On Television
KITMAN, MARVIN
OnTelevision KEEPING UP WITH AMERICA by marvin kitman T JL* oday on NBC isn't what it was yesterday, and I find that as disquieting as seeing the sun rise in the west. Until last December, the...
...Leaving aside the Phil Donahue theory, Tom Snyder, then, as a replacement for Brokaw wouldn't surprise me...
...Yes, there without any disguise whatsoever was my old friend Phil appearing on the Today show of May 14 for the first of his thrice weekly eight-minute gigs (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays...
...As they stare out studio windows at New York City, I find myself wondering if they can move their feet...
...Nor does it help that Brokaw's principal sidekick, Jane Pauley, whose major journalistic qualification is that she looks like a younger Barbara Walters, can't interview, write or think like Barbara...
...While all this is going on, you might see Tom Brokaw doing eight minutes on Phil's regular hour, then 16 minutes, then . . . The original Donahue show with Brokaw as host might go down the drain, but it doesn't matter...
...Now, when you try to lean on it the foundation gives...
...A lot of very bright print people have also been brought in...
...I no longer have a sense of what the show is about...
...So much for theory...
...Thus Phil's three times a week, eight-minute segment might gradually become a daily feature, twice daily, a half hour—until the name of the Today program is changed slightly to 77ie Phil Donahue Show...
...Yet since Phil's segments are so obviously truncated imitations of his belter full-length efforts, what is he doing on Today anyway...
...Today also lacks a David Hart-man, Good Morning America's relaxed and amiable host, to cement everything together...
...I even stopped knotting my tie in honor of the occasion...
...Ron Hendren is NBC's answer to ABC's Rona Barrett, only Ron is not as sexy as Rona...
...Indeed, Tom Brokaw, is not a very warm person to wake up to...
...The two hours with Tom and Jane (7-9 a.m...
...Moreover, even the audience is allowed to ask questions, something smart hosts don't do because it could make them look dumb in the eyes of the viewers: Why didn't he ask that...
...Until last December, the Number One early-morning show in the nation, if not the whole free (TV) world, had for some years been as predictable as Gene Sha-lit's mustache...
...But at the same time Good Morning America's audience is growing, because a whole new group is coming into the morning TV market (perverts, as I think of them, who while dressing want to watch Cheryl, Joan, Sandy, and other frivolous things...
...Last month I was especially jarred by the arrival of a new cast member named Phil Donahue...
...As a boy, Walker would come in from playing on the ghetto streets and his mother would look at him with disgust and shout, "Lighten up...
...On the other hand, it could be argued that still another personnel shift might yet save the day...
...To return to the immediate situation, new faces, new sets and new formats have been cropping up on Today at an alarming rate...
...It used to be the rock upon which America started its mornings...
...Sudden and purposeless change tends to occur when the ratings go down, they sagely note...
...One theory has it that we are witnessing the start of the Donahue Syndrome (which Today's new producer, Joe Bartelme, hopes will be the opposite of Downs Syndrome, or what happens when Hugh Downs sits in for David Hartman on Good Morning America with soporific results...
...Actually, they look like kids in a kindergarten class...
...Possibly the most striking change was the addition of Alanna Davis, the former fashion model, to handle light news —lifestyles, art, human interest stories, and commercials...
...you just have to wipe him off with a damp rag and throw him in there...
...Tom can always go back to the little radio station in South Dakota that he was in the midst of buying when that exaggerated nonsense came out about his applying for a Small Business Administration loan for minorities in broadcasting...
...In fact, Phil's audiences are the best thing about his segments...
...It was Brokaw's South Dakota bank that sought a loan guarantee at the SBA, I've been assured, and it was a technical affair involving lawyers, not Brokaw himself...
...Unfortunately, its impression of Good Morning America doesn't work...
...Those who consider themselves TV biz experts have a ready explanation for this...
...White-bread" of NBC's New York AfewsCen-ter4...
...Let's be like the other guys...
...So, after a quarter century of leadership, Today looked over its shoulder and panicked...
...Tom and Jane get to sit at these really absurd little desks, too...
...For the excitement provided by change you could go outside and get mugged, or hit by Sky lab...
...None of these problems might ever have occurred had Today changed gradually over the years, like everyone else...
...In fact, they have never been higher...
...But alas, the interview was much ado about nothing...
...Today even looks like Good Morning America, with all those characters dropping in to keep the show hopping...
...In 1953, when Today was in real trouble, it zoomed to the top by hiring J. Fred Muggs...
...These days he looks even grimmer, if that's possible...
