This Just In to Back to You

[Sonia]

Anchors see themselves in new sitcom 'Back to You'
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 3:41 AM
By Molly Willow

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Television isn't always realistic, as viewers know: Doctors don't really save deer as scripted on Grey's Anatomy, and lawyers do almost nothing as depicted on Boston Legal.

The new Fox comedy Back to You stars Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) and Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) as evening news anchors in Pittsburgh.

This being prime-time television, the characters must also share a child.

The supporting team includes a chauvinistic sports reporter, a weathercaster known more for her looks than her predictions and a young and inexperienced news director -- not to mention beleaguered reporter Gary Crezyzewski, who in the second episode was stunned on-air by a Taser.

How realistic is the series -- and does it matter?

We asked the six evening anchors on the Columbus broadcast affiliates for their thoughts on Back to You.

To a person, they called much of the show (as anchorwoman Andrea Cambern put it) "right-on."

And funny.

"You've got to be able to laugh at yourself," anchorman Gabe Spiegel said.

Some anchors even turned their answers into comedy.

mwillow@dispatch.com

Most realistic aspect of the show?
Colleen Marshall, WCMH-TV (Channel 4):
The reporter doing the Taser -- because is there a station that has not done that? . . . As if we need to have a reporter do it to prove that it hurts!

Cabot Rea, Channel 4:
The love child between two anchors is very common. I think it was a point that a lot of us related to.

Yolanda Harris, WSYX-TV (Channel 6) and WTTE-TV (Channel 28):
Things that are taking place in the newsroom. Conversations and things like that can get kind of crazy. You hear some conversations you can't believe you're hearing, because we're a strange breed.

Gabe Spiegel, Channels 6 and 28:
That we're all narcissistic personalities, of course. But we're much worse.

Andrea Cambern, WBNS-TV (Channel 10):
The young news director and this older anchor. . . . We look around, and sometimes we look at the young producers and the young managers, and we just think . . . how can they know what they know? But, in reality, they're talented and deserving people.

Jerry Revish, Channel 10:
The fact that she was in her 40s and she speaks about the whole ageism/sexism sort of thing that goes on in TV. That does happen.

Least realistic aspect?
Marshall: The two of them having a great office because, honey, that just does not happen. Cabot and I are sitting in the middle of the newsroom, surrounded by boxes and tapes.

Rea: We have no weatherperson I know of who is in any way, shape or form close to the one currently portrayed on that program.

Harris: The clothing on the weather girl, the risque clothing.

Spiegel: The weather gal, she doesn't seem very bright. I think a lot of folks might think that's funny, but it's not true: Weather folks are very intelligent.

Cambern: The romantic relationship. . . . I thought that was a little far-fetched.

Revish: Kelsey, his on-air persona -- he's almost buffoonish. He's got that sort of Ron Burgundy delivery sort of thing, so self-possessed and in love with yourself. . . . Nah, that doesn't work.

Your Gary Crezyzewski moment?
(the worst experience in news)

Marshall: Years ago, I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, so I was huge, . . . and we had a killer snowstorm. . . . They decided the great live shot for me to do at 11 o'clock was to go to the Park of Roses and stand in the middle of a snowdrift to show people how deep the snow was. . . . It was up to my waist; it was over my pregnant stomach. . . . So I'm standing in the snow, and it's swirling around me, and it's still falling in this biting wind.

And when Doug Adair threw to me, he said: "Coll, why do we have a pregnant woman out in this snow?"

And I said, "Good question, Doug."

How do you answer that live on the air? I had many things I wanted to say, none of which would have me still employed here.

Rea: Out on a live shot (at the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival) when I was trying to fill 2 1/2 minutes of time -- which is a long time. But what's even worse was that the shot just ahead of me completely crashed. . . . Instead of filling 2 1/2 minutes, I was thrown into filling five minutes.

I just started grabbing people. I walked over to where people were clogging, and . . . I'd already talked to the mayor and all the officials. We had a corn-eating contest, threw a couple of people a cob of corn and saw who would finish first.

Harris: I was out on a live shot at Columbus police headquarters, and nothing was working. I couldn't hear, I couldn't communicate with my producers, and I didn't know I was on the air -- but I was talking to my photographer, and I was standing in front of the camera, and I just happened to say, "This sucks."

I didn't realize I was on the air, but thank God I didn't say anything that bad.

Spiegel: In Toledo one time, I did a live report after some heavy rains came through and I was very aggressive: "Let me get out there and show you how deep this water is." . . . I did the live shot in about 3 1/2 feet of water; I put my microphone battery pack on the back of my neck to keep it out of the water. And then, come to find out, it was a sewer line.

Cambern: Before I started working the late shift, I would tape my little "Health Source" report and go home for the day but I would always end it with something I thought was funny . . . so that the editor when I would leave would have something to laugh about.

(One night in 1994) that thing that I thought was so funny didn't get edited out. It aired in living color on the 11 o'clock news. . . . I was dancing -- like the worst dancing ever, worse-than-Elaine-on-Seinfeld dancing.

We got about 70 calls to the newsroom that night, . . . and every single one wanted to see it again -- which is probably why I still have a job today.

Revish: I made a real ass out of myself a few state fairs ago . . . when a young 4-H'er was bringing his pig over for us to talk to him about. The pig got away from him, and I am literally chasing this pig down the midway, weaving through people down the midway. The pig was so fast, I just stopped and said, "What am I doing?"