It will go down as one of the biggest debacles in the history of television — a hugely expensive flop that NBC hoped would trigger a turnaround in its low-rated prime-time lineup.
That hasn’t happened so far with “Smash,” but even more importantly, it’s not ever going to happen. Three weeks into its run, it’s tanking.
Here’s the rundown:
In its premiere (Monday nights at 10) the night after the Super Bowl when it got promoted like crazy (see story below), it drew 11.44 million total viewers, and scored a 3.8 rating in the “young” demo, 18-49.
In Week Two (Feb. 13): 8.06 million viewers, 2.8 in the demo.
In Week Three (Feb. 20): 6.47 million, 2.3.
Here’s the thing about ratings: The trends are just as important as the numbers. And downward trends don’t usually reverse themselves. In fact, to be even more blunt, they almost never do.
Instead, they just indicate the obvious: Viewers are abandoning “Smash.” They’re simply not finding it enjoyable enough to return the following week to see what happens. And that means the show is toast. It will probably stay on until its season ends in May, but don’t hold your breath waiting for Season Two next fall because you’ll suffocate.
Why did it fail?
Here are a few reasons:
The show was one big cliche: They should have just named it “TV Show: The Musical” — that’s how generic this thing was. Here’s a litany of some of the cliches this tired show trafficked in: The dream of Broadway stardom (more on this below), a musical about Marilyn Monroe (c’mon, really?), and the macho, authoritarian director who tries to seduce the young female contestants for the lead role in his show by laying some line on them about how they must free themselves from their inhibitions. Excuse me for bluntly leveling an accusation here with no real proof but that one came straight out of “Black Swan” (which did it a whole lot better).
Nobody cares about Broadway: At least not in numbers sufficient to support a TV series that is supposed to draw the kind of viewership that is supposed to save an entire network. Sure, the tourists flock to the shows in and around Times Square, but that’s because they’re in New York — it’s one of the things you do when you come here.
It’s a lot of fun too, and Broadway, generally speaking, is very profitable these days. But that’s because of the peculiar characteristics of Broadway and its shows — they’re live, they’re in theaters, and they’re something you do so that when you go back home, you can tell your friends and neighbors that you saw a Broadway show while you were in New York.
A TV show about Broadway is just not the same thing at all.
It’s almost a certainty that the decision-makers who said yes to “Smash” went through a thought process that went something like this: They observed the crowds in Times Square just before curtain time and noted what they read about box-office receipts. Then they considered how many aspirational talent shows are on TV nowadays, from “American Idol” and “The Voice” to “Glee.” So they decided they would make a drama series combining all these elements (in the hope that high ratings would become their version of robust ticket sales).
That didn’t happen, for the simple reason that Broadway shows are for viewing once or twice in a lifetime on a rare trip to New York City, not for watching every Monday night at home.
Of course, I could have told them this, but nobody asked me. On the other hand, what do I know? Before it premiered, I predicted that “Smash” would be an 8 million-viewer show. I was correct where the series’ second episode was concerned, but in Week Three, “Smash” proved me wrong. How wrong? That all depends on how low it goes next week.
NBC smashed its way to victory in the ratings Monday night — a huge turnaround for the network on a night where it suffered mightily all season.
The reason: A one-two punch of series that were highly promoted during the Super Bowl – “The Voice” and “Smash.” It was a promotion ploy that paid off — promoting both shows during the big game that was watched by 111 million people, and also premiering the new season of “The Voice” directly following the game on Sunday night.
By the time Monday rolled around, America was apparently ready to check in with “The Voice” for a second consecutive night, and also primed to sample “Smash,” the widely promoted Broadway drama that NBC hopes will ignite a comeback for the entire network in the ratings.
Well, the jury’s still out on whether “Smash” will revive NBC’s entire lineup, and it also won’t be known ’til next Monday if this week’s “Smash” viewers will return next week. But for now, NBC execs are likely popping champagne corks over the 11.498 million viewers the “Smash” premiere drew at 10/9c Monday night. While they had probably hoped for an even bigger audience on opening night, that number is far, far better than anything NBC had aired previously in any time slot on Mondays this season, including shows such as “Chuck,” the ill-fated “Playboy Club” and the Brian Williams news magazine “Rock Center.”
And the news for “The Voice” was even better. The talent-competition series found itself in “American Idol” and “Dancing With the Stars” territory Monday night with a two-hour average from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. (7-9c) of 17.686 million viewers, according to the Nielsen overnights — the kind of audience tally for a regular series that NBC hasn’t seen in years. It also bears mentioning that the “Voice” numbers far outpaced Simon Cowell’s “X Factor” on Fox earlier this season. In fact, the second hour of “The Voice” Monday night drew a monster-sized audience Simon can only dream about: 19.295 million.
That figure was more than enough to clobber the usually dominant sitcoms on CBS – “Two and a Half Men” at 9/8c (which drew 12.898 million Monday night) and “Mike & Molly” at 9:30/8:30c (11.015 million).
NBC won every prime-time hour Monday night. Among the other shows on the other networks, “The Bachelor” on ABC averaged only 8.243 million viewers over its two hours (8-10/7-9c).
NBC finally made it official Thursday morning: Howard Stern’s been hired as the third judge on “America’s Got Talent,” replacing the departed Piers Morgan. Stern will be seen on the show starting next summer.
There are likely many people who are scratching their heads over this hire, people who don’t see how on earth Howard Stern, the notorious radio personality whose conversations with guests on his Sirius XM radio show are often X-rated, will now be seen on one of our biggest TV networks in a show that, if nothing else, is suitable for the whole family.
