Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 27

Variety Minneapolis Star and Tribune CO cn CO CO Thursday June 21983 GOOD DATE OF SALE ONLY 1C. CX! 4. 4. i J. J.

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j. -r T-TTTTTTTTTTT 1- 4. 4 -r-i-TTT-rTTTTT 4 4 44 TTTT 4 4 4 Quenching the world's thirst for U.S. TV shows 4 4 4 4 44 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 By David Crook Los Angeles Times Hollywood, Calif For eight to 10 hours a day, for two weeks or more, they sit in darkened screening rooms all over town. They laugh occasionally.

They groan sometimes. They scribble notes to themselves and to one another. Over there is an Australian TV network executive. A few rows down, a Canadian programmer sits alone. On the aisle, near the front, two executives from Hong Kong talk in tones so muffled that an eavesdropper cannot tell whether they're speaking in English or Cantonese.

All have come to buy this city's most famous product images on screens. In this case, they seek the same TV images that the American networks have just chosen for their fall schedules. of the foreign buyers, have suffered from the American networks' attempts to cut down on violence. 'In the good old days, Hooker' would have had blood all over the place. Now, there's not enough violence.

The shampooing of these series has made them eunuchs, said Gregory Coote, managing director (president) of Australia's Network 10. Most of the men and women of this international marketplace were in Cannes, France, for the Marche International des Programmes, a gargantuan sales show that brings together buyers and sellers from around the world. After Cannes, the crowd heads for Los Angeles for the most sought-after prizes the new American shows, which are the most popular with their viewers. "We come looking for the action, one-hour series, said Ronald Leong, assistant program purchasing manager for HKTV in In May, usually beginning the same day that the first of the Big Three American networks announces its fall schedule, TV executives from all over the non-Communist world rush to Los Angeles. By month's end, 200 or more buyers from as near as Mexico and as far as Bangkok will have passed through what are called the Los Angeles screenings, an informal annual ritual of the TV world.

At the top of everyone's shopping lists are the one-hour action-adventure shows, such as 'Matt Houston," "Magnum P.I." or "The Fall Guy. This year the hot properties of the genre include ABC's "Hardcastle McCormick" and "Trauma Center," CBS's "Cutter to Houston" and NBC's "Manimal." These are the shows that captivate the foreign audience with archetypal American scenes such as shootouts and car chases. They also are the shows that, in the eyes Hong Kong. "It's got to be very fast-paced." Interestingly, shows that are only marginally successful (and often outright failures) on American TV can have avid followings elsewhere. One of the great disappointments for foreign buyers this month, for example, was NBC's decision to cancel "Fame." Last year, two of the most eagerly sought-after shows were "Bring 'em Back Alive" and "Tales of the Gold Monkey, "neither of which survived the spring cut in this country.

Just about everyone however, that situation comedies as a rule do not make it overseas. With the notable exception of "M'AW the sitcoms tend to do poorly in the international market because they usually involve American situations and characters. Popular American shows such as "All in the Family" 4 or "Barney Miller" generally have failed to attract the mega-audiences overseas that they did in this country because, in the words of Len Mauger, managing director of Nine Network Australia, they are 'ethnic comedies' (meaning American). "In the days of 1 Love Lucy' or 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' they were universal comedies. But you take that's definitely New York," Mauger said.

"The vast majority of American sitcoms don't travel," Coote said. "Sitcoms are so domestic the people just don't understand them." "Dallas" is a perennial international hit, but other serials, such as "Dynasty" or "Falcon Crest" don't seem to grab the audience. 'Dynasty' does not win its time slot. 'Quincy' beats it two to one," said Glen Kinging, managing Foreign TV 5C 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 D- Foreign TV programmers look for action-adventure shows such as "Matt Houston," below, with Lee Horsley and Pamela Hensley; "The Fall Guy," center, with Heather Thomas and Lee Majors; and "Magnum P.I.," right, with John Hillerman and Tom Selleck. 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 Xtk Asrt -f 1 C2T- -J lit H- 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 t-i 4 4 Yd yr few 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 i mi 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4- 4' 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4, 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 i mLS il -l I I i I I I I i- I I I I I I I 1 1 I II vm 14 1 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4, 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4.

