Peter Engel Talks About "Saved By The Bell"

[SBTB Geek]

I found this at Zap2It! It's a very good interview.

Peter Engel
Chairman, Peter Engel Productions
By Gail Mitchell


"TV gets a lot of bad rap. But once you separate the wheat from the chaff, TV does some great, excellent things."

You might call Peter Engel the guru of teen television programming. The Chairman of Peter Engel Productions, a subsidiary of NBC Enterprises, is the prolific producer of all four of NBC's Saturday morning comedy series ("Saved by the Bell: The New Class," "Hang Time," "One World" and "City Guys"). He also doubles as executive producer of former-NBC-now-syndicated shows "California Dreams" (in more than 50 countries) and the original "Saved by the Bell" (more than 85 countries). Then there are the first-run series: "USA High" for the USA Network and newest Engel entry, "Malibu, CA," a syndicated venture produced in association with Tribune Entertainment.

Engel began laying the groundwork for his teen empire in 1988 with his first NBC Productions project, "Good Morning, Miss Bliss." The comedy series pilot starring Hayley Mills made history as the first TV series produced by a network for showing on a national cable channel. After completion of its run on The Disney Channel, the show was revamped and renamed "Saved by the Bell."

Zap2it.com: What inspired you to pursue a TV career?

Peter Engel: I grew up with TV in the '50s … I thought it was exciting, adventurous, interesting. Then I attended NYU (now the Tisch school), which had a terrific communications department. At night I worked at NBC as a page -- the famous page school. So between NYU and NBC, I got really excited about the television industry.

Zap2it.com: How did your first industry job at Metromedia come about?

Peter Engel: I just had some ideas and met John Kluge, who was the head of the company. I guess I must have impressed him because he sent his people to hire me. I started there as a producer in 1970 and ended up there first as VP/Sales and later as VP/Television Programs. We did a lot of movies of the week … that was the old Wolper company, which then became Metromedia Producers Corp.

Zap2it.com: How did you happen to fall into the youth niche you're in now?

Peter Engel: That's really interesting. In 1986-87 Brandon Tartikoff asked me to come to NBC as an executive producer under an overall deal with NBC Productions. He said they were losing the high end on Saturday mornings: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 year-old kids and would I want to produce a live-action comedy. At the time, my two sons were four and two. Of course, in all my wisdom, one of the first things out of my mouth was, "Get someone else. I don't want to do it." I'd never done anything like that before.

I went home and spoke to my wife. She said, "Are you crazy? You're always talking about wouldn't it be wonderful to do shows that your children could grow up on. Now you have the opportunity to do that." So I went back to Brandon and said OK. And that's how it all began. Now it's 11 years and 600-700 episodes later. The "Saved by the Bell" concept was historic. In fact, we're even developing it now as a Broadway musical; Garry Marshall is set to direct. The original concept was five kids coming of age, going through those wondrous wonder years, if you will, of high school. The concept was to go from the bell on Monday at 9am until the bell on Friday at 3pm. That was to be our show. But then we spilled into weekends, vacations and all that.

The truth of the matter was we didn't know what we had. Research had said it wouldn't work. We were on the air about four weeks and all of a sudden the same research people came flying back: "Look at these incredible teens and tweens numbers!" We invented the word "tweens." And we were not even thinking about that; we were just looking at the 10, 11, 12 and 13-year-olds. So that's how all this got started despite my earlier great wisdom. It's been one of the greatest things to happen in my life. And it's been worth it:. All you have to do is walk onto one of our stages and hear the kids in the audience yelling, screaming and cheering.

In fact, a recent article in the Fresno Bee written by a 17-year-old girl said, "…'Saved by the Bell' is not the most intellectually stimulating show and it's never won an Emmy. But it's won a far greater award: the hearts of my generation." I read that and said, "Oh man, we did something right."

Zap2it.com: Who were among the original "Saved" cast members?

Peter Engel: Originally, the pilot -- "Good Morning, Miss Bliss -- was written for Sandy Duncan as a prime-time half-hour on NBC. But she went to another show. Then Brandon asked us if we wanted to use Hayley Mills and I said sure. So we did the original, prime-time pilot with Hayley. That pilot -- named for Brandon's sixth grade teacher who had a big influence on him -- also featured Jaleel White (Urkel on "Family Matters"), Brian Austin Green ("Beverly Hills, 90210) and Jonathan Brandis ("seaQuest"). All those kids were 11 years old then.

When the show didn't make the prime-time schedule, The Disney Channel asked if we'd do it for them. So we ended up doing 13 shows (featuring Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Lark Voorhies). The concept was we'd do a lot of shows and then go into syndication. Disney decided it didn't want to do that. So we asked for the show back, which we got. We then added Elizabeth Berkley, Mario Lopez and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen. And Miss Bliss left. At that point the show became "Saved by the Bell."