Sure, on the face of it, he doesn’t seem compatible with this show at all. But, in fact, he’s a great choice. Here’s why and how it happened:
1) Stern’s adaptable: One thing many people other than his most ardent fans fail to realize — Howard Stern is a very gifted broadcaster. Whether you enjoy the subject matter of his conversations on the radio or not, he is still one of the best there is at talking, which, believe it or not, is a skill that only a few have. And among his skills is this: Putting the potty talk on hold when it’s necessary to do so — on late-night shows, for example, and also when he used to voice commercials for sponsors of his radio show; those commercials were second-to-none. On “AGT,” Stern will clean up his act accordingly because, while I know this is difficult for many to believe, the guy is a consummate professional. Yes, it’s true.
2) NBC needed him: How badly? Enough to move heaven and earth — and the show from L.A. to New York — to get him. And it will be worth it too — Stern will not only be very entertaining week after week, but the man is an electro-magnet for media attention. His utterings on the show will be widely covered, at least initially, and “AGT” will reap the benefits in publicity. In fact, with Stern on board, there’s little reason, other than timing, why this show shouldn’t air during the regular season on NBC, instead of the summer. It would certainly do better than “The Sing-Off” or “The Biggest Loser,” competition shows that NBC had on its fall lineup this season that performed terribly in the ratings.
3) Stern “needed” this gig: Not in the sense that one “needs” a job in order to make money to support his family. Stern’s rich enough to never have to work, but I suspect that an offer like this was irresistible to Stern, if it could be arranged. Ever since he left terrestrial radio for Sirius, Stern has not been nearly the center of attention he once was in the heyday of his national morning show on old-fashioned broadcast radio. With this “AGT” gig, he gets an opportunity for exposure in what is probably the most mainstream environment of his career — a G-rated talent show on one of our major TV networks. Plus, he gets to feel relevant again, a media personality who still has the clout to get a network to roll out the red carpet for him, even though his history on television is mixed at best, and at worst, dismal.
Howard Stern on “America’s Got Talent”? Our prediction: “AGT” is now poised to become the most talked-about TV show of 2012.
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TV Howl bonus: My own misadventures with Howard Stern
From my personal memoir titled “Jerk: My Life as a Columnist on the TV Beat” by Adam Buckman (all rights reserved), Chapter 3: “The King of All Media.” Read all about it, starting right here:
Chapter Three:
The King of All Media
I.
The phone rang early on a Wednesday morning while I was still in bed. It was a producer from Howard Stern’s radio show. He wanted to know if I would talk to Howard on the air about my column in the paper that morning.
I said no, muttered something about still being asleep, hung up and slept some more.
Meanwhile, it was 6:30 a.m. and Stern was throwing a temper tantrum. He had already spent a half-hour berating me on the radio …
Downtrodden Charlie Brown searches for the true meaning of Christmas in the revered holiday special "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (Photo: ABC).
CBS EXECS HATED SHOW, PREDICTED IT WOULD FLOP
By ADAM BUCKMAN
In a timely interview (timely as far as the holiday season is concerned), “Charlie Brown Christmas” producer Lee Mendelson reveals how this beloved special almost sank his (and “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz’) hopes for more “Charlie Brown” specials.
It went on to become the most popular and beloved of all of TV’s Christmas specials, but when CBS executives first laid eyes on “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in 1965, they didn’t care for it.
“They just didn’t like the show when I brought it to them” for the first time, recalled one of the show’s producers, Lee Mendelson, 78, in a recent phone interview from California. Mendelson was executive producer of the special, along with “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz, who died in 2000, and the late Bill Melendez.
“They just didn’t, for whatever reason, like the show,” he said. “The first thing they said was, ‘Well, it’s going to go on next week. There’s nothing we can do about it,’ but I remember them saying it will probably be the first and last Charlie Brown show. . . . They thought it was too slow, they didn’t like the jazz music so much on a Christmas show – in other words, these were all creative things that they didn’t like.”
In fact, Mendelson and Melendez thought they’d “missed the boat” too. It was their first network special with Schulz and his Peanuts characters and it was shaping up to be their last. “When we finished the show, Bill and I were very discouraged,” Mendelson said. “In fact, Bill thought we had really missed the boat [and] I remember one of the animators stood up in the back and said, ‘You guys are crazy. This is gonna run for a hundred years!’ We thought he was crazy.”
Mendelson also shed light on a popular misconception about “A Charlie Brown Christmas” – namely, that the CBS execs objected to the special’s Christian content. “They had no problem with the [show’s] religious aspects,” Mendelson said.
In the show’s famous “biblical verse” scene – unique in the annals of holiday TV specials – an anguished Charlie Brown vents his frustration over the commercialism that has overtaken the holiday. “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” he asks.
Linus then strides to center stage and asks that the lights be dimmed. He then recites the Bible passage – from the gospel according to Luke, verses 8-14. “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night,” he says. “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them . . . And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. . . . ”
If anyone had reservations about the Bible verses, it was Mendelson and Melendez, but not Schulz because it was Schulz’s idea. Recalled Mendelson, “I remember when we were drawing up the show, Schulz said, ‘We’re going to have [Linus] read from the Bible.’ And Bill and I looked at each other and Bill said, ‘You know, I don’t think animated characters have probably ever read from the Bible. And I remember Schulz’s response. He said, ‘Bill, if we don’t do it, who will?’ ”
Despite everyone’s reservations about the special, it was a smash – watched by about half the country (on Dec. 9, 1965). Among other things, the jazz music – by the Vince Guaraldi Trio – that the CBS execs disliked became world famous. And it was far from the last Peanuts special produced by the triumvirate of Schulz, Mendelson and Melendez. They made dozens of others in a collaboration that lasted about 30 years.
This year, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is airing on network TV for its 47th consecutive holiday season.
Krusty the Clown and agent Annie Dubinsky (Joan Rivers) in last Sunday's episode of "The Simpsons" on Fox (Photos: Fox)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
“The Simpsons” crammed a ton of TV history into that new episode seen this past Sunday night on Fox — not only spoofing Ralph Kramden and “The Honeymooners” and other iconic shows — but also featuring a storyline for guest-star Joan Rivers that cut close to the bone.
