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By Tom Shales Late-night television is developing into a tootsie-fruitsie world all its own, something of haven from the wan blandness of prime time. But this revolution may turn out to be short-lived. "Roadshow," the series pilot to be aired by NBC in the "Saturday Night Live" time slot at 11:30 tonight on Channel 4, was rushed onto the air partly because the new cast and staff of "Saturday Night Live" have turned out to be, to judge from their work, a witless tribe of philistines. They dropped a bomb in the 12-megaton range, and insiders say that network ad salesmen are having a hard time getting sponsors to place commercials on the program, which used to sell out months in advance. Originally, "Roadshow," which hatched in the maverick mind of Craig Kellem at Twentieth- Century Fox Television, was a candidate to replace "SNL" on the fourth Saturday of each month, the way "Weekend" once did. Now it's possible that "Roadshow" and other projects are candidates to replace "SNL" every week. What was once NBC's monopolistic domain has suddenly become a shambles. Unfortunately, the NBC censors have jumped all over "Roadshow" because of jitters they got from the disastrous first two editions of the new "SNL" and the hundreds of angry phone calls the provoked. "Roadshow" is an inquisitive and rambunctious TV magazine, one that mixes impromptu comedy and what a producer calls "improvisational journalism." The censors were particularly nervous about sequences involving "the real Animal House" ˜ a hell-raising fraternity at Louisiana State University ˜ and a prolonged peekaboo at a sensuality seminar in New York... "Roadshow," though an occasionally uneasy mix, has fairly iridescent possibilities. The idea was to put a bunch of merry-macs in a bus and send them out to document the American fringe for the fringe-viewers of late-night TV. The program allows viewers to decide for themselves whether they are delighted or disgusted by the "Dekes" of LSU's fraternity or the naked ladies playing Tickle-Me-Pink, but it's hard not to be at least slightly fascinated and impossible not to recognize the signs of the times... The original "Saturday Night Live" opened up late-night to new kinds of programming and new audiences, including an uncountable number of video expatriates who were fed up with the plastic fantasies of prime time. But the small minds that run TV, instead of fostering further experiments in late-night, merely tried to clone "SNL." ... What may happen is that the audiences attracted by the novelty of the old show will simply drift away from late-night TV, as disillusioned with it as they are with prime time. Or new, promising projects like "Road Show" may result in a replacement for "SNL" that is a true departure and not merely an insipid Xerox copy. As a TV veteran has said, the only way to get anything really different on the air is by conspiracy. The aim of the networks, in their timidity and mediocrity, is to become conspiracy-proof; the bright young producers of this world have their work cut out for them. (Excerpts from a major article) Return to the Hollywood Script Publicity Page Return to Hollywood Script.Com Hollywood Script Contacts Email addresses and phone numbers so you can get in touch with Hollywood Script.Com.. For more information about my services and Hollywood Script.com, please feel free to email me or visit the contact page.   Website Design and Promotion by chapman film