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CNN Live Today

Interview With 'TV Guide's' Mark Schwed

Aired May 16, 2002 - 11:53   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is more than just friends for Ross and Rachel. It is the season finale of "Friends." It features the long-awaited birth of the unmarried couple's baby. NBC is looking for big ratings tonight, numbers that could make the sitcom the most popular television show for the season. The pregnancy storyline has gotten plenty of attention, but little criticism. And that wasn't the case for "Murphy Brown" just a few years ago.

Mark Schwed is a writer for "TV Guide," joining us from Las Angeles to talk about TV pregnancies.

Mark, good morning, good to have you.

MARK SCHWED, "TV GUIDE": Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: Boy, what a difference a few years make?

SCHWED: Oh, boy, it's incredible. I mean, all you have to do is go back to TV's very first baby, which was Lucille Ball who was pregnant in real life.

KAGAN: Except you couldn't say pregnant then, on the air.

SCHWED: You couldn't even mention the word pregnant. And, you know, it was a national event when this baby was born. In fact, it was "TV Guide's" first cover, was her real child, Desi. So thank you both for that. But then, "Murphy Brown" -- of course you move ahead a few years -- and here's a single mom having a baby, with, you know, after a fling with her ex-husband. And it wasn't a national event, it was a national debate about how appropriate this was.

KAGAN: Because the vice president, Dan Quayle, came out and criticized "Murphy Brown," criticized the, well, the character of the show. Thinking that you are just going to encourage all these single girls to go ahead and get pregnant.

SCHWED: I think you could say, he did more than criticize. He ran on it. This was a national debate about whether it was appropriate for single mothers to have children like this. And of course, what the unsuccessful vice presidential candidate said was that they needed a mother and a father, and that this was what was wrong with America.

Now, jump ahead to now, and what's going to happen tonight, and nobody even says a peep about this. This is a women who is having a child out of wedlock, and it is just like another day at the park.

KAGAN: Dan Quayle did some publicity toward it, it was last week or earlier this week. And he pointed out the differences; well, this time the father is involved, or the character of the father.

SCHWED: I don't think that -- I don't think -- I think Dan has mellowed over the years. The father is involved, slightly, but remember she didn't know, really, who the father was. And it could have been this guy, or that guy, and I think Dan would have had a big problem with that. You know, TV -- babies are big business for TV, but they also give us a kind of snapshot about what's going on in society at that particular time that that baby is born.

And if you go back to Lucy's baby, well you couldn't even mention the word pregnant on TV. This was, again, it was a national event; people were -- seven out of ten families with a television set on were watching this program, which is phenomenal. It still is unbeatable today.

KAGAN: And just real quickly, Mark, as for Ross and Rachel, and "Friends," have you seen this episode?

SCHWED: No, no one has seen the entire episode, because NBC is keeping the last 15 minutes locked up tight. And in fact, we don't even know if she is going to have a baby: one baby, two babies, three babies or if maybe Rachel is going to have some health problems. We just don't know.

KAGAN: We do know that the baby, the character of the baby, is a girl. They have revealed that in earlier episodes. You know what I'm doing with myself on Thursday nights -- watching "Friends."

Mark Schwed from "TV Guide"; thanks for stopping by and talking TV babies with us. Really appreciate it.

SCHWED: Glad to be here.

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