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From: tgd@clyde.UUCP (Thomas G. Dennehy)
Newsgroups: net.tv
Subject: Two Cheers for NBC
Message-ID: <182@clyde.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Sep-83 10:31:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: clyde.182
Posted: Wed Sep 28 10:31:38 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Sep-83 04:49:11 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs Whippany NJ
Lines: 47

Say It Ain't So (Part 1):

Reprinted (without permission) from AMERICAN FILM, Sept. 1983
--------------------------------------------------------------

The sitcom takes place in a Boston bar; the college-educated,
divorced young woman has just moved to Beantown and is desparate
for a job.  The bartender is skeptical, but when the would-be
waitress uses her photographic memory to repeat a ridiculously
long food-and-drink order, he hires her and she becomes part of
the regular crew of hard drinkers, lonely guys and space cadets
who frequent - no, not "Cheers," but "Park Street Under."

In September, 1979, Boston's WCVB-TV premiered the first and 
perhaps only locally produced television sitcom in America; during
its sole season, PSU won a prestigious Gabriel Award.  Then, last
year, the show's creators earned the dubious distinction of seeing
a network sticom called "Cheers" premiere with a format and cast
of characters eerily similar to those of PSU.  In June, the Television
Critics Association voted "Cheers" Best New Series of the 1982-83
season.

[It also won the Emmy for Best Comedy Series - submitter's note.]

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," says Cathy Perron, who
worked on PSU as associate producer at WCVB and is now program manager
at WPRI-TV is Providence, RI.  "We had a dream that our show would be
something like 'Cheers,' but we didn't have the money to make thaty
dream come true.  I'm just flattered that our ideas got realized by a
production company with the resources to do it right."  PSU was pro-
duced for an average of $15K per episode.  According to Richard A.
Weston, an executive of "Cheers" coproducer Paramount Television, a
typical episode of "Cheers" costs more than $300K.

Not everyone who worked on PSU is as diplomatic as Perron.  "I'm not
the kind of person who yells 'Lawsuit!'" says Arnie Reisman, who was a
story editor for the WCVB show, "but it is clear to me, having seen
both shows, that, if nothing else, there was an amazing amount of co-
incidence at work here.  It's her photographic memory that gets Shelly
Long the job on 'Cheers' just like on 'Park Street Under.'  The situ-
ation was exactly the same: you could have physically overlapped theris
with ours - she was even standing on the same spot on the set."

To be continued...

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	Tom Dennehy	AT&T BL	Whippany, NJ	{clyde!tgd}