Brandon Tartikoff

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Brandon Tartikoff (January 13, 1949 – August 27, 1997) was a popular NBC executive who was credited with turning around NBC's low prime time reputation with such hit series as Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Cheers, Miami Vice, The Golden Girls, Knight Rider, The A-Team, St. Elsewhere, Night Court, Hunter, Highway to Heaven, Matlock, and Empty Nest.

Tartikoff also helped develop Punky Brewster, for whom he based the title character's name after a girl he had a crush on in school. Brandon, the pet dog on Punky Brewster was named after Tartikoff. He was also involved in the creation of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Born in Freeport, New York, Tartikoff was a graduate of the Lawrenceville School and Yale University, and started his career out at WLS-TV in Chicago, Illinois. Before heading to Yale, Tarikoff attended the prestigious New Jersey boarding school, the Lawrenceville School. While still attending Yale, Tartikoff worked as an Account Executive and Sales Manager of WNHC-TV in New Haven, Connecticut and Hartford, Connecticut. After graduating from Yale, he took a series of jobs in advertising and local television. Tartikoff spent vacations in Los Angeles looking for a job in network television.

His big break came when he was hired as a program executive at American Broadcasting Company in 1976 before moving to NBC (after being hired by Dick Ebersol to direct comedy programming) in 1977. Tartikoff took over programming duties from Fred Silverman in 1980. Ironically, Silverman, who was the head of programming at ABC at the time, hired Tartikoff as the network's director of dramatic development in 1976. At the age of 30, Tartikoff became the youngest-ever president of NBC's entertainment division.

He left NBC in 1991, and moved over to Paramount Pictures and became its chairman. About a year later, Brandon left that post to spend more time with his daughter, Calla, who was seriously injured in a car crash near the family's Lake Tahoe home.

During his time, he made several appearances in various NBC shows. He hosted Saturday Night Live in 1983 and appeared as himself in an episode of Saved by the Bell, where, very tongue-in-cheek, shortly entertains the idea of a "show about a high school principal and his kids," before scoffing the idea.

In 1994, he made his comeback to national TV with Last Call, a short-lived late-night discussion show, which he executive produced. That same year he also produced The Steven Banks Show for PBS. Later that year, he began a brief run as chairman of New World Entertainment. Just prior to his death from Hodgkin's Disease in 1997 at the age of 48, (for which Tartikoff had three separate bouts with over 25 years), Tartikoff served as the chairman of the AOL project "Entertainment Asylum" where he teamed with internet pioneer Scott Zakarin to build the world's first interactive broadcast studio.

He was interred in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood, California.

[edit] Trivia

During his 1983 appearance on Saturday Night Live, one skit featured Tartikoff in a black leather ensemble, with the words "Be There" spelled out in rhinestones on the back of his jacket. "Be There" was NBC's slogan during the 1983 - 1984 season, a fitting example of clever hidden advertising.

Famously wrote in his memoirs that his biggest professional regret was canceling the show Buffalo Bill, which he later went on to include in a fantasy "dream schedule" created for a TV Guide article which detailed his idea of "The Greatest Network Ever" – right alongside more conventional classics like I Love Lucy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Cheers.