`Day' deals in real humor (Feb 29, 1988)


Day by Day has a three-night launch today, Thursday and Sunday, all at 8:30 p.m. on WXFL-Ch. 8. Its regular time slot will be Sundays at 8:30 p.m. What with the baby boomlet and the yuppie backlash, could television be any more ripe for NBC's new series Day by Day? It's about a couple who give up high-powered careers (his was stockbroker; hers was lawyer) and open a child-care center in their own home to be closer to their 15-year-old son and infant daughter.

Too obvious, too on the money? Yes and no. True, not many of us know any stockbrokers or attorneys who would give up the big paycheck to stay home and wipe runny noses. But Day by Day is done so well that, after watching the pilot, it struck me as a comfortable fit.

There's a pretty good cast. Doug Sheehan (Knots Landing) is Brian Harper. His TV wife Kate is played by Linda Kelsey (Lou Grant). And the part of their friend Eileen Swift has gone to Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Saturday Night Live).

Funny thing about this trio is they are all witty in person - which probably explains why the sitcom seems to be jelling so well so early. At the January gathering of television critics in Los Angeles, the group from Day by Day (including producers Andy Borowitz and Will Mackenzie) was the humorous highlight on our often-snoozable interview circuit.

Not that Day by Day treats child care as silly business. It's more that the sitcom deals with ``everyday`` kind of humor. But then the program is the creation of Gary David Goldberg, who produces Family Ties, a show that was full of poignancy and punchlines about the homestead until Michael J. Fox became the central character.

Borowitz, who's also shouldering writing duties, said the series is based on experiences Goldberg and his wife had 15 years ago in Berkeley when they had their first child. ``They didn't want to go out and take high-powered jobs and see their little baby grow up without them,`` Borowitz said. So they founded the Berkeley Organic Daycare Center.

When Goldberg scored a TV hit with his Family Ties in 1982, he negotiated for a day-care center on the Paramount lot for employees' children. Borowitz said that when he worked on the script for Day by Day, his office wasn't far away from Paramount's day-care center. ``As I was writing the pilot, I could actually hear children's voices outside my office. ... They were playing with Mr. Potato Head and kicking each other and stuff.`` (Borowitz might be kidding here.)

Both Mackenzie and Borowitz said they've done their day-care center homework and know about state licensing standards. They also have a consultant, a former preschool teacher, who reads every script and corrects anything that would conflict with day-care centers' standards. They said that so far they have had to revise each script.

As for the stars: Kelsey has two daughters, ages 1 and 4, and is resuming her career after a family-tied hiatus. Sheehan just finished playing Val Ewing's husband for four seasons on Knots Landing. Of this new role, he said, ``It's just the best after doing this lugubrious litany of who slept with who in the cul-de-sac.`` And Louis-Dreyfus recently married fellow Saturday Night Live alum Brad Hall and moved to Los Angeles. She called her new job ``a gas,`` and said she's glad she doesn't have to write her own jokes anymore.

The children on the show now number six (four are 5 years old, two are 4). Mackenzie, who also directs Day by Day, said the casting director auditioned 650 children before selecting the half dozen.

Mackenzie said that understudies - adults who are fairly small, he said - play the kids' parts in the mornings until the children arrive about 2 p.m. (children are allowed to work only three hours each day). So the script is set and the blocking is done without the children because, as Kelsey said, ``it's a little more chaotic`` after the kids get there.

Borowitz said children with show-biz experience weren't cast for Day by Day. ``When we went back to New York, we'd go and see an adorable moppet who was 4 years old with beautiful red hair and everything, and we'd say, `How are you doing? What's new?' and she'd say, `Well, I just got a Burger King (commercial), it's a national, I'm real excited about it.``

The children aside, one of the show's problems might be how to best use Louis-Dreyfus. She has a comic presence that rattles the window shades whenever she's on camera. Yet her character is a stockbroker (she used to work with Brian Harper), so how often would she be hanging out with the crayon set during the day?

Borowitz tossed out one idea for her. He said, ``We might give her a tool belt so she can stop by like Schneider on One Day at a Time.`` (Borowitz might be kidding here.)



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LOS ANGELES - On NBC's Day by Day, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is sort of a one-woman Greek chorus - she brings the unglad tidings to a couple of former yuppies who gave up the good life to run a day-care center.

Louis-Dreyfus plays Eileen Swift, a flamboyant stockbroker who's a friend of Brian Harper (Doug Sheehan) and his wife, Kate (Linda Kelsey). Brian had also been a stockbroker, and Kate a lawyer. They quit their high-paying jobs to spend more time with their infant daughter and teen-age son.

