by G. Jack Urso
TV Guide, in its March 29 – April 4,
1980, issue (transcribed below), provides a critical post-mortem review of Hot Hero Sandwich. The article gives an
honest look at the series and it is largely accurate. One observation is that
NBC, Bruce and Carole Hart, and even the writers, had slightly different ideas
for who the show’s audience was:
“Andy Breckman estimates “8- to 14-year
olds.” A network spokesperson says “preadolescents and adolescents.” And the Harts
say “for the entire family.”
Dr. Tom Cottle, in
his interview
with the Hot Hero Sandwich Project noted
these competing perspectives as well as, which the TV Guide article also points out, the Saturday Noon air time almost
ensured that neither parents nor many children would tune in together, or at
all. One additional element not noted by the article is that the show was frequently
pre-empted for sports, particularly in the Western part of the United States, as
noted by series film editor Patrick McMahon in his interview
with the Hot Hero Sandwich Project.
There are a few
hard pills for fans to swallow, but the article is largely spot on. After some
growing pains in early episodes, the series was beginning to find its footing,
but confusion over the intended audience between the Harts, the network, the
writers, and even the young audience themselves resulted in mixed reviews. As summed up by one young
viewer:
“Sometimes you’d wonder who this thing was
for. It would seem too dumb for a teen-ager, but a really young kid wouldn’t
understand it,” complains 13-year-old Rob Tickle of Hopkins, Minn.
I can recall a
similar feeling at the time, though I was a little bit older than the intended
audience having just turned 15. The article provides some important insights, (such
as revealing no test screenings with teens were done) and generally gives a
fair and accurate analysis.
The complete
text of the article is provided verbatim below.
_______________________________________________________
‘Hot Hero Sandwich’:
The audience didn’t bite
An ambitious program for young people had noble intentions —
but poor ratings
By Katie Leischman
TV Guide, March 29, 1980
 |
| Mar. 29-Apr 4 1980 |
The show’s frank
but funny glimpses of growing up raised some eyebrows — and a key question: Had
a single show at last succeeded in satisfying children, teenagers, and adults?
With recent ratings spelling failure, the program is unlikely to be back next season.
Nonetheless its critics and admirers are unanimous on one point: nothing like Hot Hero had ever before been attempted
on commercial television.
Hot Hero Sandwich is the brainchild of
Bruce and Carole Hart, who collaborated so successfully on Sesame Street. “We wanted to try something completely new — to
stimulate intergenerational discussion about intimate feelings,” explains Bruce
Hart. Their master plan was to juxtapose interviews with celebrities (recalling
their growing pains) with comic, musical and graphic sequences devoted to
issues that surface in adolescence.
The interviews,
conducted by Harvard psychologist Dr. Thomas Cottle, captured rare private
moments in the lives of public people: Marlo Thomas confessing she practiced
kissing on a pillow doused with Old Spice, “Superman” Christopher Reeve,
remembering his self-consciousness as a gangly 12-year-old; Coretta Scott King,
reliving the summer day she attacked her cousin with an ax.
An NBC study
showed that 6- to 12- year olds were less interested in the interviews than
were older viewers. But Cottle argues that “it’s almost impossible to pinpoint
what a child gets from a show.” A young mother told him about her 8-year-old
son watching Christopher Reeve, with tears in his eyes, recall a family reunion.
“Is Superman crying?” the boy asked his mother. “Yes,” she said. “Is that
alright to do?” he asked. “Of course,” she said. “Everybody wants to cry
sometimes.”
Most younger
viewers preferred the music and issue-oriented skits about a group of teenagers
who attend Nightmare High and whose hangout is the Hot Hero Sandwich Café. The
sketches have occasionally seemed old-fashioned and improbable: a dowdy
sex-education teacher lectures on the stork theory of baby delivery. (Sex
education may be inadequate, but nobody is lecturing about storks.) [TV Guide seems to have totally missed
the satirical nature of this particular sketch, or, more likely, the author did
not see it and was working off an episode description.]
“Sometimes you’d
wonder who this thing was for. It would seem too dumb for a teen-ager, but a
really young kid wouldn’t understand it,” complains 13-year-old Rob Tickle of
Hopkins, Minn.
More consistent
have been the beautiful animated segments, narrated by a real child
reconstructing a dream. These fantasies of flying, escape, or birth in an
unknown land would affect any adult who vaguely remembers adolescent drams —
and that is every adult.
Not enough
adults or kids tuned in, though. Hot Hero Sandwich holds only 12 per cent of
Saturday-noon viewers, lagging behind its two conventional competitors, the ABC
Weekend Special and CBS’s Shazam!
Twelve noon on Saturday is a bad hour for family viewing.
The program's
critics and creators do agree on one thing: Hot
Hero improved throughout the season. “The BBC has been doing this
mixed-media genre for years, but it is still new here. New Talent emerges each
time it is attempted, says, Dr. Percy Tannenbaum, who teaches media policy at
the University of California at Berkley.
In fact, the way
in which the Hart’s discovered their writers reflects nicely on the couple.
Just as the network gambled on them, the Harts graciously rolled dice on
unknown young writers.
“For me, it was
a Cinderella story,” says Andy Breckman, who writes scripts and portrays the
Puberty Fairy, who grants a single wish to dissatisfied teenagers. “I was
packing books 32 cents a day, doing comedy bits in clubs at night. One evening
the Harts caught my show and four days later I had an office at NBC and, well,
God bless America.”
Breckman
concedes that the writers were “off the mark at first, never having written for
children. In hindsight, I think we could have been bolder, franker. One the
other hand, I was amazed that some material got by the censors.”
It is
significant that various artists, critics and viewers of Hot Hero Sandwich had very different ideas about whom the program
was for. Andy Breckman estimates “8- to 14-year olds.” A network spokesperson
says “preadolescents and adolescents.” And the Harts say “for the entire
family.”
It may be that Hot Hero Sandwich was a brilliant idea
developed by a team that at first lacked a common perception of its audience.
If it ever found one, it didn’t happen fast enough to earn the show a second
season. NBC retained a battery of experts and child psychologists to review
each script. Surprisingly, there were almost no test screenings for youngsters,
who could have provided vital feedback.
Nonetheless,
audiences’ introduction to the Puberty Fairy, Tom Cottle’s interviews, Bob
Pook’s graphics and the graceful animation of Jerry Lieberman may have been
enough to justify the Hart’s tremendous efforts and NBC’s investment. For this
was obviously a very expensive program to produce — the sort of experimental
program that to produce — the sort of experimental program that, in the past,
only public broadcasting would have touched. And that may be what makes Hot Hero Sandwich a watershed in
children’s entertainment television: that the real hero behind the title was a
major commercial network.
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