A quick TV puzzle

[Bill]

From the blog:

Law & Order is an animal, while its predecessor Barnaby Jones is more of a bird.

Desperate Housewives always used a big apple in the credits, so it’s pretty cool that it’s a fruit. Mad Men is edible as well.

The Wonder Years is a color. Sex and the City and Blake’s 7 are magazines. Six Feet Under and The Wire are toys. (The game’s the game, yo.)

So what’s going on here? What are both Murphy Brown and Charlie’s Angels?

Are they subjects in grammar school?

[marpocky]

I don't like the way All in the Family is looking at me.

[skullturfq]

Jeopardy! is an animal, too, but an animal that probably requires an asterisk or something.

[Ken Jennings]

Yes, yes, and yes. Good point re: Jeopardy. The Sopranos, ironically enough, is a bank.

I realized after the fact that Charlie's Angels is a bit of a cheat, for reasons that surprised me when I found out about them.

[Bill]

Yes, yes, and yes. Good point re: Jeopardy. The Sopranos, ironically enough, is a bank.

I realized after the fact that Charlie's Angels is a bit of a cheat, for reasons that surprised me when I found out about them.

I was wondering about that. When I posted my original response, I was going to ask if spelling counts.

[Ken Jennings]

The answer in inviso-text, if you're stumped:

The puzzle revolves around the surname of each show's creator/producer/auteur type. Law & Order was created by Dick WOLF (an animal) while Barnaby Jones was created by Quinn MARTIN (a bird). And so on, for Marc CHERRY, Matt WEINER, Carol BLACK, Darren STAR, Terry NATION, Alan BALL, and David SIMON. For the last question, Diane ENGLISH and Aaron SPELLING are both grammar-school subjects.

Technically, though, Aaron Spelling wasn't credited as the Charlie's Angels creator--the writers of the pilot were. In fact, Spelling never took a creator credit on any of his dozens of TV hits, even though by all accounts (mostly the accounts of weary showrunners) he was extremely involved with all his shows' conception and direction. I did not know that.