It was a story about a top comedy talent headlining a network TV show and the show’s headstrong producer, with whom the comedian has a close personal relationship. In the episode, the producer — played by Rivers — threw her weight around so much on the set that network execs ordered the comedian, Krusty the Clown, to fire her, or else they would.
The story, no doubt devised with Rivers’ approval and possibly with her input, mirrored her own personal history — with Fox, no less — back in 1987. That’s when she starred in a late-night show on the then-fledgling network — “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers” — while her husband, Edgar Rosenberg, acted as executive producer. When Fox execs ordered her to fire Edgar, she refused and they were both canned. Three months later, he committed suicide — the worst tragedy of Rivers’ life.
And yet, there she was on “The Simpsons” spoofing her own tragic history — something only a comedian of her stature and experience would attempt.
In the episode, Krusty’s kids show got cancelled because he was so sadly behind the times (even referring in a meeting with network executives to “Percy Dovetonsils,” a character not seen on TV since the late Ernie Kovacs played him in the 1950s). So Krusty linked up with Annie Dubinsky (Rivers), who was once his agent and girlfriend in the 1960s until he dumped her. This past Sunday, she engineered his comeback after the cancellation. But then, he had to fire her.
The whole episode dealt with the history of television, starting out with a Simpson family outing to the Springfield Museum of Television, which was closing and holding a memorabilia fire sale because no one apparently cared anymore about the early history of TV. And, as Homer lamented, you don’t need to visit a museum anymore to see clips of old shows when you have the Internet.
At the museum, the family encountered an exhibit devoted to an old — and fictional — black-and-white show from the ’50s called “Fatso Flanagan,” which bore more than a resemblance to the old “Honeymooners.” Homer and Marge even mimicked the famed “Baby, you’re the greatest!” scenes from “The Honeymooners” as Homer described how almost every comedy ever made for TV was based somehow on “The Honeymooners.”
It was an incredibly rich episode, and one that ought to put to rest, at least for now, rumblings from some critics lately that “The Simpsons” ought to be put out to pasture. All we can say to that is this: Not yet, Fox — not yet.
It’s “Jerk: My Life as a Columnist on the TV Beat” — my as-yet unfinished (but pretty far along) journalist’s memoir of a lifetime (so far) covering the TV business.
It’s all here at my new blog site: AdamBuckman.com (or click on the image above).
The many faces of Herman Cain -- four of 'em, at least! -- as he appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" Monday night.
By ADAM BUCKMAN
The embattled Republican candidate did just great — and so did Jimmy.
Jimmy Kimmel made the most of a guest who was a rarity for him and his ABC late-night show — an exclusive appearance by a prominent newsmaker and leading candidate for president who just that very morning had been accused for the fourth time of sexual harassment.
The appearance was no less of a triumph for the candidate himself — Herman Cain — who demonstrated strength and great humor in the face of adversity and, in the process, probably gained support — at least among the roughly 1.5 million who watch “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Why we admired Jimmy’s performance: He handled the candidate with just the right combination of seriousness and humor. These kinds of guests are a challenge for late-night hosts, who feel much more comfortable kidding around with showpeople such as actors or fellow comedians.
But when a guest appears from outside the world of showbiz, some late-night hosts — such as David Letterman and Jay Leno, for example — tend to put a brake on the comedy and the segments have a way of falling flat.
Not so with Jimmy Monday night. Even with Cain waiting backstage, Jimmy spent about half his monologue talking about the latest sexual harassment allegations leveled by Sharon Bialek with help from publicity-hound attorney Gloria Allred — probably because Jimmy knew the audience had to be well-informed on the topic before he could talk about it with his guest.
And that’s exactly what he did. “So how was your day?” Jimmy asked Cain casually to start the segment. “All things considered, I’m still alive,” Cain said with a smile.
“Have you considered hiring Gloria Allred as your attorney?” Jimmy asked. “Let me put it to you this say,” Cain fired back, “I can’t think of anything that I would hire her for, OK?!”
Why Cain gets an A-plus from us: Sure, Jimmy Kimmel’s not a hard-nosed journalist, so some might say Cain got off easy with this opportunity to answer questions on national TV from a comedian who’s not a newsman. But Jimmy pitched him all the relevant questions and Cain knocked them out of the park. Plus, we give Cain props for showing up in the first place. Under the circumstances, we were betting he wouldn’t.
For those of us who hadn’t really paid attention to Cain, the performance was very impressive. He flatly and forcefully denied this latest sexual harassment charge, told Jimmy that his own wife instantly disbelieved it, and then found more than one opportunity to hammer home the goal of his campaign — to fix the economy.
He laughed at all the appropriate moments too. In other words, his appearance didn’t have the effect of deadening the whole show, as these things often have on the late-night shows.
“I know to you, it’s a distraction,” Jimmy said of the sexual harassment accusations. “But to me, it’s my life!”
TV Howl’s Adam Buckman (shucks — that’s me!) was on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” hosted by Howard Kurtz. The topic: How’d Brian Williams do with the premiere of his new prime-time NBC news mag, “Rock Center,” last Monday? But more to the point, how’d I do on CNN?
ROONEY'S LAST STAND: Andy Rooney's final appearance on "60 Minutes" on Oct. 2 (Photo: CBS)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
This is my favorite Andy Rooney story — the time he publicly lambasted Larry Tisch, the owner of CBS and a man who could have easily fired him, as a “slumlord” who ruined CBS. It was vintage Andy.
Andy Rooney was crusty, cantankerous, curmudgeonly — all words you’re reading in the obituaries for him today.
But he was also courageous — in the manner of the best journalists — as my favorite story about him illustrates.
It’s a story from 1995, about the time Andy excoriated, without mercy, the then-owner of CBS, Laurence Tisch, in one of Andy’s syndicated newspaper columns.
