Radio Recap, August 13, 2008

It's time for a RADIO RECAP
"Must Hear TV" on "The Frank DeCaro Show" on Sirius OutQ 109
Wednesdays, 1-2 PM


In news from today's "Must-Hear TV" report...

• The latest word out of NBC is that the Beijing Olympics are on track to be the most watched games in history. As of this afternoon, the network is saying that total viewership for Beijing in these first 5 days has reached 168 million people – that’s nearly 15 million more than Athens in 2004.
  
  Monday night’s coverage has been so far the highest rated night of the games. As Michael Phelps worked towards a new record for the most Olympic medals ever won, his triumph reached 82 million total viewers, posting a 19.9 rating and 34 share. (34 share is HUGE – that means of all television sets that were on at the time, over 1/3 were tuned to NBC’s Olympic coverage. With so many channels for us to choose from, that kind of concentration of viewers never happens anymore.) To compare, Athens’ numbers were an 18.3 rating and 30 share.
  
  And of course, more and more of us are catching up on the games online. Since the internet has grown exponentially since 2004, it’s no surprise that so many more of us are watching online since then. http://www.nbcolympics.com/ is reporting 17.7 million video streams so far for Beijing, as compared to 2.2 million for the entire Athens games. Presenting the Summer Olympics for the 11th time, more than any other network, NBC will be bringing us a record total of 3,600 hours of coverage, with 2,900 of those live, and across more platforms than ever. “Obviously our multi-platform Olympic strategy is a success,” NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker brags. “But this record-breaking Olympic performance is proving that network television is more alive than ever.”

• Diana in TX perfectly anticipated my next item: yes, I have Big Bang Theory news. Not only will the show return – on Monday Sept. 22 at 8 PM ET – but it comes back with a new cast member. After making a guest appearance last season as Leonard [Johnny Galecki]’s love interest Leslie Winkle, Sara Gilbert is back to stay as a series regular. For those of us who loved them as a married couple on Roseanne, it’ll be fun to watch their continued chemistry – even if it does screw up Leonard’s chances of making it with neighbor Penny [Kaley Cuoco.]
  
  By the way, in case you missed season 1 of this fun comedy, it's due out on DVD on September 2.

• We’ve all heard about the updated version of 90210 premiering soon on the CW network (a 2-hour launch on Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 8 PM ET). Many of us have also heard the rumor that this show may be the CW’s last chance. Yes, Gossip Girl is popular, but only a minor ratings hit – and according to rumor, the CW needs 90210 to break big in order to stay alive.
  
  Things were looking up for the show when early on, producers announced they’d enticed three original West Beverly High alums – Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling and then Shannen Doherty – to return. Then, with the birth of Tori’s baby, plans were reportedly delayed a bit. Now Tori’s a no-go altogether; both her reps, and those for the CW, confirm that Tori’s Donna Martin will not be back. US magazine is reporting the real reason: whereas Jennie and Shannen are to be earning $35-50K per episode, Tori was offered just $10-20K.
  
  And yet another actor from the original has weighed in: Ian Ziering’s Steve Sanders will not be back. “It’s not really where my career goals are focused right now,” Ziering told People magazine. “I think that it’s fantastic that they’re trying to recapture some of the excitement that 90210 brought to a decade. I wish them all the best of luck.”

• In other revival news, CBS is reportedly considering a revamped version of its incredibly long-running detective series, Hawaii Five-O. The original show ran on the Eye Network for what was then a record-breaking 12 seasons, from 1968-80 (a drama record broken now by Law & Order, about to enter its 19th.) Criminal Minds’ showrunner, former Chicago cop Ed Bernero, will be at the helm of what he’s codenaming “Hawaii Five-O 2.0.”
  
  “We will try to keep as much of the original show as possible,” Bernero told The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m not trying to reinvent it.” And so, the new show will, like its predecessor, film on location in Hawaii, and the famous theme song will be back, albeit modernized. Alas, Jack Lord has gone off to the great luau in the sky, and so the fictional Hawaiian police department at the show’s core will now be run by his character Steve McGarrett’s son Chris, yet to be cast.
  
  My two cents: don’t you think Frank should be cast on this show (so that I can go with him and live in Paradise)? Don’t they need comic relief? (And no, Frank, you can’t play the villain Wo Fat just for the sake of a silly pun.) Hey, Mr. Bernero: Frank loves all things Hawaiian, can save you budget by providing his own full wardrobe of flowered shirts and muumuus, and will even ship you a bunch of his tiki mugs to use in bar scenes. Sure, Frank Sr. will be sorry to see us move 6,000 miles away – but on the plus side, with all Frank’s tiki crap cleared out, the man will have half of his house back!

• And finally, if you were listening to the show yesterday, Frank’s guest Alison Arngrim wasn’t lying: the Little House on the Prairie musical – starring original “Half Pint” Melissa Gilbert (Sara’s big sis) this time as Ma Ingalls -- is hotter than a grass fire. It hasn’t even opened yet – that’s this Friday, August 15 – but it’s breaking box office records at Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater, and has already been extended by 2 weeks, to October 19. After that, playbill.com is already announcing, these prairie girls are hitting the road, taking the show on a 40 city tour starting in Fall 2009.

And you callers asked...

• Brian in Toledo: Here’s some info you asked for regarding Doctor Who’s ratings. Looks like things are looking up in the UK!

• Chris in New Orleans: the fire on the Universal Studios backlot in early June did badly damage an area as large as two city blocks, including the Courthouse Square set used in Back to the Future and, as you noted, currently being used by Ghost Whisperer on CBS. However, as this article notes, that is just a secondary location for the series, which is now back in production as usual. In fact, Ghost Whisperer is set to start its fourth season on CBS on Friday October 3 at 8 PM ET.

