By Dr. R.J. Covino

UTC History Department

Having spent the better part of the afternoon looking through the back archives of the televisual offerings of my childhood (and, my, what a load of rubbish they used to put out), I think that I can answer your question, hopefully with something you can use.

I was very tempted to opt for Spenser for Hire, the only detective drama I can ever remember set in Boston; it was clever and high-brow (Spenser, like the poet) and never really got a fair chance to catch on, in my opinion. That said, there’s entirely too much detection on tv now (I’m looking at you Law & Order /CSI: Anywhere), so that axed Quincy, M.D. and Hunter off my list of targets and got me thinking I’d have to go for comedy.

It would be an easy thing to opt for some of the really screwball comedies which used to be on offer to re-imagine in a 90210/Battlestar way; back in the day, my favorite shows were chiefly of the fish-out-of-water type, cf. Mr Belvedere (the English butler with a middle-class American family), My Two Dads/Kate & Ally (two guys/women raising kids in a non-traditional family), Alf (nuff said), Perfect Strangers (he’s foreign & has catchphrases!), or, in my opinion the worst offender, Small Wonder, i.e. the one with the robot daughter, which was my brother’s favorite. Sadly, I expect plans for the little girl robot all grown up are probably already in the works (as recently lampooned on the YouTube serial A Minute With Margot, which is excellent viewing if you’re not above laughing at Margot Kidder’s life & Sandy Duncan’s glass eye).

I’m of the opinion that there’s not quite enough of that type of light entertainment on television these days, with the preponderance of reality programs or those which aspire to be such (hospital dramas). Shows like the Simpsons & Family Guy are to blame for killing off this genre by pandering to an audience of sound-byte consumers with limited attention spans. Nobody wants to watch 22 minutes of something with an incredibly zany premise anymore when they can have myriad jokes/amusing scenarios tossed at them which are constantly fresh and yet soothingly pre-packaged in a stable and familiar environment within the same 22 minutes. Our loss, perhaps - but the long-running nature of the Simpsons and South Park would seem to prove it a winning formula.

The other genre which sprang to mind for a re-make was the family-based comedy along the Growing Pains/Family Ties/Cosby Show model — all big hits in the Covino household, given the saccharine moralizing dimension and my mother’s predilection for melodrama. The Facts of Life fits into this type as well, and it has to be said that I did love it; but, again, there was always a moral and we know that’s never going to fly these days. (I feel obliged to point out that my Ancient Greek Political and Constitutional Thought students, when I was speaking to them about your article and after I had given a tentative “I think I’ll say Facts of Life” answer, immediately started up with the age-old debate - Blair vs. Jo preference showing the power of re-runs as well as what they do instead of reading their assignments). Ten seasons of 7th Heaven linger on the brain, though, so I didn’t think pitching a family-based sitcom would have legs either.

So I thought that to really catch an audience, Id need to get back to basics, character-driven comedy which is real and down-to-earth. Much as in Highlander, there can be only one stand-out winner. Alice. Fantastic stuff - a mother raising her son on her own, working in a hellish environment, living in squalor, surrounded by a collection of over-the-top colleague characters who are somehow instantly accessible and who also deliver killer catch-phrases (Kiss my grits! is dying for a comeback; You dingy chick less so). Excellent for kids and adults alike. Set in an environment which positively welcomes transients & thus a host of potential storylines, it could (and did) run for years before eventually coming to rely upon guest stars, very special episodes, etc. before it Jumps the Shark. There could be no more fitting tribute to the late Vic Tayback (Mel) than for somebody to recreate his character for the modern era.

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