Fast Times aired from March until April 1986 on CBS.
This contemporary high-school comedy was centered around the lives of the students and faculty at Ridgemont High in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley. The student's included spaced-out Jeff Spicoli ( Dean Cameron), who would rather go surfing than waste his time in school; Brad Hamilton ( James Nardini), a popular guy who worked at the burger stand in the neighborhood shopping mall; Stacey ( Courtney Thorne-Smith), Brad's cute but somewhat insecure younger sister; Linda Barrett ( Claudia Wells), a beautiful popular cheerleader and Stacey's best friend; Damone ( Patrick Dempsey), the school's resident con-man and source for anything from a phony ID to tickets for a sold out rock concert; and Mark Ratner ( Wally Ward), a shy guy who worked as a ticket taker at the movie theater in the mall. The faculty members showing up regularly were Mr. Hand ( Ray Walston), a disciplinarian history teacher frustrated by the casual attitude of so many of his students; Mr. Vargas ( Vincent Schiavelli), the eccentric science teacher; and Ms. Melon ( Kit McDonough), the Life Studies teacher with a penchant for getting personally involved in the personal lives of her students.
Based on the theatrical feature Fast Times At Ridgemont High, with Ray Walston and Vincent Schiavelli re-creating the roles they played in the film. Cameron Crowe, who had written the article on which a book, and later the film, had been based, served as creative consultant for the series.
A Review From The New York Times
CBS Sitcom Is Aimed At The Young
by John J. O'Connor
published: March 5, 1986
''Fast Times'' is ''inspired by'' the movie ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High,'' which in turn was based on a book growing out of a magazine article by Cameron Crowe, a journalist who spent some time posing as a high-school student. The craft of repackaging has served Mr. Crowe well. This evening's episode was directed by Amy Heckerling, who also directed the movie. In addition, Miss Heckerling is the supervising producer and gets credit, along with Marc Warren and Dennis Rinsler, for devising the story.
Actually, there are two stories. In the first, the shy Ratner (Wally Ward) enlists the conniving Damone (Patrick Dempsey) to find out what the beautiful Stacy (Courtney Thorne-Smith) likes in a guy. Needless to say, Ratner is upset when it looks as if Damone is taking his job much too seriously. In the second plot-line, the happy Spicoli (Dean Cameron) spends most of his time trying to get the sourpuss teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston) to laugh in class. Again needless to say, Spicoli succeeds but not exactly the way he plans.
This is, in short, the teen-ager's world of anxieties centered on getting dates, making out and being able to afford tickets to the right music concerts. If adults are not goofy in some nonthreatening way, they are considered highly suspect. Everybody, though, is well meaning and enormously attractive. Even Damone, banned from Disneyland, dressed like a rummage sale and generally recognized as the school sleaze, is basically likable. That is what makes the show moderately interesting. It might also be noted that there is no laugh track. That makes ''Fast Times'' almost courageous.
An Article From USATODAY about teens in sitcoms published on March 20, 1986.
TELEVISION/BY MONICA COLLINS
Teens change with fast times
TV is being overrun by teen-agers. Smart teens, sassy teens, teen-agers who behave like 35 year-olds, teen-agers who still act like children.
Nearly every situation comedy features a teen-ager-with few exceptions such as CBS' Newhart and NBC's The Golden Girls. And each week, we watch these youthful characters struggle through "the brat years," as one TV teen refers to adolescence.
This teenage phenomenon is not a new one. Since the days when the squeaky-clean Nelson boys yelled, " Hey mom, I'm home," teens have been hanging around on the tube.
Yet teen-agers-both on and off TV -have changed since that simpler time when Wally Cleaver wondered if Mary Ellen would go with him to the sock hop.
The pressures consuming teen-agers are far more dangerous-sex, drugs, the fragmented family. Since these are controversial topics for TV's adult characters, let alone the teen-age ones , the producers of shows featuring teens must work a delicate balance.
" If you really want to tell the truth about teen-agers, especially in a sitcom, you have to delve into those risque areas which you're only allowed to get into in the movies," says Howard Gerwitz , co-creator and producer of NBC's All Is Forgiven , a new sitcom with a teen character premiering tonight, 9:30 EST/PST.
