Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Lateline: Al Franken

Lateline ran from March 1998 until March 1999 on NBC.

Newsroom comedy set behind the scenes of a Washington, D.C., nightly newscast resembling ABC's Nightline. If this is how Nightline is produced, however, it is a wonder it ever got on the air. Al Freundlich ( Al Franken) was the nerdy, clueless correspondent in hornrimmed glasses who in his own mind represented the torch of journalistic integrity, while everyone around him considered him an idiot. Others in the newsroom included Gale ( Megyn Price), Al's savy producer; Vic ( Miguel Ferrer), the intense sometimes sadistic boss; Pearce ( Robert Foxworth), the dapper, vain anchorman; Mona ( Catherine Lloyd Burns), Pearces's sycophantic assistant; Briana( Sanaa Lathan), the wisecracking show booker; and Raji( Ajay Naidu), the unbelievably eager-to-please news intern. Lending an ear of reality ( or unreality?) were appearances by real Washington politicians as themselves, among them former presidential canidate Michael Dukakis, gay rights proponet Candace Gingrich, consumer activist Ralph Nader and the entire fractious McLaughlin Group.

A Review From South Coast Today

Al Franken goes for laughs, not politics, in 'Lateline'

By Lynn Elber, Associated Press television writer

Al Franken, who gave us the book "Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot and Other Observations," insists that "Lateline," his new NBC sitcom, isn't political.
Yes, the series loosely based on ABC's "Nightline" is set in Washington. Yes, a number of political figures including Congressmen Richard Gephardt and Barney Frank and Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy make appearances.

But Franken says he wants "Lateline" to be a classic, character-based sitcom, not a political science lesson -- and definitely not a left-wing tract.
"I hate liberal TV shows. I hate when shows say they're liberal," he said. "They usually don't do it well. Also, when comedy shows proselytize they're usually not funny.
"If anybody takes it on the chin in this show it's probably the media. ... But I don't think it's appropriate for this show to be about my political values," Franken said.
The comedy, which debuts 9:30 p.m. Tuesday on NBC, stars Franken as the earnest and painfully untelegenic Al Freundlich. He's a "Lateline" correspondent who longs to be king -- read "anchorman" -- while carrying the flame of journalistic integrity.
That glamour spot, however, is filled by Pearce McKenzie (Robert Foxworth), who has the requisite combination of polished air, voice and arrogance. He's not a Ted Koppel parody, says John Markus, who, along with Franken, created and produces "Lateline."
"Our anchor is an amalgam of many anchors. He's venal. He's elegant in the way that James Bond is elegant," said Markus.
Also part of the newsroom landscape are Miguel Ferrer as the savvy producer in charge of "Lateline," and Megyn Price as the patient producer in charge of Freundlich.
To steep themselves in the atmosphere of a nightly news show, Franken and staff spent time in the offices of "Nightline."
"We wanted to be grounded in some reality, to do a workplace comedy where we understood what their actual work was. What we saw there was how exciting it is to get a show on every night," said Franken.
As with "Nightline," the sitcom's news staff scrambles to put together programs on issues or breaking stories. But don't look for highly topical references in "Lateline": the six episodes NBC has ordered were taped months ago.
The sitcom makes lighthearted use of its serious guests. In one episode, Gephardt and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich are set to appear as part of a strike story but end up as Buddy Hackett pundits for a misguided profile of the comedian. A Gephardt-Reich duet on "Shipoopi," Hackett's number from the 1962 movie "The Music Man," ensues.
"We want to show people being themselves and write things appropriate for them. Their politics don't come into play," Markus said.
The ultimate goal is to appeal both to viewers plugged into politics and those who couldn't pick Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich out of a police lineup.
It's like his Limbaugh book, Franken says; "You really didn't have to know much about politics to read the book and enjoy it. But if you did, you enjoyed it maybe a little bit more."
"Lateline" is a change of pace for the nasal-voiced comedian with the puckish grin. He earned his own live-TV stripes as a longtime writer-player for "Saturday Night Live" and regularly dabbles in political satire, including election commentary for Comedy Central.
Franken spun his Stuart Smalley character, a self-affirmation activist, into a 1992 book ("I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough and Doggone It, People Like Me") and a 1995 movie, then took on right-wing radio host Limbaugh in the 1996 best seller.
As much as Franken delights in advocacy comedy, he confesses he's a softie for the fluffier side of TV.
"My fondest moments of childhood were watching TV with my dad and seeing comics like Buddy Hackett make my dad laugh. And sitcoms, too, like 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' and 'Sgt. Bilko.' "
His "Lateline" already has gotten one important thumbs-up: Franken screened it for first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House.
"She laughed a lot. She said she'd show it to the president," Franken said.
Could Clinton be a future guest?
"It'd be a pretty big favor to ask," he said.

