tgd@clyde.UUCP (Thomas G. Dennehy) (09/28/83)
Say It Ain't So (Part 1):
Reprinted (without permission) from AMERICAN FILM, Sept. 1983
--------------------------------------------------------------
The sitcom takes place in a Boston bar; the college-educated,
divorced young woman has just moved to Beantown and is desparate
for a job. The bartender is skeptical, but when the would-be
waitress uses her photographic memory to repeat a ridiculously
long food-and-drink order, he hires her and she becomes part of
the regular crew of hard drinkers, lonely guys and space cadets
who frequent - no, not "Cheers," but "Park Street Under."
In September, 1979, Boston's WCVB-TV premiered the first and
perhaps only locally produced television sitcom in America; during
its sole season, PSU won a prestigious Gabriel Award. Then, last
year, the show's creators earned the dubious distinction of seeing
a network sticom called "Cheers" premiere with a format and cast
of characters eerily similar to those of PSU. In June, the Television
Critics Association voted "Cheers" Best New Series of the 1982-83
season.
[It also won the Emmy for Best Comedy Series - submitter's note.]
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," says Cathy Perron, who
worked on PSU as associate producer at WCVB and is now program manager
at WPRI-TV is Providence, RI. "We had a dream that our show would be
something like 'Cheers,' but we didn't have the money to make thaty
dream come true. I'm just flattered that our ideas got realized by a
production company with the resources to do it right." PSU was pro-
duced for an average of $15K per episode. According to Richard A.
Weston, an executive of "Cheers" coproducer Paramount Television, a
typical episode of "Cheers" costs more than $300K.
Not everyone who worked on PSU is as diplomatic as Perron. "I'm not
the kind of person who yells 'Lawsuit!'" says Arnie Reisman, who was a
story editor for the WCVB show, "but it is clear to me, having seen
both shows, that, if nothing else, there was an amazing amount of co-
incidence at work here. It's her photographic memory that gets Shelly
Long the job on 'Cheers' just like on 'Park Street Under.' The situ-
ation was exactly the same: you could have physically overlapped theris
with ours - she was even standing on the same spot on the set."
To be continued...
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Tom Dennehy AT&T BL Whippany, NJ {clyde!tgd}tgd@clyde.UUCP (Thomas G. Dennehy) (09/28/83)
Say It Ain't So Dept (Part 2): Reprinted (without permission) from AMERICAN FILM, Sept. 1983 -------------------------------------------------------------- In our last episode we learned: >The sitcom takes place in a Boston bar; the college-educated, >divorced young woman has just moved to Beantown and is desparate >for a job. The bartender is skeptical, but when the would-be >waitress uses her photographic memory to repeat a ridiculously >long food-and-drink order, he hires her and she becomes part of >the regular crew of hard drinkers, lonely guys and space cadets >who frequent - no, not "Cheers," but "Park Street Under." The story continues: Robert Bennett, former president and general manager of WCVB and now president of Metromedia Television, says he thought of suing when he saw the "Cheers" pilot, "but I didn't think you ever win those damn things. We were just unhappy that something created would show up under a different title on one of the networks." Bennett recalls send- ing some tapes of some PSU episodes to Tony Thomopoulos at ABC, hoping the network might pick up the sitcom from the local station. Thomop- oulos "called, said the show was well done, and we never heard from him again," Bennett says (Thomopoulos was not available for comment.) The tape "must have been seen by several people at ABC," Bennett adds, "and I've been told that several people who saw it then moved to NBC. The next seson, "Cheers" premiered." The folks at NBC and the companies producing "Cheers" see nothing more than coincidence in the resemblences between the two shows. "There are only so many story ideas, only so many situations," says Richard Vill- arino of coproducer Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions. "If you look at what's on television this year and what was on in 1979, you'll see many similarities. Having never seen their show, I can't judge how close it is to 'Cheers,' but I can say that the success of 'Cheers' depends of the production credentials of its creators, who come out of an MTM background." [Once more, with clarity, please - submittor's note.] Meanwhile, back at WCVB, plans are in the works for a new, originally produced sitcom to premiere next spring. For some reason, no one there wants to discuss the plot line. - Jean Callahan (Reprinted w/o permission from AF) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Dennehy AT&T BL Whippany, NJ {clyde!tgd}