Same Game, Different Tunes : Roller Derby--updated as RollerGames--is back with a rock ‘n’ roll beat

On the heels of the successful union of rock music and professional wrestling--which helped resuscitate the moribund sport and launch a syndicated television phenomenon called “Wrestlemania”--another tired old game is putting on the glitz, joining forces with rock ‘n’ roll and being marketed to the MTV generation.

Roller Derby, gasping for life on and off for the past 30 years, will be reborn this fall as “RollerGames,” a weekly made-for-television extravaganza with a music-video look.

And even before the $1-million track is completed and the first elbow jabbed in anger, “RollerGames” is skating in the fast lane. Syndicated to 130 stations including KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles, it will make its national TV debut the week of Sept. 13 with a two-hour prime-time special. And while “Roller Derby” was usually relegated to Saturday mornings on television, “RollerGames” will appear opposite “Saturday Night Live” in 70% of the markets and in prime time in the rest, says executive producer David Sams.

Roller Derby’s transformation can be likened to Beaver Cleaver joining the cast of “Starlight Express,” the high-tech, roller-skating Broadway musical. Roller Derby was played in musty arenas on scuffed-up tracks by large women named Tuffy and Skinny Minny, but “RollerGames,” using what Sams calls “futuristic production imagery,” is getting a complete make-over. According to an artist’s rendering, the track will be able to pass for a set from a “Mad Max” film. Players are required to look like soap stars and will wear sexy uniforms.

Add a heavy metal band at halftime--Sams says Top 10 acts are “close” to being signed--and you have what the producers hope is a compelling reason for teen-agers and young adults to stay home on a Saturday night and root for teams with names like Rockers, Hot Flash and Bad Attitude (as parents wonder which one of the teams their kid is identifying with).

The show was sold to stations at last January’s National Assn. of Television Program Executives convention in Houston. There was no video, no pilot, no teams, nothing but a glossy promotional packet that featured a beautiful female skater on the cover, the artist’s vision of the track inside and color photos of prototypical teams and players who were described as “cheeky cheesecake and handsome hunks.”

The packet promised “MTV-style production values . . . network-style in-depth sports action coverage . . . a high-speed rock ‘n’ roller-coaster track . . . high-concept teams and merchandisable characters (‘players are athletic, young and hot--sex appeal on wheels’) . . . and the ultimate, ultra-rad sports spectacle and variety show.”

According to Sams, the show created a feeding frenzy at the convention. “It was the runaway hit by far,” says Sams, 30, whose promotional skills helped sell “The Oprah Winfrey Show” nationwide when he was vice president for creative affairs at King World. “The only time I’ve seen that kind of action was when stations were trying to renew ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and get ‘Oprah.’ ”

About a year ago, Sams and his partner, former “Eye on L.A.” producer Michael Miller, were interested in producing a rock ‘n’ roller-skating project to “take advantage of two forms of TV that had become popular: event television and wrestling,” Sams says. They took their idea to Motown Productions, with which they had a development deal. Burl Hechtman, Motown’s vice president of television, knew that William Griffiths Sr., who ran Roller Derby, had been wanting to put a contemporary spin on his sport and get it back on television. A meeting was arranged.

“Within a couple of hours of talking to David, I knew we were all in the same place,” says Griffiths, whose son Bill Jr. runs the L.A. Thunderbirds, one of Roller Derby’s best-known teams. At least two other producers had wanted to do business with Griffiths, but he thought their conceptual approach was “tongue-in-cheek and would have set us back years.”

When Griffiths agreed to terms, Sams went to Qintex Entertainment--the Australian conglomerate that recently purchased MGM/UA--for financing and distribution. Qintex, which had the right of first refusal on Sams/Miller projects, initially passed on “RollerGames” because of the show’s high production costs (Sams says each hourlong segment will cost $170,000). But after Sams/Miller went out and lined up nearly 20% of the TV stations in the country, Qintex changed its mind and bought the project.

