THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602220048
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
EARLY IN ``The Late Shift,'' the Home Box Office version of how and why Jay Leno succeeded Johnny Carson as host of ``The Tonight Show'' on NBC, the actor playing David Letterman remarks, ``How could a television show be worth this embarrassment?''
How, indeed?
Letterman (in the person of John Michael Higgins) is portrayed as aloof, ``an anti-social jerk'' unwilling to engage in behind-the-scenes guerrilla warfare, which often results in such big show biz payoffs as landing the ``The Tonight Show.'' ``The Late Shift'' debuts Saturday at 8 p.m.
Letterman won't like it much when he sees Higgins playing him on HBO as loud, insecure and full of nervous quirks. After a taping of his old late-night show on NBC, Letterman is a tower of doubt.
``I don't belong in this business. I should be driving a gravel truck in Muncie. If the audience were any more dead, there would be guys in lab coats harvesting their organs.'' Rim shot, please.
Leno, on the other hand, didn't need to worry about playing the game of politics or the ugly hand-to-hand combat of network infighting. He had somebody to do the dirty work for him - his manager Helen Kushnick, played wonderfully by Kathy Bates.
She's the best thing in this inside film about network television, which may interest nobody except those who work in TV and those who write about it. In extensive makeup, Higgins and Daniel Roebuck as Leno come off as cartoon characters. Roebuck told TV writers in Los Angeles recently that it took hours in makeup to get Leno's granite chin just right. But is it right?
Bates, on the other hand, didn't use makeup to play the Kushnick role. She adopted an attitude, spouted four-letter words and played Kushnick as subtly as a knee in the groin. ``I wasn't looking to be Helen Kushnick,'' said Bates. ``It's a part in a film I was hired to play. It's a piece of entertainment.''
Both Bill Carter in his book, on which the HBO film is based, and the producers of the HBO project make this point: NBC was really dumb for letting Letterman get away, because in his first year or so on CBS Letterman clobbered Leno in the ratings. However, in the present, Letterman's ``Late Show'' has run out of gas and Leno's ``The Tonight Show'' has been re-energized and leads in the ratings.
As a result, ``The Late Shift'' lost its punch line. Was NBC dumb and dumber after all?
Also on cable this TV week:
Norfolk State U. grad Tim Reid and his wife, Daphne Maxwell Reid, co-host Turner Broadcasting's ``Trumpet Awards'' on Saturday at 8:05 p.m., a program that honors African Americans who have distinguished themselves in many fields. The honorees in 1996 include athletes, surgeons, attorneys, businessmen and entertainers. Special honors will go to Harry Belafonte and Nat ``King'' Cole.
Charles Kuralt, who has been nearly as busy in retirement as when he was on the road for CBS, hosts a new series on The Disney Channel, ``This I Believe,'' which premieres Sunday in a half-hour version at 8:30 p.m. This is a TV show based on a radio series hosted in the 1950s by Edward R. Murrow. On Tuesday night at 8:55, The Disney Channel begins running five-minute segments of ``This I Believe'' in which famous Americans give their philosophies or rules by which they live or just talk about their values. The list includes former President Jimmy Carter, astronomer Carl Sagan, basketball coach John Wooden and former cabinet secretary Jack Kemp. A very nice feature.
The folks at The Family Channel headquarters in Virginia Beach bring back ``Rich Man, Poor Man,'' which started the miniseries craze on network television about 20 years ago. This miniseries launched Nick Nolte (Tom Jordache) on his path to stardom. FAM begins ``Rich Man, Poor Man'' Sunday at 3 p.m., and will continue the run through March 24. Also from FAM: ``The Ed Sullivan All-Star Comedy Special'' will be seen Sunday at 9 p.m. with Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, George Carlin, Jackie Gleason and a cast of thousands appearing in this ``rilly big shew.'' Mary Tyler Moore hosts. And why not? FAM's parent company owns Mary Tyler Moore productions.
Would you believe that once upon a time in America, people who worked in the movie business lost their jobs simply because somebody with political power suspected they supported Communism? There was a Hollywood ``blacklist'' as American Movie Classics shows in the documentary, ``Blacklist: Hollywood on Trial'' Tuesday night at 10. Alec Baldwin hosts the show in which artists from the 1950s in letters, interviews and testimony tell how they went undercover to keep working. Turner Broadcasting did a similar piece not long ago. Among the actors who all but lost his film career because he was blacklisted: Will Geer, who came back before the cameras in ``The Waltons.''
How's this for an idea? To show viewers what it's like to grow up in Harlem, select nine typical kids and give them video cameras to use in telling their stories. The idea clicked for the Discovery Channel, as you will see if you watch ``Harlem Diary: Nine Voices of Resilience,'' which starts on Sunday at 9 p.m. The young people with the cameras range from 12 to 20. Says 18-year-old Jermaine Ashwood, ``My mother is the hero in my case. She set examples so that I would have self-discipline and do all the right things.''
Also in your TV future: New pop Martin Lawrence - he's married to a local girl, you know - marks the 100th episode of ``Martin'' on Fox Sunday night at 8:30 . . . ``Goosebumps,'' which is just about the hottest kids' show on the tube, airs a special Sunday night at 7 on Fox: ``A Night in Terror Tower.'' . Censored Bloopers Fat-Free'' on NBC Saturday night at 8. . . ``Frontline'' on PBS Tuesday at 9 p.m. looks into lawsuits that have come about in a global backlash to breast implants on ``Breast Implants on Trial.'' ILLUSTRATION: John Michael Higgins, left, plays David Letterman and Daniel
Roebuck portrays Jay Leno in "The Late Shift," at 8 p.m. Saturday on
HBO.
TBS
Tim Reid and his wife, Daphne Maxwell Reid, are co-hosts for Turner
Broadcasting's ``Trumpet Awards'' Saturday at 8:05 p.m.
Answer appears on Page 23.
by CNB