Going back to the days of my long-lost youth, the norm was 39 new episodes per season. There were 13 weeks of reruns in June, July and August, or else summer-specific series. Kraft Summer Music Hall and CBS Summer Playhouse are examples.  The latter was used to burn off unsold pilots.

The person who wrote that article didn't mention the 30-39 episode era. They likely weren't born yet.

The Honeymooners ran on CBS Saturdays at 8:30pm opposite Perry Como on NBC. The series finished its only season in 19th place. Gleason was a perfectionist and pulled the plug on the show himself. He was concerned that if the show returned for a second season, writers would quickly run out of quality script ideas.

A few decades ago, when I had my 10' C-Band satellite dish, Showtime - a pay cable channel and HBO's biggest competition - got the rights to an amazing find: the Honeymooners sketches found on long lost tapes and kinescopes from Jackie Gleason's old variety show. 

As Mace notes in his post, the half hour show ended after only one season, but the sketches continued on when he returned to his variety format on CBS. And sometime in the 80s, those old skits, thought long lost, were rediscovered. Showtime got the rights to show them. 

They weren't as great as those famous 39, but getting "new" Honeymooners after three decades was a real find. 

To promote it and celebrate the resurrection, the network composed a song to tell viewers about what was coming. I still remember some of the lyrics, which made use of Gleason's trademark "homina-homina-homina" when he got flustered.

It went something like this:

"I'm a Honeymoon-ee
The lost episodes are on TV
Homina-homina Honeymoon-ee
You'll love every line
On Showtime!"

It was a great promo and it's stayed in my head all those years, unlike the "Lost Episodes," most of which I can barely recall. Unfortunately, unlike most old TV, that promo is not on YouTube. What a shame. Because it was a terrific song!

mace wrote:

The one line I always remember is when Art Carney is teaching Jackie how to golf. Lesson one. Address the ball Helllooo Ball!

RonaldS wrote:

I remember reading an article about the 1960's series "The Fugitive". There were 30 hour-long (52 minute) episodes per season and David Janssen, being in almost every scene, was near exhaustion at the end of each season. 

I believe "The Fugitive" was the very first ever TV series that had a definite conclusion and the last episode drew huge ratings, because people wanted to see how it ended. ("The day the running stopped," as the narrator put it in the final moments.)   
  
"What made the finale especially groundbreaking was that it delivered something rare for the era: true closure. The central mystery that had driven the show from the start was resolved in a definitive ending, something television audiences were not accustomed to."

It really wasn't until Mary Tyler Moore staged her huge farewell that the big finales became a major deal on TV, sparking through-the-roof numbers for shows like Cheers, Frasier, and perhaps the biggest one of all, M*A*S*H, a record holder to this day. 

‘The Fugitive’: The Finale That Changed Television


 

mic'em wrote:

I would think also the fact there is now so many channels available. As Springsteen sang, ' a thousand channels and nothing on ' .

paterson1 wrote:

It's interesting how some now "classic" shows only had ok or average ratings when they were first broadcast.

 
Good point, Seinfeld nearly didn’t make it based on its first season, which originally was called The Seinfeld Chronicles and was 5 or 6 episodes, airing as summer relief.

I recently re-watched all 7 seasons of the West Wing... it took FOREVER!!!!!