Madman of the People (1994) TV series 1994-1995

Jack "Madman" Buckner is an old-school newspaper editor: he speaks his mind, makes lots of enemies and doesn't sweat the little details. Dabney is the usual but the best part of this show was Cynthia Gibb. Love the Gibb.


AVAILABLE EPISODES
Season 1, Episode 4
Guy Just Wanna Have Fun
13 October 1994

Season 1, Episode 8
Jack Has Left the Building
1 December 1994

Season 1, Episode 11
What a Big Mouth You Have Grammy
29 December 1994

Season 1, Episode 15
Anytime, Anywhere
10 June 1995

Madman of the People (1994) TV series 1994-1995
Cast: Concetta Tomei, Cynthia Gibb, Dabney Coleman

One Special Victory (1991) TV Movie

TV Weekend; John Larroquette Becomes Noble. Honestly.
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: December 6, 1991

Like it or not, this is the time of year when heartwarming stories proliferate on television schedules. Choosing carefully becomes the chief line of defense against sugar poisoning. Pitifully few of television's new Christmas-theme movies are likely to lift holiday spirits, but there are exceptions. One can be found at 9 P.M. on Sunday on NBC: "One Special Victory," starring John Larroquette.

Mr. Larroquette has collected several Emmy Awards for his work in the NBC series "Night Court." Now, as both star and co-executive producer of "One Special Victory," he gets to play a similar character, a kind of rogue only millimeters away from being a slimeball. Kinky wit and perverse charm are Bo Arner's only saving graces. He's an incorrigible wheeler-dealer, overspending and hustling outrageously even as the bank machine refuses to return his card because of insufficient funds.

In a bitter divorce battle, Bo's wife wins possession of their house. Enraged, he trashes the place with a sledgehammer and gets arrested for drunkenness and disturbing the peace. The court slaps him with a fine and 50 hours of community service coaching a basketball team. The delighted Bo, a basketball fan, looks forward to working with hotshot inner-city youths. Instead, confronted with a rag-tag team of developmentally disabled adults in training for the Special Olympics, he storms out of the recreational center.

Well, television-movie buffs will have no difficulty figuring out where the plot goes from there. Bo will return to the center, of course, grumpily resigned. His players will indeed work against formidable odds: Ruthie (Christine Estabrook) has a habit of wetting herself; Joey (Dirk Blocker) can't bear to be touched by anyone; Bruce (Gregory Millar) insists on talking to a basketball that he carries everywhere; Daniel (Joe Pantoliano) is fiercely fussy and startlingly shrewd, and Spike (Joseph Asaro, an actual Special Olympian with cerebral palsy) is terrified of dentists and his overprotective mother.

Nagged by Ellen (Kathy Baker), an attractive and tough social worker, Bo gradually begins to appreciate that his players courageously try, as she puts it, "to be the best they can be" even as "they face rejection and prejudice every day." Mr. Larroquette takes Bo through this learning process with a remarkable absence of sentimentality. His education proceeds warily, rarely without a skeptical smirk. The obvious is never played obviously as coach and players come to truly love one another. Add neat bits of support from the veterans Ray Walston as the center's desk clerk and Beah Richards as its supremely self-possessed cleaning woman, and "One Special Victory" gives the concept of heartwarming the kind of holiday spin it should have.

One Special Victory Directed by Stuart Cooper; teleplay by Betty Goldberg; story by Clifford Campion, based on a book by Ron Jones; director of photography, Steve Yaconelli; editor, Edward Abroms; music by Billy Goldenberg; art director, Jack G. Taylor Jr.; produced by Port Street Films in association with NBC Productions; Susan Baerwald and John Larroquette, executive producers. Sunday night at 9 on NBC. WITH: John Larroquette, Kathy Baker, Christine Estabrok, Joe Pantoliano, Phil Hartman, Beah Richards and Ray Walston.

One Special Victory (1991) TV Movie

Cast: Angela Bassett, Christine Estabrook, Concetta Tomei, Dirk Blocker, John Larroquette, Kathy Baker, Phil Hartman, Ray Walston

Betty Ford Story, The (1987) TV Movie

'THE BETTY FORD STORY,' ON ABC

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR

Published: March 2, 1987

''The Betty Ford Story,'' on ABC tonight at 9, is one of those sui-generis television presentations that command attention more for their subject matter than their artistic merit. As a portrait of alcohol and prescription-drug addiction, the film is carefully subdued and, despite its messy subject, insistently tasteful. But as a glimpse into the private life of a former and very much admired First Lady of the United States, ''The Betty Ford Story'' is genuinely compelling and an unusual profile in courage. Holding it together, powerfully yet sensitively, is the performance of Gena Rowlands in the title role.

Based on Mrs. Ford's 1978 autobiography and on subsequent interviews with the Ford family, Karen Hall's script limits the television scenario to the last chapter of the book. The film opens in 1978 as Mrs. Ford enters the alcoholic rehabilitation center of a naval medical center in California. Shaken and wary, she still insists that she does not have a drinking problem. The scene returns to 1974, a time when Betty Ford was urging Vice President Gerald Ford (Josef Sommer) to retire from politics, only to be frustrated by the unfolding Watergate scandal. After Richard Nixon's resignation, Gerald Ford would be President and his family would be pushed further into the public glare. During the next four years, Mrs. Ford, already taking ''so many pills for so many aches,'' would sink gradually into serious addiction.

Along with Robert Papazian, David L. Wolper (''Roots'') is an executive producer. His son, Mark Wolper, is the producer. And the distinguished television veteran David Greene (''Friendly Fire,'' ''Fatal Vision'') is the director.

Care has clearly been taken. The underlying candor is modulated with an understandable respect for the woman concerned. Passing references are made to her earlier years, especially to her dancing ambitions. She obviously is a wife who has trouble adapting to the fact that, because of his career, her husband is required to devote enormous time away from home. When Mr. Ford decides to run for the Presidency in 1976, his wife complains: ''What am I going to do? Ask you not to run? You wouldn't bow out and you know it.''

In addition to suffering from arthritis, Mrs. Ford discovers she has breast cancer and has to undergo a mastectomy. Later, she will have to cope with two assassination attempts on her husband. Worn out by the demands of campaigning in yet another election, she finally begins retreating more into her own silent, alcohol-supported world. Her family is stunned to find merely human the woman they had always taken for granted as the gracious and unshakeable center of their world. Accepting that something has gone terribly wrong, they gather as a group and, with professional help in what is called an intervention process, bluntly insist that she seek help.

There are no ''Lost Weekend'' horrors in this depiction of an alcoholic. Mrs. Ford becomes noticeably haggard-looking and grows testy about criticism. We see her momentarily being clumsy or nodding off discreetly at public functions. But the more embarrassing incidents take place off camera. Her children talk of finding her passed out, or of her chipping a tooth in a fall. There is no doubt, however, about the seriousness of her problem, and when Mr. Ford does face the fact, the scene is tremendously moving as Ms. Rowlands, back to the camera, simply breaks into piercingly painful sobbing.

At the end of the film, Betty Ford appears herself, delivering a ''message of hope'' to those who may have similar problems and advising them to call Alcoholics Anonymous or the National Council on Alcoholism. Mrs. Ford, Gerald Ford and their family deserve unstinting respect for their courage, decency and exemplary concern for others.

The Betty Ford Story (1987) TV Movie
Cast: Gena Rowlands, Josef Sommer, Nan Woods, Concetta Tomei, Jack Radar, Joan McMurtrey, Kenneth Tigar, Laura Leigh Hughes, Daniel McDonald, Brian McNamara, Bradley Whitford, Michael Greene, Stanley Grover