Of course, Rooney was then employed by CBS, which was paying him millions for his commentaries on “60 Minutes.” And yet, here came Andy anyway, biting the hand that fed him (and just tearing it off at the proverbial wrist) and literally daring Tisch to fire him.
The impetus for the column — which was carried in more than 150 newspapers — was the pending sale of CBS to Westinghouse. So, to mark the occasion, Andy decided he would give the world his own summation of what CBS had become under Tisch’s nine-year reign.
Tisch was a wealthy New York investor who had assumed control of CBS in 1986. He then set about cutting costs, laying off employees and selling off parts of the company such as the publishing and music divisions. By 1995, he sought to cash in on his investment with a sale to Westinghouse. The deal was in the works, but not completed, at the time Rooney wrote this column in August — which meant that Tisch was still firmly in charge of CBS and could have fired Rooney.
And few would have blamed him either because Rooney went after the boss with a vengeance, blasting him for everything that was wrong with CBS — from the low ratings of its prime-time shows to the worn carpeting Rooney observed in the company’s landmark headquarters building in New York, known as Black Rock.
The carpet portion of the column is my favorite passage: “[CBS staffers],” Rooney wrote, “began to notice the carpets in the hallways were dirty. Spots where people had spilled coffee with milk and sugar were left uncleaned . . . The deterioration in maintenance standards was all the more noticeable because for years . . . it was one of the most handsome office buildings in the world. Under Larry Tisch, Black Rock acquired many of the characteristics of a slum housing project.”
“He could fire me,” Rooney wrote of Tisch, “but I’m part of what he’s selling [to Westinghouse] and money means too much for him to do that.”
As it happened, Tisch personally made an estimated $2 billion on the Westinghouse deal (according to Wikipedia). He died in 2003.
The column Rooney published that summer weekend was so personal that he even included Tisch’s wife, Billie, in his “critique” of the family’s stewardship of CBS. And yet, Andy said at the time that he never heard from any Tisches after the column ran.
“I don’t think they care very much,” he told me when I rang him up at CBS. And that was another thing I loved about Andy — you could get him on the phone just by calling the CBS switchboard and asking for him, and he would pick up his own phone. That’s how “old-school” this guy was.
He was a real piece of work — the genuine article. And though he was 92 and had lived a very full life, I’m still sorry to see him go.
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN': Adrian Grenier in "Entourage" (Photo: HBO)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
HBO’s “Entourage” ended its run Sunday night with Hollywood endings for all concerned.
Well, that was a dirty trick – ending the final episode of “Entourage” with “Going to California,” Led Zeppelin’s iconic song about the lure and promise of southern Cal.
The song framed a finish full of elaborate happy endings for the show’s principal characters – four of whom were once boys from New York who followed their dreams to California and, by the looks of it Sunday night on HBO, attained them.
The Led Zeppelin song came as they were gathered in an airplane hangar preparing to take two separate private jets on trips abroad – and at least three of the five were embarking on new lives representing a newfound maturity that was not much in evidence in this fun-loving, free-wheeling show’s previous seasons and episodes.
Why was the Zeppelin song a dirty trick? Because it happens to be a beautiful song, and thus elevated a series that was never long on sentiment to something with meaning – at least for its final moments.
Of course, the neat tying up of all the show’s loose ends in one 35-minute final episode was as much of a fantasy as the way the show’s various storylines were wrapped up for each of the characters:
Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier): After one 24-hour date with the new love of his life – the journalist Sophia Lear (Alice Eve) – Vince declared they would marry that very evening in Paris, bought a ring for more than a million dollars and lined up a private jet to whisk everyone abroad.
Eric “E” Murphy (Kevin Connolly): Thanks to Vince’s largesse – not to mention his charismatic powers of persuasion – Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui) agreed to meet E at the airport for their own private jet flight anywhere in the world. With Sloan already pregnant with their child, we’re left to assume they will live happily ever after.
Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven): Ari did the unthinkable: He threw over his job as co-owner of the most powerful talent agency in Hollywood – the occupation that always seemed as vital to his survival as the blood coursing through his veins – in order to reconcile with Mrs. Ari (Perrey Reeves). With the help of a young trio of Italian opera singers, the gambit worked and Mr. and Mrs. Ari joined the group for the trip to Paris.
Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon): There were no marriages or new loves for these two – their happy endings were sealed a week earlier, with Drama getting the TV-movie role of his dreams and Turtle becoming a multimillionaire thanks to Vince’s safe-keeping of Turtle’s investment in the tequila company.
Lloyd (Rex Lee): We were glad to see that a consideration of Lloyd’s future was included in the “Entourage” finale. He was a great character and, in the end, when he fretted about what he would do at the agency without Ari to guide him, Ari told him, rightfully, that he possesses all the tools now to go in there and make his mark in the firm – and not as an Ari clone either, but as his own man.
“Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams . . . ” “Going to California”? Why not? I wrote back when “Entourage” began in 2004 that, at its heart, it was a series about California – specifically, southern California (by which we mean L.A. and Hollywood) – about the fantasy and the reality of the place, and how the two are sometimes difficult to distinguish.
As for the series finale, whether you buy into the neat and tidy happy endings that creator Doug Ellin and his team conjured for the episode, as a time capsule of life in La La Land in the years 2004-2011, “Entourage” got it right. And we’ll miss it.
R.I.P. Lt. Lou Shea: John Scurti in "Rescue Me" -- his character was eulogized, hilariously, on the series finale Wednesday (Photo: FX)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
The series finale of Denis Leary’s “Rescue Me” Wednesday night on FX was darn near perfect.
Tommy Gavin didn’t die. Instead, it was Lou, his best friend and perhaps the most likable of all the characters on “Rescue Me.”
A tragedy to end the firefighters’ series run? Yes, but not completely. Though Lou’s death was certainly tragic, leaving all of his surviving colleagues to question their futures in the New York City Fire Department, most of the one-hour series finale seen on FX Wednesday night played like a comedy.
