"Secret Life of the American Teenager": Brenda Hampton's got her groove back
Brenda Hampton has been here before.
Critics don't have a lot of affection for her new ABC Family drama "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," but viewers do. After five airings "American Teenager" has busted ABC Family ratings records and generated a strong Internet following with the demo that matters most to the cabler.
"Who knew teens would watch a show about sex?" Hampton quips. "I just had a feeling..."
"American Teenager" revolves around a 15-year-old girl, Amy, "a nice girl" at Ulysses S. Grant High School, a shy French horn player in the marching band, who winds up pregnant after an encounter with the school stud at band camp.
"I didn't exactly realize what what happening until, like, after 2 seconds and then it was just over. And it wasn't fun," a shaken Amy explains to her friends in the pilot seg.
As she did for 11 seasons on "7th Heaven," Hampton's aim is to tell reasonably real-world family stories, leavened with humor, and as much of an authentic voice as she and her staff can muster for the teenage characters. There are a whole bunch of them in "American Teenager," from the band geeks to the reverent Christians taking chastity vows to the geeky-geeks to the naughty girls to the B.M.O.C.s
"American Teenager" has been gestating for years. It was first set up at Fox, when Hampton's pal Susanne Daniels, former WB programming prexy, was a 20th Century Fox TV-based producer and the two of them decided to answer the network's call for a "new '90210.'" (Hmmm, sound familiar?)
"A few nights later I had this idea of a girl in a band uniform holding up a pregnancy test," Hampton recalls. "It kind of all came from that image."
The project never gelled at Fox ("they decided the girl should not be pregnant"), so Hampton relocated it to Lifetime (where Daniels wound up as head of programming), but it didn't come together there either.
By the time the curtain fell on "7th Heaven" last year, Hampton pulled the "American Teen" script out one more time and decided that "this time I was going to write it like I wanted to write it."
(Pictured above, from left, Brenda Hampton, script supervisor Gail Bradley and director Keith Truesdell.)
Ever prolific, Hampton not only wrote a pilot, she wrote another five episodes. She shopped those scripts as specs to more networks that she cares to remember, with no bites.
ABC Family wasn't on her radar until she read an article about the cabler's college drama "Greek" that noted how the channel had broadened its definition of "family" and was looking to attract a young adult demo.
And then Hampton noticed how many WB-vintage reruns are running on ABC Family, including her own "7th Heaven." She had a hunch ABC Family prexy Paul Lee and his team would respond to her vision for "American Teenager," and she was right.
"They got it. They liked it, and we were in business," Hampton says.
ABC Family gave Hampton an initial 10-seg order, and then picked up 13 more after the first few airings 
set new ratings benchmarks for an ABC Family series telecast and even made the channel No. 1 among all basic cablers in the Tuesday 8 p.m. time slot. "American Teenager" has averaged 3.1 million viewers since its July 1 debut. In its fifth outing last week, it shot up to 3.6 million viewers, of majority are in ABC Family's sweet spot: 2.4 million in the 12-34 demo and 1.2 million in adults 18-34.
The production process has been a dream for Hampton (pictured right with "American Teenager" star Shailene Woodley). There aren't many cooks in her kitchen, given that ABC Family serves as both her network and studio. The show is shot, serendipitously, on the Warner Bros. Ranch lot, the former home of the WB Network offices and more important, only a few blocks away from Hampton's home in Toluca Lake.
She's recruited a number of her "7th Heaven" crew members, so there's already a kind of working shorthand among them that allows for maximum efficiency, Hampton notes.
"It feels like family," Hampton says. "It's been such a smooth start up. We really hit the ground running, and we're all enjoying working together again."
Beyond that, Hampton is overjoyed with their success in landing a mix of talented fresh faces -- star Shailene Woodley and supporting players Kenny Baumann, Megan Park and Daren Kagasoff -- and established names in Molly Ringwald, John Schneider and Josie Bissett. Now that they've had some time to get to know one another, Hampton is enjoying the evolutionary process of tailoring the characters to suit each actor's strengths.
In settling in with a series that feels like it's going to go distance, Hampton has found herself thinking now and again about her old "7th Heaven" boss, Aaron Spelling. Former "90210" thesp Jason Priestley recently directed a seg of "American Teenager," and he and Hampton had fun swapping Spelling stories.
"He would have loved the fact that the critics didn't like us but then we (open) to a really big number," she says. "I told Paul (Lee) that I feel like I only have one more 11-year show in me, and I hope this is it."
Cynthia Littleton is deputy editor, news development at Variety and a veteran television reporter.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
As a social worker who works with birthmoms, I have been following this show with some interest. I have worked with birthmoms younger than Amy's character and birthmoms in their 40s and every age in between.
This show is ludicrous and purely fiction. I want to tell the producers of the show you are sending a HORRIBLE message to teenagers across the country. Fifteen year old girls should not be mothers. Fifteen year old girls should be fifteen year old girls. That baby DESERVES to have two parents that are in a stable marriage who can provide for that baby without the help of the State, Church, parents, etc. A baby/child shouldn't be passed around between two parents who are still in high school. This is ridiculous.
They are doing such a disservice. They're telling girls that if they get pregnant in high school everything will magically work out for you so that you can be a parent. Your friendly neighborhood Christian will get her pastor to give you a job in a daycare where you can leave your child during school hours and this magically appearing job just happens to offer Insurance. Your boyfriend (who is not the birthfather) will get a job in his Millionaire father's butcher shop to help you support a child who isn't his. Because 15 year old boys are so apt to do those things. And the birthfather, who has never taken responsibility for any of his actions his entire life, will also get a job in said butcher shop to help you support the baby. Yeah freaking right.
I am so mad right now.
ADOPTION is a responsible choice. If Amy chose adoption, that means she was taking responsibility for her actions. ADOPTION IS A RESPONSIBLE CHOICE!!! Yes, we all would like to keep the babies we bring into this life. But those babies didn't ask to be born. They didn't ask to be raised by a single teenage mom still living at home with her parents. Mothers do what is in the best interest of their child no matter how much it hurts them personally. And Amy is not doing the responsible thing no matter how many magical jobs appear in her life or how many fifteen year old boys magically want to take responsibility for a child. In working with birthmoms there is one thing that I have found to be true - All the people who said they would help you while you were pregnant, are no where to be found once the baby is born. Ask anyone who's been in this position.
"Adoption is not a breaking of trust but a keeping of faith. Not the abandonment of a baby, but the abandonment of SELF for a baby's sake." -Curtis Young
Posted by: Marisa | March 03, 2009 at 10:14 AM
okay lady. calm down. it IS fictional. As a young adult I think the message is to NOT have a baby because your life will not be the same. Jeezus.
Posted by: Chris | March 16, 2009 at 08:10 PM