Norman Lear by Kevin Parry/ WireImage.com
Iconic television producer Norman Lear is going cable. Lear, who was the force behind such classics as All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Sanford and Sons, will develop a "character-driven" pro wrestling series for the cabler, according to The Hollywood Reporter.Set in the 1970s in New York, the tentatively titled Everybody Hurts will focus on a family operating a pro-wrestling business and will also delve into the hard-knock lives of the wrestlers and their fans.Lear will executive produce the project with Lara Bergthold of his Act III Prods., while the script will be penned by Aaron Blitzstein (The Riches). — Joyce Eng
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Norman Lear by Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage.com
Folk singer Pete Seeger was a major part of the soundtrack of the '60s, backing up his music with a lifetime of tireless antiwar and environmental activism. As such he'll be the subject of the next American Masters, which premieres Feb. 27 on PBS. The executive producer of the film is another prominent progressive — legendary TV mogul and philanthropist Norman Lear. The producer of classic sitcoms such as All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time (we could go on) has been active in getting young people registered to vote. He still makes hits, too, but now it's for his label Concord Music Group (James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Paul McCartney are on his roster). He's also half-owner of Village Roadshow Pictures (which produced I Am Legend), and owns a copy of one of the world's most famous historical documents. The Biz recently checked in with him.TVGuide.com: You're certainly at a stage in life where you can be choosy about your projects — so why Pete Seeg...
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Norman Lear by Jaime McCarthy/WireImage.com
Is there a run on porkpie hats in Hollywood? It seems Norman Lear is making quite a comeback at this summer's press tour. Earlier at the TCAs, NBC announced that he will oversee the production of a new hourlong comedy. At a CBS session, Chuck Lorre told reporters how he recently turned to the legendary producer of All in the Family and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman for some wisdom on how to simultaneously run two sitcoms. (Lorre has the new Big Bang Theory joining Two and a Half Men on Monday nights for CBS.) But the advice was pretty short and simple. "He said ‘I basically worked like a dog,'" said Lorre. "I said, 'Thank you for your time.'" — Reporting by Stephen Battaglio
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Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, NBC
It was fair to wonder why NBC put Kevin Reilly in the executive ejector seat just after signing him to a new multi-year contract. After seeing the debut performance of his replacement, Ben Silverman, at the Television Critics Association press tour, we're not wondering anymore.Instead of doing a rope-a-dope with reporters because he's only been in the job a month, Silverman came out with guns blazing, firing off one programming announcement after another. He even made a deal with legendary sitcom producer Norman Lear. That's red meat for the TCA, since many of its members love TV the way it used to be.He's even ignored the mandate NBC chief
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Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, NBC Press Tour by Chris Haston/NBC
It was fair to wonder why NBC put Kevin Reilly in the executive ejector seat just after signing him to a new multiyear contract. But after seeing his replacement Ben Silverman's debut performance at the Television Critics Association press tour, we're not wondering anymore.Instead of the doing a rope-a-dope with reporters because he's only been in the job a month, Silverman came out with guns blazing, firing off one programming announcement after another. He even made a deal with legendary sitcom producer Norman Lear. That's red meat for the TCA, since many of its members love TV the way it used to be.He's even ignored the mandate that NBC chief Jeff Zucker publicly issued last year that the network was out of the business of programming 8 o'clock with new, expensive scripted sitcoms and dramas. The first scheduling move under Silverman's watch was moving the new, expensive scripted hi-tech thriller Chuck to Monday at 8, leading into Heroes and Journeyman and turning the night into ...
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The Singing Bee's Joey Fatone with The Honey Bees by Trae Patton/NBC Photo
He dropped names as diverse as Norman Lear, Uri Geller, Isaiah Washington and Jerry Seinfeld. He teased an all-celebrity version of The Apprentice (with a half-joking promise to extend an invitation to Rosie O’Donnell). In describing his vision for NBC's immediate and long-term future, the network’s boyish new co-chair Ben Silverman showed his affinity for both packaging and programming TV in an enthusiastic debut performance in front of the nation’s TV critics on Monday morning.Though he took the stage alongside the relatively subdued co-chair Marc Graboff, whose expertise is on the business side, this was Silverman’s show all the way, and he wasted no time in announcing some surprising programming deals and a few aggressive scheduling changes, including turning Monday into an all-fantasy night and shifting Friday Night Lights an hour earlier on Fridays, so it’s now cozily hammocked between the strong franchises of a relocated Deal or No Deal and Las Vegas,...
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Jerry Seinfeld by Chris Haston/NBC Photo
A flurry of announcements from the Peacock regarding the upcoming season of television (in addition to Isaiah going Bionic, that is):• TV icon Norman Lear is producing an hourlong dramedy about a widowed mother who reenters the workforce and is thus pitted against her late husband's Wall Street adversaries.• Jerry Seinfeld will play himself on the Oct. 4 second-season opener of 30 Rock. Quips Tina Fey, "Finally, my parents have an excuse to watch the show." Love. Her.• My Name Is Earl and The Office will launch their new seasons on Sept. 27 with hourlong episodes.• The new series Chuck has been relocated to Mondays at 8, while Friday Night Lights has been moved up an hour to Fridays at 9. Leading out of FNL is Las Vegas, which returns Sept. 28 with a two-hour episode.• The Apprentice is returning with a "celebrity version" in which famous(ish) faces vie for the Donald's favor and in turn raise bucks for charity. Trump says this incarnation "will bring our wo...
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Rachael Ray has been renewed for two more batches, through the 2009-10 season. I'm a Giada man myself.... Norman Lear's Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman: Volume One arrives as a three-disc DVD on Mar. 27.... Per Reuters, ESPN has tapped Mike & Mike in the Morning hosts Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic to serve as its Arena Football League announcing team. (Arena football is back? Have I been under a rock?)
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Question: In your recent comments about the Parents Television Council, you made reference to people who wish that all TV looked like Nick at Nite. I understood your point. But it is interesting to note that Nick at Nite does show episodes of All in the Family and Good Times, two series that caused an uproar with groups like the PTC in the '70s, and has in the past run episodes of Maude, another controversial show. In fact, I was watching All in the Family the other night and thought that there was no way a show like that could make it to network TV today. As far as the PTC goes, it's pretty simple: If you don't like it, don't watch it. There is plenty of technology available to parents for blocking channels. For that matter, there is no law saying that one must own a TV. If it offends thee, pluck it out, as someone once said. Don't subject the rest of us to a worldview that sees Petticoat Junction as the zenith of American television.
Answer: Not that there's anything wrong with
...
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Clockwise (from left): Isabel Sanford, Franklin Cover, Roxie Roker, Sherman Hemsley, The Jeffersons
Question: Help me out here. I'm a big fan of The Jeffersons and I always thought the first actor who played Lionel left because of a swelled head, then came back when his solo career didn't take off. But my brother insists it was so that his brother could take over. Who's right?
Answer: Why, you are, Brenda, assuming you mean Mike Evans, who played young Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family and then on its Jeffersons spin-off. He left because of an inflated sense of self rather than a bump on the noggin. However, it's probably nicer to say he suffered from the inexperience of youth rather than to tar him with the ego brush. Of course, the actor himself took it a step further in 1980 and told TV Guide he was dar
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