We watch... so you don't have to.
Ahmad, 1998 Just Isn't Your Year
Anyhow, 1998 came to me while I was on the can last night, and here it is:
| January 19 | Warren Littlefield goes into panic mode when realizes he has extended the contract for Elliot Gould's E/R. |
| January 25 | Budweiser 23, Bud Lite 21 |
| February 8 | KNBC in Los Angeles, interrupts its broadcast of the NBA All-Star Game to show exclusive footage of a monkey, "rumored to be owned by O.J. Simpson," water-skiing. |
| February 11 | UPN hits a ratings high with an episode of Star Trek: Voyager titled simply "Seven of Nine Rocks Ensign Kim's World." |
| February 22 | In an effort to beef up its Sunday afternoon programming, NBC announces a deal with the World Curling Association. Says a gushing Dick Ebersol: "Sundays are gonna be Curl-rific!" |
| March 3 | Ellen Degeneres recants lesbianism and again appears on Time magazine's cover with the infamous headline: "Actually, I like dick." |
| March 4 | A panicky Anne Heche announces that she too "likes dick." |
| March 22 | New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani condemns a Sesame Street episode in which Big Bird and Elmo are viciously brutalized by two New York policemen. |
| April 3 | In an attempt to get back to its rock and roll roots, MTV execs proudly announce in a press release they will actually show some music videos -- from time to time. |
| May 3 | Unhappily Ever After star Nikki Cox briefly comes to her senses and breaks up with her boyfriend and fellow castmate Kevin Connolly. |
| May 4 | Kevin Connolly's nude body is found hanging from a rope in a Hollywood motel room. |
| June 2 | ABC executive Jamie Tarses gives a three-series development deal to a hunky intern named Wally. "Believe me," Tarses says as she announces the deal, "this guy's got the goods." |
| June 18 | Michael Jordan finally retires from basketball for good. |
| June 19 | Ahmad Rashad is quietly terminated from NBC Sports. |
| July 19 | One month into production, Dick Wolf, executive producer of Law and Order fires Sam Waterston, Jerry Orbach, and Carey Lowell. He replaces them with Russell Wong, Joan Chen and Pat Morita. "I guess I'm just on an Asian kick," the producer says cryptically. |
| July 29 | Kathie Lee Gifford denies published reports that she danced topless at New York strip club "Scores." |
| August 1 | In a moment of hubris, Aaron Spelling produces a tele-movie of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" with the cast composed entirely of members of the Spelling clan. |
| August 27 | Shockwaves are felt throughout the television industry when Warren Littlefield trades the entire cast of Friends to CBS for Fran Drescher, rights to future Murder, She Wrote tele-movies and Tony Danza. Littlefield tells the gallery at the press conference that "we're in a rebuilding mode." |
| August 28 | Littlefield's reign at NBC nearly ends amid controversy when it is announced that Fran Drescher is a transvestite, Angela Lansbury has a broken hip, and that Tony Danza has in fact been dead for over three months. |
| September 10 | Actor Ron Glass denies a New York Times report that he's working on an all-black version of Seinfeld for UPN. "Hey man," he tells the reporter, "I learned my lesson." |
| September 15 | After a five-month layoff, a fat and bloated Jaleel "Urkel" White reassures Entertainment Weekly's Gregg Kilday that he hopes to "act my way back into shape" by midseason. |
| September 23 | After paying a record $13 million per episode to extend the run of ER though 2003, NBC's Don Ohlmeyer announces a plan to recoup NBC's losses by changing Thursday nights to "Must-Pay-TV." |
| November 1 | Kelsey Grammer's Frasier ably replaces Seinfeld and NBC rewards him with a fat 5-year contract. Depressed over Grammer's generous new deal, John Lithgow mysteriously disappears from the 3rd Rock set. He is spotted by tourists two weeks later selling pottery at a local flea market. |
| November 19 | ER's animated season premiere is a rating success despite the fact that it is crudely rendered and the dialogue has been lifted from an old episode. A jubilant Warren Littlefield declares: "I'm back, baby!" |
| November 26 | NBC begins a run of 8 weeks of ER reruns. |
| December 2 | During a brief salary dispute, Lucy Lawless is briefly replaced by Sandy Duncan in Xena: Warrior Princess. Lawless returns and Duncan character spins off into a new show called: Sandy: The Catty Amazon. |
| December 17 | Drew Carey is arrested on gun charges. At a press conference, Carey's lawyer disgustedly proclaims: "If my client were a black man, none of you people would be here." |
