THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 30, 1996 TAG: 9609280056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: 71 lines
WHERE SHALL I begin? With the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade? With the four new game shows? With the revival of MTM, the company founded by Mary Tyler Moore and her former husband, Grant Tinker?
There is so much happening at the Family Channel and International Family Entertainment - the corporate offices are on Guardian Lane in Virginia Beach - that it takes my breath away.
Let's start with the parade.
The Family Channel announced that, beginning this year, FAM will design and show off a ``falloon'' - combination float and balloon - in Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It's the 70th anniversary parade this year.
Starting today at 3 p.m. with the ``New Shop 'til You Drop,'' FAM launches four game shows, including ``Shopping Spree,'' ``Small Talk'' and ``Wait 'til You Have Kids,'' and brings back for a second season the impossibly messy ``Family Challenge'' with host Michael Burger.
``Wait 'til You Have Kids'' has merit - the questions and answers are of some help to clueless parents - but the other FAM game shows are mindless time-killers.
Is watching a wife pour a pitcher of egg yolks on the head of her husband of 29 years entertainment?
Yes, you say? You're sick.
MTM, the once mighty Hollywood production company that gave birth to ``Hill Street Blues'' and ``St. Elsewhere,'' is busy again under the IFE banner with three shows on network schedules (``The Pretender,'' NBC; ``Sparks,'' UPN; and ``Bailey Kipper's POV'' on CBS Saturday mornings).
MTM Enterprises is also involved in the production of ``The Cape,'' a syndicated drama, and has its name on two of the new FAM game shows. Coming soon from MTM: made-for-TV films about the first moon landing and John Wayne's life story, as well as a Christmas special produced for Kathie Lee Gifford.
FAM in July announced about 20 new productions for the 1996-97 season, including ``The Ditchdigger's Daughter,'' ``Dog's Best Friend'' and ``Panic in the Skies.''
FAM tonight at midnight revives the Johnny Carson era of late-night television by scheduling back-to-back episodes of ``Carson's Comedy Classics'' Monday through Friday. FAM at 6 p.m. begins re-running ``Carol Burnett & Friends'' on weekdays.
FAM in Los Angeles is reporting that ratings for ``Home & Family,'' the tedious mix of patter and infotainment co-hosted by Cristina Ferrare and Chuck Woolery weekdays at 1 p.m., have more than doubled since signing on in April.
Woolery underwent quadruple-bypass heart surgery last week and will be off the show indefinitely. Guest hosts will fill in, including Burger from ``Family Challenge.''
``Home & Family'' plus the new game-show block gives FAM five hours of original programming daily starting at 1 p.m. The schedule is designed to expand FAM's base of female viewers ages 25 to 54, who have been watching Ferrare and Woolery in fairly large numbers.
Mike Ogiens, president of MTM, compared the company to a sleeping giant that has awakened.
He is thrilled to see four MTM shows on the air today.
``And they are not knockoffs. They are distinct,'' said Ogiens.
I guess you can say that about ``The Pretender'' (genius assumes various identities) and ``The Cape'' (NASA footage mixed in with a conventional soap opera) as well as ``Bailey Kipper,'' in which an 11-year-old uses tiny cameras called spyballs to secretly record his family's daily life.
But there's nothing special about MTM's ``Sparks.'' It's just one more loud network sitcom.
If on FAM's new game shows you see contestants splattered with gunk-filled balloons, you may wonder whether FAM sends these unfortunates back to their seatsin a sticky state. Not to worry.
FAM has showers and clean towels backstage. If FAM didn't, we could charge the network with cruelty. After seeing the demeaning stunts on ``Family Challenge,'' perhaps we ought to do that anyway. by CNB