Is Sweet Sue's time on Broadway borrowed?
Do this lady's country songs make you blue?
Entertainment Tonight packs a wallop for Friday, January 9th, 1987.
Bad ol' pussycat!
Mary Hart is off today.
And I'm John Tesh.
Much of the critical attention paid to television focuses on prime time.
But next week, the morning hours of TV will hold the spotlight.
CBS has overhauled its morning show up against Today and Good Morning America.
And as Eric Burns tells us, the battle continues going back to the days of black and white.
And here is Dave Garrowman.
Well, here we are. And good morning to you.
There have been morning news shows almost as long as there have been mornings for most Americans.
Today, the first is 35 years old, and all the others have, to some extent, copied it.
As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I say imitation is the sincerest form of thievery.
Why do people watch morning TV?
To tell them what happened since they went to bed.
To give them information that will help make their lives easier.
For the last year or so, Today has been the top-rated morning show, overtaking Good Morning America,
which had itself overtaken Today a few years before that.
Why is it number one? I mean, I think there's a combination of factors,
the most obvious one being that it's the best show of the year at that time period.
I would assume that Today's Show will have some problems.
This is Jack Riley, the new executive producer of Good Morning America, with his wish for the competition.
But it may be GMA which has the problems, since the only host it's ever had, David Hartman, is about to leave.
I just hope they're smart enough to pick somebody as good as Bryant Gumbel.
They are likely to pick ABC News correspondent Charles Gibson,
who's been filling in for Hartman occasionally, and for whom Hartman has this advice.
Exercise, eat well, and get some sleep.
Monday, CBS will introduce its new show, called The Morning Program, starring Marriott Hartley and Rollin Smith.
It will be an entertainment show, not a news show.
People like to be awakened with, well, in our case, I think a sense of cheeriness and the joy of the world.
I have trouble with hard, hard news early in the morning.
Here is the wish of the executive producer of Today for the new CBS Morning Program.
I hope the public rejects it as insulting, as demeaning, but time will tell. We'll have to see.
A good many critics have already rejected the show as insulting or demeaning, which seems to me ironic for this reason.
The new CBS Morning Program, which by the way will be preceded by an hour and a half of hard news,
will be different from either Today or Good Morning America.
This means it'll give viewers a choice. This means it's the kind of programming decision critics ought to applaud.
Lisa?
NBC's morning dominance spills over to Saturday, where the Smurfs have held court for the last five years.
But recent ratings have been slipping on the Smurfs, placing NBC's reign in jeopardy,
which may be why questions are being raised about the future of Saturday morning.
Leonard Maltin examines childhood's favorite time of the week. Leonard?
Well, you know, Brandon Tartikoff made big news this week when he announced that NBC is thinking of putting some general audience shows,
including comedy and variety programs, in a weekend edition of Today on Saturday morning,
a time that's traditionally been reserved exclusively for children's shows.
The novelty of having animation, which used to really result in very healthy ratings on Saturday morning,
that novelty is not there right now. You have to look at daytime programming and see the kind of audience erosion that's taken place.
The industry now is a bottom line industry. All these merges have made public interest programming, children's programming,
anything that doesn't serve a mass audience, something that nobody wants to do.
And I think this is the beginning of the network saying goodbye to children, and I think that's very sad.
Once upon a time, Saturday morning TV was filled with live shows featuring puppets and puppeteers,
real people like Sky King and Penny, grown-ups who sometimes served as role models or parental figures.
Then, cartoons invaded Saturday morning and real people disappeared.
At least the Bugs Bunny cartoons didn't talk down to kids,
because they were originally meant to be seen by all kinds of people in movie theaters.
But the Bugs and Tweety Show on ABC is the last holdout for that kind of great animation.
Today's Saturday morning cartoons are either retreads of recent movies like Ghostbusters,
or tied into some toy, like so many of these cutesy-wootsy fuzzy-wuzzy characters.
Some people are trying to upgrade the quality of Saturday morning TV.
