Poster: Stuck In The '70's
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The People Next Door aired from September until October 1989 on CBS.
This absurd comedy was one of the first casualties of the 1989-1990 season. Walter Kellogg ( Jeffrey Jones) was a successful cartoonist with two children , Matthew ( Chance Quinn), 14, and Aurora ( Jaclyn Bernstein), 11, who had fallen in love with small-town girl Abigail MacIntyre ( Mary Gross) and, after a whirlwind courtship , moved from New York to her hometown of Covington, Ohio to marry her. Walter had an imagination so vivid that things he imagined actually materialized in his presence. Despite his attempts to keep this " ability" under control, since Walter and his children feared Abby would never understand all sorts of things he thought about came to life-a moosehead on the wall, his answering machine, a bikini model, Sigmund Freud, and real life celebrities like Steve Allen, Dick Clark, and Dr. Joyce Brothers. Abby, a psychologist had concluded that Walter was eccentric but lovable, while her cynical sister Cissy ( Christina Pickles), who disaproved of their marriage , just thought he was weird. Truman Fipps ( Leslie Jordan ) was the nosy mailman who knew something strange was going on but couldn't figure out exactly what.
An Article from The New York Times
TELEVISION; Prime Time Puts On A Happy Face
By BILL CARTER;
Published: September 10, 1989
TELEVISION PROGRAMMERS ALL HAVE a certain predilection for sociology. They try to take the pulse of the nation, looking for a key that will translate into habit-forming television viewing. This year, it's the family. Nuclear and non-nuclear, blended and extended, families of one sort or another are the focus of most of the major networks' new shows. Nobody argues that it's a breakthrough concept. But the network programming departments seem to feel the time for breakthrough concepts is over anyway.
Kim LeMasters, who has suffered in third place for two straight seasons as president of CBS Entertainment, offers a rationale for the swing to the family motif. ''George Bush was right,'' he says. ''America is seeking a kinder, gentler nation. I think the nation wants to be much more nuclear than it is. Whatever the reason - crime, drugs, the greenhouse effect, AIDS - people are clustering together.''
The idea is to get them to cluster in front of network channels. ''If we provide a safe haven,'' Mr. LeMasters says, ''if we re-establish American values - not to sound too corny about it - they'll come to us.''
With the notable exception of an NBC series called ''Hardball,'' which hopes to elevate an actor named Richard Tyson to sex symbol of the season, the fall schedule follows the family philosophy with remarkable consistency.
ABC has given its best time period (after ''Roseanne'' on Tuesday night at 9:30) to a comedy called ''Chicken Soup,'' starring Jackie Mason as a former pajama salesman falling for an Irish widow with three children who works in an inner-city community center. ''Chicken Soup'' is the fourth comedy series from the production team of Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, who have already provided network television with ''The Cosby Show,'' ''A Different World'' and ''Roseanne.'' Given those production credits and the unusual casting of the suddenly hot Mason with Lynn Redgrave, who plays the widow, ''Chicken Soup'' was the easiest program selection ABC had to make.
CBS has much riding on ''Major Dad'' (Monday night at 8), a comedy starring Gerald McRaney as a Marine about to settle down with a new wife and her three daughters. NBC, searching to replace ''Family Ties'' on Sunday night at 8, has a comedy called ''Sister Kate,'' which features Stephanie Beacham as a hard-edged but funny nun taking care of a crop of inner-city orphans. Another ABC comedy, ''Free Spirit'' (Sunday at 8), concerns a divorced father of three who doesn't realize his attractive housekeeper, played by Corrine Bohrer, is actually a witch. A CBS comedy, ''The People Next Door'' (Monday at 8:30), centers on a cartoonist (Jeffrey Jones) with a wife, two children and supernatural imaginative powers. ABC even has a new comedy called ''Family Matters'' (Friday at 8:30), which takes Jo Marie Payton-France's character from ''Perfect Strangers'' and surrounds her with a husband, three children, a sister, a baby nephew and a mother-in-law.
