30 Years Ago, ABC Debuted A Rare TGIF Sitcom Flop

With roughly 20 million viewers tuning into TGIF every week, ABC's Friday night scheduling was one of the highlights of weekend TV throughout the '90s. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, ABC aired some of the best family-friendly sitcoms of the '90s every Friday, from "Boy Meets World" to "Family Matters." However, the brief addition and swift removal of "Aliens in the Family" from the block proved that the network wasn't always on the ball when picking the next big sitcom.

Similar to other TV shows about aliens like "ALF," "Mork & Mindy," and "My Favorite Martian," the series followed an alien/human blended family trying to act like a normal suburban family. The twist was that half the family — the father and two of the kids — were human, while the other half — the mother and remaining three children — were aliens. Apart from the mom, played by Margaret Trigg, the three aliens were puppets designed by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

In March 1996, "Aliens in the Family" first aired on TGIF, but it didn't land with audiences. The Washington Post described the sitcom as "dumber than a rock," and called the show's premise, "too unwieldy, the characters (and actors) too unappealing, and the writing too darn dumb for this to become a cherished habit." While the show performed reasonably well, netting 8 million viewers with its premiere, it was still below the TGIF standard, so ABC pulled it off the block after just two weeks.

Although "Aliens in the Family" was pulled from TGIF, the leftover episodes eventually aired months later on a non-Friday night. The episodes were already produced, so it would have been a waste to bury them. Plus, they had some exciting appearances. Hayden Panettiere had an early role in this forgotten sitcom, playing a toddler who meets one of the alien children when they got lost after leaving home. In fact, this was her acting debut, years before she became a leading star in "Nashville" and "Heroes." James Van Der Beek, best known for playing the titular character in "Dawson's Creek," played Ethan, a brief boyfriend who nearly gets eaten by the family's alien pet.

This was Van Der Beek's fourth onscreen role, and one he remembers fondly. "The best part about it, (aside from the hair, of course), was the job I had to turn down because I was contractually obligated to this gem — a scene in "The Devil's Own" in which I would have gotten to improv with Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford," Van Der Beek shared on Facebook in 2014. "This sitcom was so stellar it was pulled off the air after two episodes. I was in episode three. Too bad, too... I think I narrowly missed out on my first Emmy nod."