Friday Questions

Let’s March into this week’s Friday Questions.

Unknown starts us off.

Here’s a Friday question: You won the TV lottery! NBC is giving you the go ahead on reviving an old popular show (since Will& Grace, Murphy Brown (?) and Roseanne was such a success). What show would you do (can't be your own, sorry)? WKRP? (the trials and tribulations when they go to streaming radio) Dick Van Dyke show? (Richie is now a TV writer) Hudson Brother's Razzle DAzzle show? Bob Newhart? He is now a radio psychologist?...oh wait...
What would you do?

I would respectfully refuse the offer. If I can’t reboot my own show, why would I want to reboot someone else’s?

First off, only the original creators should do the reboots. They’re the real voices of their shows.

And secondly, any show that predates the 90’s is probably now too old to reboot. You don’t want to see these characters 40 or 50 years older. Don’t believe me? Go to your high school reunion. Sometimes it’s better to remember people and shows when they were in their prime.

VP81955 asks:

(Last month) marked the 50th anniversary of KHJ's 48-hour "History of Rock & Roll.”  Here's an article about it.

Did you listen to much of the original version? What did you think of it? I understand KRLA, a Top 40 competitor, had just begun an hour-long weekly historical series that lasted over the course of a year -- did you hear parts of that one too?

I listened to practically ALL of the KHJ "History of Rock n' Roll."  I have a complete copy of it. That weekend it poured in Los Angeles and I just sat home glued to my radio.  I didn't even go out on a date and that was a rare time when I had a girlfriend. 

It was a monumental achievement (both the "rockumentary" and me having a girlfriend). Robert W. Morgan’s narration was perfect as was Bill Mouzis’ production. But the real creative genius who created it and put it together was KHJ program director/resident genius, Ron Jacobs.

There was a syndicated version later that year voiced by Humble Harve Miller (also excellent) and various updated versions. Originally in 1969 it was 48 hours. I think if they did it today it would have to be 269 hours.

Competing station KRLA had the "Pop Chronicles" but I believe they were hour-long programs – extremely well done but not nearly the magnitude of KHJ’s “History of Rock n’ Roll.”

To me the very best version was the original with Robert W. Morgan and that only aired one time only.  Like I said, I have a clean copy of the entire 48 hours.  It's one of my most cherished possessions.

From Jahn Ghalt:

"Why not mount your own ten-minute play festival?"

Pull out your rolodex and contact some like-minded play producers to put one on. Contact some sure-fire playwrights about this idea and get some of their stuff produced for a 2nd time (and use judgment to relax the "won something rule")

John, I have thought of that and there are discussions underway even as we speak. Stay tuned.

And finally, from Ted O'Hara:

I just saw your M*A*S*H season 5 episode "Post Op", which you and David did while you were still freelancers. Nice episode. Gene Reynolds and Jay Folb wrote the story, while you two did the teleplay. How did that happen? Often it's the other way around - a freelancer will write the story, and then a staff member will write the teleplay?

That was at the very end of the season. CBS ordered one additional episode at the last minute. Gene and Jay assembled some stories from Post Op they had found in the research (interviews with doctors, nurses, patients in Korea, etc.) but didn’t have time to write it. David and I had done two freelance episodes that were very well-received so they called to see if we wanted to write the teleplay. Needless to say we did.

Normally a freelance writer will come in with an idea, you’ll work out the story with the staff, write an outline, get notes on the outline, then write your first draft.

In this case we walked in and they handed us the outline. They walked us through it scene by scene and we went home and began writing the script. As I recall there was a time crunch and we had to turn it in in a week. It had taken two weeks to do drafts of the other MASH episodes we did so David and I put in marathon days to finish on time while not sacrificing quality.

They must’ve been quite happy with our draft because 90% of it on the screen and shortly after we turned it in we got the offer to go on MASH fulltime.

What’s your Friday Question?