Who shot J. R. Ewing? Anyone who was around in 1980 and above the age of about six remembers that question and the speculation that it raised.
Dallas, a slick soap opera about the private lives and public shenanigans of the dysfunctional, oil-rich Ewing family, was America’s hottest prime time series in 1980. Jock Ewing, the family patriarch, had two sons, J. R. and Bobby. J. R. was the character millions of viewers loved to hate — a charming and unscrupulous Texas oilman who didn’t let little things like morality or the law get in his way of acquiring whatever he wanted.
An unidentified gunman shot the scheming J. R. in the final episode of the show’s second season, but Dallas fans had to wait nearly eight months to find out who fired the shot. First there was a summer of reruns, followed by a seven-week actors’ strike. The first three episodes of the third season were filled with false leads about the identify of the shooter, but on November 21, 1980, the truth was revealed. The shooter was J. R.’s sister-in-law and mistress, who shot him in a fit of anger. This show earned the biggest audience share in television history up to that point — 41 million of the nearly 78 million households in the U. S. watched the show.
The huge ratings generated by the Who Shot J. R.? stunt helped popularize the practice of ending a television season with a cliffhanger.
Senior Moments 