Carlin: 40 advertisers set agenda on family shows
I t's one of the things we can all agree on: TV should be family-friendly.
Yet we all have different families, different sensibilities about what our children should be watching and different ideas about what should be stomped into the dust by the boot heel of moral righteousness.
Thus exists the Family Friendly Programming Forum, and its annual Family Friendly Television Awards, which will be presented at the non-family-friendly hour of 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 12, on KRCW (32).
Why so late? Maybe because the group's choice for the year's best family-friendly drama, CBS' police procedural "Numb3rs," commonly features acts of violence -- murder, suicide, all the best kinds of mayhem -- and also dallies occasionally in sex. And not family-oriented, strictly-for-procreation sex, either. We're talking unmarried people, all tongues, gasps and slinky underwear, rolling around for the sheer, crazy fun of it.
I actually don't mind the sex, if only because no one dies as a result. Which is more than I can say for so many other scenes in "Numb3rs."
Here's what I've seen lately on that show: A U.S. senator getting gunned down, bloodily, in public. Screams, horror, bedlam. Moments later his assassin takes a slug in the chest. Then he aims his massive handgun at his own ear and pulls the trigger. Ka-blammo! Really, it's just like Itchy and Scratchy. Except without the subtlety.
In another "Numb3rs" episode a guy gets stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Blood and viscera glisten in the sunlight. In the next scene the show's star, Rob Morrow (nowhere near as boyish and cute as he was on "Northern Exposure"), gets horizontal with a new lady friend.
Another show began more cheerfully, with children scampering out onto a school playground to romp and shout and play. I'm happier already. For seconds on end before the carefree fun turns deadly when the entire class gets swallowed by a huge sinkhole. Blood, wailing, screams. You don't want to know the rest.
This is family viewing? Manson family viewing, perhaps.
Granted, most of the other Family Friendly award winners aren't so nightmarish. Some are even really good, such as best comedy "Everybody Hates Chris," which is a terrific example of a sitcom that celebrates family even as it laughs at one clan's flaws and misunderstandings. ABC's "Ugly Betty," judged the best new family series, does much the same thing, albeit with some cartoonish criminality and sex tossed in.
The winning reality show, "Dancing With the Stars," raises no flags with me, nor does family-friendly game show host Howie Mandel, even if his neurotic-alien persona (the shaved head; the fear of touching other humans) gives me the willies.
But I keep going back to the gruesome horror show that is "Numb3rs," and wondering: What are the folks at the Family Friendly Programming Forum thinking, anyway?
Maybe it's helpful to figure out who they are first. The forum actually consists of representatives from about 40 major national advertisers, all of whom hope to encourage the production of prime-time shows that are suitable for family viewing.
"One of their missions is to recognize family-friendly shows that depict real-life issues and resolve them in a productive, family-friendly way," said Andrea Martone, an organization spokeswoman. "Unfortunately murder is one of those real-life issues."
I suppose. Yet as a parent one of my goals is to shelter the tykes from the world's harsher realities for as long as humanly possible. This is a short-term game, particularly given the evening news and my own vocabulary of shock and alarm (don't ask).
It's also useful to remember exactly how much time the average advertising executive spends trying to read, and then appeal to, the interests and appetites of the American public. Nearly 100 percent of their time, as it turns out. Which is what makes the list of the public's 100 favorite "family" shows. published last week by Jack Myers' Media Village, all the more interesting.
Or maybe disturbing.
The No. 1 best family show, according to Americans between 25 and 54? That would be Speed Channel's "Trackside at . . ."
Repeats of "Everybody Loves Raymond" clock in at third place, while the political pugilism of Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" just makes the top 10. "The O'Reilly Factor," meanwhile, comes in a few steps above repeats of "The Andy Griffith Show," which only just makes the top 25.
So OK, most of the shows seem perfectly fine -- including "7th Heaven," "Dog Whisperer" and "SpongeBob SquarePants." But how the hyper-graphic cop show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and its little cousin "NCIS" figures into anyone's list of family-friendly shows is beyond me.
Sometimes the most family-friendly option is to turn off the TV and read a book.
Peter Ames Carlin: 503-221-8562; petercarlin@news.oregonian.com