The Outsiders

The series was produced by Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios together with Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment, based on characters from S. E. Hinton's 1967 novel The Outsiders, with Coppola serving as executive producer following his 1983 film adaptation.

The 90-minute pilot episode was written and directed by Alan Shapiro, with Sharron Miller also credited as a director, and it functioned as a direct sequel to the 1983 film.

The pilot opened with a short clip taken from the original 1983 film showing Dallas Winston, played by Matt Dillon, running from police and being shot.

The pilot aired on March 25, 1990, exactly seven years after the release of the film, and was broadcast as a special preview at 9:30 p.m. while the rest of the series aired at 7:00 p.m.

The pilot became Fox's highest-rated drama in the network's history at the time, drawing a 9.3/16 national Nielsen rating and 14.1 million viewers, tying for 64th place for the week.

Despite the pilot's strong ratings, the series lost half of its viewers carried over from its lead-in show, Married... with Children.