President Reagan once named NBC's Family Ties his favorite show, despite the fact that the show was originally intended as a parody of Reagan-style values. The premise of the Emmy-winning series, which ran from 1982 to 1989, was the generation gap between the Keaton parents, who came of age in the 1960s and whose hippie leanings were evident from the opening sequence, and their children, who were products of the materialistic 1980s. The eldest child, Alex (Michael J. Fox, who became a star because of the series), wore suits, read the Wall Street Journal, and worshipped Richard Nixon and William F. Buckley. Middle child Mallory was rather dim and obsessed with shopping. The youngest, Jennifer, was a precocious sitcom kid. As viewers became more interested in the kids, the generation gap theme was dropped.

Further Reading:

Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-present. New York, Ballantine Books, 1995.

McNeil, Alex. Total Television. New York, Penguin, 1996.