Was at a party recently and bumped into Shelley Long (who looks fabulous, by the way!). She mentioned that her daughter just turned 22. Wow. It seems like just yesterday we were in the third year of CHEERS and Shelley was pregnant. Whenever an actress on a series gets pregnant it presents a tricky dilemma for the writers – especially if you don’t want her character to get pregnant as well. I don’t know what they would have done on the FLYING NUN.
On CHEERS, if Diane had a baby it would alter the entire series, taking it in a direction we didn’t want to go. So the question became – how do we hide it?
I thought the staff came up with a pretty ingenious solution. Diane and new beau, Frasier would vacation in Europe. We could film those scenes early in the season before she was showing and then place them in episodes later in the year. During the early stages of the pregnancy she deftly hid behind the bar or a tray. And when it was impossible to hide her anymore we had the Europe episodes in the bank.
Since those Europe scenes were independent of the main stories they could sometimes be shuffled around. I remember watching an episode at home one night, written I believe by Sam Simon. I was laughing and enjoying the story and then they cut to one of these vacation scenes. It was odd. I felt a weird déjà vu. I knew this was a first run episode I hadn’t seen yet this scene was vaguely familiar.
And then it hit me – David and I wrote this scene. It was taken out of our show and inserted into this one.
There have been many times I’ve watched scenes and thought to myself, I wish I had written that. This was the first time I watched a scene and said, “Oh my God, I did write that!”
I imagine whoever wrote the vacation scene that appeared in our episode had a similar reaction.
Things were so much easier with Rhea Perlman. She got pregnant several times during the run of the series but since it was established that her character, Carla popped out kids like a Pez dispenser, it actually made things easier for us.
Starting with Lucy (didn’t everything start with Lucy?) all the way to Amanda Peete on STUDIO 60, writers have dealt with series stars getting pregnant. And they’ve always found solutions.
Except one. On BEWITCHED they never could explain which Darren was the father o
f Tabitha.
Late tomorrow: My weekly AMERICAN IDOL review. I'm anxious to see how many of the finalists have even heard of Tony Bennett.
One of the more ingenious solutions comes from Star Trek The Next Generation.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed as though every episode Dr. Crusher's lab coat would go up a size. This way she was always wearing baggy clothes.
If Kirstie Alley was pregnant on Cheers during her heavy period, you wouldn't have to do anything to hide pregnancy. Ben and Jerry's would have done it for you.
ReplyDeleteSeinfeld and the X-files came up with the same solution for Gillian Anderson and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss' pregnancies - dress the characters in 3 piece pant suits, add a long overcoat and a portfolio/briefcase/large purse . . . sure they looked silly in summer, but you'd rarely get a glimpse of the expanding tummy
ReplyDeleteHaving met the late, delightful Dick Sergeant several times, I believe we can be sure it was the first Darrin that sired little Tabitha.
ReplyDeleteDick York obvious was Tabitha's dad. It's the paternity of the other kid we're not sure about.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know what they would have done on the FLYING NUN.
Eight week story arc in which the nuns at the convent at Carlos down at the casino try various forms of increasingly large amounts of ballast to keep Sister Bertrille from becoming airborne (throw in some sort of explanation about the dangers up the upcoming Caribbean hurricane season as justification and give Ms. Field some wacky old nunmobile to drive around in on the show until she's light on her feet again).
I think you're overly complicating the solution to "The Flying Nun" problem. All you have to do is give her a costume that doesn't cinch at the waist. If you check out the images of Sally Field on Google, the costume wasn't exactly form-ftting.
ReplyDeleteI do worry about responding to questions like this. It's turning into a really bad habit.
Actually, Sally Field WAS pregnant during the second season of "Flying Nun."
ReplyDeleteThey used a body double for the flying scenes.
Wasn't the episode where Diane gets stuck in the ventilation ducts (and gets smooched by Al the red-nosed drunk) also part of the attempt to hide Shelley's belly?
ReplyDeleteHow can they not have heard of Tony Bennett? He won AP Coach of the Year last week!
ReplyDeleteJust had to take a jab at Sorkin, didn't you. I still think they could have hid Peet's pregnancy (and then that would have avoided the rushed Jordan/Danny hook up).
ReplyDeleteAnother show that did an awful job hiding the baby bump was SATC. Despite the fact that they shot the season in 2 parts to try and cover it up, is was way too obvious that SJP was preggers and it just took away from the scenes (not that there was really anything to take away from, but still).
