CREEMEDIA

CREEMEDIA

DEPARTMENTS

TV'79s It Only Hurts When You Look

by

Rick Johnson

“Sickness is the newest trend on prime time television,” goes the TV Guide commercial, and this time they’re even more on target than the time they predicted handy, rechargeable wristwatch televisions by 1964 at the latest. In a new season where the biggest event is a tossup between Charlie hiring a new Angel with nerf breasts and Meadowlark Lemon slow-breaking into the cast of the biggest airball in TV history, Hello Larry, there’s definitely nothing happening on the ween-screen that you’d want to tattoo on the underside of your penis as a memory aid. Yes, this sickness is just like love: too many stiffs and not enough punch lines.

“Modern viewers,” one top network laff-fascist explained, “just don’t want reality to intrude on their reality either. ” But watching Jimmy McNichol trying to differentiate between himself and a sneezing piglet is not my idea of escaping reality. Now, shoving that oinky little nose of his into some rollercoaster gears—why, that’s entertainment!

But as the saying goes, you can’t have the milk and the pail too. Not only that, but you don’t get to squeeze the udders, either. The network programmers have nailed tire bam door shut, but they can’t stop the smell. ABC is “Still The One” (demonstrating the need for more severe punishment of repeat offenders), CBS is “Looking Good” (as compared to a freight train/Bloodmobile collision) and NBC is “Proud As A Dodobird. ” But can it quack?

You bet your Motorola, Ayatollah. The 79 season can make every noise in the zoo except for the fatalistic sigh of the shit shoveler. So let’s check out our annual hit-and-rundown of the new shows while we try and keep in mind the essential difference between sick and sickening: none whatsoever!

SICK

Trapper Johfi, M.D. (CBS):: Wayne Rogers’ M.A.S.H. character grows up to become... Pemell Roberts? Come on, even if he did grow up, he wouldn’t be played by a guy whose first name sounds like a shampoo for cows. Extra Credit: the nurse in this show is nicknamed “Ripples” because (A) heir enormous breasts create ripples in her uniform, (B) her ponderous bosomscause ripples of excitement in the staff,

(C) her gigantic, bowling ball-sized boobs are the subject of ripples of laughter, (D) because “Ripples” rhymes with “nipples.”

A Man Called Sloane (NBC):: And now, one of America’s most common mistakes about dogfood. Robert Conrad, caught in the act of being himself again, portrays the ace superspy of UNIT (Untie Norma’s Intricate Tights), a secret government organization that’s locked in a never-ending (for at least eight weeks) struggle with the nefarious KARTEL (Karen And Ralph Traded Expensive Linens). Co-starring Ji-Tu Cumbuka (pronounced Vilkchaize) asSloane’s sidekick Torque, a 6*5” goon cadet with a stainless steelfist. Hairy palms were bad enough! Lazarus Syndrome (ABC):: This will be remembered as the year that TV Black people stopped running around in their jammies and learned two syllable worcjs like doctor, “Doc! Doc!” and “Oh, nurse?” As racial spokesman Jack Brickhouse has pointed out, “The only good thing about this game is that it was played in a hurry.”

Shirley (NBC):: Criswell Predicts: When this show about a widow and her kids roughing it at Lake Tahoe proves to be a rating disaster, the family will form a band (The Lips Of Susan Dey) and have smash hits with “Theme From Man Undercover” and “It Ain’t Necessarily Tahoe.” The Baxters (Syndicated):: TV fans have learned to dread the words “innovative new show” just as they dread certain phrases like “substantial penalty for early with drawl,” “armed and extremely dangerous” and “no apparent leak of radioactive materials.” And for no small reason—in this Innovative New Show from Norman “I Give Up” Lear, actors wade through some heavy topics like death, sex or the morality of kittensicles, during the first fifteen minutes, and then real people—although not real enough to be on RealPeople—spend the next quarter hour discussing the first half.’ I think it should be the other way around.

Eischied (NBC):: Joe Don Baker plays a cop who’s tougher than landlady sweat but has the body of Mattefs Suckerman. Watch him track down psychotic killers, killers who only murder psychotics and every person in New York City with two first names.

From Here ToEtemity: The WarYears (NBC):: William DeVane, Roy Thinnes, Kim Basinger, Barbara “Tweet Tweet” Hershey... I think Lou' Grant summed it up best: “Sounds like a Who’s ~ Who of suckers to me. ”

SICKER

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (NBC):: Soaper Gil Gerard still acts with all the mobility of a photomat, but as Brent Musberger once said, “His head looks normal, so I guess he’s okay.” Only bright hope in this mental stun-gun is watching Pam Hensley—one of my own personal objects-of-slobber—try to break up a careerspent portraying long-estranged-and-bitter-daughters.