Galaxy High School is a hip, off-beat half-hour, created by the young writer responsible for Gremlins, Chris Columbus.
And of all people, Pee-wee Herman is reminding a lot of viewers what imagination is all about on Pee-wee's Playhouse.
CBS says it has no plans to cut back on children's programming on Saturdays.
ABC had no comment for us at this time.
Whether or not NBC goes ahead with this plan, the point, it seems to me, is not whether there's children's programming on Saturday morning,
or adult programming on Saturday morning, but whether there's good programming.
Kids are a lot smarter than some people give them credit for.
And if someone comes up with an entertaining show that parents and children might both enjoy,
that would be a real improvement over some of the kiddy junk that fills up a lot of airtime right now.
John?
Thanks, Leonard.
If you're anywhere near a television set this weekend, you may have a difficult time choosing from the smorgasbord of events being served up.
Saturday evening, CBS airs The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and HBO will debut Humor and the Presidency,
a light-hearted look at humor in the Oval Office with Chevy Chase and with former president Gerald Ford.
Now on Sunday, the features are the NFC and the AFC football championships.
And Sunday evening, ABC will run Uncommon Valor starring Gene Hackman.
CBS counters with Gone with the Wind Part 1, and NBC offers Murder or Mercy starring Robert Young as Roswell Gilbert,
the 75-year-old Florida man convicted of killing his wife who suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
Next, what's new, what's different, what's controversial in high-tech, high-gloss home entertainment?
And ahead, Loretta Lynn entertains the troops overseas as Mary Tyler Moore and Lynn Redgrave take the stage together on Broadway.
Temple of Doom returns to the top of the videocassette rental chart as Sylvester Stallone's Cobra slithers back to number two.
Also on the cassette top five, number three, Short Circuit, number four, Raw Deal, and at number five, Poltergeist II, The Other Side.
The music industry cried foul and charged copyright infringement when manufacturers started producing double-audio cassette machines that made it easy to duplicate tapes.
Now it's the movie industry's turn to look over its shoulder.
Scott Osborne has more on that, plus other new products being readied for consumer consumption.
The semi-annual consumer electronics show is sort of like a huge playpen full of very expensive new toys,
ranging from small video cameras to huge TV screens and beyond.
But a great deal of attention is centered on two controversial products that won't be in the stores for some time.
Both have drawn the wrath of the entertainment industry.
First we put the tape to be copied or edited on the left side and a blank tape on the right side.
A prototype double-deck videocassette recorder, which would allow users to make copies of pre-recorded cassettes, has the motion picture industry up in arms.
What we have is the video equivalent of the Xerox machine, and we feel that the legitimate applications of this machine all over the world are incredible.
It is a blatant invitation to thievery. It's barren of any value, except it can copy pre-recorded cassettes that you rent from your local video store.
It's almost the same thing they said about the VCR when it first came out. There were lawsuits, and in fact it's turned around the motion picture industry.
It isn't right, it isn't fair, and I believe it is illegal.
The other source of controversy, digital audio tapes. Manufacturers say they combine the high quality sound of compact discs with the convenience of audio tape.
But the recording industry thinks the digital tape will undercut CD sales and allow consumers to make better copies of pre-recorded music.
What we have here is a breakthrough technology. It seems to me that the 78 RPM record was pretty well entrenched one time.
You might even ask Sammy K., because all his music is on 78. But the bottom line is that the 78 was replaced by the 33.
And the same thing could have been said at that time. Why a new format? 78s are just fine.
The legality of duplicating copyrighted material has long been a source of controversy in the home electronics industry.
And as this show indicates, that controversy is expanding.
Scott Osborne, Entertainment Tonight in Las Vegas.
If you have any cash left over after buying a double deck VCR unit or a portable compact disc player for your car, Peter Kwinhakos reports there's another new toy just around the corner.
It's a high ticket, high definition item that will revolutionize the quality of your TV picture.
Is it live or is it lionel? It's neither. It's high definition television. TV is sharp as a movie right in your own home.
