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eerieindiana'EERIE, INDIANA': STRANGE SHOW, TRICKY TIME
"Eerie, Indiana" has a problem: Whether it airs at 7 or 7:30 on Sundays -- and it has done both -- it's in a kiddie timeslot. That means producer Karl Schaefer has to keep in mind that viewers as young as 2 may be watching what appears to be a kids' show.
But he says he intended the series for adults, with a heavy dash of social satire and "kind of a twisted sense of humor."
Well into the season, NBC told Schaefer to make "Eerie" appeal more to adults, even if the stories continue to reflect the point of view of a 13-year-old. But the network hasn't changed the timeslot.
Is the show for children or an older audience? Or both? And what about the timeslot?
The series revolves around Marshall Teller, a 13-year-old played by Omri Katz, who sees the weird side of his small Hoosier town while others think of it as a normal place. His 10-year-old friend and accomplice Simon, played by Justin Shenkarow, helps Marshall gather evidence of the town's strangeness.
The series, scheduled opposite "60 Minutes," has taken a beating in the ratings while the CBS magazine has had one of its best seasons. The question for the "Eerie" producers is whether the network will renew the show for next season, perhaps with a more hospitable timeslot.
The series was created by Schaefer, who won a Writer's Guild Award for his "TV 101" pilot, and Jose Rivera, who conceived the idea of "magical realism" for television when he worked as a playwright-in-residence at the Royal Court Theatre in London, on a Fulbright Arts Fellowship. They write the scripts.
"I had never envisioned this as a kids' show," said Schaefer. "It was always a piece of social satire done through the eyes of a 13-year-old. It was always about society at large, with a lot of double entendres.
"But NBC stuck us at 7:30 on a Sunday, which by FCC rules has to be appropriate for kids down to 2 years old. I found myself with a bizarre and kind of twisted sense of humor, and by definition a scary show, that could not be too scary for a 2-year-old. Then NBC decided they wanted the show to be scarier. So we're changing the premise of the show a little bit in order to have more adult appeal."
Because "Eerie" airs in early-evening, Schaefer said he has a child psychologist review the episodes. "I'm pretty good about being pretty responsible," he said. "I try to balance the moral center of the episode and the point of the episode, so that you can put up with the scariness along the way."
"Eerie" stories are not as frightening as some children's fairytales, he said.
"These are modern-day fairytales with a twist," he said. "Nothing is scarier than 'Little Red Riding Hood,' where the wolf eats the grandmother, or 'Hansel and Gretel,' where the witch shoves children into the oven. We don't do anything quite that graphic and scary.
"The Standards and Practices definition is that it can't be harmful for kids. My argument is that yes, it is scary, but is it harmful? No. Kids love that stuff. If you stop a kid, even a very small kid, and ask them, Is it real? they know it's not. They know they're supposed to be scared. And even little kids demand and expect the special effects. They know what trick photography is. Even 5- and 6-year-olds know what's going on."
Other "Eerie" forces include Chad Hoffman, television series development executive for Hearst Entertainment Productions, Inc., who helped push TV's eerie level with ABC's "Twin Peaks"; co-executive producers Terry Dunn Meurer and John Cosgrove ("Unsolved Mysteries"); and creative consultant Joe Dante ("Gremlins" and "Gremlins II"), who directed five of the episodes.
Hoffman agreed with Schaefer that "the folks at NBC were interested in adding characters that were a little weirder than we were pursuing. They also wanted us to shift the focus to adult stories as seen from the kids' point of view."
Pat Schultz, director of media relations for NBC, said last week that "NBC is very happy with 'Eerie, Indiana.' The programming and research department look at more than the time period it's in. They look at: Is the show developing? Are they maintaining the quality week after week? One of the reasons why the 'Eerie / Torkelsons' hour is there is because that hour needs to be family informational programming, and those shows meet that criteria. 'Eerie' is definitely a fall contender and it would not be locked into that time period."
She said NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield and Perry Simon, executive vice president for NBC's prime-time programs, both like "Eerie," but said they asked the producers "to expand the focus of the show."
So Schaefer and his colleagues decided to add John Astin as a shopkeeper to whom the kids could talk about the weirdness in their town. Astin starred in the bizarre "Addams Family" TV series.
"John Astin is a wonderful actor and he's got an image of being a little off-center," Hoffman said. And with the recent popularity of the theatrical version of "The Addams Family," he added, "we also thought the timing couldn't be better."
But adding Astin won't solve all the problems. "The show's kind of in a bit of a quandary," he said. "It was put in a time period where we knew going in that we wouldn't have a large share of the audience. But we have a four-inch-thick book of terrific critical reviews. We have campaigned for a different time period.
"The NBC people do acknowledge how good the show is and how hard we have been working to make it a creative show. It's a show that we set out to make with a different point of view, and we still feel that it's got stuff that's obvious for kids and things a little more subtle for adults. We'd like to get out to a bigger audience."
"Eerie, Indiana" is made in Studio City, Calif. -- "an entire town on 1 1/2 blocks of back-lot," said Hoffman -- with no on-location shooting in the Hoosier state. "But there's been no outcry," he added, "and we've got a lot of humorous letters from Indiana."