``Eileen's a spoilsport who reminds them of what they're missing,`` Louis-Dreyfus said. ```She has great entrances and exits. That broad can make a joke.

``I hope she's a sympathetic character,`` she said. ``My goal is to make her sympathetic in spite of herself. She's so abrasive. I hope the audience likes her, because she says things everyone wishes they could say. You see a side of her - I don't want to say vulnerable - a side of her that's warm.

``She's a former colleague of Brian's, but they were merely friends. This season, Eileen's moved next door so that she can pop into the house more easily. No matter what she says, they remain good friends. That's a sitcom for you. Of all the characters in the show I'd say she's the most cartoon-like. She says terrible things, but people don't pay that much attention. It's just Eileen and her hijinks.``

The Sunday night comedy joined the NBC lineup last spring, based on executive producer Gary David Goldberg's real-life experiences running a day-care center in Northern California. It also stars Christopher Daniel Barnes as the Harpers' 15-year-old son, Ross, and Courtney Thorne-Smith as Kristin, the center's beautiful young assistant.

Louis-Dreyfus, an alumnus of Chicago's Second City troupe and NBC's Saturday Night Live, got to know Goldberg when she was in a spinoff pilot of his Family Ties. The spinoff was never picked up as a series.

``They were spinning off Scott Valentine's character of Nick,`` she said. ``I played a character who was similar to Eileen. She was sarcastic but more intellectual than Eileen. I would never call Eileen an intellectual.``

She recently moved into a new home with her husband, writer-actor Brad Hall. ``It 's a lovely little cottage with a fireplace,`` she said. ``We're finally getting organized.``

Louis-Dreyfus had roles in the movies Soul Man and Hannah and Her Sisters.

``I did Hannah right at NBC while I was doing Saturday Night Live,`` she said. ``I was in the beginning of the film when Woody Allen's an executive producer of a television comedy show. I was his assistant. I worked with him for about a week, which was fun. But most of my part was cut out.

``This is such a different experience from Saturday Night Live,`` she said of the sitcom. ``On Saturday Night you go to work on Monday morning and have to write your own material with the writers. The hours were nuts. Here, you come to work, and they hand you a script. Working on a sitcom is as close as you can get to having a regular job without having a regular job.``

She and her husband were both on Saturday Night Live, but they had met earlier at Northwestern University in Chicago.

``Chicago's a great theater town. You don't make a lot of money, but you don't make any money in theater anyway. Chicago's a much easier place to work and live than New York.``

Louis-Dreyfus was born in New York, but when her parents divorced she divided her time between New York and Washington. ``I can remember when the Eastern Shuttle was $18,`` she said.

``I grew up mostly in Washington and went to high school with a lot of politicans' kids. My stepfather was a doctor. I did every play I could get my hands on. I grew up trying to juggle my time between theater and homework.``



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On Day by Day, Doug Sheehan plays Brian Harper, a stockbroker who decides to quit the rat race and spend more time with his teen-age son and infant daughter.

In real life, Sheehan has never felt a similar urge to chuck his chosen career acting. ``But I have done it to a different degree,`` he says. ``I left General Hospital with no other job to go to, then went to Knots Landing and did the same thing there.``

On Day by Day, which airs Sundays on NBC, he plays a stockbroker who decides he'd rather run a day-care center. That means working with children, which Sheehan seems to take in stride.

Some actors who work a lot with children make a point of spending a maximum amount of off-camera time with them. Sheehan takes the opposite tack.

``I have always tended to be hands-off,`` he says. ``I find that if before a scene you are working with a kid and are in his face all the time, he can rapidly become bored with you and look for new territory.``

Not that Sheehan is complaining.

``Should it last five years, I would be ecstatic,`` he says. ``That's what I want most in my career right now, is for the show to last five years with me on it, and all the wonderful goodies that that brings to it.``

Coming from a man who has already walked away from two successful shows, that's saying something. Others who have left success behind

Doug Sheehan isn't the only actor who has left a successful series.

Farrah Fawcett bailed out of Charlie's Angels after a single season (1976-77) and suffered a number of career reverses. But she got the last laugh on her critics in 1984 when she turned in an acclaimed performance in The Burning Bed.

Pamela Sue Martin left Dynasty in 1984 to look for bigger and better things. So far, she has landed only a few forgettable TV movies.

Patrick Duffy left Dallas after the 1985-86 season. A year later he seemed happy to return as dull, decent Bobby Ewing.

Shelley Long left Cheers after the 1986-87 season to pursue her film career that has recently consisted of one hit and one miss.


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