Outtakes from the midseason press tour:
–Robert Blake, who has made a career of biting the hands that feed him, said starring in Baretta was the worst mistake he ever made. “You do a series when you’re on your way up or when you’re on your way down, not when you’re there, as I was.”
–Jim Belushi has his own reason for not wanting to commit to a weekly show. “You have to make a seven-year commitment. My marriages don’t last that long.”
— Dudley Moore, on the other hand, is high on his first TV series, a comedy that will debut on CBS this season. Then again, Moore freely admits his judgment stinks. “I didn’t think 10 and Arthur were good. I thought they were terrible. I wanted to commit suicide after I saw 10. I didn’t like Arthur, either, because I really didn’t want to see this little drunk for 120 minutes.”
— Dan Rather never meets with TV writers without being armed with some colorful Texas metaphors. Last summer, he quipped that CBS was on a major story “like a raven on a road kill.” This time around, Rather described CBS correspondent Bob Simon, who was taken prisoner for a while during the Persian Gulf War, as “the kind of fellow who would fight a rattlesnake and give him a two-bite head start.”
A WELCOME CAREER SWITCH
–Richard Belzer is branching out from standup comedy into episodic TV in the new NBC drama Homicide, which premieres Sunday night after the Super Bowl. He said the switch isn’t a big sacrifice. “Being in a network series means interrupting a career making drunks laugh at 3 in the morning.”
— Randy Quaid will play Frankenstein on TNT this spring. Asked if this is the first time he has portrayed a monster, Quaid replied, “Yes, other than LBJ.”
— Howard Stern on why he doesn’t get many positive reviews: “It’s hard coming out in favor of a scumbag like myself.”
— Jay Leno said having to sweat out the David Letterman situation gave him a new insight: “Now I know what NBC stands for — Never Believe your Contract.”
— Travis Tritt on the surge in popularity of country music: “Thank God for rap. Every time they play it, thousands of people come running to country.” He also took a shot at his own genre. “What happens when you play a country song backward? You sober up and get your wife back.”
— Anjelica Huston says her father, John, was a tough director at home, too. “He didn’t like my love affair with makeup that started when I was about 13 or 14. Fishnet stockings and heavy eyeliner were not his idea of what was proper. I was under the impression for a long time that he wanted me to be Tricia Nixon.”
FROM JFK TO MLK
–Oliver Stone — once a conspiracy theorist, always a conspiracy theorist. Asked what he thought of the Fox program that raises questions about who killed Martin Luther King, JFK producer Oliver Stone said flatly, “James Earl Ray did not pull that trigger.”
— Andy Griffith kiddingly provided ammunition for actors who work for Ron Howard. “Opie” is now one of Hollywood’s favorite directors but Griffith remembers when “as a matter of fact, he wasn’t very good at hitting his marks. If you ever watch the old show, you’ll see that I have my hand on him all the time. It wasn’t because I loved him. I was just putting him on his mark. I said, ‘Maybe someday you’ll tell me where to stand.’ He said he would, so maybe he’ll give me a job.”
— Tom Arnold on why viewers love his wife’s series: “Roseanne is a slice of life. It’s very realistic. Maybe the most realistic show on TV except Cops.”
–NBC is reviving The Torkelsons in a new setting with a new title, Almost Home. Also changing is the size of the family. Instead of five children, there now will be three. The downsizing will not be explained to the audience. Said executive producer Michael Jacobs: “Just tell people that (the other two kids) died in a horrible ratings accident.”
