Two shows that emerged as big hits last season were a pair of sitcoms headed by standup comics - "Seinfeld" on NBC and "Home Improvement" on ABC.
As a matter of fact, "Home Improvement" was last year's biggest new hit. Comfortably hammocked between the successful "Full House" and the even more successful "Roseanne" in ABC's Tuesday night schedule, it finished the season as the fifth-most-popular show on TV."Seinfeld," meanwhile, had been a sleeper for more than a year on NBC before it finally began catching on midway through the past season.
Now, much to the distress of many viewers, the two show will air opposite each other. Beginning tonight, ABC shifts "Home Improvement" to Wednesdays, where the two will wage war in the ratings.
(Both shows air at 9 p.m. tonight only, because of the Republican National Convention. Beginning next week, they will return to their normal 8 p.m. time slots.)
It's not a development that exactly excites either star.
Tim Allen of "Home Improvement," noticeably gritted his teeth when asked about the change of nights and times. "They (the network) tell us it will work out fine," he said with a decided air of skepticism.
"Yeah, we're just thrilled," he added sarcastically.
Seinfeld, for his part, tried to play down the impending rivalry between himself and Allen.
"I mean, what are you supposed to do, do anti-tool jokes?" he asked.
Putting the two shows up against each other "Doesn't matter," Seinfeld said. "They have a good show. We have a good show. It's not a race, you know. I mean, you can't really beat each other. We can't over over there and physically beat them.
"So, there's really nothing we can do but do our best work, which is what we would have done anyway."
Still, he's taking some comfort in the fact that he's the incumbent on Wednesday nights.
"That's our time slot. That's where we live and they're coming to visit," Seinfeld said. "And we're very happy to have people come and visit us anytime."
As usual, what this all comes down to is a matter of business. Network programmers aren't interested in making it easy for Americans to watch their competition - so ABC is using one of its big guns in an attempt to shoot down NBC.
"The move was prompted, obviously, by a real need on our part to strengthen a night that was in deep trouble," said ABC Entertainment President Robert Iger. "And at one point we talked about putting it on at o'clock on Wednesday night, but we thought we'd start the night off strong and it would take us a long time to build after that. . . . And we decided that it would do us the most good by putting it at o'clock and sort of building a little bit in both directions.
"We really decided not to worry about `Seinfeld.' . . . It's not only an aggressive move on our part, but we are very confident that (`Home Improvement') is going to be the No. 1 show in the time period. And really get us back to where we should be on Wednesday night, in terms of a position of dominance."
Once again, networks are in business often at the expense of their competitors. And not necessarily to the advantage of the viewers.
"I guess people are going to have to learn to use their VCRs a little bit more if they watch both shows," Iger said. "There are plenty of cases of network television scheduling where two shows are against each other that are both popular shows. I mean, I know a lot of `Cheers' viewers, for instance, whose kids exhort them to watch `90210' and somehow or other, they manage to watch both.
"So it's not really a concern of ours."
Big surprise there.