Let’s “Spring” into some Friday Questions.
scottmc has left a new comment on your post "How to boycott Russia":
When directing an episode for television have you ever used a take that you knew contained a mistake, or goof? (The reason I ask is that I just saw the DICK VAN DYKE SHOW episode 'Bupkis'. Rob opens the phone book looking for a number after having already dialed the number. Both the studio audience and Van Dyke seemed to notice the mistake but nonetheless they used that take.)
I never leave mistakes in consciously, but sometimes in editing you notice things you missed on the stage. Usually these are matching issues — his collar is up in one take and down in the other, the cover is on the tray in one take and not in the other, etc.
You’re left with two choices. Either go with the take where everything matches perfectly even though it may not be the best performance, or go with the best performance and hope the audience doesn’t really notice the mistake.
That’s the camp I’m in. Unless the mistake is glaringly obvious I opt for the best performance.
In an ALMOST PERFECT episode I directed, there was a big pie fight with several pages of dialogue after. We shot it Monday night after camera blocking, then cleaned everything up and re-shot Tuesday night in front of the audience. Needless to say the two takes didn’t match. Watch Matthew Letscher (Rob). The glob on his face doesn’t match from shot to shot. I guarantee you wouldn’t have known that if I didn’t tell you. Here, watch the scene:
404 asks:
Friday question about your writing/thought process: I've noticed that most of your posts end with some sort of call-back zinger, where you reference something mentioned earlier in the piece. I know this is a pretty standard bit of comedy writing, and in general a good way to end a piece no matter the genre.
My question is how do you, Ken Levine, typically go about setting those up?
Callbacks (as they are called) are a great way to button a scene. I rarely have a final callback in mind when I’m writing a post, but as I get towards the end I start to look back at what might be worth calling back.
In fairness, sometimes it works better than others and I’m left with pie on my face.
And finally, from Brian:
Are show titles hard to come up with? Have they fallen out of favor? I recall seeing a title in the opening credits recently. I was reminded of show titles since on a recent airing of Jeopardy, contestants had to name the shows from the titles of the final episodes. The clues included "Farewell, Goodbye and Amen" and "One for the Road”.
Episode titles are a pain-in-the-ass. You need them for production schedules. At one time it wasn’t worth spending a lot of time on them because they’d never be made public. But now episode titles are available as are descriptions of each episode.
In some cases, the titles give away major plot points. It didn’t matter when no one but the production staff saw it, but now it matters a lot.
I always liked what FRIENDS did. Every episode title began with “The one where…” You didn’t have to wrack your brain. You could just say “The one where Phoebe gets hit with a pie” and be done with it.
What is your Friday Question?
Nice how you had a callback to your response to your first writer by mentioning pies in the face in your other 2 responses. :)
ReplyDeleteKen,
ReplyDeleteThe Beloved Spouse and I are working our way through FRASIER and a question comes to mind: did John Mahoney ever have any discomfort from having to limp all the time? Did he have any artificial assistance, such as a stiff brace? Did he ever ask for Martin to get better so he didn't have to do it anymore? He looks genuinely uncomfortable sometimes.
The Cheers episodes Snow Job, Woody Gets an Election, and Is There a Doctor in the Howe (where Frasier and Rebecca almost sleep together) had rather cheeky titles. Is this because, before DVDs and streaming, the public wouldn't have been aware of the titles?
ReplyDeleteBig Bang used a similar method, making titles look like theorems ,such as "The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification" In this case it paid off, ending with a Chuck Lorre fart.
ReplyDeleteI remember during a summer marathon of Mary Tyler Moore on Nick at Nite they would give the episode titles, which wasn't common then. The most clever one was "Some of My Best Friends are Rhoda".
ReplyDeleteEpisode titles were also needed for the U.S. Copyright Office. A title could be as simple as "Episode 104," but usually there was an actual title. I worked at ABC for a little while about fifty years ago, clearing titles no one would ever see on air. My office mate and I would have to go through tons of index cards and a number of huge catalogs to clear a title. It would take an hour or so for each title. Even then, we wondered why they just didn't get a computer.
ReplyDelete"Callbacks (as they are called) are a great way to button a scene. I rarely have a final callback in mind when I’m writing a post, but as I get towards the end I start to look back at what might be worth calling back."
ReplyDeleteThis past week, I started directing a play I wrote, "The Angle of Mercy." It's a classic style comedy, half door slamming farce, half Burns and Allen verbal comedy.
