Considering the size of Hollywood egos, it’s unusual when a creator doesn’t want his name attached to his new show. But that was just the case with Don Bellisario when his new CBS drama hit the airwaves last fall. He also hated the title– “Navy NCIS” (NCIS already means Naval Criminal Investigative Service. If you say it all out loud, it is pretty funny).
Bellisario’s successful “JAG” — starring David James Elliott as a Navy pilot turned military lawyer — was used as a launching pad for the new show, which Bellisario hoped could forge ahead on its own. But CBS entertainment chief Les Moonves liked to keep the word “Navy” to appeal to the large “JAG” audience, especially since “JAG” was shifting to Friday, yielding the Tuesday slot to the newcomer.
“I understand why Les wanted to do it,” Bellisario says. “He wanted to get the ‘JAG’ fan base to watch ‘NCIS,’ which they do.”
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Credit: Kate O’Hare, Zap2It
