Word: sitcoms
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RETIRING. Michael J. Fox, 38, actor who is suffering from Parkinson's disease; from the TV sitcom Spin City to work toward a cure for the illness...
...will these writers get to tell their stories? A recent controversy on UPN's family sitcom Moesha suggests that defining "the black experience" is thorny even on a show with nine black writers. As the title character (played by Brandy) moved on to college, the network sought to add gritty elements to make the squeaky-clean comedy more "relevant" by considering storylines about sex and gangs. One of the show's creators, Vida Spears, resisted the changes and was forced to leave...
...genius. "It makes you the one buffalo that isn't there when the Indians run the rest of them off the cliff." That, or it makes you the easiest target for sharpshooters; whoever coined the term "gifted" clearly never received a wedgie for being a brain. As the oddball sitcom Malcolm in the Middle (Fox, Sundays, 8:30 p.m. E.T.) shows, being pegged as special is more a "gift" in a Let's Make a Deal sense. Behind one door is advantage and opportunity; behind another, humiliation and alienation. (Look what it did for Anakin Skywalker...
...hungry kids who broke everything." His script charmed Fox entertainment president Doug Herzog, who committed to 13 episodes despite the show's cost (shot with a single camera for a more cinematic look, it costs about $1 million an episode, compared with at least $750,000 per half-hour sitcom). The producers launched a nationwide search for Boomer's megabrained alter ego and found Muniz on the second day. "We were distrustful because it happened so fast," Boomer says. "Frankie doesn't have those bad habits that most kid actors have. He has a great sense of timing...
Susan Colgate and John Johnson are two former Hollywood luminaries, on the verge of becoming trivia questions, who share a history of disappearing. She, a faded sitcom actress and the erstwhile beauty queen of the title, once emerged unscathed from a plane crash, taking advantage of her freak escape to go into temporary hiding and watch coverage of her "death" on tabloid TV ("A small-town girl makes it big and then small again"). He, a producer of Bruckheimeresque action flicks (e.g., Bel Air PI) starring guns, aliens and lame one-liners, once walked away--literally--from his life...