240 Robert (ABC):: Now that the longevity of CHiPs has been endangered by Erik Estrada’is enrollment in the Duane Allman School of Motorcycle Safety, ABC has unleashed the crew of Trap, Thigand Morgy-Morgy (oneforeach Morgy) to carry on in the time-honored ridiculous-rescue genre. With the combined intelligence of a bookshelf, they buzz around in flying dune buggies assisting itinerant vacationers, back-packing paramedics and, in one episode, surfers trapped in a burning oil spill. It should be fun watching them try to put out the voiceovers.

Paris (CBS):: James Earl Jones, who many consider the greatest living black actor after Jimmie Walker, portrays a police detective whose idea of off-job recreation is pounding a body bag stuffed with drugged hamsters. Hey, at $50,000 per, it pays a lot more than Darth Vader voiceovers.

Hart To Hart (ABC):: Robert Wagner is back as a glossy male rich bitch who, along with writer-wife Stefanie Powers (author of Carpet Commercials: Candy grams From The Dead?) jets around the world solving murders and grinning that where’d-my-other-lip-go? grin of his. This is an Aaron Spelling production of a Sidney Sheldon script—a new height in cosmic redundance.

Benson (ABC):: Robert Guillaume extends his character from Soap with all the personality of a magnetic window cleaner. This show is prese nted courtesy of the FCC’s Equal Time Provision to counteract the effects of Lazarus Syndrome and Paris.

Associates (ABC):: Hot off their success with Taxi, the folks at MTM have used the same casting method (dragging a magnet through tire Camp For Icky People) to come up with this, wacky-lawyers show loosely based on a novel by the author of Paper Chase. T oss in an old guy who looks like a shriveled-up sex organ of indeterminate gender to cancel out Shelley Smith (an Ozone Advisory has just been issued for my underpants) and you have an apparent winner. Of course, you could run thirty minutes of Denture Odor commercials in this time slot (right after Mork & Mindy) and still have a smash.

New Kind Of Family (ABC):: Here’s that half hour of Denture Odor blurbs I.was talking about. The only new thing about this family is that they’re all named Eileen. The tyvist: none of them knows how to spell it!

SICKEST

The Misadver)tures Of Sheriff Lobo (NBC)::

More stereotyped Southern pork and jeans, this time starring Claude Akins, whose face looks more than ever like two pies in an overturned hubcap.

Struck By Lightning (CBS):: A takeoff on tire Two Mints In One commercial, with Ted Stein as a spooky caretaker with the eyes of a sadistic optician and Jack Elam as his monstrous alter-ego, who’s so mean that when he looksat you, your internal organs feel like your skin is being sand-blasted.

Out Of The Blue (ABC):: Jimmy Brogan as acombination angel/babysitter/high school science teacher whose first science project is to demonstrate that, due to-their unique ability to fix - nitrogenln the air, turtlesactuallyfunction as walking beans. Ditto for Brogan, who you remember from the last time you caught your reflection in the toilet bowl:

BigShamus, Little Shamus (CBS):: This disgustingly kissable detective series demands Brian Keith during his Hawaiian phase, even though it takes place in Atlantic City, that hotbed of danger where crazed tourists use too many hotel towels, lock themselves out of their rooms and leave their TV sets on all night with the sound off. But why didn’t they call it Big Dick, Little Dick?

California Fever (CBS):: Science Note: “Under steadily increasing heat, devolutionary processes accelerate.” Thus, this cartoonoid about the perfumed lives of SoCal teens who spend all their time disco-surfing, sharpening their skate keys and pressing their budding pudenda against sputtering Camaros. Starring Jimmy McNichol, who’s often referred to as two cheeks in search of a face or butt, whichever comes first. California Fever—curelt! '

Last Resort: (CBS):: Just when it looked like we’d never have to see another froth-brained college kid on television ever again, along comes this group of summering collegiates with the collective personality of a silent alarm system. If good lines were correct answers, this show would need twenty-five more to score an Incomplete.

Working Stiffs (CBS):: Jim Belushi, who looks exactly like his famous brother except for the huge tooth in the middle of his forehead, stars in this cast-of-janitors comedy that’s so lowbrow its toenails have eyelashes. Plus, the entire show takes place in the basement.

Hey daddeo, 1 don’t wanna go...