MIRROR OF FAMILY LIFE : ‘SWEET SURRENDER’ IS THEIR BABY

It was in the midst of the 1985 television pilot season when Stuart Wolpert and Deidre Fay last gave birth to something--a daughter.

Now the husband-and-wife producing team is preparing for another “birth”: that of “Sweet Surrender,” a comedy series about a young couple coping with the demands of their careers and their young family.

It’s a familiar setting to Wolpert, 34, and Fay, 36, whose lives revolve around their career and their two children--a 2-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. And it is their lives that have become the show.

“I just said to them, ‘Why don’t you do your life?’ ” NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff recalled of the meeting he had with them to discuss series ideas. He felt the premise of a young married couple with young children (the children in “Sweet Surrender” are under 5 years old) had not really been done yet on TV.

As it turned out, that’s exactly what Wolpert and Fay had in mind. The meeting was over in five minutes.

With script ideas, casting suggestions and two children in hand, the couple went off and produced six episodes of “Sweet Surrender,” the first of which will air Saturday at 8:30 p.m. on Channels 4, 36 and 39. If NBC and viewers like what they see, the series will be given a permanent berth in the prime-time schedule next season.

At Wolpert’s and Fay’s office at Sunset/Gower Studios, family photos line their desks and children’s artwork covers a section of a wall--testifying to the importance the pair place on trying to balance their personal lives with their careers.

Wolpert describes “Sweet Surrender” as a program that encompasses the feeling of parents being parents for the first time, of experiencing the day-to-day events new parents endure. It is something that is happening for Wolpert and Fay.

“It’s truth and power, not a contrived sitcom,” Wolpert said.

Contributing to Wolpert’s and Fay’s story ideas, or “autobiographical experiences,” were Tartikoff and the show’s producers and writers, all parents themselves. The TV parents are portrayed by Mark Blum and Dana Delany.

The episodes will range from the serious--such as the writing of wills: “It’s something we’ve found ourselves putting off, but it’s a problem everyone has, the decision of what to do with your children,” Wolpert said--to the not-so-serious, like whether to eat out, and if so, deciding what to wear, where to go, what to eat and what to do when the baby starts crying.

Saturday’s show, titled “The Big Seven,” deals with the TV couple’s attempt to celebrate their wedding anniversary, only to have their plans disrupted by their son (Edan Gross) and other relatives.

(One of the six episodes is not going to air at present, however. That one concerns the parents trying to find time to make love. Wolpert said it was done with the thought that the series would be airing after 9 p.m.; instead, NBC decided on the 8:30 slot and is holding this show back.)

“Not everything pertaining to our life will be in the show,” Fay said. “We want it (the show) to be a lot funnier than we are.”

Said Wolpert: “What we’re trying to say is, ‘Here’s the mistakes we’re making this week, how ‘bout you?’ It’s meant to be a slice of life, wonderful and scary. We’re there to say we’re floundering ourselves.”

Since 1979, however, the couple’s floundering has been minimal. It was then that they worked as writers on “Hollywood Squares”--their first job, as Fay fondly remembers it.

“It was a great learning experience working with other professional writers,” she said. “It was a chance for us to really get our feet wet.”

They remember how hard it was getting started, though, while Wolpert worked as a stand-up comedian in Los Angeles clubs such as the Comedy Store and the Improvisation and Fay dabbled in writing.

Wolpert eventually joined his wife-to-be, and they produced more than 50 pieces, including articles, screenplays and TV scripts.

“We didn’t sell anything,” he said. “We took advice and just tried to learn.”

Finally, in 1980, they sold an episode to “All in the Family.” It didn’t air (due to changes in the cast), but it got them noticed, Fay said. From there, they were employed for two years, 1980-81, as story editors on “The Facts of Life,” their first staff job. They also served as producers of “One Day at a Time” during its last season, followed that with “All Together Now” and then returned to “The Facts of Life” as executive producers.

Now, they have “Sweet Surrender,” whose name, Wolpert said, describes the time when a couple reaches the age where they have to give up certain things in order to take on responsibilities such as a mortgage and children--a time when they surrender part of their youth, a sweet surrender if done with love and caring.

How sweet has it been, though, working and living with the same person for more than eight years?

“It’s the way we started, what we’ve always known,” Wolpert said.

“It used to be harder when I wasn’t on the sets,” Fay added. “Stuart would come home and I’d say, ‘What happened?’ and ask him all these questions.”

“And then I’d say the same thing when I got home,” Wolpert said. “I’d want to know what happened at home and with the kids.”

Said Fay, as she turned to slug Wolpert affectionately, “We’re lucky we’re partners.”