The Untold Truth Of TGIF

Once given the assignment of collectively grouping its Friday night family-friendly comedies so as to more effectively advertise them as a whole, ABC promotional department writer Jim Janicek first had to come up a name for the block. And he and his team had a lot of ideas. "We had 10,000 different names," he told Entertainment Weekly. Among the rejected ones, there was "Friday Night Funnies, Fresh New Funnies, Friday Fun Club, Friday Laugh Factory, Friday Night Laughtacular, Time for Fun." 

"TGIF" was a contender on that early list of possibilities, but Janicek found it potentially problematic. "There was an existing restaurant chain," he said, referring to TGI Fridays, "and there also was the existing phrase, 'Thank God it's Friday,' so part of me was concerned that we would not get through our title." Janicek fully believed ABC would thusly make him come up with a new one. ABC marketing VP Mark Zakarin gunned for TGIF, however, "because it's not just a silly name, it's actually an emotion," as well as already being a highly recognizable phrase. Finally, ABC president Bob Iger allowed the acronym to be used, with a tweak. As he explained, "I said, 'How about calling it 'Thank Goodness It's Funny'?' We didn't want to use God."