`Barney Miller' returning to prime time on TV Land

PASADENA - The nation's TV critics were here to preview new programs this month, but the old series keep popping up.

Nick at Nite adds "The Facts of Life" in September and "Three's Company" in October. TNN offers "Starsky and Hutch" this month and stages a "Dysfunctional Family Week" of reruns, hosted by Gary Coleman and Danny Bonaduce, in September. TV Land resurrects "Charlie's Angels" in October.

But the most cheered announcement was easily TV Land's return of "Barney Miller" to prime time in November. Even hard-to-please critics applauded the beloved cast members as they reminisced about the police sitcom, which ran from 1975 to 1982 on ABC-TV.

In explaining executive producer Danny Arnold's quest for perfection, the "Barney Miller" actors gave insights into the crazy, demanding world of sitcoms.

"The writing and the limitations of the writing made it a classic," said Hal Linden, who played Capt. Miller of the Greenwich Village police station. "We would come up in rehearsal with funny things for the characters, and Danny would say, `Would you go to a police officer for help who does something like that?'

"The crazies who came in weekly could go bananas. We had to be real from week to week. We couldn't bend our characters to accommodate a scene. Danny wouldn't allow it. That kind of discipline was hard to find in sitcom writers."

But Arnold's work style broke with sitcom convention. The show had no studio audience. The show taped over two days, with the second day going 14 to 16 hours or longer.

"Barney Miller" could shoot 48 minutes for an episode that would run 22 minutes. The cast often rehearsed with part of a script as Arnold rewrote. They could start shooting without the ending.

"We'd sometimes go to work at 8 in the morning and leave at 6 the following morning," said Ron Glass, who played Detective Ron Harris.

"But we only worked four days a week," said Steve Landesberg, who played Detective Arthur Dietrich.

"Yeah, because it took you three to recover," Glass said.

Were the working conditions maddening? Glass and Landesberg laughed. Were they frustrated? More laughter.

"It's not necessary for everybody to work that way to get a good result," Glass said. "It was necessary for Danny to work that way to get that result. Now things are done in a committee fashion. Danny told people at the network when they could come on his set."

Abe Vigoda, who played Detective Phil Fish, said Arnold observed the actors closely. "His magnificent writing meshed with the personalities of the actors on the stage, and that's what made it a hit," he said. "The mesh."

When Vigoda went to see Arnold about the role, the producer told the actor he looked tired and as if he had hemorrhoids. Vigoda, who had just jogged five miles, said, "What are you, a doctor or a producer?" Arnold replied, "You've got the job."

Vigoda, who's 79, lobbied TV Land to pick up his "Miller" spinoff "Fish." He was still bristling about hard-to-correct reports of his death, started by a magazine report years ago.

"I've lost millions of dollars through the years," Vigoda said. "The more I work, they know I'm alive." He's considering movie roles and another series.