Passing the comedy torch

The torch has been passed from Levine & Isaacs to Levine & Emerson. My daughter Annie and her partner Jon saw their first script produced last Friday night – a GOOD LUCK CHARLIE episode for the Disney Channel. It was a hard-earned assignment after six spec scripts and God knows how many nights sitting at PaleyFest events listening to showrunners talk about how great they are. If you’ll indulge a proud dad, here’s my account of that memorable night:

GOOD LUCK CHARLIE is filmed in downtown Los Angeles in the same studio that produces other kid favorites like MAD MEN, BONES, and SOUTHLAND. It’s multi-camera, shot before a live studio audience of adoring fans.

The security to get into GOOD LUCK CHARLIE was way more extensive than the security to get into the Pentagon. They went through every kid’s backpack and mother’s purse. I wonder how many diaphragms they pull out each week. (Note: this would make a great episode for THE AMERICANS. Mom spy & dad spy take their tykes to LA and go to a GOOD LUCK CHARLIE taping. Not knowing there will be security, Keri Russell has to explain why she’s got a revolver, switchblade, six passports, and a container of borscht. I want shared story credit when they use that.)

The truth is the only building in this entire neighborhood that doesn’t need a security check is the GOOD LUCK CHARLIE studio.

In typical Disney fashion, the crowd management was second-to-none. Everyone was led in and seated orderly, quickly, and by the most courteous studio pages I had ever seen. I directed a show at a studio once and the pages were like the security detail from the Altamont concert. But I’ve got to hand it to Disney. They go out of their way to make the experience as pleasant and fun as possible.

A number of shows hand out candy to keep their audiences from turning into an angry mob. Here they distributed candy, granola bars, string cheese, and juice bottles. String cheese? I remember back in the '70s when they were filming THE ODD COUPLE the warm-up guy used to toss out bite-sized Snickers bars and Tony Randall’s manager (who had to be 90 then and worth $90 million dollars) used to crawl underneath the stands and retrieve the candy that had fallen through the bleachers.

Many in the crowd were young fans so there were also games and raffles. If there was one blemish on the evening it’s that I was only two numbers away from winning the princess dress-up game. Damn! That looked so cool!  I also almost won a signed photo of the child who plays the baby (wait a minute – can she even write?) but it was that princess game I had in my crosshairs. Of course, I’m not very lucky when it comes to raffles. The only thing I’ve ever won is a XXX DVD the night I went to porn star karaoke. So I was hoping they’d give those away because there I felt I had a chance. But alas, it was just toys, iTunes gift cards, and autographed photos and posters.

This was probably the first time in twenty years that I watched a taping from the bleachers. And I realized how blasé I had become. I’ve been to hundreds to tapings/filmings and usually my sole focus is how to make the episode better? Either as a writer, director, or producer I’m concentrating so intently on details that I no longer stop for a moment and think, “Hey, this is really awesome!” But Friday night I was once again hit with that wow factor. All these sets and monitors and crew people and equipment and actors – all coming together to film a show my daughter and her partner wrote. That was mind blowing. And it should always be, no matter how many of these you’ve done. For aspiring writers, hopefully the dream of that will keep you going, keep you pushing until it comes true. And for you crusty TV veterans, let it be a reminder to pause once in awhile and realize just how fortunate you really are. (A good time to do this is as the network guys are crossing the stage en route to you with five pages of notes for a two-page scene.)

The taping went very well. It was exciting to see their script come alive and hear the laughter.  (although the bigger the laughs the more choked up I got -- I assume this is not the normal reaction to a Disney Channel sitcom).  The cast knew their lines and the show moved along at a good clip. Again, professionalism.  Sitting in the stands I was reminded of all those World Series games you see on TV where they keep cutting back to the pitcher’s parents. Mom is tricked out in team merchandise waving a big cross and Dad is always caught sneaking a quick chug from his flask. My wife and I just sat there discreetly stealing place cards off of chairs because they featured the writing credit.

After the show there were curtain calls and Jon & Annie were introduced as the writers. I was more thrilled hearing that than any introduction I’ve ever received.

Next came something I’ve never seen in all the thousands of years I’ve been in television. The audience was invited to come down from the bleachers onto the set where the entire cast was available to sign autographs and take pictures. Fans could walk through the set, take as many pictures as they wanted, and God bless ‘em, the entire cast stayed around for about 45 minutes greeting and accommodating fans. And this was after a twelve-hour work day. I asked if this was a Disney decree and they said, no. Only GOOD LUCK CHARLIE did it. Very classy. And lovely of the cast to go along. How’d you like to be the poor schmuck who had to tell Roseanne after a long shoot that she has to remain on the set for forty-five more minutes to sign autographs? Good luck, Charlie.

Hopefully this will be the first of many produced scripts for Levine & Emerson. Readers of this blog know how funny they are. People always ask if I was worried when my daughter said she wanted to become a comedy writer, and my answer is yes until I read her stuff.  And then when she partnered with Jon I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd be eating string cheese in downtown LA.

My favorite comment is from my writer friend, Gina Gold who said, "Congrats on your first grandsccript."

My thanks to Dan Staley, Phil Baker, Drew Vaupen, and everyone at Disney for taking a chance on two young scribes. Their first experience was far better than mine. The first script for me and David was an episode of THE JEFFERSONS. At the taping the warm-up man, who was the showrunner and a bit hard of hearing, was introducing everyone but us. Finally someone in the audience asked, “Who wrote tonight’s show?” and he hemmed and hawed so my charming date yelled out from the front row: “Hey, they’re sitting right here, fucker!” We were banned from the Lear company. It's amazing we had any career at all past that night.

Of course if we want our career to continue we have to hope that Levine & Emerson hire us.

Photos by me and Michael Emerson (no, not the one on PERSONS OF INTEREST).