"TV 101" (1988)TV series 1988-1989

Creator:

Karl Schaefer

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

29 November 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Kevin Keegan is a recently divorced TV news photographer who quits his job and returns to Roosevelt...

Cast

Sam Robards	...	Kevin Keegan (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Brynn Thayer	...	Emilie Walker (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Leon Russom	...	Principal Edward Steadman (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Andrew Cassese	...	Sherman Fischer (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Stacey Dash	...	Monique (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Alex Désert	...	Holden Hines (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Stewart Goddard	...	Marty Voight (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Matt LeBlanc	...	Chuck Bender (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Teri Polo	...	Amanda Hampton (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Monique Salcido	...	Angela Hernandez (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Mary B. Ward	...	Penny Lipton (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Andrew White	...	Vance Checker (13 episodes, 1988-1989)
Matt Dearborn	...	Skip the Janitor (6 episodes, 1988-1989)

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Verdugo Hills High School - 10625 Plainview Avenue, Tujunga, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

GTG Entertainment

Trivia:

Lasted less than one season.

Imaginative late 80's teen drama.

TV 101 stood out from many of its contemporaries as an intelligent, culturally aware, and hip document of teenage life in the 80's. Sam Robards played Kevin Keegan, a journalist who returns to his Californian alma mater to teach an unusual journalism class: a class based around a weekly student-produced TV show. The students are what made the show: instead of the usual "cookie-cutter" thirty-year-olds playing Middle American high-school types of say "Saved By The Bell" or "90210", this show's characters were smart, stylish, ethnically diverse, and intellectually, technologically, and morally aware; not afraid to "face the issues" in their reporting, sort of a teenaged "Lou Grant", with cutting edge home video equipment. Especially interesting to me was "Holden Heinz" (Alex Désert, lately of the show "Becker"), the scooter-riding 'mod' African American student: he was an archetype of myself and my friends at the time: we liked him even though he wasn't quite as cutting-edge as we were. Also notable was Matt LeBlanc of "Friends" as "Bender". The only other kid from the series I've seen lately was Stacey Dash doing the old Thirty-Year-Old-Playing-A-Teenager thing in "Clueless".To top it all of the show's theme was written by composer Stewart Copeland, best known as the drummer for 80's #1 hitmakers "The Police. Alas, the show lasted only one season: I guess the masses couldn't relate to a cast that ethnically varied and cool. Hell, they still can't.