It’s Time Again for TV’s Insane System

TV or not TV . . . .

BOX SCORE: With the networks announcing their 1992-93 schedules during the next few weeks, it’s amazing to consider that all their huffing and puffing produced exactly one new, smash hit series last fall.

That was ABC’s “Home Improvement,” starring Tim Allen. And there’s no telling how well even it would have done if it hadn’t been cushioned between two major successes, “Full House” and “Roseanne.”

So why is TV’s seemingly insane programming system still intact? Because a single smash hit can reap hundreds of millions of dollars and turn the fortunes of an entire network around.

“Roseanne,” NBC’s “The Cosby Show” and CBS’ “Murphy Brown” have paid a lot of bills for their networks.

Still, it’s the crap-shoot to end all crap-shoots, with the odds much better in Las Vegas. Consider some of the long-gone new series that debuted last fall with big hype and visions of dollar signs occupying the dreams of the casts, producers and writers:

Remember “Teech”? How about “Pros & Cons,” with James Earl Jones and Richard Crenna in a lighthearted reworking of “Gabriel’s Fire”?

Personally, we had a weak spot for “Princesses,” the situation comedy with Twiggy and Julie Hagerty. But apparently no one else did.

Anyone remember “Good & Evil”? “Palace Guard”? “P.S.I. Luv U”? “Pacific Station”? “Man of the People”? And, alas, “The Carol Burnett Show,” which showed good sense by folding quickly when things clearly weren’t jelling.

And who could forget that world-class program misjudgment, “The Adventures of Mark and Brian”? Just about everyone, it turned out.

But now the visions of vast fortunes will start all over again. It happens every spring.

OUR FAVORITE MOGUL: NBC’s Maria Shriver interviewed cable giant Ted Turner. Shriver: “What is the secret of your success?” Turner: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.”

CASTING COUP: Weather guy Willard Scott is almost always over the top on the “Today” show, but that same quality makes him perfect as the host of the Family Channel’s revival of Major Bowes’ old “Amateur Hour.” We caught Scott chatting warmly on one show with a little girl who had played the harp, and he was just terrific and charming.

CLEANING UP: Those fun-loving folks, Roseanne and Tom Arnold, have yet another project on ABC on Friday--a half-hour cartoon special called “The Rosey and Buddy Show,” for which they do the two principal voices. In the program, the title characters “drive their RV into Cartoonland,” and, well, you’ll just have to drop your restaurant and theater plans, stay home and see how it all works out.

THE LONG GOODBY: “In the Heat of the Night,” the Carroll O’Connor-Howard Rollins police drama that has delivered the goods for NBC for four years, winds up its run on the network with a two-part episode tonight and next Tuesday--and then switches to CBS in the fall.

MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES: There’s just no better actor than Robert Duvall, and in HBO’s upcoming film, “Stalin,” he looks astonishingly like the late Soviet dictator. Check the accompanying photo.

MOMENT IN TIME: Marlene Dietrich, who died last week, was never better than in Billy Wilder’s masterful, postwar comedy “A Foreign Affair,” in which she played the cynical mistress of an American Army officer in Berlin. Her songs “Black Market” and “Ruins of Berlin” are as good as any she ever did, sizzling with the ring of truth and the sense of locale. Any TV festival of Dietrich’s films should not overlook this underrated motion picture.

TO THE POINT: According to NBC, the lineup of personalities for Johnny Carson’s May 22 finale on “The Tonight Show” is simple: “Ed McMahon and Doc Severinsen.”

NATURAL ALLIANCE: Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who first became famous in her 50s, has joined up with cable’s Nostalgia Channel, whose target audience is viewers 45 and older. Starting in September, she’ll launch a new series for the channel, “Dr. Ruth’s Never Too Late,” in which she’ll deal with topical issues.

IN-DEPTH: Jack Lemmon sits for a two-part interview on NBC’s “Later With Bob Costas” on Wednesday and Thursday nights following the David Letterman show.

OUR TOWN: The American Movie Classics Channel has become part of our life cycle, and that’s how we know that this is the 80th anniversary year of both Universal Pictures, which was founded by Carl Laemmle, and Paramount, which had its origins as Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Co.

BEING THERE: “When (TV) began to close the form in, the minute they went to Hollywood, the minute the money part of it meant that you filmed the half-hour situation comedy and that you could fake the laughs, you set in motion a series of really degrading influences. For one thing, most of the producers persuaded themselves that straight lines are funny. It was just sickening.”--Pat Weaver, former head of NBC-TV.

Say good night, Gracie . . . .