TERRE HAUTE — Prime-time TV needs more middle, more Indiana.
I’m no prude, and I like escapist shows as much as the next guy. But as it is, average folks are left to search for glimpses of themselves in dramas and sitcoms where the extreme seems commonplace. Whether that atmosphere magnetically pulls some people toward the edges is a debate for sociologists. One thing’s for sure — Mayberry would seem like Remulac on 21st-century television.
That’s why “The Middle” sounds so Hoosierly cool.
This new comedy premieres tonight at 8:30 on ABC. It stars Patricia Heaton (forever known as Debra Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond”) as Frankie Heck, who along with her husband, Mike Heck — and get this description from the network’s official bio — “raise their kids with love and solid Midwestern practicality.”
Say what?
This small-screen anomaly is based in Orson, Ind., a fictional town that — according to a map shown in previews — looks to be somewhere near Greencastle, a real town, of course, in Putnam County. Frankie sells used cars. Mike manages a quarry. Their kids are mildly peculiar but so, so Indiana-ish — 15-year-old Axl spends most of his time raiding the fridge in his boxers; Sue, a middle-schooler, tries hard always but succeeds less; and Brick is 7, loyal and, according to his teacher, “clinically quirky.”
Their hometown, as Frankie describes it, is located “in the heart of the Heartland, home of Little Betty snackcakes, demolition derby for the homeless, and the world’s largest polyurethane cow.”
OK, so “The Middle” pokes a little fun at us. Goober Pyle never seemed traumatized by “The Andy Griffith Show.” Besides, some key people behind “The Middle” have Hoosier roots themselves, and their affection gives the show a genuine foundation. That collection of Hoosiers includes Kelly Luegenbiehl, a Terre Haute native and ABC’s vice president of comedy programming.
“I love and miss Indiana, and I’m so happy to work on a show that celebrates Indiana,” Luegenbiehl said in a phone interview Tuesday morning. “For us, we’ve always felt that [“The Middle”] is a love letter to the Midwest and that other people will see it that way, too.”
Luegenbiehl grew up in Terre Haute and graduated from Terre Haute North Vigo High School in 1996, before traveling to California to study international relations and compete on the swim team at Pomona College. Plans changed, and she wound up with a degree in media studies, jobs with a couple networks, and then an Emmy Award in 2007 as a supervising producer of Bravo’s “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.”
Now 31, Luegenbiehl lives in Los Angeles. But she hasn’t forgotten Terre Haute experiences, such as selling fundraiser items for the North swim team. In “The Middle,” 13-year-old Sue Heck must peddle fundraiser cheese and sausage door-to-door for the Orson school show choir. Residents of Luegenbiehl’s hometown should find a special connection to Sue’s debut with the Orson Swing-sation in tonight’s pilot episode. The emcee introduces the show choir as “fresh from their knockout performance at Hoosier Assisted Living in Terre Haute.” Be sure to listen for the applause in the auditorium.
The co-creators and executive producers — Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline — met in a dorm at Indiana University in the 1980s. Heline grew up in Muncie, and Heisler near Chicago. Small-town Indiana was a unique, ideal setting for “The Middle,” Heisler said, because “there are lots of shows that have a New York or L.A. sensibility, but there are a lot of people living in the middle of those places, too.” The family life of Frankie and Mike Heck — that relentless rush of booster club meetings, school events, job demands and family dinners in front of the TV — isn’t foreign to Heisler and Heline. (Neither is Terre Haute. In fact, our city could get mentioned occasionally during the coming season because, as Heisler said, “It doesn’t sound like any other place.”)
Refreshingly, the fivesome they depict cope with their frazzled frustrations without wishing they were someone, or somewhere, else.
“For us, we didn’t want to do a fish-out-of-water story,” said Heisler, by phone from California on Tuesday morning.
Heaton’s multitasking character, 44-year-old Frankie, is “a harried mom, but that’s the life she wants to live,” Heisler said.
Viewers will recognize her unsympathetic boss Mr. Elhert (played by Brian Doyle-Murray) and her co-worker Bob (Chris Kattan) from different “Saturday Night Live” eras. They’ll see Frankie struggle to sell at the “last surviving car dealership in Orson.” And viewers will be able to let their 9-year-old kid and 77-year-old grandmother tune in, without being embarrassed by the language or double entendres.
“It’s the kind of show you can sit down and watch with your family,” Heisler said, “but it’s not sappy.”
Sounds like a long-overdue twist — families entertained by families in, of all places, Indiana. Amazingly, critics on the coasts generally like it — “one of the brighter new offerings of the season” (San Jose Mercury News), “a standout family show” (Wall Street Journal), Heaton “holds the show together skillfully while her character hangs on by her fingernails” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
In the preview of tonight’s premiere, Frankie Heck says, amid the routine working-mom chaos, “The only thing I know is it’s my life, I love it, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Cool.
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
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