On Television
KITMAN, MARVIN
On Television THE AGONY AND THE IDIOCY BY MARVIN KITMAN THE NETWORKS used to give a series 26 weeks to prove itself. Maybe they were influenced by all those oil wells pumping away next to the...
...Maybe they were influenced by all those oil wells pumping away next to the studios in Hollywood...
...But I gave Anne Meara a fair trial anyway...
...The program was found guilty on counts one through five...
...I was so apathetic I wasn't even able to get around to reviewing the programs in September and October...
...The idea of a new shorter season, I am happy to report, quickly spread to CBS and ABC...
...But an even better idea than cancelling shows, it seems to me, would be cancelling the TV executives who pick the starters...
...What is the point of having a second (or third or etc...
...All is forgiven...
...Most series in the old days, back last year, were based on a thin idea...
...He reportedly had not actually made up his mind about Fay until Grant told Johnny Carson, or whoever may have been sitting in for the always vacationing short-season advocate, "Guess what...
...Like most people, I had been watching the new (first) season in respectful apathy...
...Antonowsky denies that he became "the fastest draw in the East" on impulse...
...Perhaps it was pride of achievement...
...JUDGE (to McShane): "Does the defense have any opening remarks...
...Out in California, an old saying goes, "They throw the shit against the wall and see if it sticks...
...NBC should try giving him back his wet suit and air bubbles...
...Oy vay iz Meara...
...Before they are completely forgotten, I'd like to get some of my reviews for the 1975-6 (first) season on record, starting with the new Mel Brooks series...
...This series was supposed to do for the American penal system what Hogan's Heroes did for the World War II German POW camp...
...Thus a "season" for a show now runs from two to 13 weeks...
...After the premiere the family should have been sent back to Switzerland...
...A second season ideally should be in the hands of a second team of Mad Programmers, say in New York...
...Why let the patient suffer...
...Sheldon Leonard musta took elocution lessons faw dis show...
...Anne Meara ranks with the funniest women ever seen on television...
...They go to the same production companies where the same writers come up with the same ideas...
...On the Rocks (ABC, Thursdays, 8:30 P.M...
...Big Eddie (CBS, Fridays, 8:00 P.M...
...It was a carefully calculated move, he insists in newspaper interviews...
...The story line was supposed to combine the warmth of a tightly knit Irish-American family and the coolth of a hard-hitting courtroom melodrama...
...Perhaps Lloyd Bridges' problem as an actor is that he is being deprived of oxygen...
...But the most serious charge in the case of the critics against CBS was count Number One: the crime of making Anne Meara the star of a straight law show...
...This is the most promising development in television since the invention of the Phenakistoscope (a universally used machine that flashes a sequence of drawings at the same picture frequency to create the illusion of motion) by Plateau in 1849...
...It more than achieved that goal and it should now be sent to Siberia, retitled The American Gulag Archipelago...
...7:00 P.M...
...On the sixth count, believability, I accepted the plea of nolo contendere...
...I remember the original 26-wcck seasons-but not fondly...
...Kate McShane (CBS, Wednesday, 10:00 P.M...
...I bet none of them would ever think of bringing back Donnie and Marie, as ABC is doing on January 16...
...For example, Lee Grant, the star of Fay, didn't appreciate the wisdom he displayed in yanking the series after only two painful episodes (the adjoining tooth on NBC's Thursday night schedule, The Montejuscos, was pulled at the same time...
...They certainly were...
...Virtually without exception, they repeat their mistakes...
...Appearing on NBC's Tonight show, the actress dubbed Antonowsky "The Mad Programmer...
...Other new series arrived at different times all December...
...Grady, a spin-off from Sanford & Son premiered on NBC December 4. One Day at a Time, another Norman Lear brainchild, premiered on CBS on December 16...
...Another leading research organization, Trendex, made phone calls for him to random households in 25 cities, asking respondents their opinions about certain programs...
...An executive at CBS unhesitatingly revealed who was responsible: "Oh, that was Freddy Silverman's idea...
...The network executive is said to have responded, "Hey, that's a good idea...
...She did not wear a new dress or pants suit for each day of a trial...
...Joe Forrester (NBC, Tuesdays, 10:00 P.M...
...One must respect Antonowsky's judgment about the duds in the opening NBC schedule...
