Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990 TAG: 9005110352
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
What's troubling about the show is that it's a news program produced by NBC's entertainment division out in silly Hollywood. Indeed, it's really a revised version of the laborious NBC News series "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" that aired a few times last year.
Brandon Tartikoff, the NBC Entertainment president who does lots of dabbling in the news department, admitted that "YT&T," as it came to be called, was a big disappointment to him, especially since it was his idea to do the show. The news division, meanwhile, rankled - albeit belatedly - at making a series that included phony re-enactments filmed in Tinsel Town.
So NBC News dropped the sticky ball and Tartikoff scooped it up. The result, "The Story Behind the Story," airs as a special Sunday night on NBC. If it gets good ratings, it could be back as a Sunday night series in the fall, perhaps even going up against the CBS News production "60 Minutes" on which there are no re-enactments or actors.
The title is a misnomer. "Story" doesn't really tell stories behind stories. It offers what some journalists call "sidebars" - features that illuminate some little aspect of a bigger story.
There are reports about Abraham Zapruder, the Dallas businessman who took home movies of President Kennedy's assassination; a comedy act that had the bad fortune to be booked on "The Ed Sullivan Show" the same night that the Beatles made their first live TV appearance; a Northwest Airlines flight that took off under the cloud of a bomb threat; and the teen-ager who caught the ball hit by Roger Maris when he broke Babe Ruth's home-run record in 1961.
As if flaunting the fact that they mingle facts with flim-flam, the producers chose as cohosts Richard Kiley, the actor, and Jane Wallace, a former correspondent for the now-extinct CBS News magazine "West 57th."
The show opens with a disclaimer: "The following program contains re-enactments of actual events and is not a news broadcast or news documentary." That sounds above-board and honest. But research has found that viewers tend to ignore disclaimers and easily mistake fabricated dramatizations for actual news footage.
In the first segment, about Zapruder and his famous film, "Story" goes from recently filmed interview footage of Zapruder's former receptionist, to a re-enactment of Zapruder arriving at work on Nov. 22, 1963, then back to the real receptionist, and then to a re-enactment with an actor playing Zapruder waiting for the motorcade at Dealey Plaza.
None of the re-enactments is labeled "re-enactment." Does it matter that some viewers will be confused? Not to NBC, it doesn't.
Comics Mitzi McCall and Charlie Brill appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9, 1964. But, except for them, nobody remembers that, because it was also the night the Beatles made their live TV debut in this country.
McCall and Brill are funny and self-effacing as they recall that shriek-filled night, when they died horrible deaths on national television in front of a studio audience that wanted nothing but Beatles. They also remember John Lennon and Ringo Starr strolling casually into their dressing room before the show and hunkering down for a chat.
In dramatized scenes, actors play McCall, Brill, Lennon, Starr and Sullivan. The stone-faced host called the comics into his office after rehearsal and told them, "Your act just isn't funny," and made them completely rearrange their material. On the air, they were humiliated. And yet, "We'd do it again," McCall says. "In a minute," adds Brill.
These are all interesting tales, well told. So are the stories about the 1989 Northwest flight (14 brave passengers made the trip despite advance publicity about a bomb threat) and Sal Durante, who was 19 years old and sitting in the right-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium when Roger Maris batted his way into history.
Then, at the very end of the show, the news/entertainment line is blurred still further when Time magazine's veteran Washington correspondent Hugh Sidey pops up to talk about Ronald Reagan's last day in office. Sidey's presence adds a journalistic cachet to the show even though non-journalists did it.
In fact, the producers are John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer, who do that awful NBC series "Unsolved Mysteries." They also contributed to "YT&T."
Truth be told, "Story Behind the Story" is a slick, sharp and engrossing hour. But how does a viewer know when the truth is being told?
"Story" succeeds breezily in its two goals, one legitimate and one dubious: To entertain people, and to fool them. Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB