Word: fernwood
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...Talk Show, a syndicated late-night half-hour, is homemade in a literal sense. The premise is a throwback to that old Mary Hartman spinoff, Fernwood 2-Night: a housewife (Cynthia Stevenson) in the little town of Derby, Wis., has turned her living room into the set for a nightly talk show. It's a homey affair: her brother-in-law is the announcer; gray-haired Mrs. Battle, her old school nurse, is musical director; neighbors drop by to chat. So do real-life celebrities such as William Shatner and Florence Henderson...
What began as a defiant form of anti-shtik has become a dominant mode in the funny-peculiar '80s. It is saturating the big screen with the films of Albert Brooks (the mime), Steve Martin (funny balloon animals), Murray Langston (the paper-bagged Unknown Comic), Martin Mull (the Fernwood 2-Night talk-show host), Andy Kaufman (heterosexual wrestling), Lily Tomlin (Wayne Newton) and the now-ready-for-prime-time cutups of NBC's Saturday Night Live. It took over TV years ago-in 1975, when S.N.L. hit the air and became a focal point for the new comedy...
...between--with Chinese flint boxes, fernwood statues and Ashanti artifacts in the window--sits TePaske and Hurst, the art gallery that opened last fall in the building that for 50 years had housed the Gold Coast Laundry...
...writer, centers the action on two related Connecticut families, the rich Tates and working-class Campbells, whose flaky members collectively include philandering and impotent husbands, bored and batty housewives, nymphomaniac children, a senile grandfather-and so on. Most of these types have counterparts in Mary Hartman's Fernwood, Ohio, but Soap's characters are flimsy replicas of the originals...
...After being stopped for speeding down Main Street, Morton Rose was brought on the show to further the spirit of ecumenism. The producers figured no one in tiny, inbred Fernwood had ever seen a Jew and that seeing one would erase unfortunate stereotypes. "What tribe are you from?" asked Hubbard. "I'm originally from Toledo," answered Rose, eager to help. At that point Garth turned the program over to "Talk-to-a-Jew" and let the viewing audience into the act. "I'd like to know why Mr. Rose isn't wearing a beanie," said one woman...