‘Twas a Season for Scandals-- and Even Secrets

Parting thoughts about TV in 1987:

We had the the Gates of Wrath--Irangate, Gary Hartgate, Jim and Tammygate, Bork/Ginsburggate, Joan Riversgate, CBS morning showgate and Fairness Doctrinegate among others.

Dwarfing them all, however, was Pac Bellgate.

It was not just another year for those oppressively sweet Pac Bell commercials that provide a minute-by-minute chronicle of Lawrence and Garland as the “Jules and Jim” of the older set. It was the year that Mary Ellen made a startling confession--why she married Garland instead of Lawrence.

As Mary Ellen explained it again and again and again in 1987, if she would have married Lawrence, they never would have seen Garland again. This way, the thicker-skinned Lawrence still comes around for all the big events like anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Mary Ellen’s lobotomy.

Oh, brother.

On the one hand, Pac Bell should be commended for creating dignified commercial characters who don’t perpetuate elderly stereotypes while celebrating long-term friendship. After such marathon sentimental oozing, on the other hand, it’s time to finally pull the plug on this maudlin trio. And please, no TV movie about them.

Forget about Mary Ellen, by the way. If you’ve seen these commercials, you know the real mystery is why Lawrence didn’t marry Garland. Probably because they never would have seen Mary Ellen again.

-- TV’s Best Kept Secrets in 1987 : One was “Mad Movies,” which cable’s Nickelodeon network says it is shifting to 11 a.m. Saturdays.

“Mad Movies” is the L.A. Connection’s outlandishly funny syndicated series redubbing old movies with new, incongruous dialogue. Fortunately, 26 of these half hours were made before production was stopped in 1985. “Mad Movies” is an old and simple idea, but one executed with exquisite, side-splitting silliness.

Also deserving a bigger spotlight is “The Foreign Correspondents,” a CNN half hour at 3:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Saturdays in which Washington correspondents from other nations share their views of American politics with host Mary Tillotson.

TV has no shortage of Americans talking about America. But here is a candid, dispassionate, reasoned world view of ourselves that is simply unavailable elsewhere on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, describing any NBC program as a secret may be stretching things a bit. Yet three 1987 episodes of “Beverly Hills Buntz”--one of NBC’s occasional “designated hitters”--received relatively little attention. Too little.

“Beverly Hills Buntz” is a wonderfully comedic spinoff from “Hill Street Blues” starring Dennis Franz as former New York Det. Norman Buntz, who is now a private eye in Los Angeles, and Peter Jurasik as his sidekick Sidney Thurston, formerly Sid the snitch.

The three half hours were very funny because of the scripts and also the work of Franz and Jurasik as characters whose relationship is rooted in Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton. They’re a raw, belching, snorting blast.

“Beverly Hills Buntz is said to have a good shot at gaining permanency on NBC’s schedule sometime in 1988, which would make it a “secret” no more.

-- Wimp of the year : Apple Computers, for withdrawing its computerized frog dissection commercial, reportedly fearing Apple would be perceived as siding with opponents of animal dissection in classrooms.

-- Dunces of the year : TV news people who have publicly applauded “Broadcast News” without realizing that they are precisely the types being mocked by James Brooks’ new movie.

-- TV personality of the year : Geraldo Rivera, of course. Here’s a New Year’s resolution. I promise to not criticize, denigrate or ridicule Geraldo’s theatrical, hysterical, self-serving hocus-pocus in 1988.

Unless he deserves it.