'ALF,' 'Designing Women' and 'Matlock' Premiered 40 Years Ago

Fall TV premieres were a big deal for kids in the '80s. I read the "Cheers and Jeers" column in TV Guide every week, and I pored over the Fall Preview issue like I was studying the racing form before the Kentucky Derby.

Rarely did you get four long-running shows premiering in a single week (OK, one is more iconic than long-running). But that's exactly what happened in September 1986.

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Some of these were perfect easy-watching TV. Others actually tackled real issues with humor, which was a big thing in the '70s with shows like All in the Family, but less common in '80s sitcoms outside of the occasional "very special episode." All of them went on to long lives in syndication and became cultural touchstones.

Designing Women (CBS, Sept. 29, 1986)

Forty years ago this week, the women of Sugarbaker & Associates opened for business in Atlanta. They were 100% Southern, but beneath the politeness, they weren't at all scared to, well, say "Bless your heart."

Delta Burke and Cast of Designing Women on TV Guide Covers in 1986 and 1988 — 'Designing Women' TV Guide Covers in 1986 and 1988 (TV Guide)

You could say it fit nicely into the Golden Girls template, with each of the women playing a type, but it wasn't that simple. With its star power, and with The Golden Girls proving a cast of women could lead a hit show, Designing Women ran seven seasons and 163 episodes. It wasn't afraid to touch on heavy subjects, best shown by a Season 2 episode in which a friend of the firm who is dying of AIDS asks the women to design his funeral.

ALF (NBC, Sept. 22, 1986)

It must have been a hoot to hear this one pitched in an NBC executive boardroom. ALF followed Gordon Shumway, a wisecracking alien from the destroyed planet Melmac (not to be confused with Mork's planet, Ork), who crash-landed in the Tanner family's garage.

In full-body shots of ALF walking or standing, the character was played by Michu Meszaros, a 2-foot-9 Hungarian circus performer. Most of the time, though, ALF was a puppet operated and voiced by the show's co-creator, Paul Fusco. ALF had a taste for cats, but he never managed to get his paws on the Tanners' cat, Lucky, in the show's four seasons.

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NBC canceled ALF after its fourth season, leaving it on a cliffhanger that upset fans. It wasn't until an ABC TV movie in 1996 that the cliffhanger was resolved. Earlier this year, we added ALF to our list of iconic shows with just one surviving cast member, after the death of Anne Schedeen, who played mom Kate Tanner. Andrea Elson, who played daughter Lynn, is the last surviving member of the Tanner family, unless you count Fusco, the voice of ALF himself.

Matlock (NBC, Sept. 23, 1986)

Matlock on Prime Video Promo — Prime Video/CBS

While your grandma loved Murder, She Wrote, Grandpa was all about Matlock. Andy Griffith was already a TV legend after playing Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, which also launched the career of Ron Howard, who went on to Happy Days and a career as a Hollywood director.

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Griffith's folksy defense attorney, Ben Matlock, always seemed to find the real killer. For a show with a murder every week, it was surprisingly light on violence, which made it perfect viewing when the family visited the grandparents. The series ran nine seasons, until 1995.

Amen (NBC, Sept. 27, 1986)

George Jefferson as a deacon? Kind of. Just one year after The Jeffersons ended (after an astounding 253 episodes), Sherman Hemsley went right back to work in 1986, anchoring Amen as Deacon Ernest Frye. The series was set in Philadelphia, Hemsley's real-life hometown. Interestingly, Clifton Davis, who played the Rev. Reuben Gregory, is a real-life ordained minister.

Bonus: Coming Next Year, thirtysomething (ABC, 1987–1991)

And if you'd like to plan ahead for some upcoming nostalgia, get ready for this one: This week in 2027 will mark the 40th anniversary of the premiere of Thirtysomething, the cozy, yuppie show about parenting and marriage in the late-'80s. Do the math, and you'll quickly realize that the cast of Thirtysomething is now seventy-something, with the exception of Timothy Busfield, who is 69 and embroiled in a legal battle over child sexual abuse charges, which he denies. A sequel was once in the works, but ABC passed on it in 2020 before the pilot was ever filmed.

Can't get enough TV nostalgia? Keep scrolling for a look at some of TV's most iconic houses, then and now.