Friday Questions

Hello from Brooklyn, NY where my play UPFRONTS & PERSONAL runs this weekend. If you’re east of St. Louis, come see it. Info here.

But no matter what’s happening in my life I always make time for Friday Questions.

Julie Burlington has the first question.

I love vintage sitcoms. (Rediscovering) so many old shows on Antenna TV, plus all of the shows I've watched over the years, I've watched so many main female characters get arrested mistakenly for prostitution, so many characters get locked or stuck together in storerooms or elevators, or have a ghost of Christmas past visit in a dream, or have an item donated in error to a charity sale that contains that envelope of money ... What do you think has been the most overused story premise in sitcoms?

I would have to say “the dinner party to impress someone and everything goes wrong.” And if I’m being honest, I’ve gone to that trope myself. (No, not on MASH.)

Mark Solomon asks:

Margaret Houlihan became a much more interesting, three-dimensional and nuanced character once she was no longer comedically linked to Frank Burns.

Ken, was that a conscious decision of the MASH braintrust to humanize Hot Lips at about the same time that the much more estimable Charles Winchester character effectively filled the vacancy left by Larry Linville’s departure from the show?

Yes, there was a conscious decision.

The tipping point was an episode called “The Nurses” written by Linda Bloodworth & Mary Kay Place and directed by Joan Darling (who also directed the famous “Chuckles Bites the Dust” episode of THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW).

There’s a famous scene where Margaret pours her heart out to the other nurses that really took her character in a new direction. Here’s Loretta describing it.



YEKIMI wonders:

Do you think it was easier to make a show [less network interference, not as many crew members, etc.] in the earlier days of TV as compared to today or maybe 30 years ago?

GOD YES! The interference is maddening, but that’s a given. (You can probably find fifteen rants about that in the archives.) Having to put everything in writing to be approved by seven different people and then having to wait until you hear back from everyone and often repeating the steps three or four times before you can move on is really what kills momentum, not to mention morale.

On MASH and CHEERS (at the beginning) we had very small staffs. But the work was much more efficient. We didn’t waste weeks going up blind alleys. We knew what we were doing and we did it.

You could argue the value of all this current interference if it meant the ultimate product was better, but it’s not. In most cases it’s worse.

Now it's just layer after layer of suits trying to justify their jobs.  And if they were all swept away the shows would all continue to be produced and aired.  So if someone is not integral to the process, why keep them?  But that's the TV world we live in today.  And why we look back fondly at the "Good Old Days."  

And finally, from Oliver:

How do you shoot reveal gags on sitcoms that are recorded live in front of an audience?

If you want the audience surprised, you generally pre-shoot those gags the day before and show that scene (or that part of the scene) to the audience the night of filming.

Sometimes there are sets you don’t want revealed. Usually rolling screens are set up to block off that set to the audience and they’re not removed until just before you’re ready to shoot.

Hope to see you at the Gallery Players this weekend.  After the Sunday matinee I'm going to do a talk-back.  What’s your Friday Question? Just leave it in the comments section. Thanks.