Now the question is when and how. High definition VCRs are likely to be on the market in two or three years.
But this, the first broadcast of HDTV, was put together to convince the Federal Communications Commission to reserve some idle UHF channels for future high definition broadcasting.
The UHF television spectrum is under attack by lots of people at the moment that want to use it for a wide range of purposes.
Cellular telephones, two-way radio. I think the possibility of having pairs of UHF channels for all of the VHF channels in the United States is very difficult indeed.
They need two channels because it takes twice as much information to produce this picture, which is four to ten times as good as what you see on your screen now.
The National Association of Broadcasters fears stations could be left out of the HDTV revolution.
It's almost the difference between black and white and color, moving up from regular 525 line television up to 1125 high definition television.
The Japanese, who developed the lion's share of the technology to date, already plan to broadcast high definition television in the early 1990s.
Next month the FCC will decide whether to reserve UHF bands for use here in the next decade.
If they don't, broadcasters say, HDTV viewers will end up paying more for the pretty pictures.
In Washington, Peter Quinhacus, Entertainment Tonight.
And high technology has reached the Beatles, whose music will finally be available in compact disc form.
Starting in late February, the first Beatles CDs will be Please, Please Meet with the Beatles, Beatles for Sale, and the soundtrack from A Hard Day's Night.
The delay was due to lengthy legal battles between the record label, former Beatles, and John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono.
Loretta Lynn, the coal miner's daughter who became a superstar, has added a new chapter to her life.
She's the star of a road show for the USO.
I love Loretta Lynn!
I'm gonna take a great hand, bust a mother as I can.
Despite a grueling schedule of 17 performances in 18 days, country legend Loretta Lynn cheerfully brought a touch of home to US servicemen and women,
stationed in Korea, the Philippines, and the Indian Ocean.
As you know, I definitely don't need to work, but I feel better if I'm working for nothing.
Does that make any sense? And I know the boys need me.
And don't come home or drink the love with love on your mind.
Although Loretta recently announced that she wanted to cut back and spend more time with her family, so far her schedule's been as hectic as ever.
She's recently made several appearances as guest host on the syndicated program, Hee Haw.
Loretta, I appreciate you taking time out to visit us here in Cornfield County.
I love to be here, I don't know if that's comedy or silliness. I think that's silliness. Do you like it though?
Well that comes easy. I mean I act silly all the time, so that comes real easy.
I'm the old time worship of the Lord.
With so many activities, you might think Loretta Lynn's done it all.
Heavens no! I haven't even started. There's something that I have to do that I don't know what it is yet.
But I feel I'll know when this happens.
When we come back, two of Hollywood's biggest names hit the boards on Broadway.
And Gene Wolfe with Inside Entertainment tells all about another actress bearing all for art and Playboy.
...Tana Moore and Lynn Redgrave for their performances in Sweet Sue, but we're less than enthusiastic about the play itself.
Designing Women got good reviews when it premiered on CBS last fall,
but then it was yanked from the primetime schedule after CBS moved the comedy from Monday to Thursday nights,
where it took a beating from night court.
The cries of protest from critics and viewers put CBS programming chief Bud Grant in an awkward position.
What's he going to do about it? Gene Wolfe has the answer, Inside Entertainment.
Lisa, John, is Bud Grant a hero or a heel?
Listen to his words to Jill Brooke of the New York Post on the movement to get Designing Women back on the air.
Quote, I think it would be better for the country and society if these women returned to their traditional roles
instead of going off on some half-baked crusade.
No one says things like that.
But when I called Bud Grant, he stood by his words, then told me it was all a put-on and a publicity stunt.
The trouble was people weren't getting the joke, and there was pressure in and out of CBS.
The result? General Grant surrendered.
A meeting was called at CBS, and the Designing Women were given a new airtime starting February 1st.
We've been told that this was the largest public outcry for the removal of a TV show in television history.
Only a network president could apologize for his taste in humor in such a grand way.
Designing Women gets the primetime slot Sundays right after murder, she wrote.
Now for the scandal.