The drama side is also heavily populated with families, including Lindsay Wagner, the single-parent zookeeper on CBS's ''Peaceable Kingdom'' (Wednesday at 8) with the requisite three children and a brother who works with her (Tom Wopat). In ABC's ''Life Goes On'' (Sunday at 7), Patti LuPone stars as the head of a working-class family with an 18-year-old son who has Down's syndrome, played by Chris Burke, a young actor who actually has the condition.
The point of all this emphasis on family is to induce all family members to tune in - an approach that has turned recent programming strategy on its head. For the last several years, the networks have felt compelled to follow a ''niche'' strategy, trying to grab key pockets of viewers rather than the great mass of them, as networks did in their golden, pre-cable, era.
Niche programming resulted in an increase in programs for specialized tastes. ''In the past couple of years, we did a lot of experimental things,'' Mr. LeMasters says. ''Dramadies, shows that were yuppified. We tackled areas like Vietnam, even tried romantic fantasy. Then you see a show like 'Matlock' become a hit on NBC. The audience is telling us something. What they're saying they want is something I call 'pure TV.' They can get that fractionalized, target-specific stuff on cable, or movies on tape. We decided to try to give them pure TV, shows you can only get on network television.''
That translates to family-centered shows, the comeback of familiar stars (CBS is bringing back Richard Chamberlain, the former Dr. Kildare, in ''Island Son'' as a doctor who works in a hospital in Hawaii; NBC is bringing back Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman in a comedy called ''Nutt House'') and, particularly, the heaviest proportion of comedies in television history. ABC, adding six new comedies, will have a record 16 on its schedule. ''Of course there's a comedy glut,'' Mr. LeMasters says. ''The sitcom is by definition pure TV. It was invented by television.''
ROBERT A. IGER, ABC'S new president of entertainment, was only two months into the job this spring when he had to make the prime-time decisions. He didn't think much about pure TV. He thought more about survival TV. The audience for network television, down to 67.2 percent of the available viewers and probably falling, has made trying to put together a schedule an ever more uncertain business. NBC's dominance of the thinning audience in prime time (the network pitched a perfect season in 1988-89, finishing first every week) has greatly complicated the job. Do you take on NBC aggressively, or do you play to be second? The new reality of prime time is that third place is no place. In most time periods, there are not enough people watching the networks to sustain three shows.
ABC has loaded up on comedy, Mr. Iger says, because it had such a wretched record trying to launch hour-long shows last year. ''It's become a two-network business,'' Mr. Iger says. ''You have to try never to put a program in a given area that has a chance to be third.''
This line of thinking did not lead to a batch of innovative new shows on ABC. ''The whole process of sampling a TV series has changed radically,'' Mr. Iger says. ''The audience may never try a show; or, if they do once and don't instantly like it, they may never come back to it again. Comedy at least doesn't ask much of the audience. It's like a quick hit. Drama is much heavier; it requires more commitment.''
Mr. LeMasters cites a series CBS had great hopes for last fall, ''TV 101,'' a show set in a video class in high school that covered such teen-age problems as drugs and abortion. The test viewers generally liked the show, but when they were asked whether they would choose to watch it again, they almost invariably said no. ''It challenged the audience,'' he says. ''It was one of the best dramas we've done. But, well, it got in your face. You won't be seeing many new shows get in your face on TV this season.''
While the programmers at CBS and ABC take to the defensive, leaning toward safe formulas rather than risky experiments, Brandon Tartikoff, president of NBC Entertainment, has the luxury of contemplating the big picture, calculating what it might take, not just to win, but to win back some of those network viewers lost to cable wanderlust.
If anyone asks ''Where's the heat?'' in this kinder and gentler new season, NBC intends to supply the answer: Richard Tyson, one of the stars of ''Hardball,'' a police action drama that Mr. Tartikoff has scheduled on Friday night at 9.
