St. Patty's Day at CHEERS

Here’s my St. Patrick’s Day post. (It’s Saturday, y’know…go to the liquor store NOW.) This is a scene from a CHEERS David Isaacs and I wrote. One of the many Bar Wars episodes. In this one, it’s St. Patty’s Day. Woody had been guarding the bar all night in anticipation that Gary might try to pull something.

INT. BAR – MORNING

SAM TURNS ON THE LIGHT. HE ENTERS WITH CARLA AND NORM. WE SEE THE BAR IS ENCASED IN CINDER BLOCKS. SPRAY PAINTED ON THEM ARE “HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY.”

SAM
Oh my God. Gary.

CARLA
He topped it.

NORM
Walled off from the keg. I want him dead. His family… dead. His friends… dead. His pets…DEAD.

SAM
That rat! I’ll kill him!

NORM
I thought you were going to have Woody stand guard so this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.

WOODY (V.O.)
I’m sorry, Sam. I fell asleep.

CARLA
They bricked Woody up inside the bar.

NORM
First he marries a rich girl and now this. I tell you, that guy was born lucky.

NORM EXITS TO THE POOL ROOM.

CARLA
Boy, Sam. This thing is sealed up tight.

SAM
How you doing in there, Woody? You okay?

WOODY (V.O.)
I’m feeling a little light headed.

CARLA
Thank God, he’s okay.

NORM ENTERS FROM THE POOL ROOM OPENING A CAN OF BEER.

SAM
Hey, Norm, where’d you get that beer?

NORM
I’ve got a couple cans squirreled around the bar for emergencies. I always thought it would be a nuclear thing, but this qualifies.

AN IRISH BAND ENTERS. THEY’RE ALL WEARING CABLE-KNIT SWEATERS. ONE OF THEM IS NAMED SEAN.

SEAN
Where do you want us to set up, Mr. Malone?

SAM
How about right there? (POINTS UPSTAGE; THEN, TO THE GANG) See, guys? We can still win this thing. The band’s here, we’ve got the green beer… all we need to do is take down this wall and hustle like there’s no tomorrow. Okay? Now I want to see a winning attitude here. A little positivity.

THE BAND BEGINS TO SING AND PLAY A SLOW IRISH BALLAD:

SEAN
(singing) “They broke into our Dublin home, the dirty English dogs. They took away my sister and they beat my dad with logs.”

THEY BREAK INTO A QUICK UP BEAT IRISH JIG FOR A BEAT, THEN RESUME THE LYRICS:

SEAN
(singing) “Along the ring of Kerry you can hear the bleat of gulls, I’ll sip the blood of the English from their bleached and hollowed skulls.” (TO THE BAR) Everybody!!

WOODY (V.O.)
Boy, if they look as good as they sound, Gary’s doesn’t stand a chance.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. BAR – LATER

ENOUGH OF THE CINDER BLOCKS HAVE BEEN CHIPPED AWAY TO RENDER THE BAR FUNCTIONAL. WOODY IS BEHIND THE BAR. THE BAND IS STILL PLAYING.

SEAN
(finishing a dirge) “…And everywhere I looked was death, death, death.”

A SMATTERING OF APPLAUSE.

SEAN
And now for a sad song. (STRUMS A CHORD, SINGS) “Twas a baby’s crib…”

SAM
(interrupting) That’s it! You’re finished. Here’s your money. Get out.

SEAN
Go to hell.

THE BAND EXITS.

SAM
Well, it’s over. I guess we should add up the receipts and see how we did.

CARLA
What’s the total, Woody?

WOODY
(figuring on a calculator) One million five hundred thousand dollars.

FRASIER
Decimal point, Woody.

WOODY
Hold everything. A hundred and fifty even.

Friday Questions

Hello from Peoria, Arizona where spring training continues. People ask if I miss being on a show fulltime. Re-read the first sentence. Here are this week’s Friday Questions. In honor of spring training, the first is a baseball announcing question. The rest are TV and movie related.

rockfish asks:

Chemistry in the booth seems to be pretty key to a great broadcast, would you agree? How big a role does the producer play in that, and how is it tested on the road? I seem to hear Rick (Rizzs) and you among others make sure to mention the producer (Kevin Cremin) a lot last year; I've always enjoyed the Mariners broadcasts and last year was new but quite enjoyable, despite the team.

