Ruffled Peacock feathers

Yesterday's discussion of failed pilots led blog reader Todd Everett mentioning the Preview House on Sunset Blvd. where pilots used to be audience tested.  I know it well.  In 1974 during one of my many out-of-work periods as a disc jockey, I worked in the research department of NBC.  This was during pilot season.  I got to see the process firsthand... and cause a major shitstorm that rose to the level of network president.  More about that in a minute.

As Todd noted, a Mr. Magoo cartoon was shown first to get a sense of how lively the audience was.  At the time we were told this was particular cartoon had never been released so audience members were seeing it for the first time.  That's assuming no audience member ever went to the Preview House twice, and based on the sorry batch we showed them that year, I don't know why any of them would ever want to return. 

The pilot I remember most was FRAUD SQUAD starring Frank Sinatra Jr.  This was a spin off of ADAM 12 (produced by Jack Webb) and to this day I believe it was the worst testing show in history. Not only did the audience not like Frank Sinatra Jr. as the head of the LAPD Fraud Squad, they felt he was dishonest,   That's not good for the lead in a crime stopper show.   Others we tested included DOCTOR DOMINGO with Desi Arnaz (trading in Lucy for a talking parrot), the THE BOB CRANE SHOW (Crane goes back to college, coeds beware). NBC was in a big slump and their development slate was a pack of dogs. 

Now the major incident I caused.

One night during this testing period NBC aired a MOW called “A Case of Rape” starring Elizabeth Montgomery. It got huge numbers. So as a goof I wrote an internal memo to the research department recommending NBC do this as a weekly series.  Hey, I was a kid. 

Well, somehow the memo got out and was released to all department heads including the President of the network, Marvin Antonowsky. He was known as the “Mad Programmer”. Probably that incident is how he got his name. Marvin went bat shit. I was summoned to his office to make a formal apology. Wisely, I did not take that opportunity to drop off my spec script.

My tenure at NBC ended a couple of weeks later when I got a disc jockey job in Detroit. And that ended my venture into the corporate world. But who knows? If I didn’t make that faux pas maybe I would have risen up through the ranks. After 40 years I bet I'd be Vice President of Children’s Programming today.