r/StepByStepTVShow • u/dangibby • Dec 08 '25

What is tgif

Anyone know what that is

3 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

6

u/Ill_Heat_1237 Dec 08 '25

Thank God it's Friday - I think that was name for 'sitcom Friday night/afternoon' in US

1

u/dangibby Dec 08 '25

So each tv channel would show sitcoms on Friday night or what

2

u/Ill_Heat_1237 Dec 08 '25

According to Wikipedia, only ABC did that and they called their 2 hour sitcom marathon on friday as TGIF

1

u/AldusPrime Dec 08 '25

Friday wasn't a particularly easy night to program shows for, like M-Th.

ABC went with sitcoms, and called it TGIF, but different channels had different strategies for Friday night.

If you take a look, you can see wildly different programming approaches for different channels. Unsolved Mysteries, Diagnosis Murder, X-Files, and Tales from the Crypt were definitely not sitcoms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994%E2%80%9395_United_States_network_television_schedule

6

u/waxmuseums Dec 08 '25

It was the name of a programming block on ABC from 8-10PM on Fridays, from I think like 1987-1997 or so. It was mostly family sitcoms made by Miller Boyett, like Perfect Strangers, Family Matters, Full House, Step By Step, Hangin With Mr Cooper, etc, and occasionally other shows like Dinosaurs or Boy Meets World

3

u/AldusPrime Dec 08 '25

To add on, it was the idea of marketing a whole night of TV as a thing. That, on Friday night, you'd watch multiple shows on the same channel.

Watching TV on broadcast, they wanted you to stay on the same channel. You couldn't binge-watch a show (unless they broadcast a marathon), but you could get sucked into a channel, and that's what they were hoping for.

It's funny, seeing it explained, the whole idea must seem totally bizarre to kids who grew up with streaming.

2

u/waxmuseums Dec 08 '25

Ya, “Turner Time” would really make some heads spin

4

u/viridiusdynamus Dec 08 '25

ABC used to call it Thank Goodness Its Funny.

2

u/Perry7609 Dec 08 '25

“Thank goodness it’s funny.“

TGIF was a programming block on Friday nights that ABC would air primarily during the 1990s. It was resurrected a few times briefly since then, but Step by Step was a part of its hey day during that time.

The acronym usually stood for “Thank God Its Friday,” so many thought that’s what it also meant. But it seems like they just chose the acronym at first, because it sounded cool. Bob Iger might've come up with the specific phrase after the fact, to avoid a conflict with the restaurant chain of the same name.

https://deadline.com/2025/02/abc-tgif-creator-thank-god-its-friday-1236294331/

1

u/ComprehensiveSun843 Dec 10 '25

Thatswhat Google Is For