And What Does ‘Dragnet’ Say About Family Values?
Among the TV shows to avoid in 1996, according to the Parents’ Television Council’s latest Family Guide to Prime Time Television:
“The Simpsons” has “ridiculed enterpreneurs, religion, the police and educators” and depicted dad Homer as “a bumbling oaf.”
“Bless This House,” the Andrew Clay sitcom, is “replete with smart-aleck children.”
“Sisters” has championed “lesbian parenting and euthanasia” and “misrepresented opponents of wasteful government spending.”
In “Pinky & The Brain,” a cartoon mouse show, “entrepreneurism has been tweaked … in a satirical manner.”
“The Drew Carey Show” and “Mad About You” include such objectionable language as “bite me.”
Loose talk
Dick Clark, on cable channel VH1’s plan to air reruns of “American Bandstand” (in USA Today): “To me, the ‘70s are like last Thursday.”
And speaking of small-screen degenerates …
Ellen DeGeneres turns 37 today.
We thought they were serious, until the end
The top television performers of 1995, according to TV Guide: Jerry Seinfeld, Oprah Winfrey, Jimmy Smits, Johnnie Cochran and Marcia Clark, the cast of “Friends,” Anthony Edwards (“ER”), David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson (“The X-Files”), David Hyde Pierce (“Frasier”), Keith Olbermann, and Dan Patrick (“SportsCenter”) and John Tesh.
She should be thankful she’s not on ‘Baywatch’
The “Friends” crew also was voted “Entertainers of the Year” by Entertainment Weekly, but Courteney Cox is concerned about too much of a good thing. “Sometimes I worry about overexposure,” she says.
So it’s too late to stuff Tammy Faye back inside?
We shudder to think what the Parent’s Television Council would say about the new “Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show,” starring Tammy Faye Messner (nee Bakker) and Jim J. Bullock, Monroe on the old “Too Close for Comfort” series, who’s openly gay. On “Entertainment Tonight,” he said: “The hinges on my closet door have been blown off. They can’t be repaired, so it’s got to work for me.”
It looks like he’s still wearing the pads, though
Drew Carey, a Cleveland native, removed all the Browns football paraphernalia from his show’s set in light of the team’s planned move to Baltimore. “It’s too bad, because some of it was pretty nice,” he said.
Johnny did the same thing with Ed McMahon
“The Simpsons” executive producer Bill Oakley, on the show’s high-tech trappings (in Total TV magazine): “Our audio editors work on a big computer where all the sound is digitized, and they have a big file with most of the ‘dohs’ that were ever done. We have burps that are used for Barney and Homer and Maggie sometimes, and we have other short words and things that come into use a lot on the show.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino