Puppetz N the Hood

PORTLAND —  It may not look like it at first glance. But it really is a beautiful--though somewhat twisted--day in this neighborhood.

The grime-heavy streets are littered with newspapers, and the walls are covered with graffiti. Shuttered-up storefronts line Rev. Al Sharpton Drive. A candy store that has seen better days beckons youngsters with the sign, “Not patrolled by truant officers.”

The nearby abandoned Nubian movie theater, once a beaming light in the community, sits in a mist of neglect and disrepair. A displaced Egyptian sphinx lies on top of the dirty marquee. Near the front is a poster for one of the theater’s last offerings: “African-American Werewolf in London.”

Don’t bother trying to locate this neighborhood in an industrial area of northwest Portland. Chances are you won’t find it. Even if you do, you won’t be able to drive through it. Your tires would crush the buildings and squash the residents.

This miniature community is actually part of a disjointed collection of 40 small stages that occupies a huge warehouse where filming has commenced on what promises to be one of television’s most ambitious and unusual comedies next season.

Though Fox is currently occupied with launching its new fall schedule, the network is already stirring up buzz and revving expectations about “The PJs,” an animated series set in an urban housing project that won’t premiere until early 1999.

The show is the brainchild of comedian Eddie Murphy, and most of the characters will be realized through the process of “foamation,” a more realistic variation on the Claymation process pioneered by Portland-based animator Will Vinton, the developer of “The California Raisins.”

The series will mark the first time that stop-motion animation will be the focal point of a network prime-time series--a breakthrough that is estimated to be costing more than$1 million per half-hour episode.

Four different episodes are being animated simultaneously out of sequence at the Will Vinton Studios at a painstaking pace of about two minutes a week. It takes about 28 weeks to produce one “PJs” episode.

Steering “The PJs” is a powerhouse partnership between Murphy’s production company, Imagine Television, Will Vinton Studios and Touchstone Television, a unit of the Walt Disney Co. The eight executive producers include Murphy, Vinton and Imagine co-founders Brian Grazer and Ron Howard.

Controversy may also find a home at “The PJs.”

The series will use the unglamorous life of a low-cost, predominantly African American housing project--complete with crime, poverty, gunfire, wailing police sirens and recovering drug users--as a launching pad for comedy.

But the producers insist that the comic expressiveness of the characters, the sharpness of the humor and the celebration of family life will overcome possible concerns about stereotypes, images or its often politically incorrect humor.

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Call it “Puppetz N the Hood.”

Grazer said: “I believe this is revolutionary. This series deals with the reality and the coolness of the inner city. We have realistic urban attitudes, but they’re expressed in a heightened way so that they are really funny, which is our single objective. The foamation allows us to tackle issues, but mitigate the harshness of it.”

Added Tony Krantz, co-chairman and chief executive officer of Imagine Television: “Yes, this might be controversial. There is a reality to life in the housing projects which is tough. If you have humans acting it out, the humor can get lost in the very real and sometimes potentially tragic circumstances. Having puppets brings a slight disassociation from reality. We’re not trying to be controversial. We’re trying to be just out-and-out funny.”

“The PJs” “stars” Thurgood Stubbs, the gruff, put-upon superintendent of the Hilton-Jacobs housing project who often finds himself at odds with the tenants or neighbors. Thurgood, who is voiced by Murphy, has a prominent jaw and a high, narrow head topped by a Don King-like hairdo. His more levelheaded and loving wife, Muriel (Loretta Devine), tries to provide a calming influence on Thurgood.

Other characters include Calvin, a shy, 12-year-old child who idolizes Thurgood; Mrs. Avery, an older woman who is always angry, even when she is feeling good; and Smokey, a recovering crack addict who pops up in every episode to deliver some punch lines.

The series is part of an explosion of animated projects for television. Fox is developing “Family Man” and “Futureama,” the latter from “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening. UPN has “Dilbert,” based on the comic strip, on its January plate, while WB has “The Downtowners” from two former “Simpsons” writers.

Murphy and Howard came up with the idea for “The PJs” when they were talking about their affection for “Thunderbirds,” the 1960s-era science-fiction series starring a cast of marionettes. Murphy began speculating what it would look like if it were set in the ‘hood.

Will Vinton Studios jumped at the opportunity to bring their notion to life. Although the company has won accolades for its commercials featuring the California Raisins, talking M&Ms; and action figures driving around in toy Nissans, executives have been looking for a way to expand stop-motion animation into television and feature films.

“What we’re doing with ‘The PJs’ is really the first step in where we want to be going,” said Vinton CEO Tom Turpin. “Our core strength is in character development and creation, and we really want to be into original programming.”

Added Vinton: “We really want to direct our focus toward series. There hasn’t been anything like dimensional animation in prime time. We have an unusual organization of artists who have been around Claymation, and with the vital interest now in animation, there is a stronger market for this kind of material and show.”

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Inside “The PJs’ ” production headquarters, an ocean of stages protected by dark curtains fills the massive floor. Compared to the noisy chaos of shooting on a set populated with humans, the atmosphere is more like a library as animators quietly apply a variety of different mouths, expressions and movements to their 9-inch-tall characters.

For a short scene in which Thurgood trips over a wire on a rooftop, animators spent all afternoon suspending and moving the puppet to what will amount to just a few seconds on film.

While the production commences in Portland, two of the show’s executive producers, Steve Tompkins and Larry Wilmore, oversee the writing of the scripts at the Toluca Lake Corporate Center near Burbank. The duo, who worked together on Fox’s “In Living Color,” are trying to bring the same kind of edgy and topical sensibility of that show to the humor here.

Tompkins said that while the show will skewer images and personalities, “At its heart, it’s about the same thing that ‘Good Times’ [the 1970s era comedy set in a housing project] was about. Thurgood’s prime motivation is to make life better for the people around him, to improve’s everyone’s lot.”

Still, the producers are hoping to avoid the pitfalls that confronted another realistic Fox comedy set in the ‘hood, “South Central,” in 1994.

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Several community leaders initially objected to the series, which revolved around a single woman raising a family in post-riot South-Central Los Angeles, saying it was an inaccurate and insensitive portrait of their region. Although the protests subsided and the series eventually earned community support, the damage had been done and the low-rated series was canceled after a short run.

Turpin said he and others went to a housing project in Harlem to discuss “The PJs” and to seek input on the situations depicted. “They loved what they heard, but they just warned us to keep it real,” he said.

Said producer Grazer: “Eddie wants to make it clear that this is not a show about African American life. This is about a particular family, just like the Klumps [in Murphy’s “The Nutty Professor”] is a particular family. This show could just as well be about whites living in the inner city.”

And though Smokey may raise a few eyebrows, Tompkins and Wilmore are confident that viewers will get the joke.

“Smokey is like the Jim character from ‘Taxi,’ ” Wilmore said, referring to the wacky cab driver played by Christopher Lloyd. “It’s very clear that he’s a recovering addict. We’re writing him as responsibly and funny as we can.”

Grazer is hopeful that the comedy will overwhelm larger sociological concerns about “The PJs”: “If you’re funny, everyone will be happy--white, black, whoever. When you cease to be entertaining, then it will get funky. But I would rather fail at something that is new and fresh than succeed with something that is homogenized.”