• Mark in FL: Here’s some more info on the show you recently discovered, TNT’s The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick. The show started its 4th season in early July, and is still a ratings juggernaut for basic cable. Its season 4 premiere episode attracted 7.8 million viewers, which is more than most shows on network TV! It was slightly off from the 8.8 million who tuned in for the season 3 opener – but still, it’s enough for the show to remain the most popular show so far this year on ad-supported cable.

• Paul in MA: Good question! I have not yet seen any Nielsen ratings for LOGO’s Sordid Lives: The Series, and I’m not sure they’ve been released. And with only 4 [of 12] episodes having aired, it’s probably too soon to speculate about renewal (but isn’t the show fabulous! I SO hope there’s a season 2!) But I’ve emailed a source who might be able to shed some light on this situation, so check back right here for more info soon!

• And lastly, Randy in Vancouver, this one’s for you! Check It Out!

Well that's it for me -- my theme music is playing me out. Tune in next Wednesday for the next installment of...

"Must Hear TV!"

And Now, a Word From...

Marc Cherry
Creator and executive producer, ABC’s Desperate Housewives

Last month, as ABC presented its fall programming to TV critics at their semi-annual California convention, I caught up with Desperate Housewives creator and executive producer Marc Cherry, and asked just how gay a neighborhood we can expect Wisteria Lane to become.



Must-Hear TV: Marc, what can we expect from the show in terms of gay characters this coming season?

Marc Cherry: We’ve got our two gay neighbors returning. And Bree’s son [Shawn Pyfrom] has now become a young executive helping her with her career, so we’ll have some storylines connected to him.



MHTV: Even with the five-year leap forward in time this season, Andrew’s back, and he’s as gay as ever?

MC: Well he’s first and foremost Bree’s son, but yes, his sexuality is the same, and we hope to be investigating that further. I don’t have anything planned right now for the first part of the season, but I think we’ll be getting into some things in the latter part of the season.



MHTV: And those neighbors, Bob [Tuc Watkins] and Lee [Kevin Rahm] – do they have any juicy storyline coming up, or are they part of any ongoing mystery?

MC: We still have them in the neighborhood, where they’re going to help mostly filter into other people’s storylines. But they’re very much a presence on the street -- and a chance for me to have a diverse portrait of an American neighborhood.

Desperate Housewives
Season 5 Premiere
Sunday, September 28
9 PM Eastern
ABC

And Now, a Word From...

Craig Wright
Executive producer, ABC’s Dirty Sexy Money

“When you think of all the people in Hollywood to make a show called Dirty Sexy Money,” Craig Wright told me, “why would they say, ‘Let’s get this guy who used to be a minister in the Midwest, who writes plays that are really arty.’”

“It’s so weird,” Craig, the former playwright and clergyman in the United Church of Christ, added as we sat down together at ABC’s party for the Television Critics Association conference late last month in L.A. But actually, if you watch the hit primetime soap, you know that such a contradiction between the show and its producer’s pedigree is actually perfectly fitting. It’s all there in the title: Money is not presented as merely Sexy, as it was two decades ago on ABC on Dynasty, but Dirty, too. This is a show that has it both ways.

I had seen Craig a month earlier, when he appeared on a panel celebrating depictions of the GLBT community at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He was joined by a member of his cast: Candis Cayne, the transsexual performer playing, as far as I know, one of the first and certainly the most positively portrayed transsexual character ever on primetime. Now, at the TCA, I asked Craig all about Cayne’s Carmelita and every other element that makes Dirty Sexy Money’s core family so much more Darling than those Carringtons of yore.

Must-Hear TV: You were on the TV Academy’s June panel about gays on TV, and were one of very few panel members who is not actually gay. As a writer, how did you learn what makes us tick?

Craig Wright: I was actually really proud to be on the panel and not be gay. I was like, “Guess what? I’m doing this audacious thing [depicting a transsexual character] and I’m not even on the team!” I recently got divorced after being married for 20 years, and have a 19-year-old son. I came to [HBO’s mature-themed hit] Six Feet Under from playwriting. That show had gay characters, and I just wrote them as human beings.

MHTV: On the panel that night were people who had played or written gay characters, starting with Billy Crystal from Soap and going all the way to the present day. In your opinion, how much have things changed for depictions of GLBT characters on TV?

CW: You watch that footage of Billy Crystal all those years ago -- it was so shocking and so innovative then. And yes obviously our culture and cultures all over the world still have a long way to go in terms of understanding and accepting differences in lifestyle and sexuality. But quite a bit of stuff has happened. It was really inspiring to see the clips from Soap because it makes you realize that probably twenty years from now we’ll be looking at a world where transsexuality is as much a part of the daily life of the average person as homosexuality is now. I think cultural innovation is like water. You can build all kinds of things to keep it out, but it seeps in. It’s a universal solvent. Everything that can be imagined will occur. So the whole impulse to slow things down and stop them – I’m just not into it.

MHTV: How do you think Dirty Sexy Money fits into that process of innovation? Twenty or thirty years from now, will we be hailing your show as a pioneer?

CW: Along with Greg Berlanti, with whom I spawned this show, I would be very proud if that were to happen. I just think if you’re going to have access to this much audience, you have to make the world a better place. I’m for development. I’m for advancement. I want to move the conversation forward, whether it’s about homosexuality, transsexuality, race, or economic injustice. On Dirty Sexy Money, while we’re telling great stories, we try to as often as possible have people say a few things every episode that are the kinds of things people think but never say.

