THURSDAY,AUG.23,2001
ENTERTAINMENT
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 7B
Brady brings variety back to ABC
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Wayne Brady mines no words when characterizing the television diet du jour or when unabashedly asserting why the timing is right for a sound alternative — his variety show.
His eponymous half-hour program, on a six-week tryout on ABC, drew nearly 11 million viewers to rank 13th in households for its recent debut. (It airs Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. EDT.)
"If you look at a lot of the nonsense that's on TV right now, there's only so many times that you can watch someone eat bug larvae, win a million bucks, get chased by dogs, fall off a waterfall or vote someone off the island," Brady said. "It's time for something you and your family can look at."
Brady is best known as the guy on ABC's Whose Line Is It Anyway? who can make up a song about anything from sinks to tsunamis. Brady said the new format incorporated what he's already doing but "stepped up a notch."
The Wayne Brady Show, heralded for attempting to revive a genre that had its heyday decades ago, displays Brady's many talents.
The 29-year-old sketch comedian with a razor-sharp mind for improvisation is a dead-on impersonator and a talented singer who could make Michael Jackson take notice, especially when he's satirizing the King of Pop.
His antics include a sketch of his West Indian grandmother and of James Brown, who is portrayed in the pilot as an emergency medical services technician responding to a 911 call.
Although this generation hasn't seen much of the variety show format as it was in the days of Flip Wilson and Carol Burnett — complete with a host, a supporting troupe, a band, guest appearances and song-and-dance routines — Brady said the show can succeed.
"If the people enjoy it, then it will be on," said the Emmy nominee. (He's in the running at the Sept. 16 awards show with Steve Martin, Barbra Streisand, David Letterman, Ellen DeGeneres and Will Ferrell for best individual performance in a variety or music program for his work on Whose Line.)
His influences include other versatile performers: Sammy Davis, Jr., Billy Crystal and Robin Williams.
"I think a lot of the people I've gravitated toward are the people that can do more than one thing," he said.
Comparisons to Wilson, the first successful black host of a TV variety show, illicit a positive response, but Brady is quick to point out that "we are two completely, utterly different people."
Racial identity, for instance, seems less of an issue for Brady, even at a time when the National Association
tor the Advancement of Colored People is threatening a boycott because of what it sees as a lack of diversity in network programming.
"I'm the only person doing a variety show like that; that's why it sticks out," Brady said. "I don't think color is relevant."
One similarity between the comedians, though, is the belief that you can be positive and still be funny, Brady said, a Wilson trademark he takes on as his own.
Brady must wait until Sept. 7 to find out if his show will continue.
Born in Orlando, Fla., and raised by his grandmother, Brady describes himself as very shy and studious growing up.
"Folks think that because of the work that we do on Whose Line that we all ran around like chickens with our heads cut off as kids and still in real life," he said. "I try and reserve my energy for the stage."
Brady happened upon the stage at 16 as a favor to a friend who needed someone to recite the one line he had in a school play. During rehearsal, a cast member was dismissed and Brady ended up with the vacated part. "It was instant gratification," he said.
Brady then spent almost a decade working in the theater productions, including A Raisin in the Sun, and in musical theater on cruise ships and theme parks. He also had appearances on the television series In the
Heat of the Night and I'll Fly Away, and he was host of a VH1 comedy series, Vinyl Justice.
He continues to tour the country doing improv and also is producing with his wife, Mandie, The Only Game In Town, a play that opens in November.
Admittedly, he has come a long way from the days when macaroni and cheese dinners were staples in the Los Angeles apartment he shared with Mandie in 1996 when they first arrived. Today, the couple share their home with three dogs, one of which is named Sammy Davis Junior Jr.
Now the actor boasts he can even afford to add sausage and hamburger to his macaroni.
"I'm just ecstatic that people embraced (the show) as they have," Brady said. "It's such an incredible feeling to know that people like your work."
Elsewhere in television ...
DATELINE NBC: Katie Couric examines allegations of racial discrimination at a Georgia power plant on Dateline NBC Tuesday. When one Black man, despite high marks on his evaluations, watched his White coworkers surpass him, he began to get the feeling that it wasn't his ability that was holding him back. Couric reports on the lawsuit filed against Georgia Power, the states largest utility, accusing the company of racial discrimination. It airs at 10 p.m. EDT.
NBC to air real West Wing, then fake one
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Before they watch the series about a fake West Wing next month, NBC viewers can catch a glimpse of the real one.
The network's season premiere of The West Wing on Sept. 19 will be preceded by a one-hour behind-the-scenes special at President Bush's White House.
With Tom Brokaw as host, the NBC News program is the latest installment
of "day in the life" White House specials that NBC has done dating back to President Nixon.
What makes this one unusual is how it's being paired and promoted with an entertainment series about a fictional White House.
"It makes good sense to pair them up," said NBC News spokeswoman Barbara Levin on Monday.
NBC's prime time is now controlled by Jeff Zucker, who used to mix
news and entertainment regularly as the executive producer of the Today show.
"This isn't a bad way to get people to see what's going on in the West Wing," said Robert Lichter, a media critic for the Center for Media and Public Affairs.
"It used to be that television networks used real news to get into the fantasy, now it uses the fantasy to get into the reality."
An extended, two-hour version of the show will air later this year on the Discovery Channel, NBC said Monday.
In a world where ABC News aired an interview with former President Clinton conducted by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, NBC's decision isn't that unusual, Lichter said.
"At least NBC doesn't have Martin Sheen interviewing George W. Bush," he said.
Documentary sends viewers back to school through kids
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — On HBO. Carrie is worried about being engaged. Miranda is battling body-image depression. And Samantha has lust in her heart for a $4,000 Hermes handbag.
Over on the HBO Family channel, Julian is nervous about how to read long words. Tyeese refuses to talk. And Anna is suspicious about where exactly the tooth fairy gets the money.
But that fades as Kindergarten gets rolling.
At first glance, the gals on Sex and the City don't seem to have a lot in common with a new documentary series that follows 23 pint-sized kiddies through their first year of formal schooling.
More than 13 half-hour episodes, viewers get to watch the 5-year-olds interact, solve crises and wrestle with the outside world — much like their fictional counterparts on an adult comedy — at Upper Nyack Elementary School in Nyack, N.Y.
"It's kind of eavesdropping on the kindergarten experience that you never get to do with your own kids," says Karen Goodman, who put the series together with husband, Kirk Simon. They have a 9-year-old and a 5-year-old, who's just about to enter kindergarten.
The episodes range from "Doin' the Right Thing" about getting in trouble to "Open Wide" about losing teeth.
One person, though, almost steals the show: Jennifer Johnson, the teacher of this little troupe. She is, at turns, a ringleader, disciplinarian, confidant and surrogate parent.
At kindergarten snack time — which Goodman calls "essentially kid cocktail parties" — the 5-year-olds are as apt to spark a discussion of God as they are to gossip about how awful it is that mom smokes in the house.
Johnson knows that all too well.
"A lot of times I would overhear little conversations and I would go, 'Oh, that's priceless; I can't believe they just said that! Wait until their mom hears that!"
Now they can.