We’re very lucky on the Mariners to have the best producer/engineer in the business in Kevin Cremin (pictured above).  And I don't just say that so my voice isn't buried under the crowd.   In addition to the technical aspects of the broadcast, Kevin is forever feeding us stats, interesting background on topics we may bring up, and in general making me sound a whole lot smarter than I am.

Here’s how special this guy is: Now of course we have the internet and can look things up in a jiff. But in the dark ages ('90s), Kevin carried around essentially a portable library – a large heavy cabinet filled with baseball reference books, media guides, rule books, etc. This was in addition to all the cumbersome broadcast gear.  You can’t believe what a pain-in-the-ass this bulky cabinet was, and no other producer/engineer bothered. But Kevin schlepped it with us everywhere.  Little wonder that he usually is the engineer for the national radio broadcast of the World Series. And has gotten a hernia.

(By the way, there is a Kevin Cremin who is a line producer.  Worked on THE SHIELD among others.  Not the same guy.)  

Chemistry in the booth does make for a much better broadcast. Again, I’m very fortunate. My broadcast partners, Rick Rizzs and Dave Sims both tolerate me with patience and grace.

But there have been cases where broadcast partners hate each other and don’t speak. For a long time the radio team for the Cleveland Indians was Jimmy Dudley and Bob Neal. They couldn’t stand each other. When one was calling the game the other would routinely eat chicken and toss the bones into a metal waste basket that would clang annoyingly just to piss his partner off.   There are cases of announcers coming to blows.   I'm sure when Al Michaels used to work on ABC with Howard Cosell that there were times he wanted to beat the living crap out of him.   Now THAT I would have liked to have seen. 

From Ernie:

Have you ever worked all night on an episode and you felt it still didn't work but you had to put it on the air? If so, how do you deal with it? Do you doubledown harder on future episodes, brainstorm, or do you just accept there will be hits and misses as part of doing business?

If we categorically know a show just doesn’t work we will take steps to dump it. Hopefully we’ve got another script in okay shape ready for next week. We’ll just grab that and worry about next week later. Or perhaps we’ll shut down production for a day to completely construct something else. That’s a pretty drastic move because it costs the production a lot of money.  Budget is a major consideration here.

One of the advantages of doing a multi-camera show on a Wednesday-Tuesday schedule is that as a God forbid you have the weekend.

Usually when you have a major rewrite, by the time you’re proofing the script at 6:00 in the morning you have no idea whether you’ve helped the script or just written a new bad version. You can go down to the next day’s runthrough and it’s a disaster or magically works like a charm. Trust me, I’ve experienced both.

For a more detailed example of this and the video of the resulting show go here. I’m extremely proud of this episode.

But those are extreme cases. Most of the time we’ll have things in every show that don’t work or could work better. The staff has to have the confidence to assume they can fix the problems. Dave Hackel, the creator of BECKER used to say to his cast on those occasions when a troubled show was on the stage, “Every week we deliver a beautiful healthy baby. Sometimes they just come out feet first.”

That said, some shows come out better than others. If we’re still not happy we will sometimes reshoot new scenes the following week during pick-ups. But at some point we have to live with it. These shows are just too expensive to casually toss out. Every season will have its weaker episodes. We just have to keep them to a minimum and learn from them.

Someone who didn’t leave his name (please leave YOURS) wonders:

When you watch the DVD extras of any current movie, they often show multiple takes of the same scene, with many different punchlines being tried.

How long as this been the accepted way that comedies are filmed? Does this mean that nobody liked the original punch line in the script, or that improvising is more accepted these days?

It's hard to imagine a comedy of the 1960's being done this way. As a classic example, I'll bet the script to "The Apartment" was completely finalized before filming, and it was shot exactly as written, with no alternate line readings or ad-libbing.

Filming multiple punchlines has become a popular trend in studio comedies. Judd Apatow is a big proponent of this. For his movies, he shoots lots and lots of film with different options. In one sense it’s smart because when you finally do test a movie and something doesn’t work you can’t just go back and try something else. That’s the luxury we have in multi-camera sitcoms. If a joke doesn’t work for an audience we can rally the writers, come up with a new line, and just shoot it.

The key to all this improvising is you need actors, a director, or on-stage writers who can pull it off.

Still, there’s a part of me that misses those fine-tuned comedy screenplays like THE APARTMENT where every single word is there for a purpose.

And finally, Chris weighs in:

Why do they say Whitney is TAPED in front of a live studio audience? Do they still use tape in 2012?

Multi-camera shows are taped in High Definition, but they look like film… or close enough. And it’s much cheaper.

