No Time for Comedy

Will the new TV season feature the same old guns, rape, murder and arson? Yup. But with a difference. This fall the networks have agreed that between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern Time (6 to 8 Central Tune) is to be "family time," when Mom, Pop, the kids and Rover can cluster round the tube assured that they are not going to be shocked or scared. The very notion summons up classic adventure stories and young people's concerts. Is TV finally beginning to grow up?

Not a bit of it. Family tune is a cynical compromise reached by the FCC and the networks to deflect mounting protests, in and out of Congress, about the rising tide of TV violence. Criticism peaked last fall when NBC aired at 8 p.m. a seamy story (Born Innocent) about a rebel teen-ager who was raped with a broom handle. With a glow of virtue, the networks "voluntarily" agreed to police themselves with their own censors and wrote into the National Association of Broadcasters' television code what amounts to a rule clearly intended to ban sex and violence from the air between 7 and 9. For audiences this simply means that most cops and robbers are now pushed back to 9 p.m. In their place the networks are busy emasculating the medium's most promising genre, the situation comedy, into appropriate pap.

Chuckles Curtailed. "It's like a knee in the groin of social criticism," says Norman Lear, who only 5 1/2 years ago launched TV's new wave of frankness with All in the Family. Since then, sitcoms have laughed at almost everything: there was Maude's abortion, Archie's bigotry, and Rhoda and the Pill. The family laughed with them. Now it will find its chuckles curtailed. All in the Family, TV's No. 1 show last season in its 8 p.m. slot on Saturdays, has been moved to Monday at 9 p.m. Lear has been told that most of last year's episodes were not family fare. Rhoda, scheduled for family time, is feeling the censor's breath. Says Rhoda Executive Producer Allan Burns: "Rhoda and Joe may give the impression that although they are newlyweds, sex is a thing of the past." Another family-time show, M*A*S*H, has for the first time in three years had trouble with the word virgin. CBS censors took it out, saying, "A parent might be asked to explain what it means to a younger member of the family."

New shows are having an even tougher passage. Phyllis, starring Cloris Leachman, and Fay, with Lee Grant, came close to never getting on the air at all. Phyllis Executive Producer Ed Weinberger almost choked when CBS meddled with the pilot, in which the widowed Phyllis suspects her 17-year-old daughter of having an affair. Says Phyllis, as she ends an explanatory phone conversation with her daughter: "Nothing happened--if she is telling the truth." CBS cut the tag line.

NBC objected to a romantic situation merely implied in Fay's pilot. Says Grant, who plays a divorcee with three kids, "I can't have affairs, only serious relationships." But even they are risky. In another episode, Fay goes out with a man who has no sexual interest in her. The network had a fit. Says one frustrated scriptwriter: "They want to return to shows like Leave It to Beaver--except that that title would never get past the censors."

Steamy Climate. With a double standard worthy of Hollywood's old Hays Office, the networks have apparently raised few objections to the season's seven new crime shows. They start at 9, which is shown by Nielsen to be almost as much of a children's viewing hour as family time. There is no indication either that the censors so much as raise an eyebrow at the lubricious exchanges that enliven family-time game shows like Hollywood Squares.

Norman Lear suggests that "sex and violence are a smokescreen. There are interests in this country that don't care to have fun made about the problems existing in society." He has another problem too. He stood to make a bundle when All in the Family finally went off network TV and was sold for syndication to local stations. Now he may make a good deal less. The prime hour for syndicated shows is 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., when networks and their affiliates air news and local programs. That is the only time when independents feel they are competitive, and they are willing to pay a lot for a show. But All in the Family is ineligible for that time slot. So are crime series. Quinn Martin, who produces The Streets of San Francisco and Cannon, predicts: "It's going to force the networks into giving producers more money to make these shows if we can't make any money from syndication."

That threat raises the faint hope that a few years of family time might drive some crime shows off the air. What is more likely, however, is that local stations will simply abandon the optional N.A.B. code. After all, cops and robbers are the most popular enduring fare. Now, in the steamy climate of lost tempers, producers of all kinds are discussing lawsuits. One approach is on constitutional grounds: family time violates the First Amendment. The second involves an antitrust action that the networks' agreement to ban violent shows from early prime time amounts to collusion. In the fuss, the original issue of violence on TV has been lost. Another loser may well be the fresh, funny irreverence of the sitcoms that for only a brief span of time has lit the wasteland.

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