`The X-Files” did it for Fox. “Star Trek: Voyager” did it for UPN. “Politically Incorrect” did it for Comedy Central. “Biography” did it for A&E.
What each of these programs did was attract enough viewers to their respective networks so that an audience foundation could be built.
Andy Kindler hopes his show, “The Pet Shop,” can be an “X-Files” for his network, Animal Planet. “I hope and pray for that,” he laughs in a chipmunklike giggle.
Animal Planet is a cable network dedicated to animal lovers that was launched by Discovery Networks in 1996. The channel currently is in more than 21 million homes, and “Pet Shop” host Kindler hopes that number will grow with the help of his show.
“I was talking to my friend about how, five or six years ago, no one ever heard of a show like `Biography,’ and now everyone’s heard of that show, and everyone knows of A&E,” says Kindler, 40.
Of course, you need a show with enough of a different look or feel to get people talking. Certainly “Politically Incorrect” had that, and “The Pet Shop” also seems to be quirky enough.
Airing at 9 p.m. on Sundays with repeats at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, “The Pet Shop” is a talk show featuring celebrity guests and their pets. Among those making appearances are “NewsRadio’s” Dave Foley; David Anthony Higgins from “Ellen”; Merrill Markoe, a former writer for “Late Night with David Letterman” and the creator of Stupid Pet Tricks; and Wallace Langham of “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Veronica’s Closet.”
A house band, irreverent animal news, animal experts and field segments also are a part of “The Pet Shop,” a show which, according to its host, feels like the Letterman show, but not exactly.
“The Letterman show that was in the 1980s, I felt was kind of the coolest show because it was kind of making fun of show business and making fun of the whole premise of doing sketches,” says Kindler, a standup comedian for 13 years who says Letterman is one of his idols. “I still feel Letterman is great, but I feel that his show is more of a mainstreamy show now. It’s more about who the current celebrities are.”
Kindler does monologues that have both animal and non-animal jokes (“When I was a kid I had a guinea pig, and one day I woke up and the guinea pig said, `Look, I’m not going to be your guinea pig anymore!’ “). Some comedy segments feature fellow standup Ed Crasnick doing characters a la Chris Elliott but with “incredible range,” cracks Kindler.
But the meat of the show is the stars and their pets. “I like pets, and I can tolerate celebrities,” Kindler jokes.
Most of the guests have dogs and cats, but Langham brought along geckos, which are members of the lizard family; Foley had ferrets when he lived in Canada, so the show hooked him up with some of the furry little animals for reminiscence.
Kindler feels his standup background will definitely help “The Pet Shop,” because he can “have people come on who I either know from comedy, or I think I would have an interesting relationship with . . . in those cases, there is kind of a built-in rapport.”
Not that Kindler will limit guests to his close, personal comedy friends. If George Clooney, who is said to have a pet pig, wants to stop by, he’s more than welcome.
“I just think that most shows rise and fall on the personality of the show, rather than, `Oh, George Clooney’s on’ or something like that. So what I’m hoping is that people will look at it and there will be some real conversation going on, and it will be really odd, and people will enjoy it on that level.”
Now that Kindler has joined the ranks of talk-show hosts, he has found that a change in thinking is in order.
“I have realized it’s not easy being a talk-show host,” he admits. “I realize I’m not a good listener . . . In life I don’t have to listen to what the person is saying. I never hear what the person says after I talk, and that’s not good when you’re doing a talk show.”
– Where’s the remote: After weeks of delays, partly for some creative fine-tuning, here’s “Over the Top,” a new sitcom at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday on WLS-Ch. 7, with the overacting Tim Curry playing an overacting actor who lands at the small New York hotel owned by his ex-wife, played by the lovely Annie Potts.
– It’s IRA night on WTTW-Ch. 11, with a “Nova” episode at 8 p.m. on how the British army combats explosives used by the Irish Republican Army, followed at 9 p.m. by a “Frontline” report on the 30-year war the IRA has waged against British rule of Northern Ireland.
– No “NYPD Blue” Tuesday, as ABC preempts the cop show at 9 p.m. (on WLS-Ch. 7) with a report by ABC News’ John Stossel on “Love, Lust and Marriage,” a special on the state of relationships. Scientists say only one out of three mammals stays with one partner for life.
