Friday Questions

Your mid-September Friday Questions.

Ted starts us off.

Hey Ken, I think you might have discussed this before, but what's it like directing child actors? Do you have to make sure they don't have that annoyingly "cutesy" acting style that used to be common on TV shows? And do you find that most comedy writers are good at writing for kids, or are they too often tempted to make them sound like wisecracking junior adults?

Obviously, it depends on the child.  But with kids it’s not only their performance but their ability to concentrate.

For the most part I’ve had good luck.  The key is being patient, especially if they’re really young (5-7). Plus, they rehearse less than the other actors.  A certain portion of the day is reserved for school so 70% of the rehearsal time is dealing with their stand-ins.  

My heart goes out to child actors.  They’re in a world of adults being asked to do things that are difficult for grown-ups, much less youngsters.  My job is to make them feel as comfortable possible. 

And every so often I’ll come upon a kid with impeccable  comic timing — they instinctively in their bones know just how to get every laugh.  I’ve been lucky enough to work with one or two of those.  

As for giving acting notes, I just want them to be real -- not be cutesy to get a laugh.  The more I can get them to just act naturally, the better will be my chances that they really deliver.

Final thought:  Kids aren’t easy to direct but by and large they’re way easier than professional athletes.  

Chris wonders:

Watching old sitcoms I notice that sometimes they'll use a humorous "smash cut," like switching suddenly to a new scene to contradict what a character just said, etc. The thing that surprises me is that the studio audience seems to laugh at these... But how on earth could they see the smash cut to laugh at it? Surely it takes too much time to change scenes in the actual studio to keep that laugh. Same question for camera pullout reveal jokes.

You must be talking about multi-camera sitcoms that are filmed in front of a live studio audience.  Often, to achieve that surprise, the first scene will be pre-filmed the day or two before.  The studio audience watches the scenes on monitors then the flip happens when they turn their attention to the stage and they see what happens after the cut.  

And some shows won’t go to those lengths.   They’ll just lean on the laugh box. 

Jeff asks:

Back in the day, network star(s) would often host these shows or appear in mini-skits to introduce new or returning programs. Were you or any of your colleagues ever involved in any of these (e.g. to write dialogue for an actor appearing in character as their sitcom alter ego)?

No.  To be honest, those big preview shows died out in the 70s or 80s.  Their heyday was before my time.  

Oh, for the days when fall premiers were a big deal.  For NBC Week (as they called it) you could send away over the summer to get a free handsomely mounted program saluting all the new shows.  I wish I still had my copies.  I’d send away every year.  

I think one of the networks did a preview show this year.  I rarely watch network television anymore so I couldn’t tell you which network did it.

And finally, from PolyWogg:

I was wondering about voice direction in TV scripts. For example, in Friends, Matt Perry's delivery of "Could it BE any more (blah)" only works with the right rhythm and direction in delivery. So my Q is if you have similar examples of phrases/lines that were delivered but only work through voice inflection, and how much it was in the script vs. the actor finding a way to say it?

I think it started out with Matt delivering a couple of lines in that rhythm and the producers recognizing its potential.  It’s a mixture of irony and a touch of sarcasm.  And you have to remember, when Matt started delivering lines that way it was a very fresh approach.  Now half the actors on sitcoms adopt that.

I never worked on FRIENDS so I’m hardly an authority, but I suspect when the writers saw how well he scored they started writing to that.  

We had a writer in the CHEERS room named Jerry Belson.  He was one of the funniest writers I’ve ever met.  (At one time he was Garry Marshall’s writing partner.)  He would work one day a week on CHEERS.  And he had a fantastic delivery.  He would pitch lines that had us on the floor.  We’d put them into the script and the next day at run-through most of them came back out because none of the actors could deliver the line as funny as Jerry.  

What’s your Friday Question?