Page 18 - All the men wolf whistle about a sexy star.
RUTH: Oh, please. "She has boobs." I have boobs. Mary has boobs.
MARY: No, I don't. I gave them up for Lent and forgot to get them back after Easter.
Page 29 - Mary is convincing Ruth to flirt with a gangster and make her husband jealous.
MARY: Be a flapper!
RUTH: A flapper?
MARY: Yeah. Find a man and flap your boobs at him. I'd lend you mine, but you know... Easter.
The Lent joke came first and when the time came, the Flap joke wrote itself.
I love what It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia does with episode titles. By directly showing them to the audience after an opening scene, they can serve double-duty as both a title and a joke. Often even as a punchline to a joke that was just set up by the immediately previous line of dialogue. For example, here's one of my absolute favorites:
ReplyDeleteFRANK
I want in on this action, because I am bored to death sitting here.
DEE
No, that's a bad idea. Usually when you get involved somebody gets hurt.
FRANK
That's ridiculous. I'm just pallin' around with the guys. How's anybody gonna get hurt?
TITLE: FRANK SETS SWEET DEE ON FIRE
I can't imagine how difficult it must be to write episode titles in as jokes like that. Maybe that's why they don't actually do it every time, but it's still often enough as to be somewhat of a series staple at this point.
The TV show Chuck had a good episode naming scheme too: "Chuck vs. the ...", but I think the show with the best no-brainer naming guide was 24.
ReplyDeleteGiven the need to produce episode titles, perhaps it's best that Police Squad didn't last, since they needed two titles for each episode: The one on the screen and the one the announcer read, which never matched.
ReplyDeleteThose openings parodied the Quinn Martin shows, of course, and Hank Simms, the announcer on most of Martin's programs, served in the same capacity on "Police Squad."
DeleteThe MASH finale title, of course, was "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen"; it was also, in addition to being the highest rating and share scripted television program -- a record it will keep for all time due to the changes in the structure of television -- also the *longest* episode of scripted television. I'm pretty sure it will keep that record too, though it's *slightly* easier to break that one.
ReplyDeleteThe air slot is 2.5hrs, with probably slightly under 2 hours of actual film, and the episode is included in its entirety in the S11 syndication package *and stations still play the whole thing*, nearly 40 years later.
And *that*, certainly, is feat which will never be equalled, much less beaten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye,_Farewell_and_Amen
Ken, you're in good company as director Garry Marshall shared your philosophy of using the take with the best performance, no matter what minor inconsistencies may show. This is most obvious in PRETTY WOMAN, which is absolutely loaded with continuity errors.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see some great episode titles, look up NYPD Blue.
ReplyDeleteI notice more and more shows make the episode title a running thing, i.e. Friends "The One with ___". I love a good play on words, so something like "The Spy Who Came in For a Cold One" from Cheers always gives me a kick. The Simpsons does this pretty often too.
ReplyDeleteKen mentioned that episode titles weren't meant to be public back in the day, but it bugs me when I see an older show title that's literally the synopsis, like "Archie is Worried About His Job" (All in the Family). Also not a fan of shows where every episode title is just one word. Are you trying to be mysterious or minimalist or just quirky?
"Lou Grant" used one-word titles, but that was based on the single-word slugs reporters type at the top of their copy to identify their stories for the editors' benefit.
DeleteBack in the day, "The Man From UNCLE" used the same format with "The _________ Affair."
ReplyDelete1) Ever been to a party with that many pies/tarts?
ReplyDelete2) How do you clean up such a mess?
3) Ever been in any type of food fights?
I didn't even know that television show episodes even had titles until the advent of DVDs twenty years ago. I think it was the first season of THE SIMPSONS that tipped me off. At the time, I just assumed they were just made up by the marketers.
ReplyDeleteDo the titles even matter? In my opinion, not really, except that they are placeholder reminders of what episode you want to watch or reference. I agree that there shouldn't be spoilers in them, but beyond that I don't care that much.
As for leaving in slight glitches or mistakes -- they're awesome! It only enhances a show or album. I think of the Beatles and their numerous goofy mistakes, and to my ears it only makes them better.
I always thought the most curious episode-naming convention was in Insecure. Every episode in a particular season would contain one common word to combine with whatever new word would be used. Then each season the common word would change. So the episodes' names were:
ReplyDeleteSeason 1: _______ as F-ck
Season 2: Hella _______
Season 3: ______ -Like
Season 4: Lowkey _______
Season 5: _________, Okay?
