A Class Act Gives Life to Old TV Skits : * Television: A unique program markets scripts to schools and uses the royalties to fund Navajo scholarships in Arizona.

Ted Turner and Chris Whittle are working their transponders off to get their television programs and electronic gear into the nation’s schools.

That’s the old news.

The new news is that a few years back Carol Burnett got there first . . . all because of an unusual agreement worked out between one of her producers and a retired advertising executive. It wasn’t exactly what Turner and Whittle have in mind but it did produce one surprising benefit.

What the producer and the ad man did was discover that old television scripts don’t die, they just fade out, some possibly to fade in again. They gave new proof of how nothing in Hollywood goes to waste, just into syndication.

That’s why today a high school drama class in Oregon or a community theater group in North Dakota might be giving a live performance of say, “As the Stomach Turns,” a vintage early ‘70s soap spoof by “The Carol Burnett Show,” or on another night re-creating some of the John Belushi and Conehead scripts of equally old skits from “Saturday Night Live.”

The Burnett scripts have helped disprove the heretofore unbelievable: that there is enduring life for even television’s comedy writers who seemingly exist on diets of topicality.

But first let’s meet Arthur Zapel, the retired vice president of television production for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. Admitting to burnout several years ago, Zapel retired to Colorado Springs, Colo. But he didn’t want to retire from show business. He organized and started Meriwether Publishing Ltd., a company that sells theatrical books and publications to schools, community groups and youth organizations.

Then he pulled on his television background and set up another company, Contemporary Drama. The idea: to market to schools and others the production rights to original drama scripts and off-air television scripts.

His first TV target was “All in the Family” but no agreement could be reached on production rights. The next target: “The Carol Burnett Show,” which in the early ‘70s was essentially a series of skits involving Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence and, occasionally, Tim Conway and Jim Nabors. It was an ideal target. The skits would be combined into individual packages that would play under a required one hour, the time limit for most of Zapel’s school plays, the cast was small and humor was generally universal and pertinent.

Robert Wright, then an associate producer with Burnett and now producer with her Kalola Co., liked Zapel’s idea for a personally compelling reason but he had one strong reservation.

Wright and his family were involved with fund-raising programs for Navajo tribes in Arizona through the Neighborhood Club of Palos Verdes and its United Church Youth. His idea: turn the royalty payments that would come from the Colorado company into a fund for the Arizona Navajos.

The only trouble was the words to the Burnett scripts didn’t belong to the producers; they belonged to the writers who would have to approve any transaction involving their words. And in television, writing is a group activity somewhat similar to the activity and spirit of running with the bulls in Pamplona.

Writer Arnie Rosen took to the idea of doing something more with old scripts than banking residual payments. He located the various other writers who worked on one season’s productions and convinced them to assign the Zapel Co. royalties to the Navajo project.

With the writers signed on, Zapel sent out his mailings to, as he describes it, “every high school in the United States,” offering along with his usual scripts and materials, intact, unedited, original skits from the Burnett show, indicating also the royalties would go to Navajo programs.

And they did. Royalty payments have ranged up to $5,000 a year. The Palos Verdes groups have been able to get new equipment for the Tuba City and Greystone high schools in Arizona.

More importantly, they have been able recently to set up a capital fund that offers two or three scholarships a year to young Navajos, especially to those high school seniors who show strong interest either in tribal social service or work in the creative arts.

The royalty-producing skits have been limited to the Burnett show’s 1972-73 season. The rights arrangement allows the schools and other performers to put on an unlimited number of productions in one year’s time for the one fee. Zapel has thought about getting scripts from other years but so far the one year’s worth of programs continues to do well, space is limited in his mailings and someone will have to hunt down every writer involved in other Burnett skits.

Zapel did work out an arrangement a few years ago for a second television package--certain scripts from “Saturday Night Live.” Those royalties go to the producers, a charity of a different sort.

Performance rights to television scripts have not succeeded in the marketplace the way that certain plays and stage productions have. The Samuel French Co., which handles production rights for most dramatic work in this country, attempted a few years ago to publish and sell production rights to such TV shows as “All in the Family,” “Maude” and “Sanford and Son.” But not with the same results that came out of Colorado Springs and Palos Verdes.

When it comes to getting TV scripts performed in schools the choices are limited. Two-hour dramas are too long. Violence and other abuses of language, mind and body are restricted. Talk shows don’t work. Some sitcoms might work, but so far only packaged skits seem to sell.

“We have to screen all our scripts carefully,” Zapel says. “The plays go to everyone, sort of nondenominational. We don’t mind a damn or a hell. But nothing too explicit.”

That puts a collar on many television programs going into any sort of live rerun. “Dynasty” may not exactly play a Peoria high school. But Carol Burnett circa 1972? Easy.