MHTV: What reaction have you gotten from the GLBT community?

CW: We went to the GLAAD awards, having been nominated because of Candis. It took about three minutes of sitting at the GLAAD awards for me to realize how not gay this show is. It’s very telling actually. That we have a transsexual character on the show, Carmelita, who’s a woman engaged in a heterosexual relationship [with Billy Baldwin’s politician character Patrick Darling.] The show is totally straight, except for the transsexual.

MHTV: Again, there’s that contradiction: straight, except for the transsexual. Are you trying to sneak something by the average American – and to use that water metaphor again, erode their prejudice?

CW: Not really, because Carmelita stands for so much more than that. When I looked at the clips that they showed of Candis at the GLAAD Awards and at that TV Academy panel, I was surprised each time that they didn’t choose a certain moment from episode 6 of last year, which I always thought was the best. It’s where Tripp [Darling, Donald Sutherland’s character] says to her, “This relationship with my son is impossible.” And she says, “Mr. Darling, I am living proof that nothing is impossible.” That to me is the essence of the character’s place on the show. Carmelita doesn’t stand for transsexuality; she stands for courage, audacity and imagination, and the application of all those virtues in the living of one’s life. It isn’t about the fact that she’s a transsexual, but about what she’s doing with it.

MHTV: What do we know about Carmelita’s back story? Do we know when she went through her transition? How far back does the character’s background go in the show’s “bible?”

CW: We know that she went through her surgery in a community near Lake Champlain in Vermont. It was sort of based on similar community in Colorado, which is all built around a clinic there. We also know that when she feels she needs to get back to her center, that’s where she goes. She goes back to that town, and now that she has her cosmetology degree, she does hair and makeup with people who are in transition. That’s about it so far.

MHTV: You’ve been talking about some pretty liberal ideals of social justice, on a show built ostensibly around a capitalist family. Is that a conscious choice?

CW: Yes, and that’s what’s so special about the show. And I think that’s why the people who like it like it and the people who believe in it believe in it so strongly. They know that it’s attempting to be a really unique thing: a totally populist, totally sleazy, funny, sexy show, which is also very literate and has truly well-rounded characters. I was just talking to the people from ABC tonight about it. We all know what a special dare it is that we’re trying to make this show. And it’ll go as long as it goes -- long or short, I don’t know – I don’t care. I just love that we’re all trying it.

MHTV: In the '80s, Dynasty didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor about itself -- we were supposed to take those characters seriously, and aspire to be them. Dirty Sexy Money seems to play on a deeper level. How do you make the Darlings so appealingly both dirty and sexy?

CW: Because of the structure of the show, where the way in is through an outsider, the tone is written into it already. We’re going to be looking at these people from outside. But to me, what makes the show so interesting is Donald Sutherland. [His character, Darling patriarch] Tripp is so compelling, so sensible and so charming that even though the show views these people so ironically and satirically, he makes the best argument for them. You start to think, “What’s the matter with that?” There was a scene in the original pilot that got cut where [Peter Krause’s outsider lawyer character] Nick quits the job. He walks through Central Park, and sees all these cars gathered around a komodo dragon which has escaped from the Central Park Zoo. And as he looks at that komodo dragon encircled by cars and horns and lights, he sees the Darlings. He understands that they’re this antique sort of dinosaur in a world that they view as dangerous. Everybody thinks the Darlings are dangerous, everybody thinks the Kennedys are dangerous, but they feel immensely encircled by danger.

MHTV: The scene sounds perfect – why was it cut?

CW: It just seemed too weird. But we’ll get the komodo dragon on there someday.

Dirty Sexy Money
Season 2 Premiere
Wednesday October 1
10 PM Eastern
ABC

Reading In Front of the TV: Season Finale by Susanne Daniels and Cynthia Littleton

When Susanne Daniels joined the nascent WB network in 1995 as a TV development executive, she had a premonition that the experience would someday make her an author as well. A fan of TV tell-alls, Daniels had just finished reading Outfoxed, which detailed the early days of “fourth network” Fox in the mid 1980s. “I thought, ‘Maybe one day there’ll be a book about the WB and how interesting the beginning has been here, too.’”

In Season Finale, Daniels and co-author Cynthia Littleton look deep inside the turbulent twelve-year existences of both the WB and its archrival, same-time startup network UPN. “As I had gained more distance,” says Daniels, who left the network and its Michigan J. Frog mascot in 2001 and who until recently was the president of entertainment at cable network Lifetime, “I realized that the story was not just about the WB, but a tale of two new networks whose separate fortunes alternately rose and fell as they engaged in a brutal fight for fifth place.”

The mid-90s were a unique era where, encouraged by Washington’s relaxation of its regulations governing network ownership and not yet enamored with the internet, two media giants battled to become the next big thing in broadcast television. It was a period that Littleton already knew well, having pounded the fifth-network beat during her years as a reporter and editor at industry newspapers Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. “I was destined to write this book,” Littleton says, recalling how she and Daniels had for two years tossed around the idea of chronicling the confluence of factors which they felt made the days of 7th Heaven and Buffy the Vampire Slayer so fascinating. Then, on the morning of January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks unexpectedly announced their merger into the CW, the fifth network of today. “Susanne called me that morning,” Littleton remembers, “and said, ‘Now we have to do this.’”

