LITTLE ROCK — If you haven’t checked in with TV Land lately, you’re in for a treat.
The cable outfit, long the cozy home for classic TV series such as I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show and M*ASH, has added original programming in recent years.
The channel’s target demographic is viewers in their 40s and 50s, so it’s only fitting that these new shows cater to the nostalgic sensibility of that group.
The bonus is TV Land has found a home for actors we remember fondly from our younger days.
Two of TV Land’s more popular series return with new episodes Wednesday. Hot in Cleveland rolls at 9 p.m., followed by Happily Divorced at 9:30. Note: They can get a bit risque.
The average age of the four stars of Hot in Cleveland is 63.5.
Of course, that’s skewed upward by the feisty presence of the beloved Betty White, the hardest working nonagenarian on television.
Maybe the only steadily working nonagenarian on TV.
At age 90, White is still as sharp and sassy as she was as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77), and as Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls (1985-92).
In Hot in Cleveland, White portrays the wickedly tart Elka Ostrovsky, housekeeper to the three women “of a certain age” who settled in Cleveland from Los Angeles when their plane made an emergency landing.
The ladies, past their prime and largely overlooked in youth obsessed Los Angeles, discovered that they were still hot in Cleveland. They opted to stay.
Sixty-one-year-old Wendie Malick (Dream On, Just Shoot Me) plays the five-time divorced former soap star Victoria Chase.
Valerie Bertinelli (One Day at a Time, Touched by an Angel), 52, is Melanie Hope Moretti, a divorced writer and mother of two kids in college.
And the youngster in the group is 51-year-old Jane Leeves (Frasier), who plays the never married beautician Joy Scroggs.
It’s a delight to see these actresses with their own show at ages when Hollywood would have long put them out to pasture.
Evidently their Hollywood friends agree. The show is never at a loss for great guest stars.
Past guests have included fan favorites Hal Linden, Carl Reiner, Juliet Mills, Tim Conway, Mary Tyler Moore, Bonnie Franklin, Doris Roberts, Buck Henry, Melanie Griffith, Kathie Lee Gifford, Ed Asner, Cybill Shepherd and the inimitable Susan Lucci as Victoria’s nemesis.
Season four will feature visits by Heather Locklear and Regis Philbin.
The 51-year-old Locklear (Dynasty, Melrose Place), will portray Chloe Summerlin, a former Miss Ohio who is now the owner of Cleveland’s top public relations agency, which she runs with her ex-husband, Alec.
Melanie gets a job at the PRfirm and has chemistry with Alec, not knowing that he’s her boss’ ex.
In Season 3’s finale cliffhanger, the ladies discovered a baby on their doorstep, with no clues to its identity.
Meanwhile, Elka had just gotten together with longtime hairdresser Pierre (Philbin) after discovering that he is, in fact, not gay, as she had long suspected.
Happily Divorced. The sitcom is based largely on the real-life adventures of its star, Fran Drescher, and her (gay) ex-husband and creative partner Peter Marc Jacobson.
The couple married young and remained close after Jacobson came out of the closet. He’s co-creator of the series with Drescher (The Nanny).
In Happily Divorced, Drescher plays Los Angeles florist Fran Lovett who was blindsided when her husband of 18 years announced he’s gay. They divorced, but can’t afford to live separately.
Hilarity ensues.
John Michael Higgins portrays Fran’s ex-husband Peter, a real estate agent.
Eighty-year-old entertainment icon Rita Moreno plays Fran’s mother, Dori Newman, and acting veteran Robert Walden (Lou Grant) is her father, Glenn.
Aside: Walden, 69, is now an adopted Arkansan, living atop Petit Jean Mountain where his wife, Christy Carpenter, is the CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute.
Happily Divorced is also drawing its share of Hollywood legends. Guest starring this season will be Joan Collins (Dynasty), Robert Wagner (Hart to Hart), singer Cyndi Lauper and Debi Mazar (Entourage).
This season, Peter gets a job working as an assistant for Collins (playing a fictional version of herself). Peter is thrilled until he realizes that two demanding women in his life are two too many.
Go ahead and watch the shows even if you are too young to fit the target demographic. You’ll see why these folks became stars and how they still have what it takes to make us laugh.
TV Week, Pages 83 on 11/25/2012