Museum Gets a Place in the Sun

The Scene: Sunday’s gala opening of the Museum of Television & Radio’s California museum in Beverly Hills. This was a $1,000-a-ticket affair complete with blocked-off streets, a 20,000-square-foot dining tent and a White House satellite linkup. Harry Shearer’s observation on the scene: “Anything that puts black Astroturf on Beverly Drive is OK with me.”

Dress Mode: Black-tie. Although one woman thought guests should have come dressed as their favorite TV characters. “I think the evening lacks a certain ‘I Love Lucy’ quality,” she said.

Who Was There: Museum board Chairman Frank Bennack, President Bob Batscha and architect Richard Meier, plus 1,050 guests including Candice Bergen, Alan Alda, Marlo Thomas, NBC’s Warren Littlefield, ABC’s Tom Murphy, CBS’ Les Moonves, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jeff Sagansky, Larry King, Lew and Edie Wasserman, Sid Sheinberg, Aaron Spelling, Grant Tinker, Marvin and Barbara Davis, Richard Rosenzweig, Norman Pattiz, Ralph Guild, Steve Allen, Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Ernest Borgnine, John Lithgow, Rick Dees and Dick Van Dyke.

Big Hit: The airy, light-filled, Meier-designed building. The museum includes a 150-seat theater, listening rooms, galleries and a rooftop garden terrace. One guest looked at the opulence and said: “You know what this proves? If you’re going to build a museum, do it about something with money. I’m surprised they haven’t built the Museum of the Investment Banker yet.”

Big Glitch: The live message from President Clinton. First there was no picture. Then came a priceless shot of Clinton staring at the camera with a cow-like impassiveness. Then there was no sound. When it finally came together, the president made a pretty good recovery--”They can show this with the footage that things don’t always go exactly as planned.”

Pastimes: Speeches, film clips (especially great were the singers, including Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland’s 1963 performance together), the crowd booing Rush Limbaugh sound bites and remarks from performers. This included Tracey Ullman, who told how much she enjoyed the museum’s New York branch. “There’s nothing like going in on a rainy day and watching 72 hours of ‘Hee Haw.’ ”

Quoted: Norman Lear said, “The real significance of this will come in a couple hundred years, when people look back and ask what it was that did what it did to world culture. They’ll have a place to go and find out.”

The Real Significance: The more cynical view came from an industry veteran who said, “This is a nice way for television fat cats to buy a little of the respectability they crave almost as much as big bucks and high ratings.”