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''Fridays'' is the name of ABC's weekly late-night live comedy show, which aired on Friday nights from April 11, 1980 to April 23, 1982. ==Overview== The program was ABC's attempt to duplicate the success of NBC's ''Saturday Night Live'', which, at the time, was in its fifth and final season featuring the original "Not Ready for Primetime" cast, along with several writers who have been promoted to feature player status and newcomer Harry Shearer. Like ''SNL'', ''Fridays'' featured popular musical guests and, beginning in the second season, celebrity guest hosts (some of which have appeared on ''SNL'' before and after ''Fridays'' aired, such as Andy Kaufman, Billy Crystal, William Shatner, and George Carlin). The show featured many recurring characters and sketches, short films, and a parody news segment called ''Friday Edition'', with Melanie Chartoff as anchor (later joined by Rich Hall in seasons two and three). Veteran comedian Jack Burns served as show announcer and made on-screen appearances on the show. Initially, the show was compared unfavorably to ''Saturday Night Live''. The third episode (original airdate: April 25, 1980) was the last episode to air on some affiliates due to objectionable content concerning zombie gore and cannibalism ("Diner of the Living Dead"), disgusting habits ("Women Who Spit"), and blasphemous humor ("The Inflatable Nun").〔(Fridays: The SNL Ripoff That Nearly Surpassed the Original )〕 When ''Saturday Night Lives sixth season was met with negative reviews and low ratings over the new cast, new writers, and new showrunner Jean Doumanian, critics who once panned ''Fridays'' praised it, citing the show as being sharper, edgier, and funnier than ''Saturday Night Live'' at the time. Some critics attributed this to the sprawling, ambitious, and often pointed sociopolitical and situational sketches. Some examples of this include: a Bing Crosby-Bob Hope buddy comedy parody about the United States' dealings with El Salvador ("Road to El Salvador"); a ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' parody about refugees from an impoverished Central American country mistaking a ''Playboy'' magazine location scout and an American military invasion for extraterrestrials coming to save them ("Close Encounters of the Third World"); a Marx Brothers parody of Iran's revolution ("A Night in Tehran"); Palestinian radio DJs (played by Bruce Mahler and episode guest star George Carlin) broadcasting a morning show from a P.L.O. bunker ("K.P.L.O"); a live-action ''Popeye the Sailor Man'' cartoon with Popeye (Mark Blankfield) and a band of first-wave hippies fighting back against a fascist regime led by Bluto ("Popeye's Got a Brand New Bag");the US Founding Fathers worrying that the second amendment ("The Right to Bear Arms") will be abused in the future while ignoring suggestions for amendments granting equal rights to women and African-Americans; a variety show run by the Moral Majority ("The Moral Majority Comedy Hour"); a parody of ''Altered States'' where Ronald Reagan (John Roarke) uses sensory deprivation and psychedelic mushrooms to find a way to bring America back to its glory days, but ends up transforming himself into Richard Nixon ("Altered Statesman"); and a spaghetti western centered on the creationism vs. evolution argument featuring Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci ("A Fist Full of Darwin"). The show's magnum opus was a 17-minute parody of ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' with Ronald Reagan (John Roarke) as Tim Curry's Dr. Frank N. Furter creating the perfect Republican, who turns out to be a militant black man who leads Reagan's followers in a revolution (). Unusual for a sketch comedy series, ''Fridays'' occasionally featured serious interludes and dramatic sketches, such as a segment which aired soon after the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan involving all nine of the cast members recalling where they were at the time of previous assassinations and attempts () and a sketch where a punk rocker (Michael Richards) visits his father (John Roarke) who rejects him. After a long, heartfelt speech from the punk about how his father should accept that he's from a different generation and learn to love him, the punk discovers that he and the old man have different hair color and the punk concludes that the old man really isn't his father. From its inception, ''Fridays'' embraced the emerging new wave rock music scene and its associated culture to a greater extent than ''Saturday Night Live'' did at the time, widely incorporating it into their selection of musical guests, hosts, and sketches. Unlike ''Saturday Night Live'', ''Fridays'' did not have a show band on set. Pop art drawings were displayed and accompanied with a fuzz heavy electric guitar solo whenever the show went to and came back from commercial breaks, though season one featured cartoons by B. Kliban with some kind of pun as the punchline. Three seasons of ''Fridays'' aired on ABC. A 12-episode first season aired from April 11, 1980 to July 18, 1980. The second season had 25 episodes and aired from September 5, 1980 to May 15, 1981. The third and final season had 21 episodes and aired from September 18, 1981 to April 23, 1982. The last episode aired as a primetime sketch show. The show was originally 70 minutes in its first season. It was expanded to 90 minutes in seasons two and three. ''SNL'' executive producer Dick Ebersol gave all ''Fridays'' cast members an offer to join ''Saturday Night Live'' in 1982, but they all turned him down. Only Larry David and Rich Hall worked on ''SNL'' for a short time after ''Fridays'' was completed (both of them worked on ''Saturday Night Live'' during its tenth season in 1984; Hall was a cast member while David was a writer). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fridays (TV series)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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