Friday, December 20, 2019

Friday Questions

Only five more days to get me something. Just remember who answered your Friday Questions.

KLAC Guy has the first one this week.

Was the romance between Niles and Daphne on Frasier conceived at the inception of the series, or did the idea develop as the series evolved?

It came about during the course of the first season.

And that’s why show runners and staff need to not get so far ahead on scripts that they can’t discover things along the way and make course corrections if they strike gold (or if something doesn’t pan out).

As I recall, from conception Daphne’s only real trait was her psychic ability and you’ll notice that that went away over time.  The jokes had run their course.

The key is to always be looking for ways to make characters more dimensional and ways to integrate relationships with your other characters.

If you want a masterclass on how to develop and nurture a series look no further than FRASIER.

RyderDA asks:

You write hilarious stuff. It amazes me that actors can deliver it without busting a gut (like Harvey Korman every time Tim Conway got him). So... how do the actors do it? Are they just such good actors that they can listen to a line that any human would guffaw over and just stand there with a straight face (and, do they go to Comedy Clubs to practice this skill of not laughing at funny stuff?) Or do they read and rehearse it so much that they become "immune" to it's humor, so it's not longer funny to them? Or do they stab themselves with hidden porcupine quills to mask it?

It does take lots of concentration and sometimes in early rehearsals actors will break. But eventually they lock in. And then, in front of an audience, they need to hold for laughs. And the good ones do. They’re equal part actors and technicians.

I'd say the key word is concentration.  But actors are humans and some of the best of them crack up.  On sitcoms you don't see that because they re-shoot the scene. 

But occasionally you see them have a hard time holding it in.  An example is the "Roz and the Schnoz" episode of FRASIER I directed.  I have some priceless shots of cast members almost losing it.  Meanwhile, Peri Gilpin and Kelsey Grammer somehow managed to keep it together. 

I will say this: it’s harder when you’re doing improv. You’re hearing the laugh line the first time as is the audience and that takes real concentration to not laugh.

I must admit, there are times I break. But I’m not that great.

There are improvisers who are amazingly funny and still commit to their characters and the scene and maintain full control. I’m in awe of those people.

By the way, regarding Tim Conway and Harvey Korman and Tim’s ability to crack up Harvey on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW, they used to tape two shows – one in the afternoon and then one later at night. For the afternoon taping Conway always adhered strictly to the script. So a clean version of the sketch was in the can.

At the evening taping he would sometimes go off book to get Korman to break, figuring these scenes would just wind up in the Christmas gag reel. But some were so hilarious (like the dentist sketch) that they used it instead.

One final note: Jimmy Fallon cracks up a lot and I find it incredibly annoying.

Finally, from Chris Dahl:

When you were a baseball broadcaster, did you need to make your own travel arrangements or was that taken care of by the team's travel coordinator? Did you fly/stay with the team on the road? And was it different between the minor leagues and the major leagues?

Each team has a Traveling Secretary who took care of all those details. So I traveled with the team (either plane or bus) and stayed in the team hotels. Both in the minors and majors.

But in the majors you fly chartered jets and stay in lovely hotels. In the minors you mostly travel by bus. In AAA though, you fly but commercial. And to ensure you make your next destination, teams are required to take the very first flight of the day to the next city. So we would finish an extra-innings game at 1 AM, get back to the hotel at 2:30 and have to be packed and down in the lobby at 5 to get to the airport for our 6 AM flight.

In the big leagues you fly right after the game. So you might get to your hotel at 5 AM but then you can sleep all day. There are times in the minors when you get to your hotel at 10 AM and the rooms aren’t ready. So after two hours sleep the previous night you sit in the lobby for three hours until your room is ready, and you hopefully get two more hours of sleep before having to go to ballpark at 3 PM. Sounds glamorous, doesn’t it?

And that's way better than the newspaper reporters who cover the team.  They don't fly with the team or stay in team hotels.  They need to write their stories after the game and don't get out of the ballpark until at least two hours after the game.  The team has left for its next destination long before that.   So sportswriters have to make their own travel arrangements.  

