Greg Harrison has seen the nasty comments from critics about his CBS-TV sitcom "The Family Man" and he doesn't much care about them.
"There is nothing immediately offensive about `Family Man.' But neither is there anything interesting," said one critic. " . . . jokes crashing down faster than Jack Taylor (Harrison's character) slides down his fire pole," snarled another."I think critics spend most of their time trying to be witty at the expense of other people's hard work," responds Harrison, shaking his shaggy black hair. "I can't control what anyone thinks, but the network test audiences rated this show higher than any other new comedy last fall."
That fact is the reason CBS has brought "The Family Man" back this summer for six weeks of twice-weekly airings (Mondays and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.), despite its poor showing in the fall. CBS has also ordered 13 new episodes for use next season.
"The problem for the show last year was that it was on at 7 p.m. Saturdays when nobody's watching TV," said Harrison, who starred in "Logan's Run" and spent seven years co-starring as Dr. Gonzo Gates on "Trapper John, M.D." "It was often pre-empted by sports events like the World Series. The network now wants it out there where a lot of people will see it because test audiences still like it."
For sure, Harrison likes it. He thinks it's different from similar shows like "My Three Sons" and "The Hogan Family" because of the "bottom-line reality I think I bring to any show.
"I'm not a standup comic. I don't know how to act without making it real for myself. So even though this show is formula in some ways, I think it's real for people who like to believe in situation comedies. I don't make jokes at the expense of reality and I won't compromise with the truth. So you don't get one of those shows that's so contrived you have to let go of all your pretensions of reality in order to believe it."
One way in which "The Family Man" does follow a proven sitcom formula is its deliberate omission of an adult female character. Actresses like Swoosie ("Sisters") Kurtz and Carol ("Beverly Hills 90210") Potter have lately griped that in many popular series, women are absent due to death or divorce.
Harrison, who helped design his current show, doesn't mind taking on that issue. "As an actor, I wanted a part where I had to be a mother half the time," he said. "With a recently deceased wife, you can be a bumbling mom at the same time you continue competently in the fatherly duties. We all felt audiences would find that situation funny and attractive and sympathetic.
"We never considered we might be committing an error by eliminating women," Harrison muses. "We just liked the situation. And because there's no wife, we have other women in the show, which creates work for actresses who otherwise might not have it."
What's more, he says, actresses who don't like programs without women are welcome to go create their own shows without men.
"If they have a problem, they should do what I did," he says. "They should go make their own production company and create a show about a woman with no man in her life. It's not impossible for women to carry that kind of clout. It may be harder for women, but it can be done. There are women like Sally Field who are taking the reins in show business."
Though he's willing to talk about such issues, Harrison doesn't like them. "I find all this divisiveness kind of boring," he said. "I don't like people who complain and don't go out and make good things happen."
Harrison would rather talk about how his own life mirrors character Jack Taylor's.
"I've got three kids and a fourth due any moment," he says. "So I will soon have four in real life, just like on the show. My priorities in real life are family life, just like they are on the show. And the same kinds of things can happen at home and on the show."
Example: "We did one scene where I'm trying to braid my little daughter's hair and failing miserably," he recalls. "In real life I do that all the time."
The neighborhood where Harrison's show is set also reflects his real life growing up on isolated Catalina Island.
Kids in "The Family Man" freely run in and out of the house, with few worries about anything or anyone lurking about.
That's how it was on Catalina. "My mother felt secure sending me outside unsupervised onto the streets at age 3 in a town without crime or traffic," he remembers. "So I could create children's fantasy worlds without the fear factor that burdens people in a city like Los Angeles.
"That didn't prepare me for the harsher crueler world of critics, criminals and commuters I had to come to, but it's really helped me as an actor, because acting is a child's game."
A child's game he still loves to play. "I feel like I'm flying when I'm on stage or in front of a camera," Harrison says with a grin. "I never feel like I'm working. I feel like I'm playing."