A recent special suggests the musical brothers could pop in prime time, so series talks get serious. The family that sings together may make a sitcom together. Hanson, the Tulsa trio of blond brothers who added "MMMBop" to the school-yard vernacular, are talking about doing a weekly TV series. The concept for the show, which would star Taylor, Zac, and Isaac Hanson basically playing versions of themselves, is described as "The Monkees meets Larry Sanders" by a source familiar with the discussions.

The group had its first prime-time outing on November 28, with the holiday Meet Hanson special. The show hardly tore up the Nielsens - it finished 75th for the week. Ratings weren't helped by ABC scheduling the special at 9:30 P.M./ET, which is past a lot of the group's fans' bedtime. (Remember this is the network that scheduled a U2 special for 10 P.M. on a Saturday, when most of the group's fans are out on the town. That April 26 concert ended up being the lowest-rated special in the network's history.) Still, the boost Meet Hanson gave to sales of the group's recordings must have whetted their appetite to do more television. Middle of Nowhere, Hanson's multi platinum disc that's been on the Billboard charts for 31 weeks, jumped from 73,000 units sold the week before the special to 114,000 units immediately following the broadcast according to SoundScan, which monitors the recording industry. The bump in sales earned it The Billboard 200 "Greatest Gainer" for the week, signifying the biggest uptick in sales among all titles released that week. Meanwhile, their just-released Christmas disc, Snowed In, sold 134,000 units giving the group two top 20 albums in addition to their home video "Tulsa, Tokyo and the Middle of Nowhere" sold ??(The page is ripped, I can't tell what the # is, if you know, please e-mail me) making it No. 1 on Billboard Music Video sales chart. "Obviously TV works for these guys," observes the source close to the young pop stars. "They're just talking about a series now, but all that chart activity is a jump start."