In a nondescript warehouse in Sylmar, about a dozen potential players practice on a 90-foot-long banked oval made of tempered Masonite glued to plywood. This is a far cry from the rock ‘n’ roller-coaster track under construction in Glendale. The finished “concourse” will be a figure-eight with a three-foot ski jump and a perpendicular curve ominously named “the wall of death.” The original design also called for an alligator pit. An alligator pit?

“That’s just hype that the Hollywood boys have been putting out,” Griffiths says with a wink.

The Hollywood boys are Sams/Miller and the public relations firm of Bender, Goldman & Helper, charged with responsibility for selling the concept to the target audience of 18- to 34-year-olds. Griffiths has to temper their enthusiasm with the reality of the sport. Despite new terminology (the jammer is now the jetter, the pack has become the power guard), the game essentially remains the same: four on four, with points scored when the jetter passes opposing players. Points also will awarded in “RollerGames” if the jetter “survives” the wall of death.

There was no temptation to turn Roller Derby into “Rollerball,” the 1975 James Caan film in which skaters wearing spiked gloves were pulled around an oval by motorcycles. In “RollerGames,” the emphasis, like in Roller Derby and pro wrestling, will be on melodramatics: “feuds,” grudge matches, soap-like relationships.

“We don’t lose any of the exciting elements of the old game,” Griffiths said. “It’s just Roller Derby come of age.”

A former child dancer in vaudeville who was known as “Sunshine Billy,” Griffiths, 65, has been involved in Roller Derby since 1960 when he took control of the T-Birds. Created in 1935 by a Chicago promoter named Leo Seltzer--who supposedly worked up the rules with Damon Runyon--Roller Derby was a weekly show on the ABC network in the early ‘50s but had lost its TV contract by the time Griffiths got involved.

An advertising executive and promoter, Griffiths began rebuilding Roller Derby through television syndication, eventually clearing 147 markets during what he calls “our halcyon days.” Thanks to TV, box office was also up. In 1972, the T-Birds drew 52,000 to Comiskey Park in Chicago. But the good times came to an end, Griffiths says, when his TV markets dried up and the Arab oil embargo in the mid-’70s made travel too expensive for Roller Derby teams.

For about 10 years, Roller Derby was played mostly in Southern California and was carried on a few local TV stations, then was revived again in the mid-’80s when Griffiths began trying to update Roller Derby’s image. In 1985, ESPN aired the game of the week, right after pro wrestling. Although ratings were good (630,000 households on a Tuesday night), Griffiths says, he and the cable network couldn’t come to terms on a contract in ’86.

But he still was optimistic that he could bring Roller Derby into the 21st Century. “After we decided to go for a sleek, contemporary look, we were an accident waiting to happen,” Griffiths said.

Although no players have been signed--and won’t be until later this month--”RollerGames” workouts have been going on since April. The roller-skaters practice under the supervision of “Little Ralphie” Valladares, the legendary player-coach of the T-Birds, who began his Roller Derby career 33 years ago and will play this season to become the first player ever to skate competitively in five decades.

“See that blonde?” Griffiths says, motioning to a young woman who is staying up with the men. “She could barely hobble three weeks ago. Skated like a duck. Look at her now. That’s what dedication will do.”

Indeed, “RollerGames” hopefuls need a large amount of dedication because they won’t receive a paycheck until they sign a contract. Most of them work out five or six days a week. When they arrive at the Sylmar track, they must sign a waiver that holds RollerGames International harmless if they’re injured. Players also have to furnish their own skates, which cost upwards of $275.

“I’ve been in so much pain I wanted to cry,” says the blonde skater, Kristine Van Galder of West Los Angeles. “I’ve bruised my eye, hurt my head and my knees have swollen up.”

Van Galder, 21, is an example of the new “RollerGames” look. A few months ago, Sams was eating at the Cheesecake Factory in Marina del Rey when he noticed Van Galder waiting tables. When he learned that she was a twin--and that she had been in Doublemint commercials with her sister, Jennifer--he got them a skating tryout. In only a few weeks, the sisters have learned enough to be “almost sure bets to make the team,” Griffiths says.

