'Oliver Beene' Takes Nostalgia-Free View of the '60s

[TJ]

http://tv.zap2it.com/news/tvnewsdaily.html?30471

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Yes, FOX's new comedy "Oliver Beene" is about a 1960s family with two sons, and yes, the show is narrated by the adult version of the younger kid. Naturally, then, it's been compared to "The Wonder Years" countless times already.

While the two shows are similar in form, "Oliver Beene," which is set in 1962, feels decidedly less nostalgic than its predecessor. The time period is just a backdrop for the family's dysfunctional but loving life together.

"I didn't set out and say 'Gee, I'd like to do something from the '60s,' " creator Howard Gewirtz says. "I wanted to write something genuine, something that was a story only I could tell because it happened to me. And it so happens that it took place in 1962."

What Gewirtz, a TV veteran whose credits include "Taxi," "The Simpsons" and "Just Shoot Me," came up with was a fictionalized account of his own childhood. Oliver (Grant Rosenmeyer), an average, somewhat awkward 11-year-old, is at the center of the show. He lives in Queens with his dad, Jerry (Grant Shaud, "Murphy Brown"), the only all-night dentist in Queens; his mom, Charlotte ("The Job's" Wendy Makkena), a frustrated homemaker; and older brother Ted (Andrew Lawrence), who's obsessed with sports and girls.

Based on what he's learned about the time, Rosenmeyer, 11, says "It looks like it would have been a good time to grow up."

The show's producers didn't insist that the cast take a crash course in recent U.S. history. "It's not really [about] history," Rosenmeyer says. "It's not like it's going to be on the History Channel or anything. It's just comedy."

Nonetheless, the show's crew has meticulously created the Beene family's apartment on a soundstage on the 20th Century Fox lot. Makkena and Shaud are both younger than the kids on the show would be, but they recognize some of the show's trappings from their own childhoods.

"It's funny," Shaud says. "I was a baby during this time period, but there was something about walking on the set that brought back a feeling -- the clothes, the furniture."

Makkena says that as much as she recognizes toys and the cars from her childhood, it's the feel of the show that takes her back more than any physical detail. "The innocence is something I remember vividly, especially against the backdrop of today's crazy world," she says.

Gewirtz says part of the fun of "Oliver Beene" is that the time period is familiar, but what people think of as "the '60s" -- the draft-card-burning, Haight-Ashbury, flowers-in-your-hair part of the decade -- wasn't evident in most of American society in 1962.

"It's not an unrelatable time. It's not like the 1920s with big boxy cars," he says. "It's a time that is not that far removed from now, but it's different enough that it's sort of an interesting world to be in."

Despite the fact that the show is seen through Oliver's eyes, or maybe because of it, Shaud and Makkena carry a lot of the comedy load. Jerry is pretty much always sure he's right, particularly when he's not. Shaud says it's somewhat refreshing to play a character that's so different from his best-known role, the neurotic Miles Silverberg on "Murphy Brown."

"It's a nice change to play that kind of commitment, whereas with Miles, it was playing the commitment to not knowing," he says.

Makkena, meanwhile, likes the challenge of having "a very solid obstacle to play against."

"I think it's pretty clear that she's smarter than Jerry," she says of Charlotte. "She's probably smarter than a lot of the ladies she hangs with, if indeed she does, in her book club or in the laundry room. She's just incredibly frustrated -- and I think that frustration is good in a way."

The kids in the cast, meanwhile, get to play out an alternate version of childhood. In the 11 episodes they've shot so far, they've played in a treehouse, jumped off swings and various other kid stuff.

"The episode [where] we build a treehouse was really fun," says 12-year-old Daveigh Chase ("The Ring" ), who play's Oliver's friend Joyce. "They built a treehouse in a park near [the studio] and we got to go up in it and stuff."

Gewirtz hopes that ultimately, people will see that the show's humor comes more from an expression of reality -- that of his childhood -- than the setup-punchline-laugh track situations on most comedies.

"For once I really wanted to not contrive the situation," he says. "I wanted to draw from a situation that actually happened. ... In truth and in life, that's what compels people."
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"Oliver Beene" premieres at 8:30 p.m. ET Sunday, March 9, on FOX.