What’s your question? Leave it in the comments section. Thanks.

Game Change

It seems like every time Hollywood makes a movie portraying a noted Republican as a complete idiot, Conservatives whine that there’s bias. Except when it comes to Nixon. Even Republicans acknowledge that he was a major loon.

The GOP’s latest charge is against the HBO movie GAME CHANGE, which chronicles Sarah Palin’s rise from Alaska governor to Vice Presidential candidate. Clearly, your opinion of this movie will depend on what state you’re in – accepting or skeptical, blue or red?

Personally, I liked the movie (let the angry comments begin!). I thought Julianne Moore was extraordinary as Sarah Palin. If Tina Fey won an Emmy for playing her then Julianne certainly deserves one. And when there’s the big screen version in a few years Meryl Streep will win the Oscar. The only loser playing Sarah Palin is Sarah Palin.

What Julianne did so remarkably was play her real. Yes, there are the (now in retrospect) hilarious scenes when Sarah Palin has to be patiently told who our enemies were in World War II and where those countries are on the map. But we also see her vulnerable side, her charismatic side, and the toll the campaign took on her psyche. By the end of the campaign she’s turned into Frankenstein meets Captain Queeg meets Roseanne, but in fairness – how much is that her fault and how much is just a result of being thrust into an overwhelming situation with zero preparation?

The bottom line is she never should have been put in that position in the first place. This is selecting the most qualified person in America to be a heartbeat away from the President of the United States. It's not casting EVITA.

The public figure who fares the best in this film is John McCain. As beautifully played by Ed Harris (Meryl Streep will win an Oscar for playing him too), he comes off level-headed and sincere. He’s gullible in that he went along with the Palin decision but hey, he was trying to win the Presidency and Danica Patrick was busy racing.

Old pal Woody Harrelson was the campaign mastermind. He was smart, had integrity, made some blunders (Sarah Palin), but you got the sense he genuinely believed in McCain and what he stood for. If Hollywood was really biased they’d have Harrelson’s character drop kick babies.

Another standout was Sarah Paulson as Sarah Palin’s chief campaign advisor/wrangler. Over the course of the film you see her get slowly disillusioned and impatient with the antics and ineptitude of the Yukon Guv until she just snaps. All I could think of was this must’ve been what it was like to be a showrunner on GRACE UNDER FIRE.

GAME CHANGE is currently playing on HBO and HBO ON DEMAND. Meanwhile, the Sarah Palin documentary THE UNDEFEATED that bombed at the boxoffice worse than THE BEAVER plays once in awhile on the Reelz Channel. Which to see? Ken Levine recommends GAME CHANGE. Right-wing wacko nutjob Mark Levin recommends THE UNDEFEATED.  You be the judge.  I would hate to be accused of being biased.

Leave it to TV to state the obvious

As opposed to what???

If you thought sitcom writers needed Pepto-bismol BEFORE...

Hello from Peoria, Arizona where tonight I broadcast my first Mariner game of the spring. 7:05 PM on 710 ESPN in Seattle and MLB.COM. Should be great.  The M's against... I think Kansas City.   One of the many things I love about Arizona is the number of decent BBQ joints they have here. That and the fact that most sitcoms are wrapping up for the season right about now inspires me to write a post about a grand sitcom writers room tradition.

The final rewrite night feast.

I don’t know where this delightful tradition began – maybe TAXI, perhaps on THE BOB NEWHART SHOW. It’s been awhile. The early participants are probably now in cardiac wards. But forget about that. Like all good traditions, this one needs to continue so if you’re on a writing staff and have your last rewrite night of the season coming up, I urge you to follow in the footsteps of your noble and most likely infirmed brethren.

Quick explanation for non-pros. By the way, I love that expression – non-pros. It means non-professionals or people not in show business. When Variety or the Hollywood Reporter would report marriages or new babies they would say: “groom is story editor on MASH, bride is a non-pro.” In other words, the bride could be finding a cure for cancer but is worthless because she’s not in the entertainment industry. But I digress…

On multi-camera shows, the first full runthrough is usually followed by the big rewrite of the week. That’s the night you really try to whip the script into shape, fix the story, replace scenes, punch it up. These can be long nights so dinner is brought in. Each show has about eight or ten different places they rotate. You try to eat somewhat healthy because you know you’re still going to be working for many hours.

