Mason’s ‘Chicken Soup’ Too Much for TV--and That’s a Compliment

Jackie Mason’s “Chicken Soup” was the most talked about new series of the fall TV season, even after it was canceled this week. Which means it had something. Yes, it did, even if you hated his representation of Jewishness, or his “Abie’s Irish Rose” romance with the Catholic widow next door (Lynn Redgrave), or didn’t for a minute believe their far-fetched attraction to each other, or just flat-out didn’t think the show was funny.

All right, then, what did “Chicken Soup” have? It had nerve . It tried something different in the bland world of network TV. In “Chicken Soup” and “Life Goes On,” which focuses on a teen-age boy with Down’s syndrome, ABC had the only two new network series that rolled the dice this fall. “Chicken Soup” failed--its deceptively high ratings would have been much lower without the lead-in of “Roseanne.” But better a gambling failure, something that goes for it, than a whole season of “The Hogan Family.”

There was almost a thrilling kind of grossness to the tandem of “Roseanne” and “Chicken Soup” each Tuesday night between 9 and 10. In Roseanne Barr and Mason, ABC had two abrasive, less-than-gorgeous stars, each popping off with abandon in real life, getting themselves in hot water and reveling in the kind of personal controversy that most TV stars avoid like the plague, for fear of offending audiences and sponsors.

But, despite their abrasiveness, Barr and Mason, back-to-back, presented an hour of situation comedy that actually seemed to stand for something--take it or leave it. Barr, with a blue-collar appeal that Mason just didn’t have, was, and is, spitting out earthy and angry one-liners with deep roots in the issues of feminism and working mothers. Mason, meanwhile, was trying to do the only thing he can do--present the world according to him, just as he is, totally and ethnically Jewish, without compromise.

Unfortunately, the contrived format boxed him in. Try though he did, the one-dimensional story lines never really freed him up to unleash the furiously funny and startlingly philosophical humor that marks his act on stage. Maybe he’s just wrong for sitcoms, and maybe that’s a compliment.

And maybe, despite the failure of “Chicken Soup,” there’s a compliment in store, too, for the Marcy Carsey-Tom Werner production company that has turned out Bill Cosby’s sitcom, “Roseanne” and the Mason series--showcasing these significant comedians in attention-getting projects.

Cosby’s series, of course, has not-so-subtly tried to right a lot of wrongs in TV’s image of blacks over the years. In the offices of Carsey-Werner, there apparently is little fear of using the power of TV to alter public opinion about blacks, women and Jews through comedy--although, in the case of “Chicken Soup,” the intention boomeranged with many viewers who resented the stereotype of the Mason character.

But at least something was happening Tuesday nights on ABC between 9 and 10.

Perhaps subconsciously, Carsey-Werner was trying to capture mercury in a bottle--somehow attempt to snatch out of the air and transfer to prime time the sense of anger and bluntness that surfaces in the talk shows of Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donahue and Geraldo Rivera. There’s a post-Reagan mood in the air. “Roseanne” reflects that change. “Chicken Soup” might have if Mason had really been turned loose. Maybe he should have fought harder behind the scenes.

He did pop off, but in the wrong place. He did himself real harm by suggesting that Jews might vote for the black candidate for mayor of New York, David Dinkins, out of a sense of guilt. The remarks followed him. And, in a final irony, Dinkins was elected mayor over Mason’s friend, Rudolph Giuliani, on the very day that the comedian’s series was canceled this week. The trouble with Mason in public is that it’s almost impossible to quote him, or interview him on the air, simply in brief excerpts because his humor flows and builds in a rolling, introspective kind of monologue that is finally riotous and explosive when he’s on his game, which is most of the time. But take a sentence or two out of that and he can sound pretty silly, and sometimes worse.

Like Barr, his attitude and his work are one. These are not performers who simply crack gags in their stand-up performances and then go back to being someone else off stage. There’s the dilemma--being themselves is what gets them into trouble. And yet it’s also the very thing that makes them unique. What to do? Shut up? It’s not in their natures.

Consider Mason at an ABC press tour here several months ago, before “Chicken Soup” debuted. He had reporters roaring with laughter during an interview session. In context, he clicked. After the session, he continued to answer questions willingly outside. He was asked about his remark that he gets more heat from Jewish people in show business--for being blatantly Jewish--than from Gentiles.

“You always find that the minority feels persecuted and is paranoiac,” he said, “about any kind of intimation of separatism or anything connected with their religious identity. And they’re always hypersensitive and ready to march even if it’s about nothing.”

As for the cancellation of “Chicken Soup,” there’s less there than meets the eye. Its ratings dropped off sharply after “Roseanne.” Carroll O’Connor’s NBC police show, “In the Heat of the Night,” provided stiff competition when it returned. ABC didn’t want to risk its most successful night. And young adult viewers, coveted by advertisers, predictably were deserting “Chicken Soup” in large numbers.

It didn’t matter that “Chicken Soup” was the highest-rated new series and had a large audience. Following “Roseanne,” a test pattern would get a large audience. But, creatively, “Chicken Soup” had painted itself into a corner. If it had pulled ratings like those of “Roseanne,” the controversy surrounding Mason wouldn’t have mattered to ABC. But, since the show was waffling, the brouhaha might have been a subconscious borderline factor.

To the very end, the series had people talking about TV, getting involved. And that was absolutely the best thing about “Chicken Soup.”