Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 20, 1993 TAG: 9303200401
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA BRENNAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`MURPHY BROWN' TO `LOVE & WAR' TO `LICKETY SPLIT'
Producers Diane English and Joel Shukovsky, who have been together for 22 years and married for 16, are the parents of the award-winning "Murphy Brown" and "Love & War."Next season they'll introduce "Lickety Split," about young New York bicycle messengers who are planning bigger futures. "Lickety Split" will be the second of their four-series deal with CBS, but it will come in at midseason at their request.
"CBS agreed, reluctantly," said English. "Joel and I are so exhausted. The pressure does get insane. You have to produce this fabulous blueprint for this series, because everybody's vying for the same actors."
Shukovsky/English are likely to get whomever they want. "Murphy Brown," the first project under their production banner, has 15 Emmy Awards and a slew of other honors. Earlier, English created, produced and wrote "Foley Square" and executive-produced and wrote "My Sister Sam," both for CBS.
English and Shukovsky plan to serve as creators and executive producers for "Lickety Split," a half-hour ensemble series to air at 8 or 8:30 on a weeknight.
"It'll be very stylish," said English. "We want to at least get our feet wet in that time slot. And we're not looking for names. We want great young talent. We want a real MTV/VH-1 feel to it and sound to it. And we want to have something to say to people who are in high school or just getting out.
"It's not a mindless comedy. Bicycle messengers, they're really biking their way to a better life, putting money together so they can go to college or build a new business. It's about kids who are survivors, kids with responsibility - they're running a business together. And it's about not being afraid."
English created "Murphy Brown" in 1988 and then left it to others to run so she could tend to "Love & War," which premiered last fall. But she still feels maternal about "Murphy": "It's my baby, and it's always going to be my baby. It's just like a kid: You send a kid off to college, but they're still yours."
After giving an interview in Washington, D.C., she and Shukovsky returned to Los Angeles and buckled down to writing the last episodes of this season for "Love & War."
English said she tries to create a "family" of each series's ensemble.
There are "shows where you can't even get the cast to go to the wrap party anymore," she said, without mentioning those series. "On `Murphy Brown,' that cast gets together and takes a big ski trip every year. Now they're in their fifth season, and it's been that way since the beginning. They really are a family. And I must say, it really does start with us, because it's very important to us - it's too hard to do without its being fun."
Even before it premiered, "Love & War" was expected to be a hit, given the plum timeslot after "Murphy Brown." But critics were quick to note that it did not hold onto all of "Murphy's" audience.
Shukovsky said he wasn't surprised. "We knew from research that there were people who watched `Murphy Brown' who didn't watch `Love & War.' "
They blamed part of the falloff on Monday-night football games. They were right: Ratings picked up after football was over.
"Monday nights are so odd," English said. "They're never the same. A different football game on ABC, a different movie on NBC. It's not like we're going up against the same competition every week, not like you're going up against `Blossom' and `Fresh Prince' every week. And we had a setback with the death of John Hancock. You could see it in the ratings: The ratings just plummeted."
English wrote a memorial-service episode for Hancock, who had played the bartender. His role went to Charlie Robinson, the bailiff on "Night Court."
English drew from her experience working at New York's PBS station when she created "Murphy Brown," which is set at a TV studio in Washington. But she drew from her own relationship with Shukovsky to create "Love & War."
"We thought we'd add `based on a true story,' " Shukovsky joked. He, like Jack Stein on the series, is medium-short, Jewish and New York-born. English, like Wally Porter, is a little taller than he is and has dark-blond hair. And her legs are so good she once posed for pantyhose ads.
But unlike Wally, who had just ended her marriage when the series began, neither English nor Shukovsky had been previously married. Neither has been a newspaper reporter, like Jack Stein, or run a restaurant, like Wally Porter. Both have been high-school teachers - she taught English to sophomores in Buffalo, he taught art in the Bronx.
Shukovsky switched to working in the on-air promotions department at WNET, New York's PBS station, where he met English, who had moved from Buffalo. They fell in love almost instantly, she said, and moved in together. But for one year, they split up. That experience will play itself out next season on "Love & War."