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the historian's eye
Exhibit looks at three as they evolved and expired
By Andrew Wallenstein
One of the first signs of summer in the TV industry is the annual release of reports from media buyers assessing the prospects of the pilots selected by the major networks.
Their reliance on the academic parlance you were subjected to in elementary school--letter-grade marks or pass/fail--lends an air of authority to their assessments.
Still, isn't that odd? After all, judging the potential performance of a series based on its pilot seems particularly ineffective.
All TV shows change so much over the course of their runs that pilots seem an entirely different entity from the episodes that follow them.
"Hello, Goodbye: Pilots, Premieres and Final Programs," a new exhibit that opened this past weekend at the New York branch of the Museum of Television & Radio, provides a reminder of this curious phenomenon.
All summer long, the museum will be showing the fascinating first and last entries from a diverse selection of TV shows, including never-before-seen footage.
The exhibit opened with a trio of comedic pilots, all of which are relatively obscure. The 1999 unaired pilot for Comedy Central's "Strangers With Candy" reveals the program while it still had its rough edges.
That same year, Ben Stiller created a bizarre send-up of the action genre, "Heat Vision and Jack," for Fox, which passed on what would have been an instant cult classic.
Rounding out the bunch is "Mr. TV," a 1979 sketch comedy show featuring top comedians, including Rob Reiner, Martin Mull and Billy Crystal, which lasted only a few episodes.
As a devoted fan of "Candy," a series Comedy Central unfairly spiked after two seasons (penance suggestion: release all episodes on DVD!), I couldn't resist the chance to see an unaired episode. As a merciless parody of after-school specials, "Candy" skewered social conventions with unparalleled zaniness.
Or so I thought.
Anyone who thinks the series seemed out of control by the end of its run surely didn't catch it at its very beginning. The pilot presents an even scrappier version of "Candy" while it was still trying to focus its wild style.
Series co-creators and stars Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello, who play a pair of high school teachers engaged in a not-too-secret homosexual affair, actually show up in multiple parts in the pilot, including roles as oddball hospital orderlies who steal medicine from the patients.
Amy Sedaris, a third co-creator who plays Jerri Blank, the "user, boozer and loser" protagonist who is trying to complete high school at the age of 47, also looks different in the pilot than the rest of the series.
The purposely hideous makeup job she is given to make her look a few decades older hadn't been fully implemented. Without gray streaks in her wig and cosmetics that look as if they've been applied with a paint roller, Jerri doesn't seem as scary a character.
Perhaps the biggest difference in the "Candy" pilot is Jerri's parents. The catatonic dad who is killed off after several episodes is a central figure in this first episode; personally I prefer the homicidal butcher who becomes Jerri's father figure later in the series.
There's also an interesting casting switcheroo in the pilot; the role of Jerri's wicked stepmom, played deliciously deadpan by Deborah Rush, is given to Sarah Thyre in the pilot; Thyre plays the women's gym teacher in later episodes.
All in all, the differences make watching the pilot a disorienting experience, as if you're viewing "Candy" in a parallel universe.
The same can't be said for "Jack," which the world hasn't had the pleasure of seeing because the Fox network felt it knew better. This is the second disservice the network has paid Stiller; Fox canceled his brilliant eponymous sketch comedy series way before its time back in 1992.
Imagine if the producers of the 1980s NBC hit "Knight Rider" showed up on the set after ingesting LSD; the result would be "Jack."
Replace David Hasselhoff with Jack Black, the dumpy cult comedy hero from "High Fidelity" and "Tenacious D." He plays an astronaut who gains infinite intelligence after an accident in orbit.
Replace KITT the fancy car with a broken-down motorcycle that happens to be possessed by the soul of the astronaut's unemployed roommate, voiced by quirky movie star Owen Wilson ("Shanghai Noon," "Bottle Rocket"). Together they fight crime with the loopy flavor of "The Naked Gun" movies.
Why Fox saw fit to abort "Jack" before its time we'll never know, but thank the Museum of TV & Radio for providing the evidence that networks don't always know best.
June 18, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Andrew Wallenstein is the television critic for Media Life.
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