‘Whoopi’ Ignites Furor

The first scene in NBC’s new fall sitcom “Whoopi” begins with the star, Whoopi Goldberg, puffing on a cigarette, ignoring a nearby “No Smoking” sign.

“You know, secondhand smoke kills,” says an irritated guest of the hotel Goldberg’s character owns.

“So do I,” she shoots back, glaring at the guest.

Scheduled to premiere Sept. 23, the show is designed to be a Norman Lear-like commentary on American society, in the same vein as the groundbreaking “All in the Family.” That show was built around bigoted jokes that boomeranged on Archie Bunker, while “Whoopi,” featuring a relationship in which her brother is dating a white woman, takes a swipe at everything from fears about terrorism, Arab American stereotypes, kids who talk in exaggerated street slang to mispronunciations by President Bush.

But the topic that’s catching fire is Goldberg’s smoking.

It is “extraordinary when you have an interracial couple in the show, and the thing that people are freaking about is that I’m smoking,” Goldberg said recently. “I love it.”

Goldberg’s unapologetic attitude flies in the face of a prime-time trend. The American Lung Assn. just last month applauded television networks and producers for increasingly snuffing out smoking scenes on network TV.

In contrast, a study by the association documented an increase in smoking in movies, including films rated PG-13. It found that more than 40% of leading actors smoked in the 145 movies sampled.

Teenage volunteers, recruited by the association’s Sacramento chapter, spent March watching movies and TV shows. They recorded each time they saw cigarettes or other tobacco products in a scene, and found smoking in more than a third of the 77 television shows they watched.

The youths viewed 271 prime-time programs from ABC, CBS, NBC, WB and Fox Broadcasting. They documented 2.1 incidents of tobacco use for each hour, project director Kori Titus said. Five years ago, the survey found an average of four incidents of smoking an hour.

“This is the lowest rate we’ve ever seen it on TV,” Titus said. Her group has been conducting the survey for eight years.

The “smokiest” shows last season, she said, were “Becker” on Viacom Inc.-owned CBS; “The Simpsons” on News Corp.’s Fox; and three shows on General Electric Co.’s NBC -- “American Dreams,” “Boomtown” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

Since then, Becker has quit.

“What could be worse than a doctor who smokes?” asked Dave Hackel, executive director and creator of the Paramount Network Television series that stars Ted Danson. “This was something I put in the pilot because I wanted to give him as many foibles as possible. I was trying to have a very good doctor who was a very damaged person.”

Viewers responded with angry letters. The anti-smoking mail hasn’t stopped, as the show is scheduled to enter its sixth season this fall.

“It was never our intention to glorify smoking. If anything, we took pains to make it look disgusting,” said Hackel, who smoked for two decades before quitting 14 years ago.

It wasn’t pressure by upset viewers, advertisers or network executives that ultimately led Dr. John Becker to quit last season. “We decided to keep alive his battle to be a nonsmoker,” Hackel said. “We can get a lot of stories out of this. So far, we’ve already written an episode where he runs around holding candy cigarettes.”

In real life, Danson doesn’t smoke -- unlike Goldberg, his former love interest. The comedienne, an executive producer on her show, told television writers recently that she has never tried to kick her longtime nicotine habit.

Goldberg opened a Television Critics Assn. session last month by smoking on stage at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel, in violation of state law. It wasn’t a gag, say show producers who were with Goldberg when she grabbed a cigarette and announced she needed to light up just before they went on stage.

Although anti-smoking advocates say they haven’t seen any episodes of “Whoopi,” they have been bracing since reading in the Hollywood Reporter in May that Goldberg’s character would be a “chain-smoking innkeeper.”

Indeed, Goldberg puffs away in three scenes during the 22-minute pilot. Health advocates say they are alarmed by the amount of smoking and that NBC is airing the show when young children probably would be in the audience: 8 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific time zones, and 7 p.m. in the middle of the country. They want NBC to move the show to a later time slot.

“Whenever you see a cigarette used as a prop, kids pick up on that,” said Melissa Havard, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Los Angeles-based entertainment initiative on smoking and health. “Children don’t understand the nuances or see the humor that adults do.”

NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker said he was comfortable with the show in an early time period. The series won’t glamorize smoking, Zucker said, adding, “I would caution people not to jump to conclusions until they’ve seen the show.”

Network executives haven’t requested that the producer -- Carsey-Werner-Mandabach -- or Goldberg tone it down when shooting begins in New York later this week.

“We’re trying to have a realistic character,” Zucker said. “Personally, I wish she wouldn’t do it but she wants to be authentic.”

Several advertising buyers echoed that sentiment.

“We expect TV to portray real life and people smoke in real life,” said Andy Donchin, director of national broadcast for the ad-buying firm Carat North America. “But we wouldn’t want anything that portrays drinking or smoking in a positive light.”

“Whoopi” doesn’t, executive producer Marcy Carsey said. “We’re not making it look cool or desirable. We’re simply making a point that she is a flawed character.”

This isn’t the first time Carsey-Werner-Mandabach has dealt with such concerns. When its show “Cybill” went on the air on CBS in 1995, members of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers complained because the character Maryann, played by Christine Baranski, glided around with a martini in her hand. And there are depictions of pot smoking on “That ‘70s Show” on Fox, though not within the camera’s view.

Audiences are forgiving, Carsey said. “Just because Jackie Gleason was fat doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone on TV was encouraging the young people of America to be overweight.”

The Rev. Jesse W. Brown Jr. of Philadelphia doesn’t buy it.

“The entertainment industry, in large part, has been negligent,” said Brown, executive director of the National Assn. of African Americans for Positive Imagery. “They have the power and ability to shape behavior and attitudes of young people, and yet they deny any responsibility.”

Brown’s group was part of a coalition nearly two years ago that pressured NBC to abandon plans to advertise hard liquor commercials. He said he’s prepared for another protest, and cites studies that suggest tobacco makers have been marketing products to African American youths.

“Whoopi is a great entertainer, a great role model and she’s well respected in the community,” Brown said. “But we don’t need to see the tobacco companies’ messages reinforced by Whoopi or anyone else on television.”

Goldberg’s character on the show, Mavis Rae, likewise endures haranguing from hotel guests, as well as her brother. In one scene in the first episode, she is exiled outside to smoke on the front stoop.

“People do still smoke,” Goldberg said. “And people still do drink. And this character does. She’s not perfect.”