" Our problem is how to probe those areas without being preachy. You're sort of shackled by what you can't do on the medium. And the other alternatives are much harder to find without seeming wimpy.
" Also part of our problem is winnowing down and avoiding TV cliches. We don't want a teen-ager who talks with the sensibility of a 35 year-old comedy writer . I don't think people at home enjoy that.
So producers have to creatively invent teen-agers. On CBS' Fast Times , devoted entirely to teens , writers made up a new language of epithets to eschew well known vulgarity verboten on TV. On Fast Times "spa" is a cuss word.
Drugs and sex are much thornier issues.
" I don't think I'm the first one to tell you this," says Allen Rucker, Fast Times executive producer, " but high school kids take drugs and have sex."
With sex, Rucker says he relies on " subtex" and innuendo. Drug-taking, however, is a more difficult issue that must be presented without condoing or preaching. " Down the line, we'll have to deal with drugs, and I'm not sure yet how we'll do it."
Michael J. Fox, who plays the precocious Alex Keaton on NBC's Family Ties , seems to have skirted those uncomfortable issues. Yet he remains immensely popular.
In creating Alex, the family ties writers hit on a brilliant formula to avoid delving into those hot teen topics-Alex is more conservative than his former hippie-parents. While they might have smoked marijuana and enjoyed premarital sex, Alex frowns on that lifestyle.
On other sitcoms, the kids aren't so conservative.
In the first episode of NBC's You Again?, the teen-age character ( John Stamos)-a testy kid-brought home a punky, pregnant girlfriend to bewildered dad ( Jack Klugman). Even though the girlfriend was pregnant by someone else, the kid is still crazy.
" He's a nice kid, just sort of misguided," says John Mitz, producer.
Mitz concedes that this kid could be even crazier, but TV doesn't allow that.
" People swear, smoke, and drink. TV does what tranquilizers do. It cuts off the rough edges in kids as well as adults.
Here is Vincent Schiavelli's Obituary from CBS
(CBS/AP) Actor Vincent Schiavelli, who had movie roles in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Ghost," died at his home in Sicily early Monday, officials said. He was 57.
The New York-born actor died of lung cancer, said Salvatore Glorioso, the mayor of Polizzi Generosa, the Sicilian village where Schiavelli lived.
Schiavelli, whose gloomy, droopy-eyed look made him perfect to play creepy or eccentric characters, has more than 120 film and television appearances to his name, according to the Internet Movie Database.
"Everybody of a certain age will remember and identify Vincent Schiavelli as being one of the inmates or patients in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,'" said Entertainment Tonight film critic Leonard Maltin. "He had a really distinctive face, and I think he was probably cast for his face, as well as his kind of presence."
Other movies he has appeared in include "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Amadeus," "Batman Returns," and "The People vs. Larry Flint," and he was selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of the United States' best character actors.
"Certainly he would have liked meatier roles or roles that allowed him to go beyond just the look, the hangdog look, that he seemed to have," said Maltin. "I met him on a number of occasions, and he was a very upbeat kind of a guy."
Schiavelli also appeared in several Italian films, including "La Bambina dalle mani sporche," "A Pena de pan" and "Indesiderabili, Gli."
"He was a great friend, a great chef and a great talker," Glorioso, who has known Schiavelli for almost four years, said in a telephone interview.
"With a smooth, witty conversation, he would make everything look more colorful. I've lost a brother," he said.
Schiavelli studied acting at New York University's School of the Arts.
He also has written three cookbooks and many food articles for magazines and newspapers, possibly inheriting his love for cooking from his grandfather, with whom Schiavelli grew up and who had been a cook for an Italian baron before moving to the United States, according to IMDB.
Schiavelli also had worked in Italy, including in 2001 when he directed a theater piece in Sicily based on nine fables.
A funeral service will be held Tuesday in Polizzi Generosa, Glorioso said. Survivors include a son, an ex-wife and a girlfriend, Glorioso said.
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