City (TV series)

City
Format	Comedy
Starring	Valerie Harper Todd Susman Stephen Lee Tyra Ferrell Liz Torres Mary Jo Keenen Sam Lloyd James Lorinz LuAnne Ponce Shay Duffin Rodney Ueno (pilot only)
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	13
Production
Running time	30 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	January 29, 1990 – June 8, 1990

City was an American sitcom which aired for 13 episodes, on CBS, during the latter half of the 1989-1990 season. It was a new starring vehicle for Valerie Harper, which went into development not long after she and husband Tony Cacciotti won their lawsuit against Lorimar Telepictures over her dismissal from her NBC sitcom Valerie (which eventually continued without Harper as The Hogan Family). City was created by Paul Haggis, and like Ms. Harper's previous series, was also executive produced by Tony Cacciotti.

Synopsis

Harper portrayed Liz Gianni, the city manager of an unnamed American city. In her line of work came dealings with the all-too-realistic but sometimes lighthearted issues of the modern-day city, from budget cuts to bureaucratic and political corruption, and the socioeconomic travails of inner-city life. Despite the turmoil that often ensued because of these problems, Liz focused on them with much exuberance, with a little kookiness thrown in, which ultimately made this a return to the type of character that first brought Harper fame on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda in the early 1970s. Liz's breezy, Amazonian mentality played more to her advantage at home, where she had to constantly keep up with—and fret over—her rapidly maturing 19-year-old daughter Penny (LuAnne Ponce). Liz and Penny's frantic repertoire and sweet "mother-daughter" moments, filled with witty dialogue, was the other central base of the show.

At work, Liz oversaw a multi-ethnic staff of crazies and eccentrics. Roger Barnett (Todd Susman) was the assistant city manager who spends most of his time betting on sports and trying to sell a worn-out racehorse he owns. Anna-Maria Batista (Liz Torres) is the tough Cuban purchasing agent whose most obvious character trait was pronouncing "yep" as "jep". Wanda Jenkins (Tyra Ferrell) was the sarcastic black secretary, who often discussed how she didn't want her young son to turn out like his father, a composer of classical music who actually made very little money. Also seen around City Hall were Gloria Elgis (Mary Jo Keenen), the city social coordinator, a stereotypically beautiful airhead spoiled by her wealthy family; Lance Armstrong (Sam Lloyd), the creepy statistician; and Victor Sloboda (James Lorinz), a dumb security guard, who in one episode thought a bandit had stolen the entire supply of White-Out for use in processing records for illegal immigrants. His solution to the problem: painting his entire body in correction fluid in order to "keep his eyes" on the supply! Liz and the gang all answered to Ken Resnick (Stephen Lee), the totally powerless, monumentally rotten Deputy Mayor. Running the newsstand/lunch counter at City Hall was Sean (Shay Duffin), an acerbic Irishman. Chuck (Rodney Ueno), an aggressive Asian mail clerk, was also part of the cast, but his character was dropped after the pilot.

Ratings & Scheduling

City premiered on CBS in January 1990 and immediately cracked the Nielsen Top 10. The show kept up this performance through February sweeps, but the early success didn't last long. Audiences diminished over the next few months, and although the series was still pulling respectable numbers at the end of its inaugural season that April, CBS decided not to give City a second season. During its entire original run, the show aired in the plum time slot of Mondays at 8:30/7:30c, between freshman hit Major Dad and sophomore hit Murphy Brown. After its only season ended, CBS at first pulled the show for May sweeps, and then brought City back on Fridays at 8/7c in June, where it aired reruns for two weeks before its last network airing that same month.

Coincidences between City and The Hogan Family

Whether it was to Valerie Harper's dismay or not, City had more than one coincidental occurrence with her former series, now known as The Hogan Family. The intended coincidence was that Ms. Harper's husband, Tony Cacciotti, had served as co-producer on both series. However, the connection became stronger when LuAnne Ponce was cast as Penny Gianni in City - she was the sister of Hogan Family star Danny Ponce (thus giving the Ponce siblings the distinction of having both been TV children of Valerie Harper). Harper's characters on both series had husbands named Michael. As if that weren't enough, CBS just happened to schedule City on Monday nights directly opposite The Hogan Family. Both shows even had a number of episodes directed by Howard Storm. City even used the same credit font that The Hogan Family had been using during all seasons in which Harper's replacement on that series, Sandy Duncan, had starred (Cooper Black). Yet another coincidence was that after NBC canceled The Hogan Family in the summer of 1990, CBS picked up the show(though it would be canceled the following year).

Unauthorized life after death

Despite its short run, it is not doubtful that City would have remained in the memory banks of viewers because of its star power alone. However, the pilot episode of the series has continued to be seen by many around the world to this very day, through their participation in product and consumer research. Research Systems Corporation, which runs public invitation-only conventions known as The New Television Preview, had acquired selected copies of City episodes from CBS for showings at their public events, which were falsely passed off, along with actual unaired network pilots, as a test preview for a new series being considered for nationwide broadcast.

The actual objective of these focus groups is to test the live audience's emotions and reactions to advertising and product placement; the results are given to top marketers in order for them to keep promotional trends in sync with consumers. The so-called "new TV pilots" only serve the purpose of controlling the attention and emotions of viewers, and to give them something else to occupy their time with besides watching commercials. The general public, as well as press columnists, have accused Research Systems Corporation as using TV pilots and The New Television Preview as a way to deceive people into taking surveys and answering questionnaires on products rather than shows, and as a gateway for manufacturers to push their products on unassuming participants through telemarketing and mail offers (survey takers are asked to provide personal information before starting the process). The events are not only held in major cities across the United States, but also in many other markets abroad.

The research firm reportedly began this practice in the late 1990s, and the pilot episode of City has been seen in steady rotation with other pilot material that never aired since that time. Tony Cacciotti eventually found out that the show was being used for the research ploy and at one point even considered a lawsuit against Research Systems Corporation. In any event, attendees were not fooled by the inclusion of City's pilot episode in various meetings of The New Television Preview. Whether they remembered the program or not, it became more obvious that the show was not new or even being considered for current network pickup because of its age and the writing, which contained jokes and references to world culture circa 1990.

References

Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows

• Use of City pilot in The New Television Preview