That happened to be this show’s signature: Premiering in July 2004 and ending its run this week as the nation prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, “Rescue Me” at its heart was a drama about one New York firefighter’s reaction to the loss of 343 FDNY brethren in the collapse of the Twin Towers that day in 2001. That’s a weighty subject, to be sure, but since that firefighter, Tommy, was played by comedian Denis Leary (who also co-created, co-wrote and co-produced the series), much of the series was given over to Leary’s dark sense of humor.
Such was the case in the finale Wednesday night titled “Ashes.” The ashes in the title were all that remained of sweet Lou (played to perfection for all seven seasons by John Scurti) after he was killed a week earlier in a warehouse fire (the location recognizable to all who ride the New York subway system’s elevated No. 7 train through Long Island City in Queens). The collapse of that building left the survival of any of the firefighters in question leading into the finale.
And as the final episode began, it seemed as if at least five of them had succumbed. But no — it was a dream conjured by Gavin, a dream in which Lou was seen eulogizing the five men with a rousing speech about the nature of firefighting — a grand piece of screen-writing, by the way, as was much of this final episode.
Certainly, it had been speculated that Tommy himself would be among the dead — a novel and striking way to end a series: Having the all-important main character, who’d been seen in virtually every scene of the show for seven years, get killed off.
But it was Lou who died, and his sendoff was a masterpiece, particularly in the choreography of the sequence in which two windows in Tommy’s SUV were opened simultaneously — because Tommy ordered Franco and Black Shawn to toss out their chewing gum — and the sudden cross-ventilation caused Lou’s ashes to suddenly explode out of their box, covering driver, passengers and the entire interior of the vehicle with his earthly remains.
Then, in a perfectly balanced combination of sentiment and black comedy, Tommy poignantly read a letter left to him by Lou (in case of Lou’s death), and then tossed his “ashes” — actually a box of Betty Crocker cake mix that Lou’s brethren bought at the 11th hour to stand in for his ashes — over a cliff and into the sea (it looked like Long Island Sound).
Other scenes were laden with comedy too, such as the scene where Tommy, contemplating life as an FDNY retiree, battles with a group of parents at a politically correct playground (filmed in lower Manhattan’s Battery Park City, about half a block from the World Trade Center site) over the sharing of kids’ toys in the sandbox. Forget about “Rescue Me” — that was like a scene out of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” only better.
In the end, Tommy didn’t retire, but nor did he assume Lou’s lieutenant’s role, which was his right as senior firefighter in the house. Instead, he let the promotion go to the gung-ho Franco.
As the episode came to a close, Franco and Tommy were seen exhorting a group of new FDNY recruits on the meaning of belonging to a select group of people of run toward and into burning buildings when everyone else is running out and away from them.
In the show’s touching last scene, Tommy was seen behind the wheel of his SUV having a jovial conversation with an old friend seated in the passenger seat — the ghost of Lou.
This episode was one of the best-written episodes of any single TV show seen in years. Our hope for Leary and his team is that they get recognized for it.
BEFORE: In this light-hearted postcard from before 9/11/2001, the World Trade Center was just another landmark on the New York City skyline. (Source: Author's collection of World Trade Center postcards.)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
NEW YORK — You can’t escape 9/11 on TV this week, though it would be nice if you could.
Turn on the tube and there it is, all served up on multiple channels so you can have the opportunity to relive the horror of that day: The visual — as impossible to believe then as it is now 10 years later — of airliners flying directly into each of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the resultant smoke pouring out of the gaping holes after the great buildings seemed to swallow the big jets, the poor souls who chose to jump a hundred stories to their deaths rather than be burned alive, the eventual collapse of each tower and the debris clouds that overwhelmed lower Manhattan and billowed out over the Hudson River.
Want to wallow in the memory of it all? Go right ahead, but I think I’ll pass. I have no need to relive that day and the days that followed, though judging from all the special retrospective material now airing in advance of this Sunday’s 10th anniversary, plenty of people seem to have a need to relive it, and also to talk about it, to tell the rest of us where they were when it happened, what they felt then and how they feel about it now, how the terrorist sneak attacks changed “us,” and on and on.
I guess I’m not much of a wallower. I was at home when the attacks occurred, two miles up Greenwich Street from the Twin Towers. And that’s all you’re going to learn about what I experienced that day. If offered a microphone by a roving reporter from a local radio or TV station to relate my experiences for broadcast, I would politely decline. But plenty of people around here are saying yes to such invitations. If you live in New York, you’re seeing and hearing their testimony all over the place these days in commemorative segments on all the news shows and cable channel specials.
Local newscasts this week can’t go to a commercial break without a 9/11 interlude — some somber music and the words “Remembering 9/11″ on the screen, and a brief interview with some passerby who tells us how he or she was on his or her way to work downtown that day and saw the planes hit or, less dramatically, still soaking in a tub somewhere else, perhaps not anywhere near any of the 9/11 attack sites at all, hearing the shocking bulletins on the radio or TV.
These people seem to find the opportunity to tell their stories impossible to resist — a way of thinking in line with social trends. Everyone wants to tell his or her own story these days, right? So they take to Facebook and Twitter and tell everyone they know what they’re eating right now.
Not me, though. My 9/11 memories are private. My feelings about that day are too. Sorry, but it’s just nobody’s business. I’ll admit this: I’m not big on anniversaries as a basis for TV commemorations. Maybe it’s because I once had an editor, when I was at a formative age, who prohibited anniversary stories. It wasn’t real news, he’d say, whenever a reporter came to him with a pitch from a TV network publicist ballyhooing some milestone reached by a TV show — a fifth season, or a 100th episode, or the 20th consecutive week as TV’s top comedy or drama.
