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Friday, January 15, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
New talk show to teach women Daytime program will offer variety of down-to-earth advice
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Producer Woody Fraser doesn't want anyone to think that ABC's new daytime show "Home" is just another magazine show.
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The fact is, it's not a magazine show at all. "It's a how-to talk show for women," he said.
We don't want ideas that come out of magazines. We want the ideas that come out of people's lives.'
The half-hour show, which makes its debut Monday, will offer viewers down-to-earth advice on a variety of topics, from how to prepare salt-free meals to how to detect breast cancer to tips for packing for a move.
"We're not going to do something on cancer unless it's hopeful," Fraser said. "That positive approach will be more effective than we do." We're not going to scare people.
— Woody Fraser producer
"The execution of the show is also very important. Most shows bring up a new subject, but don't show you how it works or how it will affect your life. That's going to be a very important part of what we do."
Each day will deal with only three
examples can each explore at some
depth.
Robb Weller and Sandy Hill will host the new show. Weller will continue as co-anchor of "Entertainment This Week." Fraser hired him as a co-host when he was putting together ABC's "Good Morning America." She stayed for five years.
The new show has the same name as one of televisions' pioneering shows, NBC's "Home." That show, starring Arlene Francis, ran from 1954 to 1959. It was considered a companion show to "Today."
Fraser said he is also looking for ordinary people who are experts in certain fields. "We don't want ideas that come out of magazines," he said. "We want the ideas that come out of people's lives. That gives you a whole frame of reference that's entirely different. We've run into people who are experts at bulk buying. We found people who set up a 'blood-letting party' to give blood to a cancer victim.
"This will probably evolve. These experts will be people you've never heard of. The people experts."
"Home" is the result of a year's research in which ABC asked viewers what kind of a show they wanted to see. The network held several discussions with groups of women who were regular viewers of
morning television.
"We found that women were looking for something that would be stimulating and that would be a productive use of their time," said Mary Alice Dwyer-Dobbin, ABC vice president, daytime programs, East Coast. "They were looking for something that would help them learn new skills."
The show will air at 11:30 a.m., just before the network begins its after- noon soap operas. Its competitors on CBS and NBC will be game shows.
Fraser, who has produced such programs as "The Mike Douglas Show," "The Dick Cavett Show," "The Steve Allen Show," "Good Morning America" and "That's Incredible!." was working on an idea similar to ABC's.
"I was thinking about a show that would be motivational," he said. "I like things that are positive. I don't buy the argument that there are people sitting at home who don't know what to do. They're merely
waiting for someone to light the fire."
The show's set is a replica of a Connecticut farm house, which will be used for demonstrating the various ideas brought in by the "people experts." In addition, the show will buy a home in a Los Angeles suburb and take the audience through the steps of buying a house, decorating, remodeling, maintaining and selling the house.
Elsewhere in television;
- Producer-actress Shelley Dvall has organized a new company called Think Entertainment to produce programs exclusively for cable television. Dvall is the award-winning producer of "Faerie Tale Theatre" and "Tail Tales" for the Showtime pay-cable channel. Cable companies that have agreed in principle to finance the venture are United Cable, Tele-Communications Inc., United Artists Communications and Newhouse Broadcasting.
The most ambitious production ever attempted for the ABC Sunday Disney movie is "Earth-Star Voyager," a two-part, four-hour miniseries. The first part will be shown Sunday, the second part Jan. 24. The show, set 100 years in the future, tells of a voyage by young people seeking a new planet as the Earth's ecological system deteriorates.
Audiences are 'Moonstruck'by film
The Associated Press
CULVER CITY, Calif. — An ethnic comedy-romance called "Moonstruck" has emerged as a surprise hit of the holiday season, with hints of Academy Award nominations for members of the cast and renewed respect for the director, Norman Jewison.
Critics had assumed that Jewison had gone super-serious. After all, his recent films have dealt with legal inequity ("...And Justice for All"), racial briety ("The Soldier's Story") and religious zeal ("Agnes of God"). So what happens? He follows with a delightful comedy about an Italian family in Brooklyn.
"After doing some serious dramas, I was in the mood for a romantic comedy," he said recently during an interview in his office at the MGMUA headquarters in Filmland Center.
"I've always made the kind of
reason I don't think I've been, typed
reason I don't think I've been, typed
as a director," he said. "I've done comedies, dating back to the Doris Day movies ('The Thrill of It All,' 'Send Me No Flowers'),' 'The Russians Are Coming,' The Russians Are Coming' was almost a farce. I do dreams like 'In the Heat of the Night.'
"My background is in music, starting in live television with shows like 'Your Hit Parade,' 'The Andy Williams Show' and the Judy Garland specials. So I've made musicals like 'Fiddler on the Roof' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar,'" said Jewison.
Jewison's versatility may account for his not receiving his due from film historians and his peers. He won three Emmys in his early career but bary an Oscar in three nominations, though "In the Heat of the Night" won the Academy Award for best picture in 1967.
"Moonsuck" emerged from an original screenplay by playwright John Patrick Shanley, whom jonissem terms "the Bard of the Bronx." The
story centers on two generations of an Italian-American family. While the parents' marriage is crumbling, the widowed daughter causes a furor by falling in love with the brother of her prospective husband.
The widow is played by Cher in what some reviewers have termed her best performance. She and Olympia Dukakis, who plays her mother, have been mentioned for Oscar nominations.
"Cher was my first choice to play Loretta," Jewison said. "For me, there has always been something 'streety' about Cher, a lacking in pretension. She's a very honest person, in person and on the screen. She looks Italian, although she's part Cherokee Indian and part Armenian.
"In the beginning I thought perhaps Nicolas Cage was too young to play her lover. After all, Cher was playing a 37-year-old widow — she's actually 40 — and I think Cage is about 24. But I saw him in 'Birdie,' and I thought that he was so mature.
He looks much older and behaves much older than he is," said Jewison.
Jewison immersed himself in the Italian culture of Brooklyn and shot the exteriories there. The interiories were filmed in Toronto. The reason was partly economic.
"The American dollar is suffering in most countries of the world, but not in Canada," the filmmaker said. "Your dollar still buys around $1.30 in Canada. So it's very advantageous for films to be shot up there."
"On the other hand, I also live there, so I wanted to do my editing and my post-production there," he said.
The Toronto-born Jewison, 61, retains his homeland roots and cites this advantage: "We Canadians like to think that we're forever interpreting America to the rest of the world. I am so happy to like you, we share the same continent."
"I think we have a great gift for satirical humor." he said.
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