University of Miami - Ibis Yearbook (Coral Gables, FL)

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Page 10 SMetriatott The year in Television Hill Street Blues When one talked about televi- sion in 1982, one invariably talked about NBC ' s Hill Street Blues, which cornered the mar- ket on television ' s coveted Emmy Awards. Hill Street Blues suffered when it was first introduced to the American public. It suffered so badly in its original Saturday night time slot that it didn ' t seem like it would be around for long. NBC then moved the show to Thursday night and its fortunes began to turn around. In very lit- tle time, Hill Street was being regarded as one of the best tele- vision programs of all time. Besides winning an Emmy as the best dramatic series, Hill Street also copped several indi- vidual honors including: Daniel J. Travanti for Best Actor, Bar- bara Babcock for Best Actress, Michael Conrad for Best Sup- porting Actor and Michael Ko- zoll and Steven Bochco for Best Writers. The accolades did not stop with the Emmys. Hill Street Blues was also one of the recipi- ents of the George Foster Pea- body Broadcasting Award. At the start of the 1982-83 television season, NBC intro- duced another series in the mold of Hill Street. St. Elsewhere, set in a metropolitan hospital, de- buted much the same as Hill Street — high critical acclaim with low ratings. Asner ' s politics Controversy reigned at CBS following the surprise cancella- tion of Lou Grant. The shows ' s star, Edward Asner, had become an outspoken advocate against U.S. policy in El Salvador in his position as president of the Screen Actors Guild. So outspo- ken, in fact, that he found him- self in almost every major news- paper and on the network ' s nightly newscasts. After the show was cancelled, CBS claimed that it wasn ' t get- ting good enough ratings. Asner claimed that he was being politi- cially stifled. The controversy continues. In response to the threat of late night and early morning news programs by various cable networks, the three major televi- sion networks launched their own programming. News explosion First out of the block was NBC News Overnight, with Lloyd Dobyns and Linda Eller- bee. In one of the most layed back approaches ever to be seen on network news, Overnight gets most of its reports from NBC af- filiates across the country. To- wards the end of the year, it was announced that Dobyns would become the host of a new NBC newsmagazine to debut in Feb- ruary. CBS followed with Nightwatch which airs in most markets from 2-7 am. Nightwatch was CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter ' s answer to the fact that some of the network ' s affiliates had shown interest in picking up CNN Headline News from the Turner Broadcasting System. Finally, ABC joined the crowd with The Last Word following the already established Night- line. The network scored a major coup by getting Phil Donahue to defect from NBC and join The Last Word in videotaped seg- ments similar to his own syndi- cated talk show. The rest of the show consists of a live interview segment from New York. After wide speculation that Tom Sny- der (late of NBC ' s Tomorrow program) would be named host, ABC hired Gregory Jackson from CBS Cable — the first ca- ble network to call it quits for financial reasons. M A S H The Korean War, television style, ended on Feb. 28 when members of the 4077tl M A S H went home to Amer ica after 11 years on the battle front. Siting the lack of new script ideas, producer Burt Metcalfe and the stars of one of TV ' s most popular comedies decided to call it quits. In what was the most- watched episode of a program since the Dallas episode Who shot J.R.?, M A S H took in more money for a 30-second commercial than any other sin- gle episode. Reruns would surface a couple of months later, but for a short time, there would be no The Korean War, television style, ended on Feb. 28 when mem- bers of the 4077th M A S Hwent home to America after 11 years on the battlefront. M A S H on network TV for the first time in 11 years. As mentioned earlier, CBS Cable became the first cable television network to cease oper- ations due to financial difficul- ties. Cable, however, remained strong in 1982 with more people than ever before hooked up for service. Home Box Office (HBO) took on the big boys when they en- tered a bidding war with NBC for the rights to Taxi, the Emmy-winning comedy series which had been cancelled by ABC. HBO ' s attempt to pur- chase Taxi was the first such at- tempt by a major cable network to acquire a series from the com- mercial networks. Despite flash- ing big bucks, HBO lost out to NBC HBO ' s arch rival, Showtime, led the pack in producing origi- nal comedies and dramas for itf subscribers. Among the net- work ' s efforts: an adaption of the Broadway musical Purlie with members of the original cast in- cluding Melba Moore, Sherman Hemsley and Robert Guillame; and Bizzare an off-the-wall sa- tirical show hosted by John Byner. Year in cable Among the cable channels born in 1982 were: Satellite News Channel, a joint venture of ABC and Westinghouse Broad- casting, which was the first main competition to Ted Turner ' s Ca- ble News Network; the Enter- tainment Channel, a potpourri of original variety programming and commercial network reruns; and The Weather Channel, cre- ated by ABC Weatherman John Coleman which is just what the name implies — 24 hours-a-day of nothing but weather. New Shows The new network fall season brought little innovation and several failures. CBS