Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 8, 1993 TAG: 9311250311
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: COREY ULLMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Medium
It has been almost a year since the former head of NBC Entertainment stepped down as chairman of Paramount Pictures.
The reason, he said, was to see his 10-year-old daughter through therapy for injuries she received in a 1991 car accident. It would be quality family time. Maybe he'd even improve his golf game.
But in the seven months he's been in New Orleans, Tartikoff has begun work on at least a dozen television projects. Two of them already have been picked up for national syndication.
Golf? He's played one round.
``I feel very at home in a television studio,'' Tartikoff explains.
``For me, it's sort of like a ballplayer would feel being in a ballpark. I'd rather be at a TV station on a bright, sunny day then sitting in my backyard reading a novel,'' he said. ``That's just who I am.''
Local station managers here knew who he was, too. They began courting him soon after he arrived in the nation's 38th largest TV market, asking his programming advice and persuading him to put his creativity to work for them.
Tartikoff agreed.
First he helped create a children's show for the local Fox Broadcasting Co. affiliate, owned by composer-producer Quincy Jones. It was Jones who'd sold Tartikoff and NBC on the successful sitcom ``Fresh Prince of Bel Air.''
Fox subsequently picked up the show for national release.
Tartikoff also created his first game show for another local station. The ``Jeopardy''-style quiz featuring questions about city lore could be franchised to other cities, he says.
His biggest project so far, though, is ``Under New Management,'' a soap opera set in a local restaurant. He pitched the show to the local PBS station where managers got him a meeting with top PBS executives.
They asked Tartikoff to develop 13 scripts for the show, which would be produced and acted by New Orleans talent, and would air in the fall of 1994.
Tartikoff said the show will break from the ``insulated existence'' of typical sitcoms and soaps. Dialogue will address current events and the show will air the same day it is taped, for timeliness' sake.
After 14 years at NBC and 18 months at Paramount, one of the industry's brightest minds is like a kid in a candy store, free to experiment.
``I'm not attached to any studio,'' Tartikoff says. ``I've avoided making any of the traditional overhead, housekeeping or banner headlines in ``Variety'' kind of announcements because I don't need that in my life.
``I can basically go to where all the best talent is.''
And he's been doing just that, visiting and phoning writers for a full slate of network television and film projects.
In the works:
A mini-series for NBC, written by author Tom Clancy, to be produced and shot in Maryland. Tartikoff describes the show as a ``real-life `Mission Impossible.'''
A mini-series starring Ann-Margret. ``A saga of an indomitable woman who keeps rising from the ashes of her life,'' Tartikoff says.
A one-hour weekly series for CBS to be shot in Nashville, titled ``X's and O's.'' The show will focus on the lives of four women who are the ex-wives of country music stars.
A one-hour weekly comedy for ABC, featuring typical American townspeople on a typical Saturday night, which is when Tartikoff wants the show to air.
A half-hour weekly series for CBS based on the tabloid ``Weekly World News.'' Tartikoff says the show will be done as a straight news program, using information from 10 years of the tabloid's files. It will be shot in Florida using the publication's actual editors as correspondents.
Then, there's a handful of film projects, including production of a movie based on Tom Clancy's latest novel ``Without Remorse,'' which will be published this month.
Elsewhere in television
DIFFERENT KIND OF MUSIC VIDEO: Planning a visit to the Big Apple in the coming months? Don't miss ``From Kern to Sondheim: American Musical Theater on Television,'' opening Sept. 21 at The Museum of Television & Radio.
The midtown museum will showcase some of the most memorable and innovative televised performances, beginning with a presentation of ``Show Boat'' by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein.
In October, the museum salutes Irving Berlin; in November, George Gershwin, and in December, Rodgers and Hammerstein. In January, the museum screens Lerner and Loewe musicals ``Camelot'' and ``Brigadoon.'' Leonard Bernstein's works screen in January and February, and Stephen Sondheim closes the series in March.
by CNB