TV Series Join Crusade to Curb Drunk Driving

Considered separately, they were two unremarkable bits of TV dialogue.

During the Nov. 16 episode of CBS’ “Wiseguy,” Vinnie Terranova, played by Ken Wahl, was drinking with some friends at a blue-collar bar where an obviously inebriated man was preparing to leave. “Are you sure you can drive?” the worried bartender asked the slurring, stumbling stranger. “I better go take care of him,” Wahl told his friends.

Meanwhile, on NBC during that same hour, the maitre d’ on the upscale urban drama “Tattinger’s” was concerned whether a drunk patron was going to drive home. “They’ve got a limo,” he was reassured.

A coincidence? Or another example of how TV shows are so unoriginal? Neither, actually.

Blame Jay Winsten, a Harvard Ph.D. in molecular biology who has spent this year prodding the TV industry to expose the dangers of drinking and driving and to promote the designated driver program, especially during the holiday season when people are more apt to be around alcohol.

So far, 15 shows--including “Baby Boom” and “Hunter” on NBC, “TV 101” on CBS and “Mr. Belvedere” and “Who’s the Boss?” on ABC--have either broadcast or made “definite commitments to lay in a few lines of dialogue” on the subject in upcoming scripts because of Winsten’s lobbying.

He also persuaded the three major networks to launch a prime-time public-service campaign promoting the “designated driver” program, beginning this Thanksgiving week and continuing through New Year’s.

“People are saying this is the first time since ‘Love Story’ that Harvard and Hollywood have teamed up on anything,” quipped Winsten, assistant dean at the Harvard School of Public Health and director of the university’s Center of Health Communication, which is trying to use the mass media to motivate behavioral changes among the public on several health issues.

The decision by the Harvard Alcohol Project to focus its lobbying effort on the TV industry was made “because nothing can begin to rival prime-time entertainment programming in potential impact,” Winsten explained. “The case has been made that different economic and demographic groups closely follow particular programs and closely identify with particular characters, so there’s a very powerful potential for the modeling of behavior within that.”

The success he’s had is somewhat amazing, considering not only that the networks derive considerable revenues from alcoholic beverage advertising, but also the well-known sensitivity of producers and writers to any perceived infringement on their creative independence.

Still, even the board of the Writers Guild of America West voted last spring to back Winsten, and this month his campaign was given a full page in the WGAW newsletter.

“People said to me, ‘You’re an outsider. They’ll never accept you. They’ll never listen to you,’ ” recalled Winsten, who knew nothing about the TV industry when he started. “Well, thank God I didn’t know how tough it was supposed to be. Because I might not have attempted it.”

Of course, Winsten isn’t the first crusader to try to wheedle at least a smidgen of airtime on television for a good cause. But he had some obvious advantages, not the least of which being the allure of his Harvard affiliation and the stature of his advisory board (which included former CBS President Frank Stanton and NBC commentator John Chancellor).

More importantly, however, “Jay’s crusade was one that we could do something about fairly easily, unlike a lot of other worthwhile causes,” noted Grant Tinker, president of GTG Entertainment, who helped Winsten get in to see many of the 80 or so TV studio executives, producers and writers that Winsten estimates he has met with over the past year.

“A producer or writer can very easily put this message in the mouth of a TV character in a social situation without preaching,” Tinker added. “Considering the simplicity of it all, it’s very hard for us to feel our independence is being challenged.”

MTM producer Bruce Paltrow, whose new series “Tattinger’s” doesn’t lend itself to exploring social issues to the degree of his old show “St. Elsewhere,” nevertheless went along with Winsten’s proposal “because I’ve always thought we in the creative community have a responsibility to promote social issues like buckling up, not smoking during pregnancy and using condoms,” he explained. “This was just a continuation of that.”

But Paltrow also voiced concerns about the difficulty of striking a balance between doing good in general and doing good in the ratings.

“It would be nice if we could do all things for all people. At the same time, we can’t be propagandists,” Paltrow noted. “Our first job is to entertain the audience, and if we can also illuminate an issue, great. But there are always ethical considerations about using the medium in a subliminal way to get your view across. Some people could find that offensive.”