As news “hooks,” such milestones were contrivances unworthy of our stations as journalists. I got his point, and I agreed with it too. However, you’d be correct to point out that this 9/11 anniversary is more notable than some TV show’s fifth week as the top-rated comedy on Thursday nights.
Judging by all the hours of TV programming that have been produced for the occasion, the people running the nation’s TV stations, broadcast networks and cable channels must believe the public is eager to share in a kind of telethon of national remembrance. But you also can’t help wondering at times such as this if all the programming produced for the occasion begets all the interest, instead of the other way around.
Or, to put it another way, if TV didn’t pull out all the stops to present you with constant reminders of 9/11 this week, would you miss it?
AFTER: World Trade Center postcard from after 9/11/2001 -- the late great Twin Towers draped in elongated American flags. (Author's collection)
Watch me, Adam Buckman, on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” hosted by Howard Kurtz, this past Sunday. The topic: Hurricane Irene — Did the media over-hype the big storm?
Sherwood Schwartz (right) and the character he created, Gilligan, played by Bob Denver.
By ADAM BUCKMAN
Spend enough years as a journalist on the same beat and it’s inevitable that many of the people you met along the way will die eventually.
And if you’ve been around as long as I have, you run the risk of beginning to sound like that scene in “The Sunshine Boys” where the only subject the elderly former comedy partners Lewis and Clark (George Burns and Walter Matthau in the 1975 movie) seem to talk about is the death of someone they knew. Maybe you remember this pointless conversation — it went something like this: “Where’d he die?” “In Variety.”
So I try and avoid these kinds of blog posts, but when Sherwood Schwartz died the other day at age 94, I somehow retrieved a dim memory of having lunch with him. And since cobwebs were forming here on TV Howl (my last post was a while ago), I decided it was time to make a new contribution.
I’m pretty sure it was in May 2000 or thereabouts — at the Waldorf Astoria, in the ballroom, where many a TV industry event is held in New York. Nick at Nite (or maybe it was TV Land) was putting on some sort of presentation of its then-new lineup of old shows. The only record I possess of this event is a photo taken backstage of Mr. T and me.
One of the only other memories of this event: Tina Yothers, formerly of “Family Ties,” singing in a rock band.
Somehow, I was assigned to the same table as Sherwood Schwartz and his wife. I dimly recall engaging him in conversation by asking him about his various shows — “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Dusty’s Trail.” I was particularly interested in how he arrived at the number of characters for these shows — seven for both “Gilligan” and “Dusty’s Trail” and nine for “Brady Bunch.”
I don’t recall the details, but his answer indicated that those numbers were shrewdly chosen for their versatility and potential for myriad storylines. For that’s one of the problems the producers of TV shows always come up against: Dreaming up enough stories to sustain the scenario they created through an entire season (which, in the days of “Gilligan’s Island,” was 36 episodes) or multiple seasons.
Judging by his age when he died, Schwartz must have been 82 or 83 when I met him that day. He was an energetic guy — a funny little old man. At one point during the presentation that was underway on-stage after lunch had been served and eaten, a “phone” made of coconut halves — like something the Professor would have devised on “Gilligan’s Island” — was delivered to our table.
A single spotlight then cut through the darkened ballroom and shone on Sherwood as the ringing of a phone was suddenly heard. That was apparently Sherwood’s cue to answer this “phone” and speak into it. And since the phone had a hidden microphone, Sherwood’s voice was heard over the ballroom’s speaker system saying something about “The Brady Bunch.”
I was delighted to have witnessed this “performance” from the chair right beside him. All in all, it was a great day, having my photo taken with Mr. T and then sitting beside the creator of “Gilligan’s Island” as he took a call on a coconut telephone. What more could a TV columnist ask for?
May he rest in peace.
——
TV Howl bonus sidebar: The day I met Gilligan.
Bob Denver, the titular star of “Gilligan’s Island,” told me in 1993 that he made just $1,200 a week at the height of the show’s popularity on CBS in the mid-’60s.
He claimed he wasn’t disappointed that his contract didn’t call for residual payments in perpetuity, just in case “Gilligan” enjoyed any kind of an afterlife in syndication after its initial network run ended in 1967 after three seasons.
As it happened, reruns of “Gilligan” ran for decades and would have made Denver and his co-stars fabulously wealthy. “There’s not a lot of shows that run 30 years,” Denver, then 58, said when I interviewed him in midtown Manhattan, in a conference room in the offices of the publishing company that had just released his memoir, “Gilligan, Maynard & Me” (the second name in the title referring to his role as the beatnik Maynard G. Krebs in “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”). “If you knew in ’63, when I signed the deal, that things would run 20, 30 years, and didn’t get a deal, then you’d be really upset.”
When he died in 2005, I wrote that he was “the mellowest cat I had ever encountered” in the TV business.
Many actors who became identified with a single, iconic TV character eventually came to loathe the character that made them famous. They would blame the character for their inability to find steady work in the years afterward, when their agents would inform them that producers were taking a pass because the actors were too closely associated with their previous roles and the producers felt audiences wouldn’t accept them in any new ones. If Bob Denver ever felt that way, he never let on when I interviewed him.
He was a good enough sport that he always remembered to wear the one Gilligan sailor hat he still possessed when he made public appearances. “I love to hear people say, ‘Is that really one of the show’s hats?’ They are almost in awe,” he told me.
[Excerpted from "Jerk: My Life as a Columnist on the TV Beat" by Adam Buckman. All rights reserved.]
Katie Couric's coming to daytime but no one knows how she'll do (Photo: Disney/ABC)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
A lot of people want to know lately: How will Katie Couric do on daytime TV?
My answer? I have no idea. It’s not because I’m at a loss for words or can’t quite generate an opinion. I’ve never had those problems. Just on the face of it, I think that generally speaking, the odds don’t favor her making a big splash with a daytime talk show. There are just too many variables afflicting daytime television these days to state with certainty that she’s a slamdunk to emerge with a hit talk show on her hands.