The only upside is they rack up tons of frequent flier miles and usually stay at Marriott Hotels and accumulate hotel credit points.   After the season they can have a nice Hawaiian or European vacation all on miles and hotel credit.  

What’s your Friday Question?

25 comments :

Anonymous said...

Even better than Tim Conway cracking up Harvey Korman was Peter Cook cracking up Dudley Moore.
Much of Cook's dialogue was improvised spontaneously and there was no one equal to him.

blinky said...

Thoughts?
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/12/maris-crane-frasier-netflix/603295/

VincentS said...

So if you find Jimmy Fallon annoying you must have found Red Skelton unbearable!

Glenn said...

I agree about Fallon. I also think the SNL casts have gotten somewhat lazy over the years, with the amount of breaking during scenes.

Unknown said...

You've never answered my question, so I guess you get a piece of coal? Is that bad for a jewish person to get coal for christmas?
Oh, wait, I'm anonymous, never mind. But I'm not a robot

Speaking of breaking up, can Kenan Thompson on SNL EVER do a scene without laughing? No wonder why he hasn't left, has to be able to do 1 skit without laughing before he can leave.

Larry E Romane said...

For an example relevant to the second question:

Go to the episode of TAXI in which Jim takes his driving test. In this justly famous scene (it is on YouTube), Judd Hirsch, Jeff Conaway, and Marilu Henner manage to play it straight, but Tony Danza eventually stops trying, and just watches the proceedings with a broad grin.

kitano0 said...

VincentS Red Skelton was an exception...he was telling silly jokes anyway, he knew they were mostly throw-aways, so it (and he) had an endearing quality.

Jimmy Fallon is an adolescent that was thrust into a situation that he is still way over his head in. IMHO, of course.

stephen catron said...

When is Fallon not annoying

Lemuel said...

@Anonymous:"You enjoying that sandwich?"

Astroboy said...

NOTHING is more annoying than Ricky Gervais laughing at his own jokes.

Ben said...

Directly because of his annoyance with The Carol Burnett Show, Lorne Michaels made it a point to forbid his Saturday Night Live actors from cracking up on purpose.

DrBOP said...

Merry Christmas Beav! (& Hanukkah Sameach!)
Here's what I got you: a nice long tale of radio lore from a Canadian radio-rat featuring the 60s "Rock Capital Of Canada" (Winnipeg Manitoba), Community Clubs, Neil Young, Meat Loaf and the birth of the internet:

https://www.fyimusicnews.ca/articles/2019/12/19/conversation-withwarren-cosford

Just think what would have developed if that community club idea had been established in LaLaLand.

Anonymous said...

A Mr. Richard Fader writes;

The issue with laughing in sketches is more to do with how sincere it seems, as opposed to being obsequious (Fallon) or manipulative.

When Candice Bergen laughed during the "Fern" sketch in one of the earliest Saturday Night sketches, it was endearing and forgiven, perhaps even by a young Lorne Michaels who at the time had a no-laughing policy in sketches. To do so, according to the show's history, was to be, as he put it very cruelly and dismissively, "too Carol Burnett."

As in Citizen Kane, the empire has changed the man. Almost every SNL actor breaks character and laughs in order to mine an unearned audience laugh to cover poor material.

The worst offender is the news, helmed by Scarlett Johansson's current "love of her life," as she told America last week. Only in sixth grade "funny news" school videos do the anchors laugh at their own material as much as these highly paid professionals while an audience prompter orders the crowd to scream and "woo". It's an exercise in self-gratification that we get the privilege to watch.

The worst Weekend Updates ever, including the Jean Doumanian years.

DBenson said...

One "Frasier" I always wondered about: The B story had Martin somberly preparing for some kind of appointment; perhaps a memorial service. He arrives, politely greets an older woman, and then sits silently as the still-young man who shot and disabled him is denied parole. The woman he greeted is the man's mother. She cries. Martin doesn't take any pleasure in it, nor does he show disagreement. It's all very low key, no obvious moral or message, and I don't recall any gags in it. It didn't even allow John Mahoney any big "actor" moments. It was well done, but where did that story come from?