...Personally, I always prefer watching a tight-knit Irish sweater...
...Lars, come back...
...Kate McShane, for example, was a particularly interesting programming experiment...
...The networks were rarely able to sustain the idea for one complete episode, much less 26 weeks...
...With the results in, he promptly decided to kill the two bad Thursday night shows, plus The Invisible Man and The Family Holvak...
...Anybody can play Kate McShane- and has, in every rip-roaring law show copped from Perry Mason...
...PROSECUTOR (to jury): "And I will prove etc., etc., etc...
...After a schedule fails to excite (1) the critics and (2) the people-in that order-the networks should act promptly and bring in a new team of executives, preferably ones without proven track records of failure...
...I'll have to use it...
...Da guy mastered da arts of shoutin' and gesticulatin', but it still had to be da woist show of da year...
...The television audience is the wall in the creative process...
...By Thanksgiving Day, it seemed that just about all of the new, wonderful fall shows had been pulled or were about to be replaced by more new and wonderful shows (otherwise known as the second season...
...Phyllis (CBS, Mondays, 8:30 P.M...
...Yet something drove them to repeating the same thing over and over again...
...Today, program decision-making is based on another science: dentistry...
...Catching the "brightest stars" on CBS or checking out the claim that, boy, "have we got a season for you...
...at NBC was akin to watching a Fred Wiseman festival on educational TV Like many innovators and courageous thinkers of earlier times, Marvin Antonowsky, vice-president-in-charge-of-programming at NBC and the man most commonly credited with killing shows faster than usual, has been the target of abuse and ridicule...
...It was one of the dumbest decisions of the year, like turning Joe Namath into a hockey player because his bad knees can no longer take the strain of playing pro football...
...There followed a 13-second stalk across the courtroom by McShane, planting hands on the jury staff, etc., etc., etc...
...When Things Were Rotten (ABC, Wednesdays, 8:30 P.M...
...The McShane disaster was replaced on December 17 with The Blue Knight, a spin-off from a cop show of the same name on NBC last season...
...Phyllis needs you...
...But some of these obit reviews don't do justice to the dead and doomed...
...The first season fisaco was mostly the product of the Southern California School of Broadcasting Genius...
...So it probably was to be expected that CBS would select the comedienne to star in a trite drama...
...MCSHANE (to judge): "Yes, your honor, we do...
...The TV audience is living in a state of perpetual excitement, not quite knowing when the second season starts or ends...
...season if you have the same people making the choices...
...Sundays...
...When CBS hired Anne Meara to star in her first TV series, it was announced that she would play a bombastic, unorthodox lawyer...
...The Invisible Man (NBC, Mondays, 8:00 P.M...
...After all, he put them there in the first place...
...The third, fourth and fifth seasons this television year will be equally thrilling...
...He explains that instead of relying on the usual Nielsen ratings-based on the viewing habits of a cumbersome 1,100 families-he devised a smaller, even more foolproof sample...
...Swiss Family Robinson (ABC...
...If the new mini-series concept catches on permanently, it should take a lot of pressure off the creative people...
...A third season should be directed by an executive team from Des Moines or Bangor, Maine...
...They really used to drag...
...Silverman is the former CBS programming chief, now at ABC...
...Kate McShane's major contribution to the public's understanding of the law was Kate's wardrobe...
...Ironically, in this instance she may have been the source of his inspiration...
...Signed: MTM Enterprises, Inc...
...If you don't strike oil in 26 weeks, an old petroleum geologist's maxim goes, stop boring...
...Your death was all a mistake...
...They are cancelling my show...
...They may never have to come up with enough material to last for more than a month or two...
...How could they even have thought of giving her a serious role...
...As Mary Taylor Schilling, the wife of a prominent New York attorney has observed, McShane more closely resembled a struggling young lawyer than even Petrocelli...
...The STORIES for this TV drama were so soporific, some trained observers wondered whether CBS was playing 45-rpm scripts at 33 1/3 this season...
...The networks follow the old pull-the-tooth theory: If it's painful, get it out fast...
...Many of them could have been discussed adequately in a line or two...
...A particularly cunning and craftsman-like episode featured the following dialogue...
Vol. 59 • January 1976 • No. 1