presented the first musical television se- ries, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. While the jury is still out on this one, ratings had been lukewarm. NBC hearlded the debut of the comedy Cheers, set in a Boston bar. The Thursday night tandem of Cheers and Taxi proved to be a letdown for NBC as a lead-in to the strong Hill Street Blues. Nonetheless, NBC renewed the program for another season. After the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark, TV producers decided that they were going to try and cash in on the glory. ABC presented Stephen Collins ( Star Trek: The Movie ) in Tales of the Gold Monkey, while CBS tried Bruce Box- leitner in Bring ' Em Back Alive. If the Nielsen ratings are any indicator, there is no substi- tute for Indiana Jones. Both shows were underdogs to survive their initial seasons. Music Television Possibly the most successful cable network to start up in the last two years is Music Televi- sion (MTV), which in 1982 tri- pled its subscriber base from close to 3 million to almost 9 mil- lion by infiltrating such major markets as New York, San Fran- cisco and Boston. MTV, owned by Warner Amex, devotes most of its pro- gramming hours showing rock videos provided it was free of charge by record companies for promotional purposes. The overhead of MTV is nominal and thus, it is predict- ing that it may be in the black financially by 1983. All Copy By Howard Burns 1882 veiu the! Afon found it

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Hattflttal Jferos wmm Page 9 Millionaire car dealer John De Lorean: busted in a $60 million cocaine deal. Dems gain 26 seats The Democrats picked up 26 seats in the House of Represen- tatives and seven governorships in an election where the reigning Republican party was lucky to get out alive. After all was said and done, the Democrats had 46 seats in the Senate, 267 seats in the House and 34 governorships. The Republicans had 54 seats in the Senate, 166 seats in the House and 15 governorships. Still to be determined were two Georgia House seats and the close race for governor in Illinois where the incumbent James Thompson and Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson were locked in a battle that was too close to call. Some of the big winners on Election Day were: San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson, who defeat- ed California Governor Jerry Brown for the Senate; Republi- can George Deukmejian, who beat out Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley for the governor- ship despite the fact that two lo- cal Los Angeles TV stations had projected Bradley as the winner; Mario Cuomo, who won the gov- ernorship of New York in a tight race against Lew Lehrman, who spent $11 million in his bid for the post; Jeff Bingaman, who beat Reagan loyalist Harrison Schmidt for a senate seat in New Mexico; Democrat Frank Lau- tenberg, who defeated Republi- can Rep. Millicent Fenwick for a New Jersey Senate seat; and Texas Attorney General Mark White, who scored an impressive upset victory over GOP incu- mbent William P. Clements, Jr. in the Texas gubenatorial derby. The Republicans were indeed lucky to escape with many of the victories that they did. House Minority Leader Robert Michel from Illinois won by only four percent over his opponent G. Douglas Stephens, a Peoria Lawyer who won the Democratic nomination as a write-in candi- date. Many political analysts theorize that this was a direct message to the White House by dissatisfied Americans. With the election returns from this year ' s elections count- ed, vulnerable GOP senators up for re-election in 1984, such as John Warner of Virginia, Gor- don Humphrey of New Hamp- shire and Roger Jepsen of Iowa, were already working on their campaign strategies; the fresh- ness of the Democratic gains of 1982 very much in mind. In their usual political jargon, the Democrats called this year ' s results a signal that the voters wanted a change, while the Re- publicans, still in control of the Senate, called the results a man- date from the voters that they were willing to stay the course. By Howard Burns DeLorean busted in cocaine deal Multi-millionaire automobile designer John De Lorean was ar- rested by police for dealing co- caine just seven hours after the British government closed down his ailing company. De Lorean, a former top ex- ecutive with General Motors who quit his position there to form his own automobile com- pany, was arrested by FBI agents in what was the final stage of a drug deal that would have netted him up to $60 mil- lion. Assistant U.S. Attorney James Walsh tried for a $20 mil- lion bail for De Lorean. Walsh contended: This man is recog- nized as a genius, a visionary. But one does not create an in- dustry on the backs of cocaine users and heroin addicts. Walsh said that he had a vid- eotape of De Lorean cradling a packet of cocaine in his lap and saying: This is better than gold. This comes in the nick of time. After his defense attorney ar- gued that his client was more of a victim than a lawbreaker, De Lorean pleaded not guilty. DeLorean was held on $5 mil- lion bail. By Howard Burns War in Middle East; Israelis invade Beirut On June 6, the Israeli army in- vaded southern Lebanon, thus triggering the most thorough at- tack Israel had ever launched in its attempt to destroy the Pales- tinian Liberation Organization. The most immediate reason for the bombardment was the assassination attempt in Lon- don of Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to Britain. Israel