Stu West said...

Maybe actors just get good at hiding it. If you watch the famous "SINATRA!!" clip from Cheers on YouTube, at the end you see Ted Danson hiding behind a cup of coffee because he's cracking up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2B0lRTSLM4

YEKIMI said...

@ VincentS

There's a difference between Jimmy Fallon & Red Skelton. Red had talent. Jimmy just reminds me of a junior high school student who thinks they're funny.

Matt said...

I don’t agree with the criticism of Jimmy Fallon. He is doing interviews. What is wrong with laughing when somebody says something funny? It is not the same thing as a actor cracking up, which ruins the scene.

Anonymous said...

@Lemuel

You mean @8:30?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wejNjdPndLI

Anonymous said...

Corpsing is awesome.

The deal with Fallon is that he’s insincere and “laughs” at the unfunny

Wendy M. Grossman said...

Ken, you are of course the expert, but my recollection is that Niles' obsession with Daphne was set up in the pilot by Niles's reaction on seeing her for the first time.

wg

DwWashburn said...

Maybe actors should follow Colonel Flagg's method of not laughing. Watched the Three Stooges and every time he felt like laughing he jammed himself in the stomach with a cattle prod.

Eshek3 said...

I prevent myself from laughing by thinking of something sad.

Len said...

I have to admit that I had a limited tolerance for Harvey Korman's inability to remain composed in the presence of Tim Conway. Conway could cross his eyes and Korman would be on his knees, pounding the floor and laughing so hard you feared he would soil himself. It was amusing at first, but the problem for me was that the more they did it, the less spontaneous it seemed. You knew those sketches existed for no other reason. ("Okay, so after Steve and Eydie sing 'Bad, Bad Leroy Brown' we'll have this week's Conway-Korman Crack-Up sketch and then our seventeenth 'Tribute to Cole Porter' musical finale.")

Audiences seemed to find endless delight in seeing Korman lose it, though, so maybe it was just me.

Allison said...

("Okay, so after Steve and Eydie sing 'Bad, Bad Leroy Brown' we'll have this week's Conway-Korman Crack-Up sketch and then our seventeenth 'Tribute to Cole Porter' musical finale.")

I had to laugh at the above. I was familiar with Carol Burnett's show only through the Carol Burnett and Friends syndications, which ditched almost all the music. Lately, Time-Life has been issuing some of the Burnett shows unedited and, musically, they're interesting. While there are occasional nods to current tastes in popular music -- The Pointer Sisters or the Jackson Five -- the Burnett show mostly takes place in a world where rock never happened. The music world is still swingin' to a Nelson Riddle arrangement and everyone is whistling the latest Broadway show tunes.

I don't know if Steve and Eydie ever actually sang "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" on the show, but they very well could have. The series was forever trotting out singers of an earlier generation to belt out contemporary material, accompanied by Peter Matz and his big, old-school orchestra. I think I could have gone the rest of my life without hearing Dinah Shore sing "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover."

It's easy to understand why the series got a reputation for being musically out-of-step with young people. So much was going on in popular music in the 1970s, yet the Burnett show continued to do parodies of 1930s and '40s musicals that most young people had probably never seen and to stage big, splashy tributes to popular songwriters like George Gershwin, Harold Arlen and Irving Berlin.

David K. M. Klaus said...

I remember standing outside a downtown St. Louis' Union Station waiting for a cab one night when a bus pulled up and this huge number of incredibly buff men got off, some barrel-chested like Henry Cavill in Man of Steel, some carrying weirdly shaped cases which couldn't possibly be for suits. Although my first thought was of a convention of mob guys and their specially shaped heaters, I realized that couldn't be true, so I asked the valet who they were. He replied "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but that's the Cincinnati Reds here to play the Cardinals tomorrow." Hey, very cool.
.
From what you wrote above, the bus must have been a private coach to take them from their private plane at the airport straight to the hotel, which was walking distance from Busch Stadium II, still in use at the time, although I couldn't imagine the team actually walking from the hotel to the stadium in the morning.