In Season 1 of Better Call Saul, the episode names were all one-word titles ending in O, but they had to change the episode "Jello" to a three-word title at the last minute because of trademark concerns.
During your time on M*A*S*H the episode endings were changed to conclude with a tag scene that finished with a freeze-frame-- often a quick gag that called back something in the episode. What led to that being created? Were they easy to write (rather like the cold opens on Cheers it has to end on a big moment)?
ReplyDeletePerry Mason's titles were excellent. It was always THE CASE OF THE __________________. Every time I watch the show I Google the episode so I can identify the actors. I usually know most of them, but not all.
ReplyDeleteCap'n Bob, that was borrowed from the long-running Erle Stanley Gardner series of Perry Mason novels, the first of which predated the Raymond Burr TV series by a quarter-century.
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget "Dragnet," which after a few episodes on radio settled into using the title "The Big..." on both radio and TV solely for filing purposes.
VincentP: Yes, I know about the Perry Mason novels. I was a very involved mystery fan for over 30 years and have had two mystery novels published.
ReplyDeleteI'm not one for most continuity errors, but just last night I was watching an episode from Season 7 of Mad Men where Don is uncomfortably back in the office after his suspension. His secretary, Dawn, offers to get him a chicken salad on rye and a Nesbitt. The next time we see Don, sitting in the same place, he very clearly has a bottle of Coke, not a Nesbitt, in front of him. No mention is made of it, and Don is leaving the bottle as he leaves the room, but it struck me as odd, given that Dawn's character is total competence and loyalty and if she had offered Don a Nesbitt she'd have scoured the whole city of New York to find one rather than come back without what she'd promised.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite ep titles from the 60's comes from Persky and Denoff on the DVD show: "The Sound of the Trumpets of Conscience Falls Deafly on a Brain That Holds Its Ears..."
ReplyDelete(actually sounds like something Sally's Aunt Agnes would've said)
Cap'n Bob:
I do that too with Perry Mason, but because Amazon keeps messing the IMDb app, the titles get truncated and doing it on a phone has become a pain.
There's a new Perry Mason channel on PlutoTV and I've been enjoying all the episodes. I was about to chime in on how good the titles are. There's a kind of hot vibe to the trio of Perry, Della, and Paul that's subtle but buzzes in the background, they're cute together even though there's no overt romance.
ReplyDeleteIt seems the 30s Perry Mason movies with Warren William aren't highly rated but I really like them (I'm a big Warren William fan). Much more raffish and sassy Perry played by William and Allan Jenkins is sometimes his fixer.
Interesting note on the Raymond Burr series: Gail Patrick Jackson was executive producer, one of the very few women in charge of a TV series at the time. She obtained the rights to the books from Erle Stanley Gardner and he was involved with the scripts and stories.
As Gail Patrick she was featured in some great movies in the 30s and 40s, usually playing the bitch/killjoy. Memorable as the manipulative sister to Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey and the snippy second wife to Cary Grant in My Favorite Wife.
Thank you for answering my inquiry about mistakes/goofs. I like that most examples probably aren't 'mistakes' but rather the conscious decision by the director of choosing the best take.
ReplyDeleteGail Patrick Jackson revived the Mason character in the '70s, played by Monte Markham, a reliable character actor, but Raymond Burr by then was so identified with the role that the public wouldn't accept Markham. (After "Ironside" ended its run, Burr returned to playing Mason in a series of TV movies.)
ReplyDeleteThe six Mason films at Warners (four of which starred Warren William) earlier referred to were not favorites of Gardner, who thought his portrayal of the character was too reminiscent of William Powell's Nick Charles. (Mason stories also aired on radio in the '40s, though I've never heard any episodes.) Gardner -- a real-life defense attorney -- finally gained editorial control of the character when the Burr TV series aired. (BTW, when will HBO finally air season 2 of the revived Mason show?)
Let me ask a question in relation to the FQ about Callbacks, and the way they get used. I'm not trying to critique the way you used it here. Does the joke become less effective if you use it more than once or if you use it too early? For example, in this post, you answered the first question and mentioned getting hit in the face with a pie. Then in the next question, you made a callback to the pie when talking about callbacks (very clever). Would it have been funnier to place that as the final question and have the callback be at the end of the post? Similarly, you could have used the callback in the final FQ about episode titles, maybe saying "The one where Phoebe gets hit in the face with a pie", in addition to the callback you already used. Would it have diminished the use of the callback to use it twice?
ReplyDelete