We had an order for seven episodes … a few months ago we finished our 245th episode. Along the way we've done different incantations: the college years, the "Saved" movies and then the new class. And now we're going to have "Saved by the Bell 2000" with new characters but the same concept.

Ultimate TV: What's the premise behind your newest show, "Malibu, CA"?

Peter Engel: Malibu is actually a character because Malibu is a lifestyle. Where else can you live on the beach, live a normal life and not be on vacation? I grew up in New York, and I always dreamed that it would be great to grow up in Malibu on the beach. Life is a beach; "Forever Summer" is the title of our theme song. This show is about two brothers, fraternal twins, who come to California to live with their dad. They've always lived with mom. Now she gets promoted to a huge executive job in Saudi Arabia and the boys have the choice to live with grandma in Wisconsin or with dad, whom they've only spent weekends and holidays with before. He's a bachelor with a wonderful beach house and hot restaurant on the beach.

Ed Blatchford is the dad (Peter Collins); we met him years ago when he played Mr. Belding's ne'er-do-well brother on "Bell." One of the sons is very athletic and centered, Scott (Trevor Merszei); Jason (Jason Hayes) is the other brother who's a scam artist, always looking for the easy way out. The show also features Gina May, Wendi Kenya, Brandon Brooks and Priscilla Lee Taylor. The co-creator/executive producer is Carl Kurlander. We do a lot of footage at the beach, second unit. But we do shoot the show in the studio.

Zap2it.com: What's the secret behind your shows' success?

Peter Engel: Well, the original "Bell" was successful for several reasons. One, there were no shows designed at that time for young adults where they were the stars. Unlike "Growing Pains," where Kirk Cameron wasn't supposed to be the star, or "Family Ties," where Michael Fox wasn't supposed to be the star. But on "Bell," the kids were the stars and the adults were secondary, the supporting players. And the kids were playing their own ages. And I just think that first group was just so unbelievable with terrific personalities.

And with that and the other shows, we put the characters in situations that young people can relate to … and they can relate to the characters. As writers, we're always looking for the comedy and drama in these shows. And I think a lot of the young people just love to see what clothes the characters are wearing; how they deal with peer pressure; how they deal with their parents; what their bedrooms look like. Research shows that among the scenes the young people enjoyed most were those showing lifestyle, not just the comedy or the drama.

I also think we're serving an underserved audience, and we've struck a chord with them that we're having a good time. That it's entertainment and interesting. That's one of the keys of our shows around the world; every kid goes to school somewhere. So they love to see the American kids and the situations they're in, and they can relate to most of it.

Zap2it.com: How difficult is it to handle this kind of workload?

Peter Engel: I have very good people working for me. Every show except "One World" is run by somebody who worked on "Saved by the Bell" from the writing and creative standpoint. We call them show runners. And every one them has either been a co-executive producer and/or a line producer who began on "Saved by the Bell." Then we have Linda Mancuso as the President of our company. And she has three very good executives working for her. So between the show runners, line producers and Linda's group, I have terrific support. Otherwise, I couldn't do this. Because in addition to these shows, we're writing prime-time pilots and two feature films. Plus we're developing the Broadway show and are always looking for other projects. I recently returned from London and they would like us to shoot an original series there.

Zap2it.com: Do you have young people on the writing staffs of these young adult shows?

Peter Engel: Yes. All our rooms are populated with people from anywhere from 22 to 50. The thing to do with your writing room is to not have one point of view. For instance, on "City Guys" we have people who grew up in the inner city; we're diverse ethnically and age-wise. We have a couple of writers 22, 23 just out of college. The older guys teach the younger guys, and the younger guys keep the older guys more in touch with the hipness of today. Same thing on "One World." We have diversity in front of and behind the cameras. We've always had Asians, Latinos, African-Americans and Filipinos on all our shows.

Zap2it.com: What other actors have you worked with on "Bell" who've gone on to enjoy more industry success?

Peter Engel: Everyone knows the original "Bell" people: Tiffani-Amber, Elizabeth Berkley, Brian Austin Green and Jaleel White in the "Miss Bliss" show. But on "Bell," Tori Spelling ("Beverly Hills, 90210") was a recurring character; she was Screech's girlfriend. She did five episodes; Scott Wolf ("Party of Five") was with us for a whole year in a small role. Patrick Muldoon ("Melrose Place") was also with us for five or six episodes as a recurring character.

Zap2it.com: What do you watch on TV?

Peter Engel: I'm a junkie for CNN. I also like to watch "Emeril Live."

Zap2it.com: What do you think of the current state of TV?

Peter Engel: You just have to be curious. There can be no more exciting field to be in than the communications field, TV and radio, because it's challenging and very much of the moment. And the people in it are extraordinarily intelligent and capable.

Zap2it.com: Where do you see television in five years?

Peter Engel: TV gets a lot of bad rap. But once you separate the wheat from the chaff, TV does some great, excellent things.