ac- cused the PLO of the attack and immediately retaliated the next day by attacking PLO guerrilla camps in Lebanon. On July 6, President Reagan agreed to send a small group of U.S. troops to Beirut to help in a multinational peace-keeping force, sparking some concern in the U.S. that American troops were being asked to fight some- body else ' s war. A week later, Reagan an- nounced that he would hold up a U.S. shipment of cluster bombs to Israel because reports were saying that Israel had used the American-made bombs in its at- tack of Lebanon. At about this time, the U.S. sent in special envoy Phillip Ha- bib to act as a mediator between the two waring factions. On August 6, the PLO agreed to Habib ' s withdrawal plan, pending the agreement of Jor- dan, Syria and Egypt to take in some of the PLO members. The next day, they agreed. Towards the end of the month, a contingent of U.S. Ma- rines landed in Beirut and PLO members led by Yasir Arafat left for Syria and other Middle East settlements. On Sept. 14, Lebanese Presi- dent-elect Bashir Gemayel was killed when a bomb exploded and destroyed the headquarters of the Christian Philangist Par- ty. Three days later, there was revenge. Over 300 Lebanese citizens were killed on Sept. 17 by Phi- langist soldiers who went on a raid of refugee camps in south- ern Beirut. Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon later admitted that the Israelis helped the Philangists gain entry into the camps. Calls for Sharon ' s resignation, as well as the resignation of Prime Min- ister Menachem Begin started being heard worldwide. In Feb. of this year, Sharon was found to be guilty of negli- gence in his handling of the situ- ation and was asked to step down as defense minister while retaining his position in the cabinet. By Howard Burns

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ll n Potpourr. ramming reruns Mel, ere- »anJohr what the urs-a-dav r. 1 seasor. tion anc presentee rision se- or Sever, ■iryisstii: debut oi 1 set in £ day night ad Taxi i for NBC ong HiE etheless, Jgram for ' Raiders producers e going tc lory. ABC Collins ovie ) in Monkey, ' ' uce Box- 3m Back atings are no substi- les. Both to survive Entertainment Pag« 11 The year of E.T., Gandhi successful ; up in the sic Televi- 1 1982 tri- aase frorr. nost 9 mil- uch major San Fran- i Warner of its pro- wing rock as free oi ipanies for ' MTV is is predict- the black rard Burns 1982 was the year of E.T as far 3 movies were concerned. Ste- en Spielberg ' s science fiction bout a being from another lanet became the highest gross- lg film ever. While no other film came lose to equaling the popularity f E. T. there were several other lms released during the year. ' he third sequel in the series of Rocky films was a major success :or Sylvester Stallone. Taylor Hackford ' s An Officer and a Gentleman was one of the urprise films of the year. The performances of Richard Gere, Debra Winger and Louis Gossett Jr. all earned rave reviews from the critics. William Shatner and Co. again reprised the roles they made famous in the TV series Star Trek with a sequel to the first Star Trek movie called Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This movie was better received by the critics than the first one. big reason was the perfor- mance of Ricardo Montalban as Khan, Kirk ' s arch villain. Of the low budget variety, Jer- y Weintraub ' s Diner was given many plaudits by the critics. The story, set in 1958 Baltimore, eatured great performances from Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke and Timothy Daly. The year also saw Hollywood it its worst. Several high-bud- eted films received cold re- sponses by the critics and con- umers alike. Despite being heralded as one )f the most extravagant motion pictures in recent years, John riuston ' s Annie received luke- varm reviews from the press. vVhen the obvious comparisons vere made between the film ver- ion and the Broadway version, he film version was almost inanimously judged to be inferi- ir. John Derek ' s Tarzan, the Ape Aan found itself on more worst novies lists than most films of ecent vintage. The movie, vhich starred Derek ' s wife Bo, as one of the biggest Holly- wood flops of 1982. Other films that did not fare ell at the box office were: Un- er the Rainbow with Chevy !hase; Hanky Panky with Gene Vilder and Gilda Radner; and Elliott pursues the sounds that will lead him to E.T. ' s hiding place. Making Love, a story about a ho- mosexual love affair. There were several top perfor- mances during the year. Meryl Streep ' s portrayal of a Polish survi- vor of a Nazi concentration in So- phie ' s Choice made her the front runner for Best Actress of the year. Dustin Hoffman was called upon to play a woman in the movie Toot- sie. In order to get an acting job, Hoffman must impersonate a wom- an to land a job on a soap opera. Many critics called Tootsie the best comedy of the year. In An Officer and a Gentleman, Louis Gossett put forth an out- standing performance as a drill sar- geant in the U.S. Marines. Many believed that this portrayal was Gossett ' s best effort since Roots. Towards year ' s end, movie goers got the opportunity to see the long- awaited release of Richard Atten- borough ' s Gandhi, the biography of one of the world ' s greatest paci- fists. Shakespearean actor Ben Kingsley turned in one of the finest performances in recent years as the Indian leader, making him a candi- date for an Oscar in ' 83. By Howard Burns Ben Kingsley in his monumental portrayal of Mohandas K. Gandhi 13