Trivia

Hostess Mary Hart's legs were emphasized by the strategic placement of special fiber-optic lights just beneath her desk

Premiered in national syndication on 14 September 1981.

Before Leonard Maltin became a correspondent he was the show's movie reviewer, until he gave a bad review to Yentl, which angered Barbra Streisend, so, since the producers wanted all celebrities to be happy about the show, Maltin's reviews ended.

For its first 25 years on the air, Paramount Television was the lead producer of the series and its distributor. In the show's early years, it was also co-produced by Taft Broadcasting (renamed Great American Broadcasting in 1987), Cox Broadcasting, and TeleRep. Paramount later acquired at least the distribution rights to the libraries of syndication companies owned by these co-producers at one point. Taft/Great American owned Worldvision Enterprises until 1989, when it was acquired by Spelling Entertainment Group. In 1993, Television Program Enterprises, originally owned by TeleRep, merged with Rysher Entertainment, which was acquired by Cox that same year. In 1994, Viacom bought both Paramount and Blockbuster Entertainment, the latter owned a majority stake in Spelling at that time, but Spelling operated separately until Viacom became 100% owner in 1999, merging Worldvision with Paramount's syndication arm. That same year, Paramount bought Cox out of its interest in ET, and as part of the transaction, began distributing Rysher's library. ET and the TV side of the Rysher library are currently distributed by CBS Television Distribution, while Paramount continues to distribute the Rysher film library, both are units of ViacomCBS.