![dek](https://content.time.com/time/time75/covers/weekly_pix/images2/880104_week3.jpg)
Week of Jan. 4, 1988
Television has never seen anything like "The Morton Downey Jr. Show." The host is intentionally rude to "break away the Madison Avenue veneer." TIME agrees: "Downey's verbal slugfest has made Phil's and Oprah's 'lively' discussions look like sherry-sipping college seminars."