The final week of production is generally an easier week. You don’t have any more scripts to prepare, usually the show runner writes the season finale so it’s in good shape, and the result is an easier rewrite night. To celebrate that, shows will often blow it out on the final rewrite night. And so on CHEERS, WINGS, FRASIER, and all the shows I co-ran, our final rewrite nights was catered by…

Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas Style Bar-B-Que. This is not just some rib joint. This is some serious pounding down of animal fat. It has one location, in Van Nuys – just north of the Budweiser Brewery and south of the Mexican gang wars. And it’s GREAT.

If you eat it once a year.

As a regular diet I don’t think John Belushi would’ve lasted six months.

But we would all gorge ourselves. Ribs, brisket, pork, chicken, beans, slaw, and don’t forget that pecan pie for dessert. One slice has more sugar than the entire state of Hawaii.  It's a night of many laughs and wetnaps.

A tradition within the tradition is that all new writers to the staff are required to eat a certain delicacy. Have I not mentioned the Texas hot links? These are the hottest damn things I’ve ever attempted to eat. We had a story editor on WINGS who consumed one then turned bright red and stayed that color until the series went into syndication. Fraternities have been thrown off of campuses for less severe hazing. But the rest of us got a good chortle out of it.

There’s only one problem with the last night Dr. Hogly Wogly feast – if the runthrough happens to be really bad you are fucked. This happened one year on CHEERS. We figured at best we’d finish around 3:00 AM. But all the food was ordered. The P.A.’s left at like 4:00 PM to pick it up. You knew when they were almost back because you could smell the hot links a mile from the studio.

We ate at 7:00. At 9:00 we all went into a beef coma. We were probably on page 7 at this point. We caught our second wind, but that wasn’t the only wind in the room. The beans kicked in about 10:00. We re-enacted the famous campfire scene in BLAZING SADDLES.

Y’see, usually you eat, write three more jokes, then go home. By the time we finished the rewrite we looked like those Chilean coal miners when they first were rescued.

But again, for you writing staffs about to produce your last episode of the season – don’t think about that. Don’t think about the considerable health risks. Just unbutton your pants and have one of the great meals of your life. And if your show does call on the good Dr. please let me know about it. I may just crash your rewrite.

Why people don't laugh

When you do a show multi-camera in front of an audience you always run the risk that unforeseen circumstances will affect the crowd’s reactions.

There have been a number of times in my erstwhile career when shows that should have played through the roof played through the floor. Here’s why.

The most common enemy of all multi-cam shows: the air conditioning going out. I've have had this happen a number of times. And with all the blazing hot lights and no cross-ventilation a sound stage becomes Satan's rumpus room in ten minutes. Comedy evaporates at 80 degrees.

Power failures can also curtail things. I’ve found that audiences do not enjoy sitting in pitch-black darkness. Who knew???   Generally generators restore the electricity pretty quickly, but the audience is still unnerved. Anxiety is not the best warm up for promoting laughter.

And when the power goes out, so does the air conditioning. See paragraph three.

Rain is a problem. Usually an audience is asked to line up outside the stage before being let in. There are no retractable roofs over movie studios. Sometimes you can find shelter for the two hundred brave souls or let them in earlier, but more times than not they’re exposed to the elements. It’s hard to really yuck it up when your sweater smells like a dead raccoon and your socks are soaked.

There are companies that help fill audiences, especially for new shows. Once a show is a hit there’s a big demand for tickets. (FRIENDS used to have two audiences for every taping. They took forever to do that show. The first audience would come in at about 4:00. By 8:00 they were burned out and the show was only half done. So they were mercifully released and a new audience took their place. Fans were just so excited to be at a FRIENDS taping they didn’t care. Good luck pulling that on a new show that hasn’t even premiered.) These companies arrange for buses and in some cases even pay people to attend the tapings. (Considering some of the shows I’ve seen lately that’s a hard way to earn a buck.) They are not always conscientious when it comes to selecting groups for specific shows. Imagine a hundred 80 year-olds attending a WHITNEY taping.

One time we had a group of convicts. Who did they kill in the yard to warrant that punishment? Again, there’s that unnerving factor for the rest of the audience seeing armed prison guards. And then at 9:00 they were herded out – right in the middle of a scene. Then we were left with a half-empty house. 

I’ve told this story before but a script my partner David and I thought was very solid died on the stage. And only later did we learn that half the audience couldn’t speak English. 

But the worst audience I ever had was for an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore comeback show David and I created. And this was no one’s fault but ours. We had a terrific show. One of our funniest. We were very excited.

