After 15 seasons of sketch comedy and one best-selling book, writer-performer Al Franken has taken on an even more formidable task — entering the crowded field of TV sitcoms — and made it look easy.
“Lateline,” an office comedy about life at a late-night network news program, is the most distinctive and promising new sitcom since “Frasier” burst onto the scene in 1993. Co-created by Franken and sitcom veteran John Markus (“The Cosby Show” on NBC), “Lateline” gives us Franken’s alter ego, Al Freundlich, a nebbishy TV newsman with a thirst for politics and an unquenchable knack for self-abasement.
“Lateline” debuts at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday on WMAQ-Ch. 5.
The sitcom revolves around Freundlich, “Lateline’s” chief correspondent. He’s a do-gooder whose job security owes not to his exemplary work (as Freundlich believes) but to the fact that he poses no threat to the show’s spoiled-rotten anchorman, Pearce McKenzie (Robert Foxworth).
One part “Larry Sanders,” one part “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” one part Norman Lear, “Lateline” is the latest sitcom to discover that Washington, D.C., is an abundant source of real-life comedy.
Like “Larry Sanders,” “Lateline” makes liberal use of celebrity cameos, in this case political celebrities who show up as talking heads on the fake “Lateline.” In the pilot, G. Gordon Liddy and Candace Gingrich debate gay marriage; in an upcoming near-classic episode, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich hams it up with — of all people — Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), a notorious TV stiff.
As a sitcom, “Lateline” is more than a “NewsRadio” clone, thanks to a brilliantly conceived triangle of Freundlich, his patient producer Gale (Megyn Price) and the show’s Machiavellian executive producer Vic Karp (Miguel Ferrer). The story possibilities coming from these three would appear to be endless.
And then there are the little touches, those knowing nods to the infotainment trough where so many of us feed. In one episode, we see Gale and Freundlich editing a story on the flu epidemic, arguing over a computer graphic of a swirling irritable bowel.
Later, Freundlich is bitten by the same flu bug, but stumbles into work anyway. He has to be carted off against his will on a gurney, and Karp bribes the paramedics to hit Freundlich with a horse sedative.
“You guys don’t understand who you’re dealing with,” Karp tells them. “He’s just gonna keep coming back, like those Chevy Chase `Vacation’ movies.”
Speaking of persistent, Franken has made a career out of not going away. Besides his two long shifts at “Saturday Night Live,” he’s become a dogged defender of President Clinton.
In his 15 years at “SNL” he wrote commercial parodies, played himself in numerous sketches with former partner Tom Davis, and created Stuart Smalley, a fashion victim of the self-help movement. He’s also responsible for some of the show’s most memorable occasions, like Dan Aykroyd’s impersonation of a bleeding Julia Child.
In recent years, Franken has branched out his political writing and has made himself a Beltway eminence, active in the National Press Club and Congressional Hunger Center. He had a runaway best seller in his book of liberal anthems, “Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot.” He’s probably the only entertainer on TV whose idea of promotion is to appear on C-SPAN.
Franken’s uncle was the late Lionel Kunst, the Kansas City entrepreneur and crusader for election campaign reform. Clearly he comes by his passion for politics honestly.
But Franken also has tapped into that policy-wonk side of himself that invites parody — something that makes the utter humiliation Al Freundlich suffers each week on “Lateline” even more exquisite.
“Lateline,” according to Franken, “is more a satire on the way news is done,” as opposed to political satire. “One thing I don’t want the show to be is partisan. I’d like to get as many guests as I can from both parties.” In the early episodes, that includes conservatives like Liddy and Jerry Falwell (and, if this counts, Dana Carvey doing a Strom Thurmond knockoff).
“Lateline’s” six episodes, scheduled to air Tuesdays through April 21, were shot in Los Angeles. But if NBC renews it, Franken and Markus plan to move the show to New York, where they both live. After all, there’s more on Franken’s plate than TV comedy.
He’s starting on a follow-up book to chart-topping Limbaugh bash. This time, he’s noodling with the idea of what a Franken presidency would look like. Whereas President Clinton boasted that his Cabinet “looked like America,” Franken is promising that his Cabinet would be made up entirely of Jews.
“I’ve already chosen my vice president, Sen. Joe Lieberman,” said Franken. “He’s Orthodox and I’m Reform, so it’s a balanced ticket.”
