It’s another Throwback Thursday, and this week our throwback year is 1983! That’s the year the TV show Webster premiered on ABC! It ran from September 16, 1983 to May 8, 1987 and starred Emmanuel Lewis, Alex Karras, and Susan Clark. After seeing Lewis in a Burger King commercial, ABC’s programming chief wanted to give him his own series. But the network wanted to cast him in something relatively quickly, before Lewis grew any taller! So instead of creating a new show, they added Lewis to one that was already in development, recentering it on Lewis’ character, Webster Long. Throughout the series, Webster was 5 to 8 years old. In reality, Lewis was seven years older! The show made him one of the biggest stars on TV in the mid-80s. Webster was an instant hit, and landed in the Nielsen Top 30 for its first 3 seasons before being canceled by ABC in 1987. If you’re interested in watching the show today, it’s streaming on Pluto TV. Learn more in the audio below.