Their separate perspectives combined, the two women agree, provide a clearer look at the ‘90s media rollercoaster than either had ever had on her own. “Susanne lived it and lived to tell about it so eloquently, candidly – and cathartically,” Littleton explains. “And it was a fascinating process for me as a journalist, to go back and revisit things I’d covered as they were happening, and finding out how much I’d gotten right and how much I’d missed.”

An additional 70 interviewees supplement the Season Finale mix -- each, as Daniels notes, more than eager to share his or her own side of the saga. “A lot of people were rooting for this book,” she explains. “Especially on the WB side. For a company that had hit such heights in prime time, the way it ended was a little frustrating. They wanted to have the experience documented.” And document Finale does – every one of the double-crossing deals and last-minute corporate buyouts that radically altered Daniels’ and her UPN counterparts’ jobs by refocusing their target demographics and undermining their budgets virtually overnight.

In focusing as it does on the executive end of the networks’ story, Finale is far from a gossipy confessional. It’s not about the real-life love triangle among the cast of Dawson’s Creek, or which two Charmed actresses didn’t get along – okay, actually that stuff is in there, but it’s not the point. Like legendary former NBC chief Brandon Tartikoff before her, whose memoir The Last Great Ride chronicled that network’s heady days of the 1980s, Daniels provides her much more current experience as a primer for the aspiring exec -- or for any TV junkie who wants to understand the machinations that are really going on behind the small screen. “There are always politics,” Daniels explains, “and a minimum of thirty other factors that affect executives’ decisions.”

The quality of the programming is important, Season Finale stresses. “But,” as the WB and UPN networks’ short life spans proved, Daniels admits wistfully, “it’s not everything.”

Radio Recap, August 6, 2008

It's time for a RADIO RECAP
"Must Hear TV" on "The Frank DeCaro Show" on Sirius OutQ 109
Wednesdays, 1-2 PM


In news from today's "Must-Hear TV" report...

• SciFi Network announced that it's running Stargate Atlantis into this fall, using the series as a lead in to its new show: Sanctuary, which stars Stargate alumna Amanda Tapping.
  
  Starting August 15, Stargate Atlantis repeats will air on Fridays at 9, followed by an original episode at 10. Then, on Friday October 3, Sanctuary premieres in that time slot (9 PM); Stargate resumes airing at 9 on October 10, with Sanctuary sliding back to 10 PM. Got all that?

• In other SciFi news, its series Eureka started season 3 with great ratings, finishing the day as the #1 show on cable for adults 25-54. With 2.8 million total viewers, the show scored its highest numbers since its series premiere on July 18, 2006.

• And in even more SciFi news: Battlestar Galactica executive producer Dave Eick told the geeks crowd at ComicCon last month that the series' remaining episodes (so far, we know 10 are planned) will have to be extra long, in order to wrap up all the show's remaining plotlines and story arcs. It's not clear whether the remaining weeks of Battlestar will be artificially "super-sized," a la NBC, or just extended for some episodes to two hours instead of one. Stay tuned!

And you callers wanted to know:

• Brian in Toledo asked why there are no sitcoms with fantasy elements on the air anymore, like The Munsters, The Addams Family or Alf. I'd say that's just because those types of shows tend to pop up in clusters -- when one works or seems to have buzz, others follow. (The Munsters and The Addams Family, as Frank pointed out, both debuted and were cancelled within weeks of each other!) I'd cite Third Rock from the Sun as a good recent example from the '90s. But you're right -- the abject failure of Cavemen may keep "high concept" sitcoms out of vogue for quite a while to come.

• Greg in Michigan wanted to know if there are any shows coming this fall with gay themes, a la Will & Grace (or even the gayest show ever, Ugly Betty.) Other than the L Word spinoff, which won't be here for a while, I don't know of any which will be that gay. But I do know that a few new series will be showcasing gay characters. Stay tuned to this blog for interviews with Chris Diamantopoulos, who plays Debra Messing's character's gay BFF Rodney on USA's series version of The Starter Wife starting in October, and with gay writer Abraham Higginbotham, whose sitcom Do Not Disturb starts on Fox in early September, complete with the hilarious Jesse Tyler Ferguson playing a gay hotel worker.

• Tom in Miami asked about the status of the rumored Noah's Arc movie. Well, Tom, it's a rumor no more -- click here on afterelton.com for a video of the show's creator Patrik-Ian Polk and star Darryl Stephens talking all about Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom.

And to answer your DVD questions:

• Tom in Miami: Gimme a Break season 1 was released on 2/14/06. Season 2 so far seems to be available only in Canada. Maybe they just like Nell Carter better than we do.

• Jim in OK: The Waltons is up to season 7 on DVD, which was released on April 29 of this year. So, only 2 more seasons to go for your collection.

• Jeremiah in Denver: all 4 seasons of Knight Rider have been out on DVD for a few years now. Just in time for you to catch NBC's remake this fall.

• Mark in FL: So far, the only way you can get the 1967-78 The Carol Burnett Show on DVD (other than the 2004 special Let's Bump Up The Lights or the 2002 reunion special/retrospective Showstoppers) is to order it by subscription from Guthy-Renker, at 1-800-720-3311. I doubt we'll ever see a major consumer release of every one of the show's 11 (!) seasons.

• Nikki in IL: Sorry, but China Beach is still not released. You're not alone in asking for it, though. In fact, you can click here to sign the petition to bring the show to DVD. (As Frank pointed out, for a while there, you could catch airings of the show on the American Life Network -- but no more).

• Greg in Minneapolis: You're not alone in your frustration, either, about the haphazard way Fox has been releasing seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. There was a huge gap of time between seasons 1 and 2 (almost 3 years), while the studio pondered whether to release further years at all. Now, since season 4 came out in 2006, they seem stalled again. Click here to sign the petition to get season 5!