...By 8:50, when the biggest buildup since D-Day ended, I was beside myself with anticipation...
...Exhibiting a sleaziness 1 have come to associate with ABC's Good Morning America, Today hosts Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley "teased" the hell out of it all morning long...
...Can a leopard change its spots...
...High ratings on his new NBC magazine show, Prime Time—premiering June 24—could set the Snyder bandwagon in motion again...
...Rather, the audience surrounds the guest, like Conestoga wagons drawn up in a circle around a campfire...
...J^ronically, Today's many maneuvers to match its ABC rival have resulted in nothing less than an identity crisis...
...The guest is not placed on stage, with the audience seated at his feet to catch pearls...
...They wouldn't even mention what incredible thing Phil was going to do...
...And in keeping with his syndicated program, the segments have a novel format...
...He is the reader, you will recall, brought in to replace Lew Wood, who replaced Frank Blair with the national and world news at the hour and half hour...
...were comforting, like watching grass grow—no, make that Astroturf...
...Not for Women and Children Only" is the way I like to think of his regular program while ironing my shirts or doing some light dusting between 9-10 a.m...
...Snyder was in the running for the host slot when Brokaw got it...
...After almost two years on the job, Jane still appears puzzled by the whole affair, incapable of doing anything without that electric plug in her ear barking important instructions from the control room?open your mouth," "raise your hand," "turn left...
...My sources say a leading candidate, despite his denials, is Chuck Scarborough, "Mr...
...their eyes are open despite the early hour, because they are on tape, and the sharpness of their questions suggest that they have been bused in from University of Chicago graduate seminars...
...They were mini-versions of his regular hour-long show, only duller...
...An impending Today change concerns poor Floyd Kalber...
...In any case, Today's predicament reminds me of a story told by Jimmy Walker (the dy-no-mite comedian, not the New York mayor...
...The analysis would be perfect, except for one thing?Today's ratings have not gone down...
...Maybe the idea is that they are supposed to resemble two manikins sitting at the winetaster's desks Bloomingdale's used to sell...
...weekdays...
...Scarborough is your typical modern TV newsman...
...His personality is cold, and his face has the tightness of a man on a perpetual diet...
...That's what I liked about it...
...Jane and Tom and Gene, of course, are preoccupied with more cosmic matters...
...He will be having the kind of guest only he can have," said Brokaw, in that supercilious South Dakota Brahmin fashion some of us have come to detest...
...Should a leopard, with bite and speed, have to...
...He is a classically beautiful plastic person, a real rival to Sandy Hill, Joan Lunden and Cheryl Tiegs, the female stars of Good Morning America...
...If the choice isn't Scarborough himself, you can count on a Scarborough lookalike...
...Producers follow a predictable, if dubious, logic: "We must be doing something wrong...
...My favorite Donahue segment the first week, if only because of the hype, was the one featuring a transsexual (May 16)—the noted Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent and desk man, Nancy Hunt...
...Today's new cast doesn't have the balance and hyperactivity of the Good Morning America crew...
...Nevertheless, Donahue has an intriguing, warm way with a guest...
...Reportedly 200 TV newsmen across the nation have been interviewed...
...Could this be the same man, I asked myself, who hosts a syndicated talk show in Chicago that has been getting super ratings on New York's NBC affiliate, and recently won three daytime Emmys for excellence...
...Another Donahue trait is letting the guests do the talking and actually picking up on what they have to say, instead of responding with some totally unrelated question a la such great talk show hosts as Merv Griffin or Mike Wallace...
...It set the agenda—for leaders from Jimmy Carter to me...
...Similarly, Mike Barnicle of the Globe, syndicated columnist George F. Will and Haynes Johnson of the Washington Post are all better journalists than most TV newsmen—although none are quite as faci-nating as Good Morning America's Jack Anderson or Paul Harvey, both of whom are shows within shows...
...Whatever the fancy name communications experts give this arrangement (audience interrelation...
...Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe is a sophsticated and witty writer, a delight to share my shower and breakfast with...
...The word is out that he is through, fired, and merely waiting to be replaced...
...Unfortunately, the segments I saw premiere week did not make my iron sizzle...
...Normally, Kalber looks like he's mourning a dead relative...
...It skirted the issues, as only TV can...
...Could this be the same deceptively bland Phil Donahue who specializes in adult subjects...
...Especially compared to Brokaw, who has the spontaneity of a mechanical doll, Phil comes off almost human...
...I call it the Pinky Lee effect—after the comic who achieved intimacy by sitting in the laps of women in the studio...
Vol. 62 • June 1979 • No. 13
