“Dallas” aired on CBS from 1978 until 1991 and became one of the world’s most popular TV shows. Tracing the stories of the feuding Ewing and Barnes families against the backdrop of the Texas oil industry, the show featured an ensemble cast. Larry Hagman starred as ruthless oil tycoon J.R. Ewing.
After a slow start, the show became a Top 10 ratings hit, and was the top-rated prime-time show in the U.S. for three years in the 1980s. Here’s a clip of a “Dallas” episode open in 1984, as aired on KCTV in Kansas City:
“Dallas” was famous for cliffhanger episodes to close its seasons, guaranteeing a big audience at the start of the next season. It’s 1980 “Who Done It” episode, which revealed who shot J.R. Ewing (the question became a cultural phenomenon), remains the second-highest rated single television broadcast in U.S. history.
“Dallas” lead to a spinoff series (”Knots Landing”), a prequel TV movie, two TV movies that aired after the series was canceled, and a 2012 TV revival that ran for three seasons on TNT.
Arnaz, as President of Desilu Studios, offered Ball an opportunity to return to television in a weekly sitcom. Ball agreed to do the show, provided it be shown on Monday nights (the night on which I Love Lucy had aired) and that she would be reunited with Vivian Vance and her writers from I Love Lucy. CBS agreed to a full season of episodes and The Lucy Show premiered on Monday night, October 1, 1962, at 8:30 p.m.
The show began with Lucille Ball as Lucy Carmichael, a widow with two children, living in the fictional city of Danfield, New York, sharing her home with divorced
friend Vivian Bagley (Vance) and her son. Although the book on which the show was based (Irene Kampen’s Life Without George)
centered on two divorcées living together in the same house raising
their children, it was decided early on that the Lucy
character should instead be a widow. The character of Vivian Bagley became television’s
first divorced woman. (Wikipedia)
My Third Parent 