Hope Shelley (the second most-famous actress to hail from Fort Wayne, Indiana; you can see the first in my avatar) is doing okay. Supposedly she had some personal problems. I don't know what kind of work she gets these days -- there aren't that many sitcoms on for her to do guest roles, and I wonder if there's any demand in films for actresses her age to play character parts.
ReplyDeleteOf course I've heard of Tony Bennett. He's the great new basketball coach at Washington State University. (giggle)
ReplyDeleteI work on a show where the actress got pregnant, and then they decided to write it into the show. At first, when she WASN'T pregnant (the character) they covered it up in the usual ways, then when the character got pregnant, they just showed her VERY pregnant as and wrote in a joke about her popping all of a sudden. It was pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteI admit, when you put up the pictures of the Darrens my eyes immediately went for their balls.
ReplyDeleteYou know, you guys COULD have written in Diane's pregnancy, and then dismiss it later as a dream (or nightmare, depending on how you look at it). It was a bar, after all, and there was a LOT of drinking. It wasn't COMPLETELY out of the realm of possibility.
ReplyDeleteRashad Khan said...
ReplyDeleteYou know, you guys COULD have written in Diane's pregnancy, and then dismiss it later as a dream (or nightmare, depending on how you look at it). It was a bar, after all, and there was a LOT of drinking. It wasn't COMPLETELY out of the realm of possibility.
It could've been done, true, but that would have been inconsistent with the series' sensibility. I'm glad "Cheers" didn't.
I think now of another pregnancy situation on a series -- Katey Sagal on "Married...with Children." It was written into the show for Peg Bundy's character; unfortunately, Sagal miscarried and the plot was simply dropped (to have Peg miscarry as well would have not only been inconsistent with the farcical nature of the series, but in poor taste for Katey Sagal as a person).
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ReplyDeleteSJP was pregnant during Sex and the City? I've been watching the reruns nightly, and honestly never noticed. Guess they DID hide it well.
ReplyDeleteActually, Sally Field WAS pregnant during the second season of "Flying Nun."
ReplyDeleteThink goodness William Donohue of the Catholic League wasn't around then to bitch about THAT.
Other Star Trek solutions: in Voyager, they had Lieutenant Torres, the chief engineer, decide to wear a type of loose jacket to keep her tools in--a sensible idea that she ditched, of course, once the actress gave birth.
ReplyDeleteIn Deep Space Nine, when Nana Visitor (Major Kira) got pregnant--by Alexander Siddig, one of the other actors on the show--the writers had her become a post-conception surrogate mother for one of the other characters who was supposed to be pregnant (the actress for that character was not in fact pregnant herself) by virtue of having Dr. Bashir, Siddig's character, use the transporter to beam the fetus from one uterus to the other. A later episode had a cute exchange between Bashir and Kira about how the doctor was responsible for her being pregnant, even though the characters weren't romantically involved.
Ken...I was just watching "From Beer to Eternity", the first BAR WARS episode, where Cheers and Gary's Old Towne Tavern compete at bowling. I see you and David had them play tenpins (the type with the large three-hole ball). Actually, Boston and New England is the stronghold of candlepin bowling (where one uses a shotput sized ball to knock down thin pins).
ReplyDeleteAJ Milner...ever episode of THE FLYING NUN was approved by some Catholic Office of Radio and Television. That only makes me think that the Catholic Church will accept ANYTHING, as long as they are put in an ostenatiously favorable light.
Or it could have been simply that nuns weren't important..if the show had been THE FLYING SEMINARIAN, I think the 1960's version of William Donohue would have kicked up a fuss.
The scene where Sam is carrying Diane in his arms (away from Frasier and the altar) is the one time I looked at Shelley Long and thought, "is her stomach a little big?" It was the only indication I had of Shelley Long's pregnancy. It was really hidden well.
ReplyDeleteI know Ms. Long had a reputation for being difficult, but to me, she made up for it with her impeccable timing and delivery. I think she's one of the most talented comediannes ever.
Not sure if my original post came through.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to ask how Shelley's doing. You hear reports that she's in an outpatient mental facility .
Any news? I wish her the best.
I always thought she had brilliant comedic timing. Would love to see her in another great role.
Shelley is doing GREAT. I was just at a party with her about a month ago. She looks fantastic and her biggest worry that I could see that day was that UCLA was losing.
ReplyDeleteAlways been curious how they filmed diane in the ductwork ? Was it a fake floor. Or a different part of the set with a real duct....
ReplyDelete