FX, One Of The Best Networks On Television, Used To Be One Of The Most Spectacularly Lame

FX hasn’t always been the network we know and love today. This is true of most networks, of course. TLC used to be about learning. The History Channel used to be about History. And AMC used to air exclusively American Movie Classics. But few networks have transformed for the positive in as dramatic a fashion as FX. The network has been around since 1994, but it didn’t start to become the channel that most of us recognize until it launched The Shield in 2002, the Shawn Ryan cop drama that would essentially revolutionize basic cable. Before that, FX was mostly Married with … Children, Ally McBeal, Hooperman, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns, movies, and NASCAR.

But even before the reruns and NASCAR took over, FX — or the more relaxed and friendly “fX,” as it was known then — had original programming, just not of the sort we are accustomed to now. It was broadcast out of a large apartment in Manhattan, and featured the likes of Jeff Probst and Tom Bergeron. It’s tagline was “TV Made Fresh Daily.” As a reader, Eric also points out, fX was anchored by a morning show called Breakfast Time. It starred Tom Bergeron, Laurie Hibberd, and A PUPPET NAMED BOB.

You MUST see the promo poster.

Yup. That’s a show that started out on the same network that now airs Justified, Sons of Anarchy and The Bridge.

fX also helped to launch the career of other personalities, who were roving reporters on Breakfast Time. People who got their starts on fX include the likes Phil Keoghan (The Amazing Race host), Orlando Jones (forever the 7UP guy), and Jeff Probst (pre-Rock & Roll Jeopardy), who reminds us in the fX promo below that the network is “TV for you and your father in mind.” Of course it is.

We kid FX because we love.

(Thanks for the tip, Eric)

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