Well that's it for me -- my theme music is playing me out.

Tune in next Wednesday for the next installment of...

"Must Hear TV!

Barbara Feldon and Leonard Stern talk about Get Smart

In the fall of 2007, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Barbara Feldon for an interview for the Archive of American Television. The Archive has edited together footage from this interview, along with footage of Get Smart showrunner Leonard Stern, talking about how Feldon was cast in the iconic role of 99.

Would You Believe... Season 1 of Get Smart on DVD?

Now that the first season of Get Smart is available on DVD, ardent fans of the 1965-70 series will be watching the first 30 of the series' 138 newly restored, remastered, full-length episodes. And… loving it.

The spy spoof ran on NBC for seventy-two seasons (would you believe four?) before switching to CBS for fifty more (would you believe one?), and was the first and still to date the most successful satiric series in the history of television. Chronicling the battle between good-guy government agency CONTROL and evil organization KAOS, Get Smart starred Don Adams as CONTROL Agent 86 Maxwell Smart – who was anything but – and Barbara Feldon as his beautiful, resourceful and loyal partner, and later wife, known throughout the series only as Agent 99.

Adams, who died in 2005, attributed the success of the show, with its unique combination of borscht belt and surrealist humor, to perfect timing – and not just of the comedic variety. In captivating TV audiences just before the ultimately turbulent 1960s got into full swing, “I feel like we led the way in TV back in ’65, when everyone was stirring the oatmeal and sending the kids to school,” he speculated in a previously unpublished 2001 interview. “When I read the Get Smart pilot I thought it was too satirical and ahead of its time, and that it would never go on TV. But it went, and led the way for shows like All in the Family. It was the ‘60s, and with everything that was going on – the drug culture, Charles Manson, Woodstock – there was a whole cultural revolution and I guess Get Smart was part of it.”

Co-star Feldon, who now resides in Manhattan, recalls having been taken by surprise by the passion audiences immediately felt for Smart. “Doing a series is very time-consuming,” she explains. “And in L.A., you’re in your car, and go to some local restaurant where they don’t pay attention to you. So it wasn’t until a few years into the show that I went out into the country on a tour and saw the fervor people were feeling that I got the idea that this was a big show.”

Although Get Smart exited TV Land’s lineup in 2003 and has not aired in the U.S. since, its famous comic catchphrases -- like "Sorry about that, Chief" and "Missed it by that much," which Adams first ad-libbed in a Season 1 episode -- still thrive in our pop culture lexicon. Now, with the series debuting on DVD, a new generation will be able to tune in and turn on to the show’s groovy gadgets, like the constantly malfunctioning "cone of silence." And that's just fine by Feldon. “To this day, almost every day, somebody smiles at me because of 99,” she says. “It has been such a pleasure in my life.”

Get Smart Season 1
Release Date: August 5, 2008
4-disc DVD set; approx. 750 minutes
Suggested Retail Price: $24.98

What Would We Do, Baby, Without Family Ties?

It was a time when America had a Republican president, mall stores sold parachute pants, and NBC aired only a handful of sitcoms, leading critics to declare widely that the format itself was dead.

It may sound like 2008, but the year we’re talking about was 1982, when a comedy called Family Ties helped turn an unknown 5’4” Canadian actor into a big Hollywood star.

Created by veteran writer Gary David Goldberg, Family Ties was initially conceived as the story of a generation gap in reverse. Instead of the All In the Family-esque combination of conservative parent and free-thinking kids, Family Ties would focus on Steven and Elyse Keaton (Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney), two ex-Woodstock hippies who find themselves raising three children born unto Reaganomics.

In its first few seasons, Family Ties stuck to this original mission – and was merely a middling success in its midweek timeslot. Then, in September of 1984, a brand-new sitcom called The Cosby Show breathed life into a brand-new NBC Thursday lineup. Family Ties moved to the new night along with Cheers and Night Court, creating the network’s first-ever comedy lineup worthy of being dubbed “Must-See TV.”

Soon after, in the summer of 1985, the release of Back to the Future forever altered the future of Family Ties. The film’s star Michael J. Fox became a household name, and his sitcom quickly rose to become TV’s second-highest rated program. Ironically, Fox had not been the producers’ first choice. A broke 21-year-old from Burnaby, British Columbia, the actor born with real middle name Andrew (he took “J.” as a stage initial in tribute to character actor Michael J. Pollard) had won the career-making part of Alex P. Keaton only after Matthew Broderick had turned it down. Now, he had become so popular that the show’s whole focus shifted; Family Ties was all about Alex.

A full decade before his Republican heroes coopted the term, eldest sibling Alex was the true embodiment of a “compassionate conservative.” Clearly having been influenced by his liberal-minded parents more than he cared to admit, the fiscally-focused Alex showed a heart of gold as over the course of 180 episodes he sacrificed an admissions interview at Princeton to care for his heartsick sister, defended a feminist at an ERA rally, and even saved a life on a suicide hotline.

The Columbus, Ohio Keaton clan also included middle sister Mallory (Justine Bateman), an underachiever devoted to fashion and boyfriends -- particularly Nick Moore (Scott Valentine), a combination avant-garde artist / biker dude, and her pesty nerd-next-door admirer, Skippy Handelman (Marc Price). Initially the youngest Keaton, Jennifer (Tina Yothers) often seemed the best-balanced, able to wisely and bitingly size up both her parents and brother. Then, in the show’s third season, Meredith Baxter-Birney’s real-life pregnancy was written in, and architect Elyse gave birth to Andy. By the start of season four, baby Andy had magically become a walking, talking toddler (Brian Bonsall.) And much to his parents’ dismay, he quickly became Alex’s pupil in all things conservative, complete with mini briefcase.

