Land o' lumps

Nick's TV Land caters to the inner couch potato

by Randee Dawn Cohen

In the beginning, there was television. And it was good. In time television begat reruns, and reruns begat syndication. And they, too, were good. But syndication ultimately meant only the most popular shows were kept around, until finally if you wanted to see a rerun circa pre-1990 you were stuck with whatever Channel 38 was dishing up -- M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers -- plus Star Trek. That was, until the success of Nick at Night, Nickelodeon's post-prime-time programming of classic television sit-coms. Now, to the delight of couch potatoes everywhere, Nick at Night has begat . . . TV Land.

A kind of American Movie Classics for television, TV Land is a channel dedicated entirely to reruns. From St. Elsewhere to Petticoat Junction, from The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour to Mannix, TV Land is a world unto itself, reveling in anachronisms, outdated hairstyles, and slowly deteriorating film stock. And it's pretty damn good.

TV Land is a universe of warm fuzzies and kitschy self-irony, a commercial-free dimension (at least for the first five years, or until a broader base of subscribers is reached) where even the "advertisements" are classics. Watching schoolchildren lip-synch "You've got the look I want to know better" may ring queasily of underage sex nowadays, but who can cluck when the kids all get up and start swaying to the rest of the Jordache song? And in keeping with the theme of its being a television world, TV Land has invented a do-all product called Twirp that serves as a bleach, carpet cleaner, air freshener, and potential food source -- even packaging it in retro-commercial style. There is one disturbing perception, however, that comes from watching old commercials: in the age of MTV, a one-minute ad drags like a mini-documentary.

Commercials aside, there is, of course, the programming, carefully packaged for your viewing pleasure. Although the hair and some of the make-up haven't aged well, shows like St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues are still compelling dramas and with hindsight can be enjoyed as the precursors to ER and Law & Order they were. Watching future movie stars like Denzel Washington and has-beens like Daniel J. Travanti carries with it the vicarious thrill of predestination. What cracks did the cast members of Hill Street disappear into, anyway?

TV Land has a soft spot for comedy that can work both for and against it. That Girl and The Addams Family still rustle up a few laughs, though television comedy is often a vintage savored by true fans. According to TV Land representatives, the shows that are now airing were chosen by Nick at Night fans; I can only assume someone was asleep at the switch for such duds as Petticoat Junction and Honey West. Most frightening is the return of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Who could watch Sonny in his platforms and handlebar moustache next to flat-haired, shiny Cher and not be rendered speechless at the notion that they were watching a future congressman and Academy Award nominee? This show hasn't aged well either; the detriments of a lack of cue cards are obvious as the couple ramble through jokes that were stale even then, delivering them with a latent meanness that takes a lot of the fun out of watching the program.

Right now, TV Land has a major problem: visibility. Nearly all its advertisements on other channels entreat viewers to add it to their basic service, though the prospect that eventually "real" commercials will be included doesn't make the idea of wiring it in very appealing to me. But there is another, more subtle problem, in that the network that is supposed to cherish old television shows is already finding ways to edit them shorter. According to a TV Land spokesperson, right now shows are edited only for content -- apparently some of Hill Street and St. Elsewhere still can't play to a non-prime-time audience, and it's alleged that no one would want to watch spinning plates on The Ed Sullivan Show. But when the next batch of shows that filter into the TV Land banks appear, these may find themselves edited for commercials. Which seems a crime -- if not a capital one, surely a breach of what a TV reruns channel's raison d'être should be. AMC doesn't cut Gone with the Wind and HBO doesn't trim Die Hard to fit in advertisements. Surely after all these years in cold storage, Mr. Ed and we couch potatoes deserve at least the same.