Dennis Mahoney On… “NewsRadio” After Phil Hartman

(Originally published on UltimateTV.com in August 1998)

The tragic, untimely death of actor Phil Hartman in June raises several important questions for the makers of his NBC comedy, “NewsRadio,” not the least of which is “How can a show that relied so heavily on his particular comic gifts go on without him?”

Another question, whose answers are perhaps more elusive, is, “Should the show go on without him?”

To answer the first question, we have several examples of series to look to which have gone on after losing a major cast member to the grim reaper.

A notable early example is “My Three Sons,” the 1960’s family comedy about widower Steve Douglas (Fred MacMurray) coping with the struggles of raising three boys without his wife around. For the first five seasons of the show(1960–65), Douglas was given a hand by his late wife’s father, Michael Francis “Bub” O’Casey (William Frawley). Bub was a curmudgeonly old cuss whose crusty disposition masked a soft heart.

When Frawley (who’s previously been familiar to audiences as “I Love Lucy’s” Fred Mertz), passed away during the summer hiatus, he was replaced by William Demarest, playing Bub’s brother Charley. The explanation given was that Bub had taken a trip to Ireland, and Charley was there to help out the Douglas boys while he was away.

Bub’s absence didn’t effect the show’s popularity. It lasted for several more seasons, until 1972. Perhaps no one noticed the difference. After all, both Bub and Charley were short men in their sixties with voices like trainwrecks and a penchant for wearing aprons. Maybe the fact that the series was essentially an ensemble show with MacMurray at the center made the old coots expendable.

Not so expendable was Freddie Prinze, who starred along with Jack Albertson on NBC’s “Chico and the Man,” which debuted in 1974. Albertson played Ed Brown, owner of a beat-up old garage in the center of East Los Angeles. Prinze played Chico Rodriguez, the young Hispanic who helps Ed turn his business around. The show focused on the volatile, but often tender friendship that developed between the hip, smart-alecky Chico and Ed, a curmudgeonly old cuss whose crusty disposition masked a soft heart.The show was an immediate smash, catapulting the young Prinze into the strata of television superstardom.

Unfortunately, Prinze wasn’t ready for the pressures of sudden fame. He took his own life early in 1977, before all of the episodes for the third season were completed.

In the first episode of the 1977–78 season, it was explained that Chico had left town to go into business with his father, played earlier in the series’ run by Cesar Romero. He was soon replaced by Raul (Gabriel Melgar),a twelve-year-old who stowed away in the trunk of Ed’s car after a fishing trip in Mexico. Raul moved in with the Man. On their first night together, Ed inadvertently said to his new friend “Good night, Chico.” When corrected, he responded “You’re all Chicos to me,” perhaps the most sweetly sentimental example of racism in television history.

Ed grew to love the boy, eventually adopting him. The nation, however, didn’t share Ed’s affections for him.

Whether the manner of Prinze’s death made viewers uncomfortable with the show, or whether they just missed his live-wire timing, “Chico and the Man” only lasted one season without him.

The one-season wonder “Cover Up” was most likely doomed from the get-go, but the death of star Jon-Erik Hexum surely cemented it’s doom. Hexum played Mac Harper, a male model/secret agent who traveled the globe with fashion photographer/secret agent Dani Reynolds (Jennifer O’Neill). Mac was well qualified for both jobs, being a handsome former Green Beret specialist in karate, chemical interrogation and foreign languages. Dani was also well qualified, being… well, being the wife of an agent who was killed in the line of duty.

A little more than halfway through the first season Hexum was killed after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a gun while on set. His replacement, Antony Hamilton, filled in his high-kicking pretty boy boots for the duration of the show’s first (and only) season.

“Hill Street Blues,” THE GREATEST SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION, debuted in 1981 to low ratings but much acclaim. The story of the inner workings of a high-crime police precinct in an unnamed city, “Hill Street” was a true ensemble drama, with at least 18 regulars in its first season alone.

Though the series revolved ostensibly around Captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti), Sergeant Phil Esterhaus (Michael Conrad) was its moral center. Esterhaus was a fatherly figure, who ended roll call each morning with the immortal words “Hey, let’s be careful out there.”

Conrad spent the 1983–84 season in poor health, visibly showing signs of the cancer that took his life midseason. His character wasn’t written off with a trip to Ireland or a visit with Daddy. No, Esterhaus was given a funny, sad farewell, offscreen, while making love with longtime girlfriend Grace Gardner (Barbara Babcock). When word got around to his troops that their Sarge died in the saddle, as it were, his status as a legend was secured.

Captain Furillo, reluctant to replace someone as beloved as Esterhaus with an outsider, filled his position at first by promoting Officer Lucy Bates (Betty Thomas). After enough mourning time had passed, a permanent replacement, Sgt. Stanislaus Jablonski (Robert Prosky), was brought in. Jablonski, a curmudgeonly old cuss whose crusty disposition masked aheart of gold, was a suitable choice to fill the avuncular shoes of Sgt. Phil.

He stayed up on the Hill from 1984 until the series ended in 1987.

Perhaps the best example of a series coping with the loss of a beloved character occurred when “Cheers” lost Ernie Pantusso, also known as Coach (Nicholas Colasanto). Like Sgt. Esterhaus, Coach, who served up the drafts at the titular bar, was a sort of father figure to all of the show’s other characters. And like Conrad, Colasanto’s fight with cancer was obvious to anyone who watched the show.

After Colasanto’s death in 1985, he was replaced by Woody Harrelson, whose character, Woody, shared Coach’s sweetly befuddled nature. Coach’s absence was explained in the first episode of the 1985–86 season, when Woody arrives in Boston looking for his pen pal, Coach. Sam Malone, the bar’s owner, sadly explained that Coach had passed away. Recognizing something in Woody, he offered him a job.

Though Coach was one of the best-loved characters on one of the nation’s best-loved shows, his void was filled nicely by Woody Boyd. More than just another sitcom dufus, Woody took Coach’s place as America’s favorite sitcom dufus, staying behind the bar for the duration of the series’ run.

Now, to answer that first question. As demonstrated by the aforementioned series, an ensemble show like “Cheers” or “Hill Street” has a better chance of surviving a character’s absence than a series that revolves around said character, as did “Chico and the Man.” And “NewsRadio” has one of the best ensembles on television.

Though Phil Hartman has been vital to the show’s success up to this point, there is no reason it couldn’t go on without him. His brilliant, demented portrayal of news anchor Bill McNeill was only one of the great comic performances “NewsRadio” offered.

Each week Dave Foley, Maura Tierney, Vicki Lewis, Andy Dick, Joe Rogan and Stephen Root more than held their own, making “NewsRadio” one of the best comedies on television. Obviously the people at NBC agree. Despite middling ratings they have stuck with the show for several seasons and will bring it back this Fall with Hartman’s former “Saturday Night Live” cohort Jon Lovitz as the new news anchor.

Lovitz is an inspired choice. Snideness is his specialty, and it will come in handy if he is in any way to fill the shoes of Hartman, whose anchor’s arrogance was matched only by his weirdness. Lovitz, whose particular brand of humor is perhaps too much to carry a show on his own (remember “The Critic?”), will make a fine addition to the ensemble.

Now for that second question: “Should the show go on?”

The answer is easier than it would seem. Hartman’s death was senseless and tragic. But perhaps the best way to pay tribute to his enormous talent would be to carry on with the show he helped build.