(Friday, September 25, 1970, 8:30 p.m. EDT) — The Partridge Family, an American sitcom television series about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career, debuted tonight on ABC.

Created by Bernard Slade, the series starred Shirley Jones, David Cassidy, Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce, Suzanne Crough, Jeremy Gelbwaks (season 1), Dave Madden and Brian Forster (seasons 2-4).

The family was loosely based on the real-life musical family the Cowsills, a popular band in the late 1960s and early 1970s.