Not that it’s impossible, but this is a time of day that is seriously in flux nowadays as far as television is concerned. Based on everything that’s going on now in daytime, this new Katie Couric talk show is a huge gamble that could go either way.
Here are the factors at play, in no particular order, as Couric prepares to enter the daytime arena about 15 months from now:
1) What exactly is daytime television? One thing it’s not: A place where any former network news anchor has ever set up shop and succeeded. A personality with Couric’s news background might be expected to attract newsmakers as guests, for conversations about stories or subjects in the news. The problem with that: No one’s ever attempted that in a syndicated afternoon talk show.
2) The cable news channels own that kind of news/talk on weekday afternoons. They’ve owned it ever since the 1990s, when the O.J. Simpson trials, the Clinton impeachment, and stories such as the Elian Gonzalez saga and the 2000 presidential election recount riveted viewers in afternoons. Broadcast networks began to notice: These “real-life” soap operas were stealing their audiences.
3) So maybe there’s an opportunity for Couric, a newsperson, to siphon off some of the audience for news/talk in the afternoon. Maybe, but is that audience really big enough to sustain her show? That’s doubtful. It should be noted that Anderson Cooper is poised to do the same thing — start an afternoon talk show. So it’s clear some people in the TV business think the afternoon is ripe for this kind of thing.
4) But is the afternoon audience ripe for it, whoever they are? Sure, everybody’s focusing on Oprah Winfrey leaving daytime, and then, theoretically, leaving an opportunity for someone like Couric to come in and grab the “serious” afternoon TV viewer. But are there really enough of them? Take a look at daytime TV — Oprah was an exception. Most of the shows on daytime are low-rent judge shows and talk shows like “Maury” and “Jerry Springer” (and yes, Ellen Degeneres holds on somehow, with ratings are that pretty low, but apparently just enough to keep her show profitable). Will the audience for all these other shows suddenly flock to Katie Couric? Probably not.
5) Katie’s no Oprah. And that’s the crux of the matter. Even Oprah’s audience was in decline, and she’s Oprah. That’s probably why she decided to leave daytime syndication and stake her future on cable TV. Judge Judy was beating her in the ratings and she knew it. The question is: Do people like Katie Couric? Once upon a time she was America’s sweetheart at “The Today Show.” Then, something happened — I don’t know what it was, but nowadays she doesn’t seem as beloved as she once was. In fact, that’s an understatement. In some quarters, Couric is so polarizing a personality that she’s on par with Sarah Palin in the kinds of reactions she draws from readers of blog posts like this one.
6) Daytime is so unpredictable these days that even the traditional soap operas — the long-time backbone of daytime TV — are on life-support. Under the circumstances, it’s just too chaotic to figure out whether Katie Couric can come along and plant her flag on this shaky ground. Fact is, she’s a very capable broadcaster, but the savior of daytime TV? Who came up with that idea?
THE NEW GUY: Scott Pelley takes over as anchorman on "The CBS Evening News" (Photo: CBS News).
By ADAM BUCKMAN
Scott Pelley didn’t mark his debut as the new anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in any special way Monday evening. Instead, he chose to anchor the broadcast as if his first day was nothing special.
He made no self-referential remarks, made no speeches about what he’ll do or how the newscast might change in the Pelley era or how honored he is to be installed as only the fifth CBS evening-news anchor since 1948.
The approach was refreshing actually. It was also unexpected since we’re not accustomed to TV personalities refraining from talking about themselves, especially on days that are very special to them personally. Certainly, Monday must have been such a day in the life of Scott Pelley, a 53-year-old CBS newsman who had reached the pinnacle of his field, which happens to be one of the most competitive in the world.
And yet, Pelley didn’t mention it. Instead, he anchored the news – introducing stories (10 of them) and, on occasion, exchanging a few remarks with CBS correspondents. Perhaps the approach was deliberate. Maybe it was meant to convey the idea, without Pelley having to spell it out, that he didn’t intend to rock the boat as the broadcast’s new anchor.
Or maybe he’s saving the boat-rocking for some future newscasts. Whatever he was thinking, he didn’t let us in on it. Instead, he read his copy flawlessly and, when it was time to end the show, he said simply, “For all of us at CBS News all around the world, good night.”
The Pelley era was under way, and as the week wore on, Pelley continued to underplay his own role in the broadcast.
Personally, I happen to love the old-fashioned CBS approach to news — the attention to detail, the flawless reading of the copy, the care and professionalism with which the stories are presented. It’s all so fastidious, but in today’s world, do news viewers look for fastidiousness and attention to detail in their TV newscasts? Other than me, does anyone really care about these qualities anymore?
HASTA LA VISTA, BABY: Oprah Winfrey waves good-bye. (Photo: (c) 2011 Harpo, Inc./George Burns)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
OPRAH Winfrey said good-bye — finally! Though it seemed as if this long good-bye would never end, it finally did end Wednesday. Here’s what happened:
The final “Oprah Winfrey Show” Wednesday consisted of little more than Oprah standing on her stage and talking.
For her millions of loyal fans, this must have been heavenly. For the rest of us, who tuned in to her final show (the 4,561st, as Oprah herself pointed out) expecting a bit more excitement – perhaps some fireworks, a big cake, a brass band – the show was a bit of a letdown.
On the other hand, as Oprah said repeatedly, this particular show wasn’t really for those of us who didn’t regularly ride the Oprah train to inspiration, validation and self-fulfillment over the last 25 years. This show was for those who did ride along with Oprah on this “journey” (her word) that began back in 1986.
With the Paul Simon song “10 Years” (the one he converted to “25 Years” in her honor earlier this season) playing as a theme in and out of the show’s commercial breaks, Oprah took her stage at Harpo Studios in Chicago for the last time. Dressed in a simple pink dress, she stood for the whole hour (though a white chair was there in case she needed it) and spoke to the audience.