In 1985, Alex met Ellen Reed during his freshman year at fictitious Leland College – and as a result, Fox met real-life wife Tracy Pollan. One Alex-loves-Ellen episode in Season 4 featured an obscure four-year-old song called “At This Moment” by Billy Vera and the Beaters; in a testament to the show’s popularity, viewer response was so great that the song was released for the first time as a single and became a top hit.

When Pollan left the show, Alex spent the final two seasons dating another Leland coed, Lauren Miller, played by Courteney Cox almost a decade before Friends. Family Ties had always managed to get great guest stars -- even future Oscar winner Tom Hanks occasionally dropped in as Ned Donnelly, Elyse’s ne’er-do-well brother, wanted for embezzlement.

After a period led by shows like Taxi and WKRP in Cincinnati, Family Ties and Cosby suddenly repopularized the family sitcom setting. But within that setting the show still wasn’t afraid to tackle sensitive subjects, and as a result piled on the accolades, including three consecutive Emmys for Fox. Even President Reagan announced that Family Ties was his favorite program.

In 1989, after only seven seasons, the series called it quits, and Alex left home to take his dream job in New York. His chosen field of investment banking was still prototypically ‘80s, but on May 14, as Alex crossed the Keaton threshold for the last time, it was palpably the end of an era.


Family Ties Season 4
Release Date: August 5, 2008

A Presidential "State of Comedy" Address

As the oft-told story goes, in the spring of 1983, people were saying the sitcom was dead. On NBC, freshman Family Ties was struggling, and another brand new comedy Cheers, ranked dead last in the Nielsen ratings. Then, in the fall of ‘84, The Cosby Show premiered and changed everything.

Now, to end network comedy’s current drought, comedy fans have been waiting for the next Cosby for over a decade. Although the sitcom had proliferated on TV in the ‘90s – to an extent, wearing out its welcome – trend after trend has chipped away at the number of half-hours on each network’s lineup. First there were the umpteen editions of Dateline, taking up valuable NBC real estate. Then game shows, like ABC’s eight-days-a-week Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Then the continuing reality juggernaut (some would say “scourge”), starting in 2000 with CBS’ Survivor.

But these competing formats are not totally to blame; network comedy has all along been devouring itself. And this is why: if you, average aspiring writer, happen to have the world’s best idea for a new network comedy, you can’t just walk into NBC and slap it on Ben Silverman’s desk. No, in order to create one’s own sitcom, a would-be comedy writer must first make his or way through “the system.” That is, a writer must land an agent, then a highly-coveted, nearly non-existent starter’s (or “staff writer”) position on an existing sitcom, then be lucky enough to maintain steady employment so as to toil for years, working his or way up the ladder to the ultimate rung of “executive producer.” The trouble is, with so few comedies on the air, this career-path has become non-existent. There are no shows for one to work one’s way up on. The pipeline is blocked.

And thus with fewer “showrunner”-level writers available – and their continued unwillingness, despite their professions to the contrary, to look outside the pool of usual suspects – the networks have fewer choices when it comes to developing pilots, and fewer chances of hitting the great sitcom lottery by producing the next, game-changing Cosby.

It’s a downward spiral. And from what the networks’ presidents each told me last month at the Television Critics Association convention in Los Angeles, they obviously know it. I heard Fox’s Kevin Reilly and CBS’ Nina Tassler discuss The Great Comedy Question from the TCA stage, and cornered ABC’s Steve McPherson and NBC’s Ben Silverman at their respective networks’ parties. What is the state of network comedy today?, my fellow critics and I asked each of them. What are you doing to revive it? What are you looking for, and where are you going to find it?

The answers below may sound encouraging, but beware: we’ve heard some of this, particularly about opening the studio gates to untested talent, before. So believe this stuff when you see it – that is, when you finally find that screamingly funny sitcom showing up on your screen.

I’m so confident and excited about where we stand as the clear comedy leader in broadcast TV… I love our lineup on Thursday, with a night of sophisticated comedy with movie and TV stars that transcend the genre. …These are the best talents assembled. Our comedies rock. I’m very excited and I feel bullish about it. [And as for multi-camera comedy] , we’re aggressively looking for those as well. We’re developing it. We’re just trying to find the best talent to invest in and believe in their ideas.

[As for any further upcoming new comedies], Thursday night is still the home of the vast majority of our comedies, and that’s probably where we would target. But over time, I’m hoping that we get some traction and some hits and can open up new nights.

- Ben Silverman, Co-Chairman, NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal Television Studio

We’ve talked about [the dire state of comedy] every year. And I can’t even talk to the platitude of “it’s cyclical; it’s going to come back.” My observation is that a lot of confidence has left the creative space on a day-to-day basis. I see really talented people coming in very skittish, not knowing what to pitch, what will sell. I see executives trying to figure out where there is a nerve to hit…

We’re really going to mix it up this year. I’ll tell you one thing we’re doing, which sounds silly, but we’ve agreed in our comedy pitches we’re not going to take most of our pitches in our office. We’re going to go out and meet the writers on their own turf, and that could be at a restaurant. If they want to do it in their house, we’ll do it in their house -- anything that just gets it out of a sterile environment and try something different. …We’re going to try to … pay writers a little bit of money… and say, “You want to shoot something before you come in? Don’t sit on our couch and pitch us. Go shoot something and then pop it in the machine, even if it’s not for air.” We’ve got to do anything to mix it up.

