Everybody’s been getting it improper all alongside.
Producer Jim Janicek, who created the favored Nineteen Nineties TV programming block “TGIF” on ABC, just lately revealed that — opposite to standard perception — the acronym doesn’t imply “Thank God it’s Friday.”
Throughout a latest look on the “Pod Meets World” podcast with former “Boy Meets World” stars Danielle Fishel, Rider Robust and Will Friedle, Janicek stated “TGIF” actually stood for, “Thank Goodness it’s Funny.”
He recalled workshopping potential names.
“We were talking about things like the ‘Friday Fun Club.’ There’s a whole list somewhere I probably could dig up, but I remember that one. You know, ‘It’s Friday Night.’ Lots of little short-isms.”
The producer stated that originally there was some concern that “TGIF” was too near the title of the restaurant chain TGI Friday’s, however ABC execs determined to proceed with utilizing that acronym.
“We were animating the open. And then [fellow ABC executives] Stu Brower and Bob Iger called and said, ‘We’ve landed on TGIF. We wanna call it TGIF.’ So that’s where we got the name, and we started animating those letters into the open and went from there,” Janicek continued.
He added, “Bob, I believe, came up with ‘Thank Goodness it’s Funny’ to avoid any conflict with any restaurant.”
The programming block aired on ABC from the late ‘80s to the early 2000s. At its peak, the “TGIF” programming block included a slew of iconic reveals, corresponding to “Boy Meets World,” “Family Matters,” “Sister Sister,” “Perfect Strangers,” “8 Simple Rules,” “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” and “Full House.”
“Friday night used to be what was considered the death slot,” he defined.
“They would kind of put shows there that were on their last legs because the network always believed that most people were out going on dates, things like that.”
However Janicek recalled that in his childhood on Fridays he would have dinner along with his household “and then would sit and watch TV.”
His expertise pushed him into attempting to make Friday programming huge.
Janicek stated that it will definitely stopped as a result of, “I think they had gone, ‘we’re kinda tired of this and, you know, maybe we should try something different.’”
However through the heyday of the “TGIF” programming block, Robust stated, “It was a juggernaut. It was amazing.”
