Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 5, 1993 TAG: 9306050788
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
But its "wheels" are the same.
The classic, gloriously shiny Corvette carrying stars James Wilder and Dan Cortese to adventure looks as alluring as ever.
The debut of the new "Route 66" is at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Four episodes have been filmed for its summer tryout.
Its producers say the new NBC series is inspired by, but not a copycat of, the 1960-64 version.
"The original series was very serious, earnest, issues-oriented melodrama," in the TV tradition of the 1950s and '60s, says Harley Peyton. He is co-executive producer with Herbert Leonard, creator of the first "Route 66."
"That approach, by definition, is a little dated: the idea that two people driving across America would run into problems that needed solving every week," Peyton says.
"We wanted to make the show a little more free-form, a little more accurate depiction of what a road trip would be," he said. And, importantly, "more comedic in nature," Peyton adds.
Both men believe that the series' heart and soul - the call of the road - remains as appealing now as it was three decades ago.
"It's a basic part of the American spirit to look for open space," Peyton says. And to seek yourself, Leonard adds.
"Young people have difficulty in finding a way to make a living, to build something, to have a future," Leonard says. "Getting a car, moving around the country, is one way of trying to find that way, finding who you are."
Among the show's new features: Nelson Riddle's jazz theme, a hit song in 1962, has been replaced by an original Warren Zevon pop song. The once-mighty Route 66 itself is also gone, decertified by the federal government in 1985.
In the premiere, young Pennsylvania steelworker Nick Lewis (Wilder) learns of the death of the father he never met, Buz Murdock.
He heads west to claim his inheritance, a perfectly preserved red-and-white Corvette. En route home, Nick picks up a hitchhiker and adventurer, Arthur Clark (Cortese) - and takes a detour.
George Maharis played Murdock in the original "Route 66," with Martin Milner as his traveling buddy, Tod Stiles. (After Maharis left the show in 1963, Glenn Corbett stepped in as Linc Case for the final season.)
Buz was from a tough New York neighborhood; Tod had been born to wealth but found his fortune gone after his father's sudden death. Both young men were searching for a place to belong.
The Corvette, of course, was also a star - and even got a regular face lift. To please the carmaker sponsoring the show, writers had to come up with a way to destroy the car each year and replace it with the new model.
"We had heroic deaths," Leonard recalls, such as the time the Corvette vanished into a rock quarry after being used to pull a trapped child to safety.
Over the years, Peyton says, there have been attempts to create a road show in the tradition of "Route 66." When a production company raised the idea with him, he decided there was only one approach to take.
"I said it seems so much like `Route 66,' and people have been trying to rip off `Route 66,' let's not pretend it isn't," the producer recalls.
He was only 6 years old when the original series aired, so Peyton pulled out old episodes of the show. Leonard, of course, knew all about its roots.
"It was about my life," he says. "I had a great wanderlust, and did a lot of traveling."
He also had a friendship similar to the one at the heart of "Route 66." Leonard was the cash-strapped kid, while his friend was well-to-do and attended private school.
"Route 66" allowed its characters to "test their values against the values of the people they came in contact with," he says.
Leonard is eager to see the new series match its predecessor in one respect: on-location filming across America.
The original "Route 66" sent writers ahead to develop plots for a specific area, such as an Oregon fishing community. Then the cast and crew would follow, "like running a little army," Leonard says.
"I think looking to and looking at America is really one of the major characters of the show," he says.
Although the new series' first episode puts its stars on the road, the others are bound more closely to Southern California. If the series is renewed, both Leonard and Peyton say they hope that will change.
"We are trying to fake America within a 100-mile radius of Los Angeles. I'm not sure it [the show] is worth doing if we're bound to L.A.," Peyton says.
by CNB