Bob Myman, executive producer of “Hooperman,” said his show will include some lines of dialogue about designated drivers “because it doesn’t hurt us and it’s smart.”

But he also wondered if his colleagues realize they may be opening a Pandora’s Box. “If any of the people really thought about it, they’d freak,” he declared. “What do you do if everyone started hitting on you?”

Underscoring the industry’s sensitivity, several top TV producers were troubled last August when Harris Katleman, the president of the television production division of 20th Century Fox, met with Winsten and then said he expected every scene at a party or in a tavern in his studio’s shows to include mention of designated drivers, including Steve Bochco’s “L.A. Law.”

“My reaction was that Harris can say anything he wants, but he doesn’t make our show. We do,” Bochco recalled. Last week, he met with Winsten for more than an hour and explained that, while he thought the designated driver program was a good cause, “I will not stoop to proselytizing no matter how valid the idea being proselytized is.”

Bochco related that the reason for his attitude dates back to 1971, when he was the junior writer on the TV series “Name of the Game” and the Nixon Administration was “twisting the arms” of all the television studios to produce strong anti-drug episodes.

“Universal took this on as a just cause and the kid writer, me, was left to the task of writing this episode,” he said. “I’ll never forget seeing this thing on the air and feeling utterly mortified because it wasn’t any good. And I learned a very, very important lesson.”

Acknowledging that not every show can accommodate him, Winsten is nevertheless pleased with the response, attributing it to his low-key approach and modest goals. “I think people are going along with it because they don’t feel pressure. I tell them we may go away sad but we never go away mad,” Winsten said.

In fact, Winsten’s request is not for entire scenes or episodes but for only “5 seconds” of dialogue warning against drinking and driving or promoting the designated driver concept.

“The pitch is for each show to do it once or twice a season because to do it more would backfire,” Winsten said. “And if it doesn’t work for the show, then it won’t work for the audience. All I’m asking them is to reflect a new social norm against driving and drinking that is already taking hold in the United States. My hypothesis is that in reflecting those changes, they will reinforce them and add momentum to them.”

As evidence of this, Winsten points to the fact that several shows had already included a scene on the subject before he even began lobbying them, including “Cheers,” which takes place in a bar. On “L.A. Law” last season, an inebriated Michael Kuzak (Harry Hamlin) asked a bartender to call his girlfriend “and tell the lady I need a ride home.”

“If enough shows do it, the cumulative impact of those impressions over the long-term can make a very, very significant difference,” Winsten noted. “The challenge here will be to sustain this effort over the long-term, because you don’t change social norms overnight.

“If everyone does something once or twice and then feels like they’ve done their thing, then we will have been merely some blips on the radar screen.”

Meanwhile, by the time the holidays are over, TV viewers will have seen designated driver spots on all three networks about 20 times per week, mostly in prime time. According to Winsten, “this is the first time that the commercial networks have committed to the simultaneous airing of public service campaigns which they are producing themselves on the identical message.”

Two networks, CBS and NBC, apparently didn’t want to miss PR opportunities. So in addition to Dr. Joyce Brothers, some of the CBS ads will star “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak, who just happens to be kicking off a late-night talk show on the network in January. NBC is featuring “Hunter” actress Stepfanie Kramer (“to target young males,” a spokeswoman says) in spots during prime time and “Late Night With David Letterman.”

ABC’s ads, which are dramatic re-creations without celebrities, will be broadcast in prime time as well as during “Nightline.”

In addition, Winsten said he will ask NBC for a minute or two at half time of its Super Bowl broadcast “to permit us to do something, perhaps a live interview with a sports celebrity for whom the issue of drinking and driving hits home.”

With NBC asking $675,000 for 30 seconds of advertising during the Super Bowl, requesting a public-service advertisement isn’t “realistic,” Winsten noted. He has made “one contact” already at Anheuser-Busch, which has an exclusive contract for alcohol beverage advertising for the broadcast, “simply to alert them to what I hope to pursue with the network.”

Dr. Rosalyn Weinman, NBC’s director of community affairs, would not comment on whether NBC would go along because “the request hasn’t been made yet.”