The program was ABC's attempt to duplicate the success of NBC's Saturday Night Live, which, at the time, was in its fifth season featuring the original "Not Ready for Primetime" cast, along with several writers (and SNL band leader at the time, Paul Shaffer) who had been promoted to feature player status, as well as newcomer Harry Shearer.
The show featured many recurring characters and sketches, short films, and a parody news segment called Friday Edition, with Melanie Chartoff as the anchor (later joined by Rich Hall in seasons two and three).
Initially, the show was compared unfavorably to Saturday Night Live as a weak clone that resorted to shock humor for laughs.
Pop art drawings were displayed and accompanied with a fuzz heavy electric guitar solo whenever the show went to and came back from commercial breaks, though season one featured cartoons by B. Kliban with some kind of pun as the punchline.
SNL executive producer Dick Ebersol gave all Fridays cast members an offer to join Saturday Night Live in 1982, but most turned him down.
During a sketch about couples at dinner sneaking away to the bathroom to smoke marijuana, Kaufman, who was known for causing trouble on live television, broke character and refused to read his lines (saying "I can't play stoned").
Some of the show's cast and crew members (including Richards and Burns) became angry and a small brawl broke out on stage.
[2][3] This incident was reenacted in the film Man on the Moon (1999), starring Jim Carrey as Kaufman, Zmuda as Burns, Norm Macdonald as Richards, Caroline Rhea as Chartoff and Mary Lynn Rajskub as Burrell.
The series ended in 1982 following ABC's decision to expand Nightline to five nights a week, which moved Fridays to air at midnight instead of 11:30pm.
"A DVD release, said producer John Moffitt, was delayed because Richards' original contract gave him video approval rights and because David for years asked that the show not be made available because he was uncomfortable with the quality of his work.