"Eerie, Indiana" has a problem: Whether it airs at 7 or 7:30 on Sundays -- and it has done both -- it's in a kiddie timeslot. That means producer Karl Schaefer has to keep in mind that viewers as young as 2 may be watching what appears to be a kids' show.
But he says he intended the series for adults, with a heavy dash of social satire and "kind of a twisted sense of humor."
Well into the season, NBC told Schaefer to make "Eerie" appeal more to adults, even if the stories continue to reflect the point of view of a 13-year-old. But the network hasn't changed the timeslot.
Is the show for children or an older audience? Or both? And what about the timeslot?
The series revolves around Marshall Teller, a 13-year-old played by Omri Katz, who sees the weird side of his small Hoosier town while others think of it as a normal place. His 10-year-old friend and accomplice Simon, played by Justin Shenkarow, helps Marshall gather evidence of the town's strangeness.
The series, scheduled opposite "60 Minutes," has taken a beating in the ratings while the CBS magazine has had one of its best seasons. The question for the "Eerie" producers is whether the network will renew the show for next season, perhaps with a more hospitable timeslot.
The series was created by Schaefer, who won a Writer's Guild Award for his "TV 101" pilot, and Jose Rivera, who conceived the idea of "magical realism" for television when he worked as a playwright-in-residence at the Royal Court Theatre in London, on a Fulbright Arts Fellowship. They write the scripts.
"I had never envisioned this as a kids' show," said Schaefer. "It was always a piece of social satire done through the eyes of a 13-year-old. It was always about society at large, with a lot of double entendres.
"But NBC stuck us at 7:30 on a Sunday, which by FCC rules has to be appropriate for kids down to 2 years old. I found myself with a bizarre and kind of twisted sense of humor, and by definition a scary show, that could not be too scary for a 2-year-old. Then NBC decided they wanted the show to be scarier. So we're changing the premise of the show a little bit in order to have more adult appeal."
Because "Eerie" airs in early-evening, Schaefer said he has a child psychologist review the episodes. "I'm pretty good about being pretty responsible," he said. "I try to balance the moral center of the episode and the point of the episode, so that you can put up with the scariness along the way."
"Eerie" stories are not as frightening as some children's fairytales, he said.
"These are modern-day fairytales with a twist," he said. "Nothing is scarier than 'Little Red Riding Hood,' where the wolf eats the grandmother, or 'Hansel and Gretel,' where the witch shoves children into the oven. We don't do anything quite that graphic and scary.
"The Standards and Practices definition is that it can't be harmful for kids. My argument is that yes, it is scary, but is it harmful? No. Kids love that stuff. If you stop a kid, even a very small kid, and ask them, Is it real? they know it's not. They know they're supposed to be scared. And even little kids demand and expect the special effects. They know what trick photography is. Even 5- and 6-year-olds know what's going on."
Other "Eerie" forces include Chad Hoffman, television series development executive for Hearst Entertainment Productions, Inc., who helped push TV's eerie level with ABC's "Twin Peaks"; co-executive producers Terry Dunn Meurer and John Cosgrove ("Unsolved Mysteries"); and creative consultant Joe Dante ("Gremlins" and "Gremlins II"), who directed five of the episodes.
Hoffman agreed with Schaefer that "the folks at NBC were interested in adding characters that were a little weirder than we were pursuing. They also wanted us to shift the focus to adult stories as seen from the kids' point of view."
Pat Schultz, director of media relations for NBC, said last week that "NBC is very happy with 'Eerie, Indiana.' The programming and research department look at more than the time period it's in. They look at: Is the show developing? Are they maintaining the quality week after week? One of the reasons why the 'Eerie / Torkelsons' hour is there is because that hour needs to be family informational programming, and those shows meet that criteria. 'Eerie' is definitely a fall contender and it would not be locked into that time period."
She said NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield and Perry Simon, executive vice president for NBC's prime-time programs, both like "Eerie," but said they asked the producers "to expand the focus of the show."
So Schaefer and his colleagues decided to add John Astin as a shopkeeper to whom the kids could talk about the weirdness in their town. Astin starred in the bizarre "Addams Family" TV series.
"John Astin is a wonderful actor and he's got an image of being a little off-center," Hoffman said. And with the recent popularity of the theatrical version of "The Addams Family," he added, "we also thought the timing couldn't be better."
But adding Astin won't solve all the problems. "The show's kind of in a bit of a quandary," he said. "It was put in a time period where we knew going in that we wouldn't have a large share of the audience. But we have a four-inch-thick book of terrific critical reviews. We have campaigned for a different time period.
"The NBC people do acknowledge how good the show is and how hard we have been working to make it a creative show. It's a show that we set out to make with a different point of view, and we still feel that it's got stuff that's obvious for kids and things a little more subtle for adults. We'd like to get out to a bigger audience."
"Eerie, Indiana" is made in Studio City, Calif. -- "an entire town on 1 1/2 blocks of back-lot," said Hoffman -- with no on-location shooting in the Hoosier state. "But there's been no outcry," he added, "and we've got a lot of humorous letters from Indiana."
