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ANYTHING, ANYTIME

“Mad About You” is what many would call the quintessential 8:30 p.m. adult comedy: Sexy, sophisticated, brash and intimate, it’s the perfect sitcom to watch after the kids are tucked into bed.

But as its legion of Thursday night fans can tell you, “Mad About You” doesn’t air at 8:30, but at 7 p.m., when Junior is still awake and presumably commandeering the living room TV set.

It once was known wistfully as the Family Viewing Hour–that time between 7 and 8 p.m., when network shows reflected a life both innocent and grand.

Yet, in the 1990s, the 7 o’clock hour has taken on a decidedly different look as programming guidelines have loosened and the definition of what passes for appropriate early-evening fare has broadened.

“The standards have fallen, and there is no `family hour’ anymore,” said Joan Ganz Cooney, the founder of the Children’s Television Workshop and creator of “Sesame Street.”

“I suspect it has something to do with what has happened to the family in general. Family life has simply disintegrated along with the proliferation of media, and the lowest common denominator is finally prevailing. The old family rituals have become less and less.”

It used to be that Mom, Pop, the kids and Grandma would gather together to watch TV after dinner, and the networks’ 7 p.m. offerings reflected that: “The Waltons,” “The Brady Bunch,” “The Flying Nun” and “The Partridge Family,” “The Odd Couple,” “Happy Days,” “That Girl” and “Little House on the Prairie.”

Even into the 1980s, the 7 o’clock hour was dominated by such unthreatening family fare as “Webster,” “The Facts of Life,” “The Cosby Show,” “Highway to Heaven,” “Full House” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

But the idea of what a 7 p.m. show should be–or is–clearly has evolved of late.

One mother thought she was safe when she and her two youngsters tuned in at 7 p.m. Mondays to watch “The Nanny,” NBC’s hit sitcom about a hip woman who cares for three precocious kids. But during one episode, the title character made a racy joke about sex.

“My little girl looked at me kind of funny and said, `Mommy, I didn’t get that last part.’ “I told her, `It’s OK, you shouldn’t have gotten it.’ Then I walked over and turned off the television. I couldn’t believe they could say something like this on a family comedy with kids,” she said.

Fox’s 7 p.m. fare also includes “Melrose Place,” its soap about young hunks and babes in perpetual lust, on Mondays, and “Martin,” in which the lead character becomes involved in a variety of sexually suggestive situations, on Thursdays.

“It would appear that all bets are off and the networks can do pretty much whatever they want,” said Grant Tinker, former chairman of NBC and creator of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

“But that is even more true with cable. Due to inattention or carelessness, they seem to be caring very little about what kind of material is seen by the family.”

Take the case of “Absolutely Fabulous,” a British comedy series on cable’s Comedy Central. The main characters are two women in their 40s who smoke too much, drink too much and dabble in narcotics and rampant sex.

The racy “AbFab” airs in Chicago at 6 p.m. Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Mondays and 5 p.m. Saturdays. A decade ago, the show may have been considered too outlandish to even make it to American screens at all.

Tinker figures the new permissiveness may be a reflection of changing times. But Peggy Charren, founder of the Massachusetts-based watchdog group Action for Children’s Television, has a different theory.

“The remote control has destroyed any sense of parent safety, because there are so many choices and every kid knows how to find them,” Charren said. “The kind of stuff you used to have to go to Paris to get–and bring home in a book bag–is now everywhere on TV.”

But some network executives do feel responsible for making their 7 p.m. shows all things to all people–especially when explicit movies and programs are being peddled just up the cable dial.

Ted Harbert, president of ABC Entertainment, said his is the only network to wear seriously its badge as a family programmer. He points to ABC’s much-vaunted “TGIF” sitcom lineup, its “ABC Family Movie” on Saturday and shows such as “Sister, Sister” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

Harbert also admits he becomes uncomfortable when he goes channel-surfing at 7 p.m. and stumbles onto a love scene on “Melrose Place” or an off-color joke on “Martin.”

“I’m not a conservative, puritanical guy by any means, but my eyebrows do raise, and I’m not ashamed of that,” said Harbert, who recently moved the landmark “Roseanne” from 8 to 7 p.m.

“The numbers tell us that there are a lot more young people watching TV at . And as programmers, we still have a responsibility to put on shows that parents can watch with their kid and not feel uncomfortable, or that the material is unsuitable for the hour.

“We don’t want to be bound by archaic rules,” he said, “but we have to remember parents don’t want a lot of surprises on their TV set at .”

Many an eyebrow was raised when NBC decided last season to move “Mad About You”–a comedy originally developed for 8:30 p.m.–to 7 p.m. Thursdays, while retaining the show’s adult themes.

NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield said the move was born of his desperation to find a show to compete against Fox’s animated hit, “The Simpsons.” “Mad About You” has proved to be a smash in its new time period, moving into the top 10 in the ratings this season.

“Is there some humor that will go over the heads of children in `Mad About You’ and `Wings’? Sure there is,” Littlefield said. “But in `Mad About You,’ kids can respond to a young married couple who are desperately in love with one another. That’s very positive.”

Littlefield attributes the expansion of the 7 p.m. choices to the changing values of the country and to the evolution of the time period to acknowledge adults.

“For too long, shows at o’clock had kind of narrowed their appeal mostly to young audiences,” he said.

“So we just kind of said, `Wait a second, we can get adults to come to the set at that hour as well.’ We ultimately realized we can give people smart, quality shows at . If we can respect the audience when we program at and , we can also respect them when we program at .”

“Kids shouldn’t pick up their first information about sex from television,” Charren said. “If you don’t control your TV set, sooner or later it controls you.”