Grapes of Pique : Pride Ruffled, Fresno Grumbles After Seeing City Spoofed in Miniseries

Carol Burnett, Charles Grodin and their co-stars in the television miniseries “Fresno” were unable to attend the special charity showing that attracted about 1,000 people to the William Saroyan Theater here, but maybe that was just as well.

For the biggest applause Sunday night was reserved for a 90-year-old water tower, one of the town’s few landmark structures.

Geographically speaking, there wasn’t much else to cheer about since only about five minutes of the six-hour comedy miniseries was actually filmed in Fresno.

Well, even John Wayne used stand-ins. The San Fernando Valley and Burbank substituted for Fresno during most of the filming.

But it wasn’t the scarcity of local sites on screen or celebrities in attendence that bothered many Fresnans or Fresnoids (as they’re known in rival Bakersfield) as their city went on display in the first segment a the five-part series about two raisin barons trying to stamp each other out.

It was the opening scene, set in 1581, in which a Spanish conquistador spits out a local grape and scoffs: “They taste like fresno. “

Even though the first episode didn’t make any “FAT” jokes about the Fresno air terminal or any references to summer heat, “they taste like Fresno” hurt.

The locals were still grumbling about that line Monday afternoon in Mike Gaston’s cafe off California 99 in nearby Fowler.

Rod Paloutzian, a dentist and rancher, mourned: “It was a mockery. It was a comedy only because the big cities like Los Angeles like to make fun of us.”

“Stupid,” agreed waitress Lisa Goorigian.

In fact, word of the scene had leaked out in advance of the series debut and had been the subject of a weeklong controversy. Don Drilling, manager of KJEO-TV, had threatened to cut it out of the local broadcast as “insulting.” But Fresnans protested the proposed cut in calls to the station as well as local radio stations and the newspaper--some on the grounds that Fresno should be able to take a joke, others on the grounds it would make Fresno look even worse if it were censored.

So the scene stayed.

“Fresno is the Indian word for ash tree so the conquistador was only saying it tasted like an ash tree,” explained program director William Heath, not entirely clearly.

Just how or if the series would affect the local raisin industry, troubled in recent years by a surplus produce (or a shortage of raisin fans, depending on how you look at it) wasn’t clear.

“The part about the bran was inauthentic,” said grower George Stephanian, referring to the brainstorm of one family to heighten the breakfast appeal of raisins by stuffing bran inside them.

However, Burt (Zemo) Zamanigian was heartened by the accompanying commercials for the California Raisin Board, which featured animated clay raisins rocking and rolling to the tune of “Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

“My nieces usually run out of the room when a commercial comes on, but they stayed for this,” he said.

But if “Fresno” is going to do for raisin sales what Walt Disney’s “Davy Crockett” did for coonskin caps a couple of decades ago, it wasn’t immediately apparent.

By mid-afternoon at Ito’s Market in nearby Selma on Monday, nary a raisin had been sold. A few Granny Smith apples. But no raisins.

“Usually I stay open until 6 but I’m closing at 2 today because business is so slow,” said manager Brian Okubo.

Raisins were much in evidence, however, Sunday night at the Saroyan Theater, where a large-screen showing of the Sunday-night segment was held to benefit a local charity, the Central Valley Children’s Services Network. More than 1,000 attended, although a number left midway through the film.

There were raisins in the pate, in the salad, in the gravy, in the cookies, and inevitably on the floor, at dinner.

And there were raisins in the earrings of Arpie Torigian Dick, a local grade school teacher.

“I think they fit the occasion, don’t you?” she asked, insisting that raisins, like diamonds “last forever.” Hers wasn’t the only unusual outfit at the dinner. Video shop owner Joe Ozier wore a phony nose and eyeglasses, apparently not certain whether he would still want to be associated with Fresno after he had seen the movie.