The latest phase of the Great “Dellaventura” Experiment is over, but the project isn’t dead yet.
When CBS shifted the urban crime drama from its Tuesday night home to Thursdays opposite NBC’s “ER” at the beginning of the month, the hope was it would provide a reasonable alternative to the top-rated drama and ABC’s newsmagazine “20-20.” The results weren’t what CBS Entertainment chief Les Moonves expected.
Not only did “Dellaventura” fail to put a dent in “ER’s” formidable hide, but “48 Hrs.,” which the network switched to Tuesdays at 9 p.m., lost the audience that “Dellaventura” had been pulling in. So “Dellaventura” returns to Tuesdays, which pleases its star to no end.
“We’re happy to be back opposite `NYPD (Blue)’ because eventually we will overtake them!” the genial “Dellaventura” star Danny Aiello happily proclaims. “Goodness will overcome evil!
“It’s not that they’re not great, they’re just different than we are.”
Airing on WBBM-Ch. 2 in Chicago, “Dellaventura” stars the likable Oscar nominee of “Do the Right Thing” as a private investigator who handles cases for those who can’t solve problems for themselves. He’s aided by a team of rogues who don’t mind breaking the rules–or heads. Aiello calls the show “Touched by a Thug.”
Aiello, frisky and 60ish, returned to television (he says his first TV gig was the short-lived ABC cop show “Lady Blue” in 1985, which was shot in Chicago) at the behest of Moonves, who not only offered him a series based on the actor’s success last May as the head of a gangster family in “The Last Don,” but allowed him to shoot the series in his beloved New York.
Aiello says he realized CBS was trying to make inroads with the move to Thursday a few weeks ago. The problem was, it came at exactly the wrong time. The last Tuesday airing of “Dellaventura” before the move saw the series’ highest ratings to date.
“We average about 10 1/2 million viewers, which is nothing to snuff at,” Aiello says. “But it’s hard to cancel a show that has 10 1/2 million people looking at it, when 70 percent of them are women, who are the true buyers.”
“Dellaventura” has a commitment for 16 episodes, Aiello says. The show recently was nominated for the People’s Choice Awards. It is his belief the series will receive orders for more shows to keep it on for the rest of the season.
“We’re glad we’re in the ballgame,” Aiello says. “We think we’re going to be here. (Moonves) invested a lot of money with `The Last Don,’ and he continued to do so with `Dellaventura.’ I think I’m his project.”
– Location isn’t everything: “Hiller and Diller” proves that a show’s placement on the schedule doesn’t necessarily mean success.
The sitcom, starring Richard Lewis and Kevin Nealon as television comedy writers, hasn’t generated the numbers ABC was hoping for when it placed it behind “Home Improvement” on Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. (WLS-Ch. 7).
The ratings drop from one show to the next has been so vast that the network pulled “H&D” during the November sweeps, choosing to air, among other things, repeats of “Spin City.”
It’s easy to say “Hiller and Diller” isn’t clicking because of its competition, “Just Shoot Me” on NBC. But “H&D” isn’t capitalizing on the deep comedy chops of Lewis, who has muted his manic-neurosis shtick, and Nealon, an undercover talent along the lines of fellow “Saturday Night Live” alumni Dan Aykroyd and Phil Hartman.
The comedy revolves around the frantic families of the two writers, but the broods aren’t all that interesting. Things are a lot more fun at the guys’ office, where they bump heads with the blowhard producer of the comedy they write for (stellar work by former “SCTV” writer and performer Eugene Levy), and the show’s beloved, but pompous, star (ex-“SNL” member Jan Hooks, who has also excelled in a recurring role).
The braintrust behind “H&D” include movie producing powerhouses Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, who may have blinders on.
Maybe their goal was to capture the good family comedy of “Home Improvement,” which would also make “H&D” more of a companion piece for the Tim Allen hit. Howard and Grazer should have learned their lesson with their television version of “Parenthood,” a watered-down version of their static big-screen hit that aired briefly on NBC in 1990.
The focus should be on the edgy office dynamics and life behind the scenes of a sitcom, much the way Levy used to do with his pals on “SCTV.” That’s where the laughs for “Hiller and Diller” really are.
