OCR Text |
Show by Joey Sasso CONFIDENTIAL REPORT: Network censors may well be the most powerful group of men and women on television. But often these guardians of public morals can go a little too far. These censors can require producers to delete words, change scenes and cancel whole program segments if they find something 'unacceptable.' Some of the things they've found 'unacceptable' in recent years include: An ABC censor edited out an incident in which a cartoon character was knocked down by a giant wave. CBS-TV once ordered writers for 'The Waltons' to dump a script dealing with menopause. The expression 'Scoobie Doobie Brothers' used on a segment of 'Laugh In' resulted in a parental supervision tag being slapped on the series. A 'Mork & Windy' script poking fun at advertisers was rejected. On the series 'Soap' the ABC-TV censors figured it was perfectly alright for the transvestite character Jodie to put on one of his mother's dresses. But those same censors blew the whistle when 'normal' Cornne was supposed to try to seduce her 'normal' boyfriend. And sometimes censors will make trade-offs with the producers, according to Earl Holliman of 'Police Woman.' "They'd ask us to take out a shoot and offer us an extra smash up in its place." TV TICKER: Soon-to-be-father John Ritter is taking his role as expectant dad very seriously. The ABC-TV 'Three's Company' star and wife, Nancy, are attending childbirth classes together. And John plans on, being present at the delivery . . . Everybody on CBS-TV's Dallas' set knows that Charlene Tilton is a big fan of Barbra Streisand. So when Patrick Duffy saw the f azzled-haired songstress leaving the MGM commissary the other day, he raced over, grabbed her tray of left-overs and took it back to his co-star. Charlene. only half-kiddingly. says she ll have the relic encased in glass . . . Valerie Harper says she is a size 4 and weighs 115 to 118 pounds, and those facts amaze hec. As 'Rhoda' on television, Valerie says she battled blubber for nine years, the kind that brings a 5-foot-6 frame up to 160 pounds. The war on calories went on in real life, too. "All those 'fat' jokes in the script hit home." When the last 'Rhoda' episode was filmed in November of 1978. Valerie weighed 134 pounds. To get her anatomy ready for a swimsuit sequence for a new movie, she rang up Tony Cacclotti, actor, gymnast and fitness consultant. She says he changed not only her body, but her life. CELEBRITIES IN CANDID: Max Gail, who portrays Det. Woiohowiecz on TV's popular 'Barney Miller' series, confirms that "I have heard from a Polish anit-defamation anit-defamation organization." The group feels that the character of 'Wojo' reinforces 'negative stereotypes' about people of Polish heritage, but the voluble actor isn't buying that viewpoint. "I think they are totally off base." he said. "Our show does not demean Polish people. If it did. I'd take a walk. Some people look at things in a very narrow light, so if you show, say. a black man drinking, they feel you're somehow saying all blacks drink. You know how unions and organizations like this are. They sometimes have to create situations so it looks like they're doing their jobs." . . . 'Edward and Mrs. Simpson,' a dramatic reconstruction of the events leading up to King Edward VIM's abdication and his marriage to Wallis Simpson, a Baltimore divorcee, is seen on the Mobil Showcase Network Wednesdays. Starring in this series is award-winning British actor Edward Fox and Cynthia Harris. The six-part series is hosted by TV journalist and news analyst Robert MacNeil. The story, based on historian Lady Frances Donaldson's best-selling biography. 'Edward VIII,' depicts the growth of the relationship between the famous couple. |