Mr. Tyson plays an unorthodox young cop, with long hair and an ostentatious earring, paired with a gruff, balding veteran cop played by John Ashton. Baseball is a running theme. Mr. Ashton still plays it, seriously and ferociously; Mr. Tyson plays it as a lark. Given the policework format, there inevitably will be plenty of typical television action, but the series will surely depend more on character chemistry.
The show's premise is, as Mr. Tartikoff himself admits, ''strictly meat and potatoes,'' but he expects Mr. Tyson to break through as the season's new sexy male idol. ''If you look at what's been missing from television,'' Mr. Tartikoff says, ''there has been a vacuum in personalities. There really wasn't anybody from last season's crop of new people I even wanted to put in a TV movie. But if this guy Tyson supplies some heat, when Don Johnson and Bruce Willis - the two hottest guys in the past five years, guys who have been all over every magazine cover, from GQ to Rolling Stone - are both gone in the same season, he could fill that void.'' And NBC could solve a problem on the only night it has one.
MR. TARTIKOFF'S AP-proach has changed several times in the 10 years he has been putting prime-time schedules together. He went through the niche strategy and now has come to believe it is the wrong game for the networks to play. ''It's real dangerous,'' he says. ''When you have a show so specific in terms of who it appeals to, if you miss you have a total disaster.''
''I try to think of the ideal television viewer,'' he explains, ''the one attracted to the shows that the advertisers, the critics, the affiliates all love - the 'L.A. Law' and 'Cheers' kind of shows. You'd guess that the key viewer is in his late 30's or early 40's; his wife is college educated, probably works; they have two or three kids and one is a teen-ager. This household probably has a set with 20 or 30 channels and a VCR. What I'm trying to put into place is something that gives those viewers two to three hours each night, in order to get them back into network television.''
But not even Mr. Tartikoff thinks he is going to get viewers back en masse this fall. ''People don't sit around with their TV magazine checking off the new series as they roll past. Those days are long gone. Is it important that people perceive the fall season as being special and great? Probably not.''
Correction: September 10, 1989, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
Because of a production error, an article today on page 48 of The New Season, part 2 of The Times Magazine, misstates the role of Tom Wopat in the CBS series ''Peaceable Kingdom.'' He plays Lindsay Wagner's brother.
An Article from The New York Times
CBS Cancels a Comedy, Season's First Casualty
Published: October 20, 1989
CBS became the first network to cancel a new series yesterday, dropping ''The People Next Door'' from its Monday night comedy lineup. The network will bring back ''Doctor, Doctor,'' a comedy that had a tryout in the summer.
''Doctor, Doctor,'' about an unorthodox family physician played by Matt Frewer - the onetime Max Headroom - will go onto the schedule Monday, Nov. 13 at 10:30 p.m.
''The People Next Door,'' which had been running at 8:30, will not be seen again. CBS will experiment with an episode of ''Newhart'' at 8:30 next week and a repeat of the pilot episode of ''The Famous Teddy Z'' the next week. Whichever proves more successful will inherit that time slot.
Here's an Article from CNN on Jeffrey Jones' 2002 arrest.
Actor Jeffrey Jones faces child sex charges
Friday, November 15, 2002
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Los Angeles police Thursday arrested actor Jeffrey Jones, best known for his role as the smarmy principal in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," on charges of using a minor for sex acts and possession of child pornography, officials said.
Officer Jason Lee said a search warrant was served at Jones' home in November 2001 after a minor alleged criminal acts of a sexual nature against the 56-year-old actor. During that search, Lee said, officers seized "numerous items of evidence."
"For several months, detectives from Juvenile Division's Sexually Exploited Child Unit conducted an extensive investigation into the allegations made against Jeffrey Jones," he said.
Jones is free on $20,000 bail and is scheduled for arraignment November 21.
Jones played Ed Rooney, the dean of students, in the "Ferris Bueller" film. The actor has also appeared in such films as "Amadeus," "The Hunt for Red October," "Ed Wood," "Beetlejuice" and "The Crucible."
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