The Van Galders, who will be attending USC next fall, see “RollerGames” as their entree into show business. “I’d rather be doing this than some sleazy movie,” says Kristine.

Despite the show-biz slant to “RollerGames,” Griffiths insists it is a sport. And if it’s a sport, players don’t fall under the jurisdiction of AFTRA, the TV union, meaning they don’t have to be paid at AFTRA rates, which would be higher than the $25,000 annual salary reportedly paid to beginning Roller Derby players (Griffiths refuses to say how much he will pay in “RollerGames”).

But Griffiths will get an argument from purists who insist that Roller Derby is not a sport. (The Times does not carry Roller Derby results in its sports section). Roller Derby, in fact, is often lumped with pro wrestling as far as credibility and integrity: It has always been suspected that matches are fixed, an allegation that Griffiths largely ignores.

“I don’t know that it is fixed and I don’t give a damn, nor do the people who tune in,” says Griffiths, wearing his trademark fedora. “But I’ll say this: It is entirely impossible to choreograph a game. And fixing Roller Derby is as nearly impossible as fixing the Indianapolis 500.”

On a recent afternoon in Glendale, about 200 skaters--responding to a small newspaper classified ad--line up outside the Moonlight Roller-Skating Rink to try out for what the ad called “a most dynamic sports league.” The scene is like Venice Beach on a weekend: women with green hair do wheelies; men with Mohawks slalom down San Fernando Road; Frisbee-catching dogs romp in the parking lot.

This is the “official league tryout,” but it is more like a media event. The P.R. people from Bender, Goldman & Helper congratulate themselves for the presence of nearly a dozen camera crews, including “Entertainment Tonight” and “USA Today.” Griffiths, in a brown fedora, and Sams, wearing a spiffy tuxedo jacket and black bow tie, are interviewed while the massive pack of skaters whirls around the rink.

A lot of skaters don’t know what “RollerGames” is until they see a blown-up rendering of the track in the rink lobby. “All I know is, I want to be on a team,” says the girl with the green hair, who calls herself Liz “Ard” Tuck and says she’s from Los Angeles. Does she realize that the action can be rough? “Violence is the fun part,” she says. “This looks like wrestling on wheels.”

Auditioning 200 skaters isn’t as hard as it seems. After Sams speaks to the skaters and Griffiths speaks to the skaters--lecturing them on the virtues of “desire and dedication”--Valladares sends 10 at a time around the rink, watching for dexterity, showmanship and personality. The audition was videotaped for review by Griffiths, who insists that he and his son will pick the team, although sources say that the Hollywood boys will try to make sure the players meet demographic imperatives.

“We never had a problem getting players for Roller Derby,” says Griffiths, who lives in Granada Hills. “They just find us.”

The man most responsible for delivering a lot of the promises made in the “RollerGames” promotional packet is Chet Forte, the 10-time Emmy winner credited with developing the look of “Monday Night Football.” Forte has been signed to direct the first 13 shows and has an option for the next 13.

“It’s not going to be easy capturing everything that happens,” says Forte, who plans to use six cameras. Problems facing Forte: “RollerGames” is brand new (there isn’t a book on how to televise it), kinks in the new track will have to be ironed out quickly, and a production site hasn’t been decided (negotiations are under way to erect the set in a building at the Pomona Fairgrounds).

Television, of course, will decide the fate of “RollerGames”--Sams expects to have 175 stations cleared by air time and promises advertisers a 15 rating for the two-hour special. But he also expects to make a bundle on merchandising as “RollerGames” goes retail. Nintendo is coming out with a “RollerGames” video game and Milton Bradley will be manufacturing an electric “RollerGames” game. There also will be toys and a soundtrack.

But it’s the TV payoff that’s enormous. The World Wrestling Federation Network is syndicated on 300 stations worldwide and its recent “Wrestlemania V” was seen by 915,000 subscribers on pay-per-view TV and another 400,000 on closed-circuit. The potential of “RollerGames,” says Sams, “is as big as the WWF, if not bigger.”