Friday Questions

Daylight Saving Time starts again on Sunday. Remember to turn your clocks ahead one hour. And leave any Friday Questions in the comment section.

Mitchell Hundred has this week’s first FQ:

I was watching the Laurel and Hardy video that you posted a couple of weeks back, and although I really enjoyed it I noticed that neither of them seems to be playing the straight man. So my Friday question would be: what is the function of a straight man in comedy, and why does Laurel and Hardy seem to work so well without one?

A standard trope in comedy is “set up/joke.” In many cases that means someone asks a question (set up) and the other person answers with a punchline.

What people don’t realize is that it takes a lot of skill and timing to be a good set-up man. And the guy who has the punchline may get the laugh and glory, but the joke would not have worked had the set-up man not teed it up correctly. Great examples are Abbott & Costello, Burns & Allen, and Bob & Ray on the radio.

Laurel & Hardy had a different dynamic. Most of their comedy was physical. Their dynamic was a frustrated guy who attempted at all times to preserve his dignity and a carefree guy who through his bungling frustrated the other guy to death.

What Stan Laurel (who wrote all of their material) understood was that the laugh was not just the physical gag (e.g. brick falling on Hardy’s head) but the reaction.

Longtime friend of the blog, Wendy M. Grossman asks:

If, you say, the Academy Awards are discontinued, Hollywood won't bother making "prestige" pictures any more - its output will be entirely superheroes, comic books, and other stuff for teenaged boys. What happens then to movies for grown-ups?

They get made by Netflix and other streaming services. They essentially become TV movies.

And as a result you sacrifice scope and the experience of seeing the film in a theatre.

A-list directors will find their way to Netflix but they will have to work with a more limited budget and their project most likely won’t have the impact it would have had it been a major motion picture.

When you go to your menu screen on Netflix, there will be the thumbnail of the new Martin Scorsese movie next to the CATWALK documentary. That’s a fry cry from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

From 71dude:

With nothing getting good ratings anymore and even established series like "Fresh off the Boat" and "Speechless" hanging by a thread, how do actors in bubble shows decide when to audition for other pilots? Do they follow ratings websites that say their show is "likely renewed" or "likely cancelled"? Or can they just act in whatever they want when their season wraps?

If their show is on the bubble they go on auditions and if they get cast in a pilot it’s understood they’re in “second position” – meaning if their previous show does get picked up they’re obligated to return to it. But if it gets cancelled and they’re free and the new pilot goes to series they’re confirmed for that series.

That’s what happened to Jennifer Aniston. When she signed to do the FRIENDS pilot she was in second position to a summer sitcom on CBS, MUDDLING THROUGH (see photo of Jennifer in that show above). Had that show gotten an order for more episodes Jennifer would have had to drop out of FRIENDS.

So as a producer you take a risk when you hire someone in second position because it has happened that a bubble show got a last minute reprieve and a pilot that was ordered to series had to recast and reshoot because their second position actor was now no longer available.

Unless the actor is really really special or it’s almost a guarantee his previous show is not coming back I tend to avoid hiring actors in second position. The casting process is stressful enough.

And finally, Jamie T has a baseball question.

YouTube is chock full of clips of brawls breaking out in Major League Baseball games (some posted by MLB itself). They get tons of views.

As an announcer, did you ever have to call a brawl? Whether or not you had to do it, what would your feeling be in the moment? Are you kind of excited by the action? Are you annoyed? Does the league/network/local management give any guidance on how they want you to call it?

I’ve called many brawls. No, I get no guidance.

Brawls can be ugly and certainly don’t show baseball in a good light. And of course, guys could get hurt.

On the other hand, in some cases I understand the reason for them. Players need to protect their teammates. Players who don’t quickly become ostracized.

Personally, here’s what I like about them. I feel I’m pretty good at descriptions and painting a visual picture. Brawls let me show off those skills.  And it's way more fun to call them on radio because you've got to continually set the scene.  (At least for me.  There are lots of announcers who are very uncomfortable going off script.) 

There was one brawl I called that was particularly unsettling. I was calling it on the radio. Chip Caray and Ron Fairly were handling TV that inning. It was my second year with the Seattle Mariners. We were playing the Baltimore Orioles in Baltimore. Our catcher, Dan Hasselman took exception to being plunked by Mike Mussina thus sparking what proved to be a really ugly melee. Most brawls are essentially guys just standing around but there were fist-fights that just kept erupting.

And here’s the thing: I knew every player on both teams personally. Many were my friends. So here I am calling the blow-by-blow of friends of mine slugging other friends of mine. There was nothing remotely fun about that one.

Here’s the fight with Chip & Ron’s call. Unfortunately, I don’t have a recording of my broadcast. Too bad because I thought, under the circumstances, I did a real nice job.