The Golden Age of Television, Lacking Luster in PBS's 'Pioneers'

Terrible yet enjoyable, welcome yet deficient, "Pioneers of Television" pays long overdue homage to the first generation of TV talent -- but does it in a clumsily bumbling way. About the highest accolade earned by the PBS production is that classic of dubious distinctions, "It's better than nothing." Actually, though, there are moments when even nothing starts looking pretty good.

The producers of this slapdash history keep things as trite and simplistic as possible, but perhaps there is method in their mediocrity; no one can say the show is too sophisticated for the audience. It's the polar opposite of sophistication and thus widely, hugely accessible.

TV history is reduced mainly to a parade of stars -- stars who ruled the tube from in front of the camera and behind it -- with little if anything that could pass for context, social commentary, perspective or original analysis. The narration, sonorously intoned, is a bouquet of cliches sprinkled with lavish and slavish accolades; the sitcom, subject of tonight's premiere, was "a whole new form of television," we're told, but of course many early sitcoms had obvious radio antecedents.

The genre would be changed forever, of course, because unlike radio, TV has cameras! Now the henpecked husbands and wacky neighbors of sitcoms could be seen as well as heard. The secret to Lucille Ball's success, meanwhile, is that "she figured out what was funny and would do it." Aha! That blinding revelation is offered by Jim Nabors, who played Gomer Pyle first on "The Andy Griffith Show" and later on his own "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C."

Some of the producers' choices for pertinent sound bites are baffling indeed. Lovable Barbara Eden, who had a small part in one of the hour-long "I Love Lucy" shows, analyzes the popularity of the homespun and folksy Griffith sitcom like this: "It was real life in a different world that a lot of people in America didn't understand or relate to." How's that again?! She makes it sound almost subversive.

Eden's more credible when verifying fabled tales of Desi Arnaz's lecherous behavior on the "Lucy" set, even though he was married to the boss: "I spent a lot of time on the set hiding," Eden says. "I'd see him coming and I'd go hide and come out when I had to work."

The show's priorities are sometimes inscrutable. When the Griffith show and Dick Van Dyke's sitcom are dissected, elaborate attention is paid to such supporting players as Don Knotts and Mary Tyler Moore, but "I Love Lucy" comes and goes with barely a mention of the show's invaluable old vaudevillians Vivian Vance and William Frawley, immortally Ethel and Fred Mertz, neighbors and landlords.

Now here's a little quiz. Identify what was "perhaps the most important call in sitcom history." Give up? It was the phone call that Knotts made to Griffith saying Knotts was available for second-banana work -- perhaps in the mythical Mayberry of Griffith's forthcoming sitcom. Thus was doofussy deputy Barney Fife created.

Here and there the show traffics in trivial tidbits that offer relief from the aura of hushed mock-importance. A fairly rare clip from a very early version of Jackie Gleason's "Honeymooners" shows Pert Kelton, originally cast as Ralph Kramden's wife Alice, in the role; when the show moved from the tiny DuMont network to lofty CBS, network brass insisted Kelton be replaced since she'd been blacklisted by right-wingers who accused the wholesome dumpling of communist sympathies.

One reason that informal documentaries like this one remain irresistible no matter how drearily put together is that we folks out here in television land like to see how the stars are aging. Nabors and Van Dyke seem to be holding up well. For whatever reasons, both bear a curious facial resemblance to Bill Clinton; maybe it's the nose. Moore, meanwhile, appears to have undergone so many facial renovations that her ethnicity is morphing -- though into what, it's hard to say.

Some of the vintage clips are rare indeed, but too many seem chosen at random and are insufficiently attributed. A grainy old kinescope of Lucy and Desi sitting in the Ricardo living room is interrupted when Jack Benny inexplicably rises between them from behind the couch. We never learn why -- nor, for that matter, why Tony Orlando pops up to declare that Gleason did only 39 weekly half-hour episodes of "The Honeymooners" because "he believed the series had run out of ideas."

"The final episode of 'The Honeymooners' marked the end of an era," drones the narrator. Oh good grief; not the end of another era! What era ended with the demise of "Honeymooners"? The era of producing sitcoms in New York, apparently, though that era had been ending all through the '50s as TV rode west and got worse.

The less you know about "Sitcoms" -- or about "Late Night" TV, next week's subject -- the more likely you'll enjoy, or at least tolerate, these "Pioneers of Television" productions. Strong reaction to the first four installments could mean that additional shows will be produced. If so, it certainly would be a snap to make them better than the first four. Heck, there's better stuff on YouTube any night of the week.

Pioneers of Television (one hour) premieres at 8 p.m. on Channels 22 and 26. Parts 2 through 4 will be shown at the same time on subsequent Wednesdays.