So with a deal worth a potential $5 million a year each through the millennium, clearance in an impressive 99 percent of the country, and Dick Clark signed on to executive-produce, Donny and Marie are together again. But don't expect any purple socks or Paul Anka cameos. "To try to re-create what we had in the past would be a big mistake," says Donny. "Doing a variety show would be the death of us." Instead, expect a lot of bickering sibling shtick (Marie: "I'm funnier than he is. I'm there to save him." Donny: "She just thinks that") to be a staple ingredient of the show. Says Marie: "We'll joke about parts of our lives because we don't take ourselves that seriously. We both kind of have bizarre senses of humor."
Okay, that leaves 47 minutes left to fill. "This is not brain surgery," says Clark. "If you like the people, you come back, regardless of the stars or the topics. It could be a show about a guy with 74 children and a snake living in the backyard, but if you like the hosts, it works." Then again, Danny Bonaduce seemed likable for a couple of weeks in 1995. "It's very competitive out there," admits executive producer MarilynWilson, former senior VP of late night at ABC. "But people are going to tune in specifically for Donny and Marie. All the rest of the show is going to be icing on the cake."
But the duo won't be laying it on thick with plug-crazy A-list stars or bitch-slapping transvestites. "We're not about loading up on the Mel Gibsons of the world for the first week," says Krasnoff, who nevertheless did book Pamela Anderson Lee as a first-week guest. "We're really about the two stars on our show every single day." Donny & Marie will also focus on what Wilson calls "human-interest guests with nice heartwarming stories." Marie has another name for them: Fred and Marge. "I know middle America," Marie stresses. "When I was touring my country records, I was playing fairs, festivals, and honky-tonks. I met Fred and Marge, and I love them." As if repenting for his sins of calling Rosie O'Donnell fat and being a regular guest on The Howard Stern Show, Donny dutifully (and without irony) pipes in, "I'd love to have only Fred and Marge on."
But the question is, Will clicker-mad Fred and short-attention-spanned Marge put them on? (After all, even Queen of Nice Rosie O'Donnell is currently suffering serious viewer migration.) Only the big director of programming in the sky can answer that one. "God has been great to us and that doesn't come through luck," Marie says. "It comes through a lot of hard work, and it takes a drive that I think we both learned when we were kids." Adds Donny: "We always look at the positive, look ahead, and look one step at a time. When you have that mentality, the negatives don't come in." Sounds like someone's been hitting the candy jar again.
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