BOSTON -- Move over Maddie and David, Sam and Diane, and the cast of characters accused several years ago of shooting J.R. Ewing.
In New England, your once-unresolved crises are paling in suspense beside the problems of a tortured family featured in a soap-opera-style ad campaign that has become an instant cult classic from Cape Cod to the Canadian border.
Featuring a 2-year-old squabble between a father and his estranged daughter, 'Jill,' the heart-tugging series by New England Telephone Co. has housewives and corporate honchos alike hankering for solutions to two nagging questions:
-Who is going to blink, and pick up the phone to end a two-year silence?
-What in the world did Jill do to anger her father to no end?
Talk-show hosts on radio have quizzed callers for their hunches.
A Massachusetts priest discussed the family's crisis in a sermon onreconciliation.
And the telephone company has been deluged with calls and letters about the ad campaign, which airs on television and radio in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine and Vermont.
The advertising campaign featuring the anguished Crawford family began in July, part of several serial ads by New England Telephone.
An earlier series involving back-stabbing at an architectural firm prompted some controversy over business ethics, but no campaign in the utility's history has struck a chord like the family-crisis ads.
The ads were produced by the Harold Cabot Co. ad agency of Boston, which has received kudos from throughout the advertising industry.
'I'm amazed to tell you the truth,' said Geraldine O'Brien, the phone company's advertising director. 'We've done a lot of commercials over the years, and we've never had this many letters, about 50, or this kind of response.
'We've had three or four calls from people saying, 'I wish you hadn't run this, it hits too close to home,' but those have been the only complaints.
'We're very pleased with the campaign. There are so many ads on the air we're lucky when people remember our ads,' O'Brien said. 'And our phone usage has increased since July.'
The series features father Ken Crawford, his wife, their blond-haired daughter Cathy and their dark-haired daughter Jill.
In the first episode, the father hangs up on Cathy when she mentions Jill, and the mother says, 'You know he doesn't liketo talk about your sister.' The ad fails to explain why.
In episode two, which aired in September, viewers see the father for the first time. He apologizes to Cathy for hanging up, and says, 'I still can't believe she left like that.' Cathy replies, 'You didn't give her much choice.'
The third episode, which began airing on Thanksgiving Day, shows Jill for the first time as well as her boyfriend, Jeff, clad in a black T-shirt and slipping through a door in the background.
'You've got to call Dad. I know he was wrong about you and Jeff,' Cathy implores her sister.
Jill, practically in tears, says she cannot call her father, and Cathy warns, 'It's been two years. If one of you isn't big enough to make that call it's going to be a lifetime.'
The series was filmed during the television writers' strike, so some known Hollywood talent was available. The director is Randa Haines, whose credits include the movie 'Children of a Lesser God' and the Emmy Award-winning television movie, 'Something About Amelia.'
Actor Bruce Kirby, who plays Jill's angst-ridden father, has a recurring role on the hit TV series 'L.A. Law' and has starred in many other commercials. But to New Englanders, he's Jill's father.
'I was in Boston recently and the response was amazing,' Kirby said in an interview from his California home. 'I went to a little Italian restaurant in the North End, and my wife and I sat down, and suddenly a group of girls from another table came over and started asking me about the commercials.
'I was in Filene's Basement and I asked the clerk if she had this suit in a 46 Regular, and she said, 'Wait a minute. Why did you hang up on your daughter.''
Addicts of the phone company's cliffhanger series won't have to wait too long for an unraveling.
On Christmas Day, the contest of nerves is resolved when the fourth episode is unveiled.
'I get questioned all the time by my neighbors, but I'm not telling,' said Carolyn Smith, the ad agency executive for the series.
A fifth and final installment is scheduled for January, but those on the edge of their seats for some dope on Jill's presumed dastardly deed may be a trifle disappointed.
'When we researched this campaign, we found that people weave their own personal experiences into this situation, and we've really left it to the viewer to fill in the blanks as to why Dad didn't like this guy Jeff,' Smith said.
'When my friends ask me how it all ends, all I'll say is, 'Do you think the phone company would have an unhappy ending?''
