by G. Jack Urso
 |
| Washington Post TV Critic Tom Shales in the 1970s (Tom Zito/Little, Brown). |
Tom Shales
(1944-2044) was a longtime influential TV critic and writer whose insightful critiques
both pleased and occasional punished the programs we loved. Whether one agreed
with him or not, or appreciate the pointed barbs he might throw out at a
particularly less than pleasing production, Shales’ always did his homework and
had deep contacts within the entertainment industry, which we see here in this Nov. 19, 1979, article for The
Washington Post, where he was the longtime chief television critic from 1977 to
2010.
In this article,
Shales provides quotes from creators/producers Bruce and Carole Hart and producer Howard Malley and
reveals Hot Hero Sandwich’s budget to
be over $1 million, or approximately $4,347,988.98 in 2024 dollars, making it
one of the most expensive shows for NBC at the time.
The last four
paragraphs of the article, though unrelated to Hot Hero Sandwich, have been
retained for preserving the integrity of this primary source material. Original
spelling has been retained as printed.
_________________________________________________
NBC's Ambitious ‘Hot Hero Sandwich’
By Tom Shales
November 10,
1979
No sooner had an
FCC task force knocked the networks for poor children's programming than,
shazbot, CBS unveiled “Going Places” and NBC, after weeks of delay, announced
the premiere of “Hot Hero Sandwich,” both ambitious new efforts for young
viewers. The timing is coincidental but fortuitous.
“Going Places,”
an “On the Road” for the young, was shown Tuesday by 166 of the 200 CBS affiliates.
A CBS News spokesman says a second show is “in the can” but unless network
executives give the high sign, "Going Places" goes nowhere from here.
NBC’s, “Hot Hero
Sandwich, ” however, premieres today at noon on Channel 4 (and 185 of the 216
other NBC stations) and it is going everywhere, including bananas, coconuts,
hog-wild and right through the roof. This sparkling skyrocket constitutes one
giant leap for kidkind.
A frantic
fact-and-fiction hour, “Sandwich” was created by Bruce and Carole Hart and mixes
sketches about the hills and valleys of adolescence -- problems of adjustment,
identity, and complexion -- with songs, animation and candid interviews that
clinical psychologist Thomas J. Cottle conducts with celebrities. They tell how
they made it from 12 to 20 without turning into pillars of salt.
On the first
show, Bruce Jenner shows a previously latent credibility when recalling the
first time he kissed a girl or how he suffered from dyslexia, a learning
disorder, when young. Donna Pescow (“Angie”) confesses she hit her mother when
mom told her she was getting a divorce. And Erik Estrada remembers a boyhood
friend who overdosed on heroin when Estrada was barely into his teens and
living in Spanish Harlem.
Preachiness and
teachiness are avoided as the program goes from somersaults to handstands to
cartwheels with a spectacular battery of video effects. Some 40 hours of
editing go into a single one-hour show.
The Harts,
married for 16 years, executive-produce the program, which is shot in New York
at Studio 8-H (making it a kind of “Saturday Afternoon Live”) but edited in Los
Angeles. Bruce says that future programs will bring up such topics as
pre-marital sex, masturbation, “and nuclear power as well.” Both say they hope
youngsters and parents will watch the show together, a wish that isn’t as
fanciful as it might sound.
“We found that
38 percent of the audience at that time on a Saturday are adults,” says
Carole. “The network categorizes them as ‘passive’ because they don’t
necessarily control the set (meaning, kids pick the programs), but we think we
can get their attention. Because of the pacing, the animation and the
high-energy comedy, even 6-year-olds can have a good time with it.”
The high-energy
comedy is supplied mainly by a stock company of seven likable youngsters who
will be premature candidates for cardiac arrest if they don’t settle down. An
opening sketch on nicknames is a loud mess, but a later one about compassion
for parents hums harmoniously. Of the group, a pudgy blonde cupcake named Denny
Dillon seems the standout. She’ll go far.
Celebrities to
be interviewed on future programs include Barbara Walters, Rev. Jesse Jackson,
Beverly Sills and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Obviously all systems are go on this
ball of fire, and NBC should consider producing more shows than the planned 11
-- unless this is just a face-saving PR project, that is.
What no one
wants to say about the show is how much it costs to produce it. “The network
has specifically asked us not to discuss it,” says producer Howard Malley. “It
looks more expensive than it is,” says Bruce Hart. “Over $1 million” is
all a network spokesman will offer.
And Mary Alice
Dwyer, director of children’s programs, says from New York, “a lot. So much
that that’s why we’d rather not say.”
In the area of “pro-social”
children’s programming, NBC and CBS have lagged behind ABC and its “Afterschool
Specials.” ABC also airs a Sunday morning show, “Kids Are People Too,” but
its virtue is dubious. The educational value lies primarily in training
children how to be noisy and appreciative studio audiences.
Michael Young,
the program’s host, appears to suffer from a terminal case of ice cubes down
the shorts, and the celebrities interviewed usually are plugging ABC shows or
talking fan mag drivel.
It is both naive
and cynical to think networks want to put on idiotic children's programs. The
problem is largely with advertisers who at first flocked to the good-deed shows
for their prestige value, then in sizable numbers abandoned them for more
cost-effective junk. And so they underwrite hours and hours of crummy, dumb
cartoons.
“Hot Hero
Sandwich” is another hop, skip and jump in the right direction, and an
invigorating one at that. It is also more entertaining than seven out of ten
shows in NBC’s prime time schedule, suggesting that once the networks and
sponsors get kids’ TV straightened out, they might pause to remember that
adults are people too.
“Love for Rent”
We the
television viewers of America deserve a higher form of pandering than “Love for
Rent,” the ABC Sunday night movie, at 9 on Channel 7, that even as brainless,
lurid mellowdrama proves strictly lou-zay.
Comely Anjanette
Comer and woebegone Lisa Eilbacher star in the tale of two sisters in lewd L.A.
who are shocked out of their skins when customers of the escort service that
employs them demand certain extra services.
The audience is
baited with threats that the girls will be forced into sex with strangers and a
subplot involving a psycho (poor Eugene Roche) who wants to whomp hookers.
Rhonda Fleming makes a minimal appearance as the owner of the escort operation.
Far seamier than steamy, the movie dawdles
pointlessly along between the highlight screams and attacks. Impressionable
viewers who see enough of these unsavory TV movies about hookers and rapes must
get an awfully morbid idea of what sex is. To watch “Love for Rent” is to be
party to an act of communal degradation.
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