“This last hour is really about me saying thank you,” she said when she took the stage. “It is my love letter to you.”
“I wanted to spend this last hour telling you what you’ve meant to me,” she said, one of many times she would thank her viewers in the course of this hour-long speech (some might call it a sermon), in which she shared details from her life story (as she’s done many times before), imparted various life lessons, and even preached about the meaning of God. “God is love and God is life!” she exclaimed. “And your life is always speaking to you, first in whispers . . .”
And so it went. There were no celebrity guests, though Tyler Perry was recognized from his seat in the audience because of his participation in a show earlier this season about men who had been sexually abused in boyhood. Oprah’s fourth-grade teacher was in the audience too – the one who Oprah still calls “Mrs. Duncan” – and who apparently had a profound impact on the young Oprah.
If there was any central theme to this show, it was nothing less than the meaning of life, which is a lot for any one person to take on. And yet, Oprah doesn’t shy away from such challenges. She advised her viewers to “use your life to serve the world.” She talked about the Golden Rule and the importance of “validation.”
“There is a common thread that runs through all our pain and suffering and that is unworthiness,” she preached, advising viewers to “validate” the ones they love. Tell them: “What you say matters to me!” Oprah beseeched.
Toward the end of the hour, the commercial breaks came more frequently. After all, television is a business and the breaks near the end of this particular show were valuable indeed. Finally, after one last break, the end was near and Oprah said her final words.
“I thank you for sharing this yellow brick road of blessings,” she said. “I thank you for tuning in everyday . . . I thank you for being as much of a sweet inspiration for me as I’ve tried to be for you. I won’t say good-bye. I’ll just say, Until we meet again. To God be the glory.”
She then strolled out of the studio, stopping briefly for a few hugs and greetings, then continued walking down a narrow corridor lined with members of her staff. At the end of this gauntlet, she encountered her small dog Sadie. Lifting the dog into the air, Oprah declared: “Sadie, we did it! We did it, Sade! We did it!”
And then Oprah, with Sadie under her right arm, disappeared behind a pillar and was gone. Until we meet again.
Someday, all late-night hosts will be named Jimmy. But until then, we’ll settle for the two we have now – Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, who just happen to be doing the brightest shows in late-night.
And we can’t help but be fascinated that both of these guys are named Jimmy, which is pretty incredible when you consider that there aren’t that many late-night hosts to begin with.
How many? Let’s count ’em off: Dave, Jay, Conan, Craig (Ferguson), George (Lopez), Jimmy (Fallon) and Jimmy (Kimmel). That’s seven male late-night personalities hosting “traditional” late-night shows (which is why we’re leaving out Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert) and two of them are named Jimmy. Or, to put it another way, nearly 29 percent (more than a quarter, almost a third!) of all male late-night hosts are named Jimmy.
Moreover, the two Jimmies compete against each other, but only for 25 minutes – which means that, when you’re deciding between the two, it comes down to choosing (roughly) the first half of “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” on NBC (12:35-1:35 a.m./11:35-12:35c) over the second half of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC (midnight-1 a.m./11c-midnight).
Jimmy Kimmel
Adding to the vexation: The two Jimmies are eerily similar and yet, at the same time, they’re so so different!
Did you know that both Jimmies were born in Brooklyn?
Kimmel, a Scorpio born on Nov. 13, 1967, is 43. He and his family moved to Las Vegas when he was nine. Fallon, a Virgo, is 36. He was born on Sept. 19, 1974. He and his family moved to the town of Saugerties in upstate New York when he was little. And get this: The fathers of both Jimmies worked for IBM (according to Wikipedia). Coincidence?! Probably.
Of course, both Jimmies grew up to become late-night talk-show hosts. And, while Kimmel’s been at it longer, both Jimmies got their late-night gigs at around the same age. Kimmel was 35 when he got his show in 2003 after ABC enticed him away from “The Man Show” on Comedy Central. Fallon became host of NBC’s “Late Night” at age 34 in March 2009 after Conan O’Brien left to take over “The Tonight Show.”
Here in the present day, the two Jimmies are scoring very similar ratings. In the most recent late-night ratings report – for the week of April 4-8, Kimmel had a slight lead, attracting an average of 1.789 million viewers each night, compared to Fallon’s average of 1.675 million. One reason Kimmel was out ahead: His lead-in, “Nightline,” beat Fallon’s lead-in, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” that week in the nightly total-viewer count.
But that’s where the similarities seem to end. Kimmel’s rise in show business differed markedly from Fallon’s. Before co-hosting “The Man Show” with Adam Carolla, Kimmel was Ben Stein’s sidekick on the old Comedy Central quiz show “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” Fallon, of course, came up via “Saturday Night Live,” where he appeared from 1998 to 2004, then left NBC to star in a string of movies.
The two Jimmies have both coasts covered. Kimmel’s doing “Jimmy Kimmel Live” from the heart of Hollywood. His greatest talent – other than affecting a relaxed, unruffled and slightly disheveled demeanor every night – is his ability for making A-list friends in Hollywood and then recruiting them to participate in his most elaborate bits (“The Handsome Mens Club,” “Hottie Body Hump Club,” “The King’s Speech” spoof he did on Oscar night with Mike Tyson, and many others).
Fallon’s hosting NBC’s “Late Night” from the heart of Manhattan – at NBC’s storied headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. He possesses basic performing skills that Kimmel lacks – most notably Fallon’s musical ability and a talent for impersonation (though possessing these skills has never been a requirement for hosting a late-night show). It’s a matter of individual taste, but we happen to think Fallon’s extremely likable. And we love the bits he and his writers have developed – “Thank You Notes,” “Robert Pattinson Is Bothered” and many others. And we love Fallon’s band, The Roots.
So who’s the best Jimmy in late-night? We reported, now you decide!
