Fresno (1986) TV Mini-Series

Set in Fresno, California, the story focuses on the once-wealthy Kensington family, whose raisin-growing empire has fallen on hard times. The Kensingtons are led by widowed matriarch Charlotte (Burnett), who is locked in a deadly power struggle with rival raisin magnate Tyler Cane (Coleman).

Parodying elements from other prime time soap operas of the era, Fresno centers on the ruthless battle between the Kensingtons and Tyler Cane for domination of the Fresno raisin industry, and follows the marital conflict between Charlotte's scheming son Cane (Grodin) and his bitchy wife Talon (Garr), the travails of Charlotte's "sensitive" younger son Kevin (Heald), who at one point announces that he is becoming celibate as a protest against whaling, the appearance of a mysterious, perpetually-shirtless ranch hand named Torch (Harrison), and the gradual exposure of Byzantine hidden relationships between the main characters sparked by the quest by Charlotte's supposedly adopted daughter Tiffany to find her real parents. As the story reaches a climax, it is revealed that Tiffany is in fact Charlotte's biological daughter, fathered by her mother's arch-rival Tyler shortly after Charlotte's husband's had died in a tragic raisin dehydrator accident.

Fresno was created and co-written by Barry Kemp, Mark Ganzel, and Michael Petryni, and was produced for CBS Television by Mary Tyler-Moore's MTM Productions. The miniseries was directed by Jeff Bleckner, who previously directed episodes of some of the shows parodied in Fresno, include Dynasty, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest.

The production shot for two days in the city of Fresno, California in July 1986, completing its remaining 53 days in Los Angeles. The music was composed by John Morris, and the Emmy-nominated gowns worn by the female leads were designed by the legendary Bob Mackie.

Fresno (1986) TV Mini-Series

Cast: Carol Burnett, Dabney Coleman, Gregory Harrison, Teri Garr, Charles Grodin, Luis Avalos, Pat Corley, Valerie Mahaffey, Anthony Heald, Teresa Ganzel, Bill Paxton, Jerry Van Dyke, Charles Keating, Melanie Chartoff, Michael Richards, Jeffrey Jones, Tom Poston, Louise Latham, Tammy Lauren, Natalie Gregory, James Staley, George Wallace, Nick Toth, Marianne Muellerleile, Peter Scolari

Miracle Child (1993) TV Movie

TV REVIEWS : 'Miracle Child' Revisits the Magic of the Family Movie
April 06, 1993|RAY LOYND

Mix a little baby-abandoned-on-doorstep with a touch of Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" and you have the family movie "Miracle Child" (9 p.m. tonight on Channel 4).

The unexpected pleasure is that even adults without kids should find it watchable. Produced by Disney Family Classics, the movie returns the TV-movie genre to the long-dormant world of fantasy and a vine-shrouded small town so mythical it's almost dreamy.

As Disney movies for the networks go--remember those 20-plus years of "Disney's Wonderful World" and "The Disney Sunday Movie"?--"Miracle Child" is much less cloying and better made than the garden variety Disney TV movie. Gerald DiPego's script (adapted from the book "Miracle at Clement's Pond" by Patricia Pendergraf) weds a kind of Huck Finn-inspired baby caper to an adult romance between characters who have both squandered parenthood and thus have much to learn from each other.

Drawn ever tightly together are the despairing young widow (Crystal Bernard of "Wings"), who abandons her baby at pond-side among bulrushes that are almost biblical, and a travelin' man (the affable John Terry) who's fighting to reclaim his own son (Graham Sack as a likable, latter-day Huck).

In the show's best and keynote scene, the baby literally (and even plausibly) plops like an angel out of a rainy, stormy sky into the arms of the town's beloved, vaguely addled spinster (Grace Zabriskie, in top form). Miracles suddenly reverse the town's misery index. Drought and unemployment disappear--only to be replaced by boosterism and greed.

Director Michael Pressman manages an unstressed momentum. And the plot's inevitability is triggered by the return of the anguished mother in the guise of a nurse to the local Mother Teresa-like doctor (Cloris Leachman).

In the wake of a slew of TV movies pulled from newspaper headlines, "Miracle Child," as formulaic as it is, is a welcome change of pace.

Miracle Child (1993) TV Movie

Cast: Crystal Bernard, Cloris Leachman, John Terry, Graham Sack, Grace Zabriskie, George Wallace, Lexi Randall, Gary Grubbs, Barnard Hughes

American Film Institute Presents, The: TV or Not TV? (1990) (TV)

Novice writers from a writers workshop wrote the show's sketches. Hosted by the great Jack Lemmon.

The American Film Institute Presents: TV or Not TV? (1990) (TV)

Cast: Denny Dillon, Harvey Fierstein, Woody Harrelson, Jack Lemmon, Michael McKean, Alyssa Milano, Richard Moll, Harry Shearer, Renée Taylor, Jay Thomas, George Wallace, Lucy Webb, David Wohl