from Article at http://www.newstimes.com/archive/jul.3096/tve.htm
Television News July 30, 1996
ABC hopes to lure kids back to its Friday-night `TGIF' lineup By Manuel Mendoza
Dallas Morning News
PASADENA, Calif. - For those who think ABC is going to sit back while ratings for its Friday-night kid comedies flounder, the network has two words for you: As if!
This fall, ABC is adding a TV version of the hit film ``Clueless'' and a series based on the comic-book ``Sabrina, the Teenage Witch'' to its ``TGIF'' lineup.
``The number of kids and teens watching TGIF has gone down, down, down, down,'' network entertainment chairman Ted Harbert said in an interview this week during the semi-annual gathering of TV critics outside Los Angeles. ``They didn't go to `The X-Files,' they didn't go to any other network. They just went away, and we need to get them to come back.''
The strategy: Move away from the nuclear-family-in-the-living-room style of comedy that has defined TGIF since it began in the late '80s and toward more sophistication. To that end, both new shows will be shot on film instead of videotape, and ``Clueless'' will be filmed with one camera, like a movie.
Nell Scovell, one of the executive producers of ``Sabrina,'' has been a writer for ``Newhart,'' ``Coach,'' ``The Simpsons,'' ``The Critic,'' ``Murphy Brown'' and ``Late Night With David Letterman.'' The idea is to draw not only teen-agers and their younger brothers and sisters, but parents as well. After all, they're the viewers whom advertisers are most anxious to reach.
``I think one of the reasons they wanted my sensibility was to bring a different level of comedy to that lineup,'' Scovell says.
Clueless concerns the adventures of a shop-aholic rich girl who manages to find time in her busy schedule to solve her schoolmates' problems. In the pilot, her biggest obstacle is that her father has put her on a budget.
Amy Heckerling, who directed the movie version, is the show's executive producer and plans to use the same pastel-drenched graphics that gave the film an appealing visual look.
Alicia Silverstone is too hot for TV right now, so the lead role went to Rachel Blanchard, best known as one of the stars of the Nickelodeon series ``Are You Afraid of the Dark?''
Another Nickelodeon actress, Melissa Joan Hart of ``Clarissa Explains It All,'' plays the title character in ``Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,'' who gains superpowers after her 16th birthday. ``Sabrina'' was made into a movie for Showtime last season.
She is overseen by two aunts (stand-up comic Caroline Rhea and Beth Broderick of ``The Five Mrs. Buchanans''); her dad, played by Robby Benson; and a witches' council that includes Penn Jillette of the Penn and Teller magic act and rock singer Deborah Harry. Special effects will also play a large role.
``All of these elements are very different from what we have now, from wardrobe to use of language to types of stories,'' Harbert says. ``The `Clueless' language is certainly different than what you hear on `Step by Step,'' the attitudes of the characters. There's more irreverence.''
But not too much. ``Clueless'' will lose the movie's references to pot smoking, and the protagonists will not be sexually active. And ``Sabrina'' will steer clear of devil references and pentagrams.
``As much fun as we have with this kind of frothy world, we're still very attentive to underlying values,'' says ``Clueless'' co-executive producer and head writer Pamela Pettler. ``You can get the edginess without being about drugs. You can get the edginess by having it be an attitude. You can be sexy without being sexually active.
``We want kids to enjoy the show, but we want parents to feel comfortable with the show, too. I think the key to bringing people in is to write honestly, to write from our heart, not to write from some imagined formula.''
``Clueless'' and ``Sabrina'' will occupy the middle of the Friday prime-time schedule, 8:30 and 9, with ``Family Matters'' continuing to lead off the night at 8. ``Boy Meets World'' will move to 9:30.
The four kidcoms that ABC started last season with - ``Family Matters,'' ``Boy Meets World,'' ``Step by Step'' and ``Hangin' With Mr. Cooper'' - fell more than 10 percent in the ratings. The network tried to spruce up the lineup with two midseason series from the Muppet factory, ``Muppets Tonight!'' and ``Aliens in the Family,'' but those shows did even worse.
``Step by Step'' and ``Hangin' With Cooper'' did not make the fall schedule, though they remain in production as backups.
``As in all genres, they fade after a while,'' Harbert says. ``We wanted to do shows that would be more attractive to the kids and teens of the '90s.''
(c) 1996, The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-07-29-96 1258EDT
Eric Last, November 8th 1996