I f- 4 4. 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 1 I iff iv 'ft Highbrow '-lowbrow Barry ZeVan returns to Twin Cities via WTCN-TV Old spook eyes is back. Barry ZeVan, the weatherman with the bushy eyebrows that jump up and down like caterpillars on a hotplate, is returning to the Twin Cities. He will join WTCN-TV (Ch. 11) July 3 as an entertainment reporter and backup weatherman.

But ZeVan, whose career has been less than spectacular lately, may not be the fun guy we remember. He says his TV employers haven't let him act like himself since he left the Twin Cities in 1974 and that he's not sure whether he'll be as loose as he used to be. ZeVan rose to local fame in 1 97 1 after joining KSTP-TV (Ch. 5), where his on-air antics earned him the label of "peekaboo" weatherman. He played hide-and-seek with the camera, popping his bald head into view from odd corners of the screen and waggling those eyebrows like the wings of a mudhen in flight.

1 ZeVan liked to plaster cornball jokes around the weather set so that you could read them as he walked from map to map. And he often twisted himself into such contortions while writing on the maps that he'd speak to the camera while peering from under his armpit. Coleman 5C Nick Coleman VvF.yX Barry 83-year-old Helen Hayes delivers powerful message about aging considered to have been one of 1 Hayes's most illustriousshe recreated the queen's 64-year reign more than 900 times in 43 cities between 1935 and 1939. Hayes's performance, before 1 ,300 Mayo Clinic staff members and friends, was intended to illustrate the unseen problems of aging. The reading in Rochester was part of a Mayo Clinic educational series called Insight, in which well-known performers use readings to illustrate human problems that doctors may not be aware of in their patients.

In a similar performance in 1 98 1 Jason Robards performed scenes from Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh," which dealt with alcoholism and denial. ByBIIIMcAuliffe Southern Minnesota Correspondent Rochester, Minn. She can no longer age half a century in i several acts, as she once could. But that was one of two aspects of Helen Hayes's re-reading of the role of England's Queen Victoria: to reveal the confines of old age and yet show how powerful an 83-year-old actress can be. Hayes, whose name has dominated American theater for most of the past 50 years, appeared in Rochester Tuesday night with actress Mildred Natwick and actor Fritz Weaver to read parts of Laurence Housman's "Victoria Regina." The role of the English queen is "Medical education now is such an avalanche of scientific information that it cuts into the amount of time health professionals have to develop other things," said Mary Adams Martin, Insight project director and after-care coordinator in the clinic's chemical dependency program.

"Education still has to be concerned with that personal touch. 'We're trying to give people a vicarious experience, show them now it feels to be already old," Martin said. The performance was broken into seven scenes, interspersed with remarks by Dr. Wendell Swenson of the clinic's department of psychiatry and psychology. The scenes begin with Victoria, at age 42, mourning the death of her husband, Prince Albert, and show her periodically until she celebrates her 60th year on the throne in 1897.

They show her dealing with changes in her appearance, as well as in customs and her own religious beliefs But a standing ovation at the end of the performance Tuesday night appeared to be more for the players than for the educational purpose of their visit. "The play itself fits well the many concepts we need to highlight for the medical staff," Swenson said in an interview Wednesday. "And having Helen Hayes available made it a natural. In the play we see there have been very capable old people through history. And her abilities exemplify the things we talk about." For the performance, the players remained seated on stage, reading their parts in a set dominated by a Persian rug hanging behind the queen's throne.

Some microphone problems and the absence of a scene from Hayes's script were easily forgiven by the audience as well as by Hayes herself. Martin said future Insight programs dealing with suicide and chronic pain and addiction are being considered. i "It's very important the acting be top-notch," she said. "The things we're talking about are subtleties. The whole thing is educational.

It has the air of theater, but the point is that many play wrights had great insight into human problems. We're just looking to the artists to help us.".