Getting Back in Shape at 50
ABC celebrates past glories with an eye toward the future.
May 24, 2003
When it comes to 50th birthdays, networks aren't all that different from those of us who watch them. Reaching the half-century mark should be a welcome milestone, a cause for celebration. But it can also prompt jitters of insecurity and the sort of introspection that results in cosmetic surgery, or convertibles.
So it is for ABC, which hits the big 5-0 during a ratings slump that has resulted in, among other things, a recent reality offering called "Extreme Makeover," based on the transformative power of face-lifts and tummy tucks. If such a show seems more suited to Fox's lineup than ABC's, chalk it up to what happens when a network finds itself jostling for the third-place spot it spent much of its history trying to break away from. As the current season winds down, ABC is poised to finish fourth -- that is, behind Fox -- in both total viewership and in the 18-49 demographic that advertisers covet. As they say on ABC's "Monday Night Football," that's gotta hurt.
But if ABC, established more than two decades after NBC and CBS, is the perennial lollygagger of network television, it has also been its craftiest innovator and its most unabashed celebrator of the American family (even before Disney bought the network in 1995). The TV movie, the mini-series, the rock 'n' roll performance show, the pro sports spectacle -- ABC is responsible for many of the most significant developments in broadcast history.
Heralding those accomplishments, and in the process tacitly helping the network set a path for its future, is the task of "ABC's 50th-Anniversary Celebration," a three-hour special that starts at 8 tomorrow night. Mixing clips, celebrity appearances and cast reunions, the show reasserts an identity that the network drifted away from in recent years and is now working hard to recapture, said Susan Lyne, president of ABC Entertainment.
If CBS traditionally catered to older, more rural viewers and NBC was a home for urban singles, ABC was "the network of the great middle," Ms. Lyne said.
"This is where families came to see their own lives reflected." she said. "Looking back on those shows has given us a lot of ideas about what kinds of shows might work right now."
It's no wonder, then, that family fare gets such big play in Monday's special. In an early rough cut of the show, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," "Happy Days," "Roseanne" and "Home Improvement" pop up repeatedly, and the milestone mini-series "Roots" gets exhaustive treatment. Meanwhile, "Twin Peaks" merits passing mention, "Fantasy Island" is omitted entirely and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," which not so long ago occupied four nights of prime ABC real estate, earns all of 17 seconds.
While the anniversary show is both a highlight reel and an exercise in institutional soul searching, it shouldn't feel like either, said Don Mischer, the exectutive producer given the unenviable task of creating a coherent night of entertainment from 50 years of programming that includes everything from the Beaver to "The Bachelor."
As a producer of several Emmy Award broadcasts and the opening and closing ceremonies of two Olympics, Mr. Mischer is well qualified to assemble such a daunting retrospective. The first rule, he said, is to give up all hope of being comprehensive.
"You can't feature every show, every great moment, every series in what amounts to 2 hours and 10 minutes," he said. "The general push from the network is to list as many shows and series as we can, but I've tried to keep these things from becoming a series of lists."
Instead of a dutiful inventory, Mr. Mischer centered the anniversary special around an awards-style event taped in March. (Too many stars are on vacation or busy with film production in May, a ratings sweeps month, to do the show live, he explained. ) Network veterans like John Travolta and Henry Winkler made appearances in which they goofed on the roles that began their careers, while newcomers like Jennifer Garner and George Lopez paid tribute to past ABC stars. And in what Ms. Lyne said was the most dramatic feature of the March festivities, the casts of past hits, including "Laverne & Shirley," "The Love Boat," "The Mod Squad" and "Welcome Back, Kotter," reassembled to parade before the audience.
"There was more excitement seeing these people than if we brought Tom Cruise out on the stage," Ms. Lyne said. "These people were in our houses for so long, and we've forgotten how intense our attachments to them were."
The same is as true for the actors as the audience, said John Ritter, who as Jack Tripper on "Three's Company" helped lift the network to ratings dominance in the late 70's and as the star of the family-friendly comedy "Eight Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter" is part of its current rehabilitation effort. "Seeing all these people in one place was just overwhelming," he said. Backstage before his presentation, Mr. Ritter bumped into Ryan O'Neal, who introduced his former flame Farrah Fawcett, who pointed out her ex-husband, Lee Majors, who was conversing with Henry Winkler. "It was like that all night long," he said.
While the stars mingled, the heavy lifting -- of 50 years of programming -- was left to the compilers of a series of themed clip packages. Tomorrow night's special includes glimpses of cop shows ("The F.B.I.," "Charlie's Angels," "N.Y.P.D. Blue"), mini-series ("The Thorn Birds," "Rich Man, Poor Man," "Winds of War") and news events (the explosion of the Challenger, the shootings at the Munich Olympics, Barbara Walters's interview with Monica Lewinsky, which Ms. Walters refers to as "the biggest 'get' of the decade"). It also includes a few idiosyncratic packages, like a collection of scenes in which parents from sitcoms past explain sex to their children.
And while the show makes only cursory references to behind-the-scenes figures, it does pause to honor Roone Arledge, who for many years embodied ABC's spirit as head of its sports and news divisions. "When he started 'Monday Night Football,'everyone said, 'Who's going to watch football on Monday night?"' said Mr. Mischer. "'How can it possibly compete with Marcus Welby?"'
That spirit should offer some comfort to the current brass at ABC, said Ron Simon, a television curator for the Museum of Television and Radio. "ABC is right back to their past," he said. "They're the struggling network trying to gain an identity. In television, that's often just what you need to break out and create something new."
