LOS ANGELES TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1988

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

By PAUL KRASSNER

On Sunday morning, Nov. 29, Barry had breakfast with Fox executives. They felt that the show was unfunny, mean-spirited, and resorted to cheap jokes about people's looks.
        That afternoon - one day before we were scheduled to go on the air - Barry gathered the staff in the conference room.
        "The spirit of the meeting was friendly," he said. "They think the show is terrific. They think the news section is not terrific. I've tried for two months to make the news work at the top of the show. It doesn't work. It just plain and simply doesn't work. It is incongruous with Phil and Paul. We have two guys who are likeable, friendly guys who we present in the news section as unfriendly and unlikable."
        What Barry originally envisioned as the signature element of the show - the opening news segment - he was now dropping. We were thowing out the baby and keeping the bathwater.
        "The only way the show's gonna work is for Phil and Paul to be Phil and Paul. They are the franchise. I have guided everybody in the direction of ruining the careers of two nice guys. Our job now is finding ways to get people to like them. The show should be whimsical and lighthearted. It should not have a heavy hard edge. Barry Diller [Fox chairman] said to me, if I wanted to put the show on the way it is, I can. I have chosen to not go on the air Monday."
        Opening night was being postponed for a couple of weeks so that the writers and The Guys could become better acquainted.
        And the sweet potato was replaced by Maalox.

        It was never clear why Jodie Foster had been scheduled to be our first guest, but when the show was postponed, she had to go to Paris. Other guests just changed their minds and canceled out, from John DeLorean to Baba Ram Dass.
        We lost the President's son, Michael, reportedly because a Slansky joke about Nancy Reagan had been leaked to Michael's publicist. Still, hit man Jimmy (The Weasel) Frattiano kept his commitment to "The Wilton North Report" if not the Mafia.
        The writers were still complaining about the blandness of the hosts. "They're gonna give white bread a bad name."
        "Let's make it real clear," said Barry. "I'm sticking with these guys. It's two straight white guys surrounded by madness. So let's find the madness."

        Later, in my office, he asked me how I thought we could make the show more compelling. I gave my weekly suggestion that he let political satirist Harry Shearer do the news segment. Barry said, "I've talked with Harry, but he wants to do characters. That's too sketchy. We have to be a reality-based show."
        I picked up a book. "This is by Aaron Freeman. He performs with Second City in Chicago. He's done commentaries on 'MacNeil/Lehrer.'" I turned the book over to show his picture. "And he's black."
        Barry smiled. "A black couldn't hurt."
        He looked at Freeman's tape, then flew him in like an ebony messiah. He would present an irreverent look at the news at the front of the show every night. Then it became a commentary at the back of the show three times a week. Then once a week.
        Next came award-winning investigative reporter Stan Bohrman to do the news at the front of the show with The Guys reacting to it. "Stan Bohrman is 'The Wilton North Report,' Barry declared.
        But Bohrman was reduced from a three-minute newscast to five seconds about the summit conference, only to be stopped by The Guys and used as a lead-in for them to talk about the President's dog. Bohrman complained, "I'm in a suit looking somewhat like a newsman, but I'm a straight man to their bad jokes. I wasn't hired for that.

        On Friday, Dec. 11, we went on the air, ready or not. Yup, there were The Guys, explaining how to tell them apart: "I am Paul, I'm not as tall. He is Phil, he's got the big bill."
        Nancy Collins interviewed Gary Hart's 23-year-old daughter, Andrea; this was a few days before he announced his re-entry into the presidential race.
        Question:    "When your father had to pull out of the race, he disappointed a lot of people who had worked for him, and he certainly probably disappointed people who were even closer to him. Aren't you angry with him?"
        Answer:    "There's no anger, there's no anger at all."
        Q:   "Really?"
        A:    "Yes."
        Q:    "You weren't disappointed by any of his actions that caused him to pull out of the race?"
        A:    "Uh -"
        Q:    "He has said actually that in terms of the whole Donna Rice thing that he did not have an intimate relationship with Donna Rice. Do you believe that?"
        A:    "It's none of my business. I've listened to whatever he said and I believe whatever he said."
        Q:    "I guess it's a little odd to me that there wouldn't be some doubt, given the situation."
        A:    "No, there's no doubt at all . . . ."
        On the second show, Nancy Collins interviewed producer Allan Carr.
        Q:    "Now Joan Rivers just sued Gentleman's Quarterly for some $50 million. And you were in this article. So what's the story here? What is she complaining about?"
        A:    "Well, I can't say because I'm one of the two people named as being at this event, and I don't know who wrote this or what went on, and so I can't say anything because it'll probably be legally - hello - that was it, I was there, I don't know anything yet."
        Q:    "But do you?"
        A:    "I don't. I don't know if I'm supposed to know anything or not yet. I haven't been told what I'm supposed to know yet, but someone will tell me."

        The next day, Fox's legal department sent out a memo requesting that "at no time shall Joan Rivers' name be mentioned on the show or to the press due to a legal stipulation in her settlement agreement."
        The criterion for reality-based comedy had entered a gray area as a Pee-wee Herman doll was interviewed and an electric toaster possessed by the devil produced a slice of toast with the message "Go to Hell" branded on it.
        The reviews of the show were devastatingly fair.
        "If it wasn't my show," said Barry, "I'd be laughing at me."
        Representing his fellow writers, Billy Kimball told Barry they felt they could no longer write for The Guys and posed the hypothetical situation that the writers would quit en masse if the hosts remained.
        "Then the writers will have to go." Barry called their bluff. "It's Phil and Paul's show."
        And somehow it continued, with the momentum of an awful marriage where it's too late to back out because the ring has been purchased, the invitations mailed, the caterer hired, the flowers ordered, even though the wedding ceremony is really just a premature funeral.