Long before Stephanie Beecham became a star on the Colby's, she posed for some Playboy pictures.
When the 1972 nude photos appeared in the current issue, first Stephanie worried about her daughters.
Well, she calls them prudes.
And then the reaction of her conservative co-star Charlton Heston, who let her know it was okay.
I thought it was probably the first time he'd ever been in Playboy, because there is a picture of him with me in Playboy,
and I laughed at all of it, poor Chuck. I bet he's never been in Playboy before.
Do you have any resentment that Playboy waited until you became famous in America to publish those pictures?
No, I thought, yippee, I must have made it.
I thought, now's the time they publish them, they think I'm famous enough.
I'm very kind of them. Thank you, Playboy, I've made it.
Stephanie said instead of using the old photos, they should have offered her a chance to do a hot new set.
She says her body is much better now.
I'm Jean Wolfe, Inside Entertainment, and that's a wrap.
Wow, I mean, how many people can say that after what, 14, 15 years?
She means it, too.
Thanks, Jeanine. We'll take a break, we'll be right back.
Coming up this weekend on Entertainment This Week, Shirley MacLaine, Cool in the Gang, the Limelighters, and a tribute to Ernie Kovacs.
And Monday on Entertainment Tonight, an All-Star Grammy nominee lineup, Paul Simon, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin.
Plus, Bruce Willis tunes up for the musical Big Time.
Celebrating a birthday today, country pop star Crystal Gale is 36, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, 42, Oscar and Emmy nominee Susanna York, 46,
activist singer Joan Baez is also 46, Bob Gilligan Denver is 52, former NFL great Bart Starr, 53,
movie bad guy Lee Van Cleef, 62, and former president Richard M. Nixon is 74.
In today's People postscript, Jack Lemmon will receive a career achievement award next month from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
Placido Domingo has been sued for $145,000 for canceling a concert appearance last month in London.
And Norm, actor George Wendt, chief among the beer drinkers on Cheers, has signed a two-year contract to appear in TV commercials for Meisterbrow.
January is the time of year when independent television stations across the country are busy buying up the syndicated shows that you'll be seeing this fall.
And as syndication becomes more attractive, stars who used to appear on network TV are now showing up to shake hands with the station manager from your hometown.
This may look like a typical Hollywood party, but those attending had a purpose in mind, selling syndicated programming to stations across the country.
Crazy Mrs. Anitas over on Felbar Street got locked out of her house, dark naked.
Took me an hour and a half to get through the crowd.
Mama's family left NBC two and a half years ago, but has found a comfortable home in syndication, and its stars are happy to be there.
We've got the same budget, the same staff, the same shooting facilities, and it's wonderful.
Just don't have that middle man to go through at the network.
Coming old cow handling.
Another refugee from network TV, it's a living.
The thing that you hear in network TV all the time is they won't understand this out in Iowa, which they do.
They're much smarter than we give them credit for.
But that doesn't seem to be a factor in syndication.
The new Gidget made its debut in syndication just this season.
In the past, I think it was a very strong differentiation between talent on network and talent on syndicated shows.
But if you look at budgets now and salaries now and the amount of exposure that syndication seems to be generating, I think it's getting less and less.
While the purpose of this party may have been business, there was always the old standby reason for being there.
I came for a free dinner. I don't know why any of these other people are here. That's the reason I came. If you're an actor, you go for a free meal.
I hear you.
That is of course our favorite syndicated show.
The one you're watching.
This one of course. Almost stumped me on that one.
Monday, Aretha Franklin and James Brown in concert together for the first time.
And Bruce Willis does some musical moonlighting in New York City.
The hit song, The Future is So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades, earned the Texas husband and wife duo a Grammy nomination for the best new artist.
They're called Timbuk3 and we have an exclusive first look for you at their newest video that's called Life is Hard.
Have a good weekend.
No matter what you do.
Can't get to heaven on roller skates.
Can't take a taxi, cab to Timbuk2.
Life is hard.
Ain't no escaping where the river comes to.