Reminiscent of their days as young actors – Robin Williams in his Mork and Mindy way back in 1978 to 1982 and Michael J. Fox in his Family Ties and Back to the Future in the 1980s – the two not-so-young actors have recently returned to television on the same night!

However, Williams’ new sitcom had an audience share more than double of what Michael J. Fox show had, according to state house Neilsen.

Father Vs. Father

Both Michael J. Fox and Robin Williams’ offerings after years premiered on the same night, that was on Thursday, at the same time-slot, 9 PM, in the same genre, family comedy, but as expected, each was on different networks – The Michael J. Fox Show on NBC and The Crazy Ones on CBS.

Both Robin and Michael plays the role of fathers in their half-hour sitcoms; the former as a goofy advertising creative director working alongside his adult daughter while the latter as a newsman just returning to work after spending years as a stay-at-home father due to his Parkinson’s disease.

The Crazy Ones and The Michael J. Fox Show both deal with fathers who are trying to balance their families and careers, though Fox’s sitcom portrays a little more on the reality since in real life – the actor really is battling Parkinson’s disease.

Michael’s new show was very much anticipated, thanks to NBC’s campaigns about Fox’s return to TV. Additionally, the Back to the Future and Spin City actor had been candidly open about the degenerative disease he has to battle every day – in reel and for real.

‘My first reaction to it was to start drinking heavily. It just felt helpless. It felt unfair in a way – it’s hard to explain,’ 52-year-old Fox told Howard Stern in a recent interview. It can be remembered that the reason he left Spin City in 1990 was his condition.

However, it was Williams’ show that won last Thursday after it garnered a crushing 15.6 million views on its debut. The Michael J. Fox’s Show, which also premiered that day, was only able to get almost half of that audience share at 7.2 million.

Nevertheless, The Crazy Ones is not the top-ender in the list. That honor goes to Emmys big winner in the comedy series category, The Big Bang Theory, with a whopping 18.3 million viewers tuning in to the show.

And in fairness to both Robin Williams and Michael J. Fox, both actors may be facing off on TV especially now that their shows go head-to-head in the same time-slot but the feud stays on screen. Both are good friends in real life.

Going Up, Going Down

Sadly, some shows did not fare well in Nielsen’s latest audience rate stat.

Compared to TV newcomer Robin Williams’ ­Crazy Ones, Simon Cowell’s reality talent show, X-Factor, had less than half of the former’s audience share at 6 million.

Glee is also down to 5 million viewers, placing the musical fourth in their timeslot. Could the audience be turned off after the death of Cory Monteith and his boy-next-door character Finn?