its Thursday lineup:

ABC Fall 1978 Posters: Thursday

There’s a little bit of overlap between Mork & Mindy and Family but otherwise the various casts are pretty clear.

Let’s take a closer look:

Here’s the cast of Family. Gary Frank and Meredith Baxter Birney do not look very happy.

Here’s another close-up:

Pam Dawber looks a bit like a Kewpie doll here but Robin Williams is pretty spot on.

Check back tomorrow for a look at the Friday poster.