Friday, January 07, 2000
Best part of 'Malcolm' is Malcolm
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
What a cute kid. You might not like Fox's new Malcolm in the Middle (8:30 p.m. Sunday, Channels 19, 45), a sitcom about a child genius, but you'll find Frankie Muniz hard to resist.
Muniz, 13, stars as 9-year-old Malcolm, a typical middle-class kid except for one distinction: He has an IQ of 165. Malcolm hates being labeled a brain, or thrown into “gifted” classes with nerds and geeks.
In real life, he's nothing like the TV character.
“I don't come from a dysfunctional family. My family is very great. And I'm not a genius,” says the young star, who has appeared in What the Deaf Man Heard, Spin City, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Another World.
His portrayal as brainy Malcolm may keep you coming back for more, despite the Fox penchant for pushing the envelope.
Mom (Jane Kaczmarek from Equal Justice, Pleasantville) likes to run around the house topless, while raising four sons. Dad (Bryan Cranston from Saving Private Ryan, Loving) likes to walk around nude, and periodically asks his wife to shave his back hair.
And then there's the quibble about Malcolm being “in the middle” of four boys, two older brothers and a younger one. (Fox justifies this by sending the oldest son to military school.)
The second episode, to air after The Simpsons at 8:30 p.m. Jan. 16, is an uneven script about the circus-themed picnic for the gifted kids thrown by their weird teacher (Catherine Lloyd Burns). But Malcolm's “performance” at the end of the show is almost worth the wait.
The charm of Malcolm comes from Muniz's earnest, human disdain for his new status, as written by creator Linwood Boomer, who claims the show is autobiographical.
“I got tagged with that label,” says Mr. Boomer, an actor-turned-comedy writer. “It made my life very difficult as a kid, to sort of be stuck with that label in that group.”
Some of you may remember Mr. Boomer as teacher Adam Kendall from The Little House on the Prairie (1978-81). Or you may have seen his writing credit on 3rd Rock from the Sun or Night Court.
He calls Malcolm “a very self-serving version of my childhood, and the way I remember it, which probably 90 percent of it is exaggeration and outright lies, but it's the way I remember it,” he says.
“I don't think we're trying to make any kind of statement, or ... push the envelope. I just think of it as sort of ludicrous and funny and harmless,” says Mr. Boomer, whose mother walked around the house topless on laundry day.
Mr. Boomer says casting Malcolm was easy, once he saw Frankie. “We knew right away,” he says.
“I'm just, I guess, a normal kid,” Frankie explains. “I play basketball. I skateboard. I do just about everything I can as a normal kid would do, but I just act.”
Many TV critics raved about Malcolm as one of the best fall sitcoms. But Fox chose to hold it until January, a decision we can all second-guess after Fox's failures with Ally, Action, Ryan Caufield, Harsh Realm and Manchester Prep (canceled before it aired).
Malcolm may be too imperfect to survive, but you can't deny that Frankie is perfect in the role. At least until his voice changes and he shoots up by a foot or two.
ENQUIRERING MIND: Enquirering minds want to know: Has another station picked up the G. Gordon Liddy talk show, which was dropped by WKRC-AM (550) Jan. 1?
No, Liddy is not available in the Tristate. Dayton and Lexington stations also canceled Liddy last year because of low ratings.
The cancellation of Liddy is no surprise. WKRC-AM executives have been talking for years about wanting a local afternoon drive show, which would make the station a more legitimate talk station. Before adding Pat Barry 3-6 p.m. on Monday, only morning drive was local.
The decision was financial, not political. WKRC-AM can make more money with a local show and local advertising than by buying a national show and carrying its national commercials. And twice the station brought Mr. Liddy to town to promote the show.
With Clear Channel controlling the talk radio market here, it's unlikely that another station here will add Liddy. If that changes, I'll let you know.
MOVIES TO GO: Old Lux Radio Theatre adaptations of popular movies from the 1930s, '40s and '50s have been re-released as American Movie Classics Audio Movies To Go.
The Peabody Award-winning radio shows available on audio cassette include She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Red River starring John Wayne; Destry Rides Again with James Stewart; Key Largo with Edward G. Robinson; The Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Claudette Colbert; The Man Who Came To Dinner with Lucille Ball and Clifton Webb; Angels with Dirty Faces with James Cagney; and My Darling Clementine with Henry Fonda.
The AMC audio tapes are availble at Barnes & Noble, Borders and B. Dalton bookstores, or through AMC's Web site (www.amctv.com). The tapes are $14.95 for a set of two.
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