We’ve got one project,… Boldly Going Nowhere for midseason that I think is going to be a great stake in the ground for the next generation of comedy for us. It’s one of the funniest scripts I’ve read in a long time. It’s single camera. It’s sort of The Office in space – petty jealousies and incompetencies on a long-term mission to wherever they’re going. …I feel like right now there’s opportunity for a lot of young voices to come up, and we’re not giving up… Our comedy brand has been a little anemic… for all of our success in the last batch of years, and we’re ready for our next Malcolm in the Middle.

- Kevin Reilly, President, Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company

I think comedy is not dead at all. I think comedy is alive and well -- it’s just that we’ve got to execute some good ones. [As for single-camera versus multi-camera format], I don’t think it’s the form that matters – I think it’s point of view and content and whether it’s good or not. [It may be in the more traditional, multi-camera format, but] you watch reruns of Seinfeld, because it’s a great show. Sitcoms aren’t failing because of the form, but because there haven’t been great ones that have worked.

We’re trying to find new things and voices from other places, whether it’s the book world or feature world or [elsewhere]. We’ve just got to keep looking. We’re lucky when we can put together a Don Todd with a Christina Applegate [on Samantha Who?] It doesn’t come along that often. Or for example take Chuck Lorre and Charlie Sheen – you’ve got to find these great combinations, and we’re looking for that.

I think that’s one of the challenges of the comedy world, that there isn’t the same bench strength …that there is in the drama world. So we’ve got to keep pounding the pavement and be open to new voices. We’ve got to be much more open to all different angles of getting the stuff. We’ll just keep looking… We’ll continue to develop year-round and announce [new shows] when it makes sense.

- Steve McPherson, President, ABC Entertainment

Certainly [with] our comedies, … look at the huge step we made this year in terms of building to a second night. Adding Worst Week to Monday nights certainly speaks to... the future of comedy at the network. So I think that we've been very, very calculated in building shows and adding shows that are certainly within the wheelhouse, but certainly expanding the brand.

- Nina Tassler, President, CBS Entertainment

Estelle Getty: In the Words of Her Friends

As I found out in researching The Q Guide to The Golden Girls, Estelle Getty was universally beloved on that sitcom's set. And so, I thought it would be fitting to comb through my files and put together a tribute from her former friends, co-workers and peers; here, in their own words, are some memories of Estelle, from those who knew and loved her best.

Estelle used to tell a story about the 1970s, when I had a theater production office in the old Victoria Theater building in New York, and she was a secretary on Long Island. I used to have all these open casting calls, and Estelle would come to every one of them, on her lunch hour. She sure did pound the pavement, being a very determined lady. It wasn’t that she didn’t work, but she wasn’t in the big time until Harvey Fierstein came up with that character for her in Torch Song Trilogy which both broke your heart and made you laugh your ass off. And I couldn’t have been happier for Estelle. I’m so glad that she found her glory in her own time.

- John Bowab, a TV director (though not of The Golden Girls) and friend of Estelle’s

[When The Golden Girls was casting], we had quite a few shows on the air, and were covering many responsibilities. So one day, I was handling casting because Paul [Witt] and [Golden Girls creator] Susan [Harris] were busy. Estelle walked through the door, and it was frightening. You don’t expect to hear the dialogue jump off the page that way, but I realized oh my God, this is everything we wanted. Obviously I wanted Estelle in for a callback, but when she was due to come in, I couldn’t be there. I told Jay Sandrich, Paul and Susan, “If you don’t like her, have her do it again. Trust me – don’t let her out of the room until you’re satisfied, because she’s the one!”

- Tony Thomas, producer

On The Golden Girls, we had an amazing casting director who’s no longer with us, Judith Weiner. And the very first person she brought in for the show was Estelle, who was playing Harvey Fierstein’s mother in Torch Song Trilogy here in L.A. And of course she was way too young for the part of Sophia Petrillo. But when we saw her, we knew we could put a wig on her, and she was just great. Judith insisted that we couldn’t just pick the first person we saw, and so we did see other women for that part, but [all along] we knew. It was Estelle’s first sitcom, but she knew just what to do, and I didn’t have to give her any more direction than the others. As a stage actor, she knew just how to get a laugh.

- Jay Sandrich, director of The Golden Girls pilot

I’m 5 foot 9 and a half inches in my stocking feet. And [we were just meeting each other for the first time when] this sweet little thing walked in. It ended up being that Estelle and I formed one of, I think, the great comic duos of all time. It was such an amazing mother/daughter relationship, with love and hate. It was one of those lucky things, a combination of brilliant writing, brilliant acting and brilliant direction.

- Bea Arthur, co-star

[When we started The Golden Girls], Estelle was the new kid on the block. And of course we all fell in love with her immediately. She was so perfect for Sophia. [As she became ill in later years], she missed so much, and it’s such a shame. Even in the beginning, she missed getting a lot of the attention because she was in her old lady makeup. So the other three of us would all get people coming up and saying, “I love your show!”, but they’d see Estelle and wouldn’t know that that was Sophia. But of course, the minute she opened her mouth they would.

- Betty White, co-star

[Although Estelle had auditioned from the beginning], Estelle and I were the last two added to the cast. And she was absolutely hilarious. We gravitated toward one another because we were the two lesser knowns. At first, she was very insecure, and was certain she was going to be fired. She said, “If it’s between you and me, Chuck, you’re obviously staying. I’m gone.” I didn’t have these worries, because rehearsals were going so well.

