on TV Beginnings

When I was in High School my friends' family had cable. I was a bit jealous because my family refused to pay for the luxury so we could only get two clearly visible channels, and one fuzzy PBS channel.  My father finally installed a large antenna but in order to bring in the other channels (and those pesky UHF channels, remember those?) one had to turn a large disk and then wait to see if the channel came in as the antenna slowly turned.  Eventually the motor burned out and I became the official antenna-turner.  I'd have to run outside and turn the pole until my father would yell "okay".  This would usually be a seemingly never ending back and forth.

I remember going over to my friends' house (I was friends with all three of the boys, and sort-of friends with the sister and parents) in 1981 to watch for the launch of MTV.  All the screen displayed was a single image which I think said "coming soon", or maybe it was a countdown.  I don't recall that detail, but when the channel finally launched the whole household was ecstatic. Then we were treated to hours and hours of "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.  Eventually the network began airing other music videos hosted by "VJs" like Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, Martha Quinn and J.J. Jackson.


In 1986 I moved to Tualatin, Oregon to be near my new job as an interior designer and store planner for America's largest privately-owned drug store chain (at the time). I had my own apartment for the first time and my own color t.v. set.  Up to that time I had only owned a small black and white set, so I thought ALF was actually blue (until the mom on the show asked "who left all the orange hair in the bathtub?").  TV was filled with the news that FOX would be launching a new television network.  The channel came on line with a small amount of FOX produced shows which would air weeknights.  At other times the channel was blank.

The first show to air was the Late Show with Joan Rivers.  She quit by 1987 and the show was hosted by guests until Arsenio Hall came on. With his popularity he was able to jump to one of the major networks and launch his own late night talk show.

The other programming included Married with Children, America's Most Wanted, and arguably the first reality show Cops.  I always watched the Tracey Ullman show with its irreverent cartoon segments "the Simpson Family".  I fell in love with nearly everyone on 21 Jump Street; I adored little Johnny Depp, but eventually threw him over for the new cast-member bad-boy Richard Greico. I laughed a lot at the New Adventures of Beans Baxter about a teenage or preteen who was a spy and even his parents didn't know. I howled at the show that started with a two-hour movie event called Werewolf, and had a little crush on John J. York.

There was a romantic-comedy show called Duet about a dating couple.  The main characters were only slightly amusing and a bit flat but it was the show's other characters that really stole the show.  There was the kooky secretary played by Ellen Degeneres, and the no-nonsense deadpan Alison LaPlaca, and the ditsy sister played by Jodi Thelan.  These other characters, especially LaPlaca drew the most audience appreciation.  Since this was a new network and they really didn't have a ton of shows being pitched, they were able to sit down and retool this sitcom in order to make it work.  They cancelled Duet and then "spun-off" the show Open House.

Another major retooling happened with a show called Second Chance.  It was about an older man who dies, is sent up to St. Peter, but given a second chance to right all his wrongs.  How?  By moving into an apartment above the garage of his own mother.  This way he can keep (a rather creepy) eye on himself as a teenager.  There were strange moments when his mother tried to put the moves on him, and lots of strange "hanging out" with himself as a teenager.  "Hey mom, the creepy guy renting our spare apartment is trying to have another one-on-one talk with me after leering at me all day while I played basketball in the driveway with my two friends".  This contrived storyline simply didn't work.  However, the boy that played the teenager was Friends' star Matthew Perry who was somehow able to make the series' banal lines impressively funny.  His teen costars were William Gallo who played Francis "Booch" Lottabucci and Demian Slade who was the nerdy Eugene Blooberman. The antics and likability of these three became the center of the newly retooled show called "Boys will be Boys".