An Article from The New York Times

COVER STORY; Reflex Reaction: The Funny Bone of the 90's

By ELIZABETH KOLBERT
Published: May 3, 1998

Do you find the proliferation of cable stations funny? Do you smile at the idea of Julia Roberts seated at the same table as Norm Ornstein?

NBC executives apparently were betting that you would, when they put ''Lateline'' on their schedule. The series, broadcast for six episodes this spring and likely to return in the fall, is yet another television show set behind the scenes at a television show, this time a late-night news program, a la ''Nightline.'' Before shooting the pilot, the creators of the show, Al Franken and John Markus, spent several weeks in the ''Nightline'' Washington studio and borrowed everything they could, from the snappy theme song to the split-screen talking heads to the furnishings in Ted Koppel's office.

They even borrowed a fair number of Mr. Koppel's guests. In its first few episodes, ''Lateline'' featured cameos by a half-dozen political players, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich; Richard Gephardt, House minority leader, and G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate conspirator turned radio talk-show host. Dressed in a hospital gown, Representative Barney Frank appeared to relate how he and half of Congress had been knocked out by a noxious gas released on the House floor.

''Lateline'' enters at the crest -- a little after the crest, really -- of self-reflexive programming. Much as cowboys ruled in the late 1950's or escapist fantasies flourished in the late 70's, television programming about television programming has been the mainstay of the 90's, providing many of the decade's biggest hits, including ABC's ''Home Improvement,'' CBS's ''Murphy Brown'' and HBO's ''Larry Sanders Show.'' Nominally about nothing, NBC's ''Seinfeld'' got a big push from the story line replaying its own conception. And while it wasn't strictly about producing television, MTV's ''Beavis and Butt-head,'' like Fox's ''Simpsons,'' was all about watching it.

To be sure, there has always been self-reflexivity on television. Almost 50 years ago, George Burns was in the know enough to turn on the tube to discover how a particularly dizzy episode of ''The Burns and Allen Show'' would be resolved. But Robert Thompson, a professor of television at Syracuse University, notes that what used to be the exception has now become the rule, or perhaps the cliche.

In an earlier era, allusions to the medium itself were a delicate matter to be handled with some caution, he said. Thus even on ''The Dick Van Dyke Show,'' whose protagonist was a television comedy writer, one rarely sees a screen or a camera or hears the word ''TV.''

''Very seldom does TV itself actually get on the show,'' Mr. Thompson said. ''It's as if referring to itself would be to somehow give away the secret.''

There are many possible explanations for the change in television culture, the simplest and most obvious being that in the 1990's television is culture. What was a novelty in the 50's is, by common acknowledgment, where most Americans now spend most of their time. To the extent that we have a shared experience, shows like ''Dick Van Dyke,'' whose reruns can be seen on Nick at Night on Sundays at 11 P.M., provide it.

''Television used to point beyond itself,'' David Foster Wallace writes in ''E Unibus Pluram,'' an essay about television and modern fiction. ''Today's mega-audience is way better trained and TV has discarded what's not needed.''

