Horror, Games, Humor on Fall TV Agenda

America should rest easier--or not be able to sleep at all, depending on one’s perspective--knowing that “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” are guaranteed to remain on the air until at least 1992.

The top-rated syndicated shows remained among the hottest sellers at the annual convention of the National Assn. of Television Program Executives (known as NATPE International), which concluded here Tuesday. The convention is the marketplace at which stations around the country decide which syndicated programming to buy for the fall season.

Unlike “Wheel of Fortune,” “Jeopardy!” and a few other shows that have already been sold to enough stations to guarantee their appearance in the fall--a “firm go,” in TV parlance--the future of many shows for sale here remains up in the air as station executives hold off making final decisions about their fall schedules.

Some of the proposals represented conventional and serious fare: Linda Ellerbee, former host of ABC’s acclaimed but low-rated “Our World” history series, was on hand trying to launch a late-night news program called “And So It Goes.” MCA offered “My Secret Identity,” a special-effects action / comedy that seemed popular with programmers shopping for something to please young viewers. From Turner Broadcasting Services came “Portrait of the Soviet Union,” seven hours narrated by Roy Scheider, featuring film footage from Soviet locations that Western cameras have not been allowed to film before.

But, as usual, the long list of shows that could possibly air in the fall also featured more than a touch of the bizarre.

That fact was reflected at MGM/UA Television’s selling booth in Houston’s Texas-ranch-sized George R. Brown Convention Center. There, visitors donned headphones and entered a dark, special effects-laden chamber to watch a promotional videotape for the company’s “The Twilight Zone” series. At its end, a disembodied voice warned: “Beware as you enter the NATPE zone, which makes ‘The Twilight Zone’ look like a reality show.”

That wasn’t too far from wrong.

Even the list of new shows with “firm gos” was a little scary: “USA Today: The Television Show” promises to report “Wednesday’s news on Tuesday,” and Lorimar Television is producing “A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy’s Nightmares,” based on the adventures of moviedom’s gruesome fictional child-killer Freddy Krueger.

The scream genre emerged as one of the major trends at the convention, although some program buyers voiced concerns that too many horror shows could alienate their audiences unless saved for the late-night hours, when young males dominate the audience.

Along with the skinless Freddy (he was burned to death before his current unpleasant incarnation) were proposals for a television version of “War of the Worlds” from Paramount, a series from Tribune Entertainment called “Monsters”--with “a new creature featured every week” in “24 exciting stories for the monster in everyone”--and Tribune’s slightly creepy “Spectacular World of Guinness Records,” whose promotional material featured a gentleman wearing a hooded garment entirely covered with bees.

There were two new medical programs: MGM/UA’s “Group One Medical” (a firm go) and Lorimar’s “Family Medical Center,” which is not yet guaranteed for fall.

“Group One Medical” could come perilously close to voyeurism in its plans to take viewers into the examining room to watch real patients in consultation with real doctors. And “Family Medical Center,” from the producers of “The People’s Court,” will cross the line between fiction and reality by blending real medical personnel with actors to dramatize medical cases.

In attempting to sell “Group One Medical,” MGM/UA provided the executives shopping at their booth with a free cholesterol test, along with a buffet of bacon and eggs.

With the so-called “Doc in the Box” shows were some new fitness programs, including “Body by Jake: The Shape of Things to Come,” a celebrity workout show.

Producers also decided to dabble in the law: “On Trial,” from Republic Pictures, proposed to take the cameras into real courtrooms (its advisory panel includes attorneys Vincent Bugliosi and Howard Weitzman). And on the sillier side was the game show “Love Court” from Saban Productions, featuring “love litigators” in “the marriage of love and law.”

Among the new talk shows being proposed were two with offbeat choices of hosts: Don King in “Only in America” and convicted Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy in “Liddy,” described as a “talk / confrontation show.” Said Liddy of the show’s format: “What we’re going to do is have me take on the best the liberals have to offer. We’re going to play ‘Christians and Lions,’ and I shall be the lion.”

In the game show genre, a new “Queen for a Day” and a new “Family Feud” are firm gos. Still trying to line up backing are Multimedia Entertainment’s “Sweethearts,” hosted by Charles Nelson Reilly, which could be America’s first comedy-game-talk show; “Relatively Speaking,” from Select Media, which has contestants trying to guess who are the relatives of “famous celebrities,” and “Life’s Most Embarrassing Moments,” hosted by Roy Firestone, featuring “the embarrassments of TV personalities, movie stars, athletes, politicians and all of us.”

And from Barris Program Sales: the return of “The Gong Show.”