Revisiting ‘Eerie,Ind.’

Perhaps it’s appropriate that a television show with the title “Eerie, Indiana” should find a way to rise from the dead.

Premiering in a less-than-desirable time slot opposite “60 Minutes,” the NBC series fell victim to low ratings and was canceled after the 1991-92 season. Its passing went largely unnoticed among other casualties introduced that year, including its Sunday running mate, “The Adventures of Mark & Brian” and such equally memorable fare as “Teech,” “Drexell’s Class” and “The Torkelsons.”

Six years later, in a relatively inexpensive gambit, the Fox Kids Network dug up the 19 original episodes to use as part of its Saturday morning children’s lineup, turning “Eerie” into an instant and unlikely hit--albeit at a different time of day, on another network.

Yet what to do with a franchise whose 12-year-old stars--Omri Katz and Justin Shenkarow, playing two youths living in an outwardly normal-looking town that’s actually “the center of all weirdness in the universe”--have begun to shave and speak in deeper voices than when the series ended?

After six months of scrambling, the concept returns with “Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension,” which will begin airing today as part of a revised Fox lineup that includes such new animated series as “Toonsylvania” and an adaptation of the Marvel Comics character the Silver Surfer.

The network will try to make the transition to the new episodes as seamlessly as possible. The original kids will be seen in the first episode only, using computer-digitizing techniques. The characters have been caught in a parallel dimension, leaving their successors to try to prevent that dimension from spilling into this universe and letting all hell break loose.

“What I think we’ve successfully done is incorporate the mystery and the whimsy of the original series,” said Roland Poindexter, Fox’s director of programming and development. “There is enough of a linkage that I think the viewers will be able to accept this version.”

For Hearst Entertainment, the company that produced the first “Eerie,” this reclamation project amounts to manna from heaven. Not only does the company have a ratings winner, it also has merchandising and licensing opportunities, including a line of “Eerie, Indiana” books and a coming Baskin-Robbins ice cream flavor.

Yet executives freely admit that “Eerie’s” revival has as much to do with good luck as with planning and that it might be a show that was ahead of its time.

Two years ago, Fox’s kids’ lineup was seeking a companion to air with “Goosebumps,” a popular live-action series based on the R.L. Stine books. One of its executives, Carol Monroe, previously worked at Hearst and remembered similarities between that concept and “Eerie, Indiana.”

“She called and said, ‘What are you doing with [the show], and I had no idea,” said Rick Karo, Hearst’s executive vice president of licensing and family programming.

The episodes had been licensed by a satellite children’s service with only a few thousand subscribers. Hearst extricated the rights, and the program immediately clicked as part of Fox’s Saturday morning schedule.

Created by Karl Schaefer and playwright Jose Rivera and directed by Joe Dante (“Gremlins”), the original did require some editing, deleting occasional references to President George Bush or Vice President Dan Quayle. One of the 19 episodes didn’t clear Fox’s standards for Saturday morning fare because of a death in the story that was deemed too intense for young viewers.

Still, Fox soon came to some not-so-obvious realizations, among them that the network essentially had a brand-new hit on its hands, since many of the children enjoying the series weren’t born (or at least cognizant) during its initial run.

“The current viewership doesn’t know the show is 6 years old,” Karo said.

Even the erstwhile stars have discovered new-found fans, although that recognition has at times been awkward.

“A few people sort of look at me strangely. They’ll come up and say, ‘Do you play in my son’s Little League?’ Then they’ll say, ‘Wait, are you that little kid on ‘Eerie, Indiana?’ ” said Shenkarow, now an 18-year-old high school senior who followed “Eerie” with a role on the CBS drama “Picket Fences.”

“It was a fantastic show to work on. . . . When we saw it come back on, it was really striking, because we all look so different.”

The producers do face some new challenges. Seeking to keep costs down because they have a budget in line with the smaller audiences available Saturday mornings, production has shifted to a company in Toronto, making the show eligible for subsidies from the Canadian government. The new stars, Bill Switzer and Daniel Clark, are both Canadian, chosen after an extensive talent search.

Advancements in computer technology will allow the program to look as good or better in terms of its special effects, Fox’s Poindexter said, though there’s also an emphasis on making the latest batch similar enough to the earlier version so they can be repeated together. Assuming the show has a long life in reruns, Karo noted, “we don’t want the original episodes to be obsolete.”

Those involved with the project maintain that the show preceded a wave of interest in the paranormal as well as in mystery books and TV shows aimed at kids--a sort of children’s version of Fox’s “The X-Files.” (Despite low ratings, the pilot episode received mostly good reviews, with Times critic Howard Rosenberg saying the show had “the potential to sprout into something quite terrific and wonderful.”)

The irony of the show’s long-deferred success hasn’t been lost on Chad Hoffman, who oversaw development of prime-time series for Hearst when “Eerie” was created. After producing several short-lived series without developing a hit, the company ultimately bailed out of that arena, preferring to focus its resources on producing movies and specials.

“There are certainly shows that are very timely, and there are certain shows that are timeless,” said Hoffman, now an independent producer, whose son has the original Eerie highway sign, “Population 16,661.” In light of the show’s belated popularity, what was once a throw-away prop has probably become a collector’s item.

“I think there’s a good question as to whether we may have been ahead of our time,” Hoffman said. “What’s nice is that, unlike many shows, [this one] gets a second life.”

* “Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension” premieres at 10 a.m. today on Fox (Channel 11).