If television is the most important force in people's lives, it's only natural that one would want to enter that thrilling world and vicariously participate in it. As ''Lateline's'' Mr. Markus said of the decision to set the show in a television studio, ''There's an inherent amount of glamour there.''

Yet at the same time, self-reflexive television has been unremitting in its disrespect for itself. No show has offered anything that even approaches an apology or compelling justification for the enormous impact of television on the nation's life.

''The Larry Sanders Show'' depicts a world where the forced bonhomie of the late-night interview only half-masks the fantastic pettiness of all involved. In the Hobbesian world of celebrities, everyone, most especially Larry himself, suffers from crippling bouts of vanity and envy, and for showing this, the show has been much celebrated for its realism.

In the episodes of ''Seinfeld'' devoted to its conception, the idea of a show about ''nothing'' is made to appear as little more than a vacuous conceit. George's smug satisfaction is matched only by the stolid incomprehension of the network executives.

On ''Home Improvement,'' Tim Allen's Tim Taylor is, meanwhile, a clumsy carpenter, while Krusty the Clown, on ''The Simpsons,'' is an exploitative old drunk.

Of all the shows, ''Murphy Brown'' goes the furthest toward defending its heroine and the news-collecting business in general. But these defenses are constantly being undercut, as when Connie Chung appears on the show to denounce Murphy Brown for selling out and allowing herself to become a model for a sitcom.

Since television about television prides itself on an informed (and therefore dismissive) appraisal of itself, anyone who evinces hopes for the medium is automatically a target.

In ''Lateline,'' it is Al Franken, playing Al Freundlich, who is this sitcom's buffoonish dreamer. Like Lucy trapped in the apartment, forever dreaming of stepping out on stage, Freundlich desperately hopes he will become the new anchor so that he can revamp the program according to his own journalistic philosophy. While the real anchor pragmatically spends his free time smoking $50 cigars and pursuing supermodels, Freundlich buys tables at First Amendment dinners and is squished by an air bag.

Freundlich's absurd position reflects in large measure the conflicted aspirations of the show itself. Intermittently it aspires to make a cutting commentary on the relations between politics and entertainment: Yes, there really is no difference between them. But far more often, it is a sitcom like all others, not so much pushing an idea as cashing in on an established formula: ''Murphy Brown'' crossed with ''Larry Sanders'' crossed with ''Mary Tyler Moore.''

This year, both ''Murphy Brown'' and ''Larry Sanders'' will be retiring, along with ''Seinfeld,'' a sign perhaps that the era of television about television is passing. Freundlich's dream of doing something new with ''Lateline'' is, in this sense, the master joke of the show.

A Review from The New York Times

TV NOTES; The Night to Be Funny

By BILL CARTER
Published: March 17, 1999

Al Franken knows he has one last shot at making his comedy series ''Lateline'' a candidate for survival on NBC. As of last night, the show, a satire of both television news and politics, had six episodes left in which to find a following sufficient for NBC to bring it back for new episodes next fall.

Mr. Franken, whose second book, ''Why Not Me?'' is a current best seller, said he hoped that a shift to Tuesday night would reinvigorate the series, which had languished on Wednesdays in an earlier trial.

''At last I think we're in a place where people are looking for comedy,'' Mr. Franken said.

The show's producers struggled with the decision about which episode to bring the series back with, although they knew the highlight of their season was almost surely an episode now scheduled for March 30.

That one, with the guest stars Rob Reiner and Martin Sheen, is a mock documentary in which Mr. Franken's character, Al Freundlich, is asked to do a cameo role in a film Mr. Reiner is making.

''Rob lets him change one line for the sake of credibility,'' Mr. Franken said. ''He keeps suggesting changes until he ends up destroying the movie.''

NBC will measure ''Lateline'' against whatever new comedies it develops when it decides in May what next season's schedule will look like. BILL CARTER

For The Official Al Franken Website go to http://lyingliar.com/index.htm

For The Al Franken Forum go to http://www.alfrankenweb.com/forum/

For a Website dedicated to Miguel Ferrer go to http://www.geocities.com/miguelferrersite/