When we taped the pilot for The Golden Girls, all the other women, who are of course such pros, got their laughs. Especially Bea, because they played to her strength in doing her “slow burn,” a look that takes four or five seconds of silence and just builds in laughter. They were all on the money. But then when Estelle would come on, the audience wouldn’t know what to make of such a character, and so they fell in love with her. She’d open her mouth and bring down the house. She ended up sandbagging everybody. With absolutely perfect comic timing, the woman couldn’t miss, and everybody saw it. They weren’t saying, “Did you see what Estelle did,” but rather, “Oh my God, Estelle is stealing this show out from under three real comic pros.”

- Charles Levin, who played gay houseboy Coco in The Golden Girls pilot before his character was eliminated

When The Golden Girls first started, I complained that there were quite a few publicity photos that Estelle wasn’t in. And at first, I was told in no uncertain terms that Estelle was not a Golden Girl -- Estelle was a mother of a Golden Girl. Well, a couple of months later, the audience decided differently.

In the first year or two of the show, if you went to the studio, you would see Betty’s and Bea’s Mercedes, and I think Rue [had a fancy car]– and Estelle’s Toyota. She never thought of herself as a big star. Her friends would always tell her to get a new car, and finally she did. She rented an apartment in Hollywood for years and years, and still kept her place back home in Queens. She never became part of Hollywood in “that way,” which was adorable. She would say that because her success had come late in life, if it should all go away, she’d be fine. She was incredibly healthy, in not being swept up in it all. She always remained true to who she was – including her love of bargain shopping.

On many occasions, like when the Golden Girls got to meet the Queen [at a Command Performance], she was really somewhat in awe, because she always did think of herself as this girl from the Lower East Side – that feeling never left her. And she’d always say that she had the most wonderful job in the world, because whenever people saw her, all they wanted to do was come up and hug her. And how many people get to go through life like that?

- Juliet Green, Estelle's former manager

I did not know Estelle prior to appearing on The Golden Girls, but when I met her, I just instantly loved her. She was the cutest lady, and was really funny. She always pretended she couldn’t do something, and then Bea Arthur would say behind her back, “She can do that. You know she can do that.” She was a gutsy little lady.

- Betty Garrett, guest star

When you walk on to any set where people have been together for a long time, they all already have a certain closeness, and it can be intimidating. But I knew Estelle already from New York, and she welcomed me warmly. We would huddle a lot together off in the corner and joke, and worry about our lines. We called it “a panic in the corner.”

- Dena Dietrich, guest star (as Sophia's daughter Gloria)

Estelle was the first one of the Girls [my former writing partner] Jamie Wooten and I talked to. When I introduced her to Jamie, she said, “You’re well known for something?” And I said, “No, I think you are thinking of James Wooten who is a correspondent for ABC news.” She got this embarrassed look on her face. I realized she was just a sweet, grandmotherly lady, and I just fell in love with her. She was the first one I became close to.

The thing that was brilliant about Estelle was her sense with one-liners. When the audience knows the character is going to say something funny, you try to get through the entire punch line before they start clapping. Well Estelle would motor through those jokes. She would spit them out, and it was brilliant. You could teach a lesson in comedy diction with how Estelle would approach those one-liners. To this day, I think that, more than any of the other women, her one-liner delivery was magnificent.

- Marc Cherry, writer and later creator of Desperate Housewives

Estelle used to talk pretty openly about how she was paralyzed with stage fright. It was horrible for her. What should have been the most joyful experience for her could sometimes instead be just crippling. Of course, even when she was out of her body with fear and didn’t seem to know what she was saying, she would nail the joke. It was the weirdest, chemical thing.

In one episode, Julio Iglesias was making an appearance, where he was supposed to come in at the tag and serenade Sophia. But when he arrived he said he didn’t want to sing. I was concerned that [producers] Paul [Witt] and Tony [Thomas] would be upset because we hired Julio and he didn’t want to sing. But Estelle bailed me out. She said, “Honey, I’ll take care of it.” She was so compassionate for someone feeling apprehensive about doing something that she was able to take care of him in that moment. She took his arm, and instead sang to him – and that’s the way you see it in the episode.

- Nina Wass, producer

Estelle was just funny, Jewish New York funny. She kept saying jokingly, “Can’t we make these characters Jewish?” She would have felt so much more comfortable than trying to be Italian, although clearly it worked! I kept in touch with Estelle for as long as she could stay in touch, as long as she knew who I was. I got a huge kick out of her always. Estelle had been an off-off-off-off-Broadway girl while she was raising a family, and she told very funny stories about New York.

- Rue McClanahan, co-star

If you are an actress in this business you learn to appreciate the gay guys. [As a gay male writing team], we didn’t lie, we just didn’t bring up that aspect of our lives. But Estelle recognized us immediately. She came up to us and asked, “Are you guys gay?” We said, “How did you know?!” She told us, “You are coming out to dinner, you are going to have fun with me, and I will introduce you to a lot of people.” And so we became very close. She was such a sweetheart, and we admired her because from early on she was an AIDS fundraiser.

- Stan Zimmerman and James Berg, writers and creators of Lifetime's upcoming sitcom Rita Rocks

Estelle was an incredibly funny lady. And the best thing was, she taught me to make great matzoh ball, and I so now I make great matzoh ball soup to this day. She said, “You don’t pack it like a snowball -- you just very loosely drop it in.” And boy, it just makes them nice and fluffy. It’s advice for which I’m eternally grateful, as are my children.

- Cheech Marin, co-star on sequel series Golden Palace