LOS ANGELES TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1988

An Insider's Report on the Death of 'Wilton North' - Continued, Part II

By PAUL KRASSNER

Beginning on Monday, Nov. 23, one week before "TheWilton North Report" was scheduled to premiere, we had a run-through of a complete show each night to see what worked and what didn't. The set itself had all the charm of a yuppie prison yard. The Guys would be leaning against a rail, overlapping torsos so they could both fit into a two-shot frame, allowing them to relate as though they were in a Siamese gay bar.
        A certain tension between some of the writers and the Guys began to intensify. The writers weren't comfortable writing for The Guys. The Guys weren't comfortable speaking the writers' words. And it made many writers squirm to watch The Guys gesticulate, condescend and trivialize their way through each hour.
        The Guys felt that the writers were submitting material too sophisticated for mass audiences. They insisted on getting writer credits since they participated in the process of changing the writers' words. Indeed, for Wednesday's run-through, they wrote their own opening segment, the sole point of which was a misperception of a photo of Li Peng, the new Chinese acting premier, as a photo of Howdy Doody. Then came a segue from Mars.
        Paul:    "Speaking of China, Phil, can you order Chinese food in prison?"
        Phil:     "Y'know, Paul, I don't know. Why would you ask shuch a question?"
        Paul:    "Well, Nancy Collins will be interviewing Katya Komisaruk, a peace activist who's facing a 10-year sentence for destroying an Air Force computer."
        Nancy Collins and Barry had been friends for 15 years. She had never done live TV interviews before. Now she was supposed to probe heavily within seven minutes. Her first question was, "Why would somebody so young and pretty like yourself put yourself in such a position where you might go to prison for 10 years?"
        And later: "Aren't you scared about going to prison?"
        "I don't want to go to prison. I want to stay home, and be with my friends, and my mother. But I know that this is important enough that it's worth it for me to risk some time out of my life rather than risk the deaths of so many people."
        "You know, terrible things can happen to an attractive young woman in prison. . . ."
        After the interview, The Guys interviewed the interviewer about the interview while the interviewee watched in the Green Room.
        Paul:    "I admire Katya's courage. She took a big chance and she stood up for what she believed in. Having said that - is Katya a nut?"
        Nancy:  "No, I don't think she's a nut. I think she's the last of the bleeding heart liberals. I mean it's not chic to be liberal now, it's not the'60s, people are not applauding these kinds of actions."
        Paul:    "We got some writers you should talk to. . . ."
        Phil:     "This woman strikes me as monumentally naive. I mean all that's gonna happen from this is that Katya's gonna go to jail. And, you know, the nice thing about this, Nancy, is, who knows, we may be seeing Katya right here on Fox in "Women in Prison."
        In the Green Room, Katya didn't exactly flash a friendly smile at the guys on the monitor.

        Barry had asked me to do a commentary in the evening's run-through.
        "I'm here to say that marijuana rots your brain," I began. "I speak from personal experience. Recently I was experimenting with pot - and suddenly I had this weird hallucination. I saw Mr. Potato Head surrendering his pipe to Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. It all seemed too real."
        I went on to describe further experiments and hallucinations. "The evil weed was destroying my sense of reality. So I think it's a good thing we found out about Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg smoking those joints. His mind was also totally destroyed by marijuana. Why else would he squelch a Public Health Service Study on the impact of federal budget cuts on infant mortality?"
        And I concluded: "On my last experiment with pot, I hallucinated that Ronald Reagan was holding this live turkey and telling it he didn't know if he would grant a pardon to Oliver North and John Poindexter. The turkey, in turn, suggested that Reagan should compromise by following the example of Mr. Potato Head and taking away Poindexter's pipe."
        Barry said, "I don't think we can get away with the pot stuff. There's a law against that at NBC."
        "Barry, we're not at NBC." I was ready to quit. Hardly anything I wrote was getting into the script, and now I wouldn't be able to speak my own words. "I'm confused. You said you wanted me to do a hard-hitting, funny commentary . . . ."
        "Don't be confused," he said. "You're right. If we can't do it on Fox, where can we do it?"

        Barry was so concerned with being innovative that many suggestions fell through the cracks.
        Merrill Markoe could not be a host because she was too associated with the Letterman show. Yet we did have Dr. Barry Bloom, a cosmetic dentist, as a guest, with The Guys grilling him about whether or not there is an anti-tartar gel.
        We could not document a woman who collected lint from dryer machines, color-coded it, and made collages, because it was "too 'P.M. Magazine.'" But it was acceptable to have a correspondent go shopping for expensive luxury items and ask each salesperson if this car or that painting would impress her friends.
        Barry wanted to reach a young audience, but he turned down as an interview subject Jello Biafra, lead vocalist for the Dead Kennedys, who was spearheading the campaign against rock censorship. Yet he took on as a regular field reporter venerable physical-fitness expert Jack LaLanne.
        The Guys tried to get Barry to bring down the level of material, and he tried to get them to stop sounding so shrill.
        The show had started out as a vehicle for contemporary satire but was turning into a conveyor belt of refried cotton candy.