Just over two decades ago, NBC executives were brainstorming ways to bring even more attention to the network's four highly rated Thursday night sitcoms, and hit on an idea that took advantage of the New York–centric high jinks of Mad About You, Friends, Seinfeld, and the Dabney Coleman–starrer Madman of the People. The crossover stunt, named "Blackout Thursday," debuted 20 years ago today, on November 3, 1994, stretching across the night's popular comedies (not counting a notable holdout) and becoming one of the splashiest programming experiments ever attempted by a major network.

"I don't recall exactly where we came up with the blackout theme, whether it came from the promotions department or programming," says Dan Holm, a then–senior director at NBC (and now an occasional freelancer at the Tonight Show and Late Night) who'd come up with the "Must See TV" slogan the season before, in an interview with Esquire.com. "But I remember that's when 'Must See TV' started to hit its stride."

For those still feigning amnesia, let's take a quick recap of the night's events, starting with a promo teasing the stunt:

"Blackout Thursday" kicked off that night on Mad About You, when Jamie Buchman (played by Helen Hunt) precipitates a citywide power outage after meddling with the cable hookups on her building's rooftop.

On Friends, the Jamie Bunchanan–wrought blackout has caused unimaginable mayhem, such as trapping Chandler in an ATM vestibule with supermodel Jill Goodacre (legendary line: "Gum would be perfection") and leading the rest of the gang on a search for a neighbor's cat (and introducing us to the recurring characters Mr. Heckles and Paolo).

At 9 p.m., the lights come back on. Jerry Seinfeld, whose eponymous sitcom occupied that slot, flat-out refused to participate in "Blackout Thursday." Instead, we were given "The Gymnast," which featured George Costanza eating an eclair out of the garbage.

The gimmick wrapped up on the ill-fated Coleman vehicle Madman of the People, where Coleman's newspaper-columnist character "spends the blackout busted for looting." That's a direct quote from the promo clip above; all but obliterated from collective memory since its lone season, there's barely a scrap of Madman footage to be found online.

Of course, show-to-show crossovers were old hat on NBC by 1994; a wackadoo example found Carla from Cheers serving drinks to the doctors from St. Elsewhere. And NBC had, in November 1991, already tried a similar disaster stunt across a full night of programming: Its "Hurricane Saturday" featured the characters on The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and Nurses allweathering the same tropical storm. But with "Must See TV" becoming a self-fulfilling catchphrase and the Friends juggernaut quickly gaining traction, "Blackout Thursday" proved to be a different kind of animal. "It solidified the Thursday legacy that NBC had at the time," says Holm. "The chemistry was there. It was a tremendous success." Indeed, Friends gained about five million viewers from the week before, and even Seinfeld's blackout-boycotting "The Gymnast" saw a 2.5 million-viewer bump. (It was the second most-watched primetime program of the week behind Home Improvement.) "You're always looking for audience from one show to the next to fill the night," says Holm, "from early in the first sitcom to the end of the last drama. You're looking to escalate the night. In this case, it gave them a great reason to stick around."

What hasn't stuck around, for better and worse, are all those good feelings the TV-watching public once held for novelties like "Blackout Thursday" and the very idea of sitting down to consume a single night of programming on network television. Instead, we tend to cherry-pick our own slates of shows and watch them when it suits us best. While the one-to-one show crossover is still feasible—after years of mutual acrimony, the folks behind The Simpsons and Family Guy finally pulled off "The Simpsons Guy" last month—a stunt involving more shows would have a tough time getting greenlighted, and would likely be considered super-cheesy anyway. Back then, says Holm, "the audience from one of those shows was not averse to watching the next one," whereas today, "my God, there's no way in the world. The TV audience is so splintered… I mean, what would you say? 'Guess what? Three of our shows, two of which you don't really care about, are going to Vegas!'"*

Maybe being spoon-fed a primetime programming lineup was just network pandering, but it also highlighted what TV is supposed to be about: a communal, conjoining habit. There's little doubt that, in general, shows today are of superior quality than they were 20 years ago, but outside of mega-event TV like the Super Bowl and the Oscars (designed for viewers to pick sides and favorites), our TV practices now are reflections of our discriminating, exclusive tastes rather than opportunities to ally en masse. "I remember as a kid, you'd sit around and watch a variety show, and I still have memories of some really stupid acts," Holm says. "But at least they're in my consciousness. At least I can sit around and talk to people my age about them because we all saw them… There's less and less of a shared experience."

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pr%2FQrqCrnV6YvK57xKernqqklravucSnq2ispmSudHyUcmloqpWrtrS106KloGWSoa6kt86uq2asmKq%2FtLDAsmY%3D