And then the morning of the filming the Challenger disaster occurred. Seven brave astronauts perished. Our first instinct was to cancel the filming, but the studio (protecting its investment) argued that we should film anyway. Their reasoning: after a full day of inescapable sorrow, people would gladly welcome the diversion. They would love the opportunity to just laugh for a few hours.

So we gave in. After all, we had a good episode. Sometimes the release of laughter is a Godsend in times of grief and this show was funny.

We filmed as planned. And the show absolutely died. Silence. Crickets. Tumbleweeds. DEATH. I don’t think there were three laughs the entire night. Even the audience that couldn’t speak English laughed at a few things. Not this group. If someone dropped a coin on the floor you could tell by the sound whether it was a quarter or dime – that’s how quiet it was.

As they were filing out I happened to glance at the set and suddenly it all made sense. This was a large newspaper bullpen set along the wall most prominent to the audience was photos of current events. Right in the middle, in plain view of everyone, was a photo of the Challenger.

Oops.

Still, part of the fun of shooting in front of a live studio audience is the unpredictability. Each filming night is different. And the pros outweigh the cons. Plus, the cons leave at 9.

AWAKE and other puzzlers

As promised, here is a bonus Friday Question Day.

MrTact starts us off:

Have you seen the premier of "Awake"? I thought it was a brilliant concept (not to mention well-written and performed), but I question whether it has any legs. It seems more like a feature concept to me, and I'm keen to see how they manage to sustain it for any length of time.

I enjoyed it but wondered the same thing. How do you sustain this? And what happens when he takes naps? In case not everybody knows the premise – a detective is involved in a car crash with his wife and son. Now he lives two realities – one where the wife survived and one where the son lived. He goes to sleep in one and wakes up in the other. So let’s say he’s with his wife and wants to return to his son’s reality – he just watches THE ENGLISH PATIENT.  How long can they keep doing that?

My other fear is that this concept is waaaaaay too complicated for your average viewer. I mean, face it, a lot of these people have trouble keeping up with the Kardashians. And judging by AWAKE’S ratings the second week this is a valid concern. It dropped 30% from its premiere. Still, it did better than its predecessor in that time slot and it is NBC so as long as more people watched it than the Korean channel they might just stick with it.  Hope so.  I'm enjoying it. 

Tomas Street wonders:

When writing a pilot / spec script, should one be spending time describing the main characters? Is it ok to just say SAM enters and goes behind the bar.  OR...SAM, a late thirties good looking fading athletic type in relaxed clothes, enters and heads behind the bar.

The latter. Describe him briefly in your stage direction. A lot of people like to add a page with all the character descriptions right after the title page, but it’s been my experience that no one reads it. Work it into the body of the show.

From Stephen:

The cast and crew of Cougar Town did their own 'grassroots' promotional campaign while the show was on extended hiatus. They hosted viewing parties, went out and met the fans, and most of the cast joined Twitter. If you had a show on the air now, would you make full use of social media to raise your show's profile, as opposed to relying purely on network support? Do you think more low-rated shows should be doing what Cougar Town did to make a dent?

Are you kidding? I use social networks to pimp my blog, my book, even my broadcast schedule with the Mariners (next game Wednesday night, 710 ESPN Seattle and MLB.COM). Facebook, Twitter, and the like are a Godsend to producers. They can take matters into their own hands, reach their fan base directly, and not have to rely on fickle network PR departments who would rather push SMASH than your show. If a social network can topple the government of Egypt it can maybe keep COUGAR TOWN on the air.

I should just SAY I have a show on the air so I'll get a lot more Twitter followers.  

Chris wants to know:

Why is it that even on horrible shows, the audience still laughs at the jokes? Shouldn't the fact that you're making a bunch of diverse people in the audience laugh be a good sign?

What you’re often hearing is a laugh track. Plus, warm-up guys practically beg audiences to laugh. People feel somewhat obligated. And it depends on the audience. Sometimes you just get a good one and they laugh at everything, and other times you’d think members of a cemetery filled the bleachers. I’m working on a post now on why audiences don’t laugh at filmings.  That should be ready for tomorrow.

From Mark:

You mentioned recently that is might be a good idea to keep a sleeping bag in your office in order to be prepared for late writing sessions.

Just curious, have you ever actually slept at work and gone right back to work the next morning?

Yes. Once had a rewrite end at 6:30 and had to be on the stage for the start of rehearsal at 10. Ahhhhh. Memories.

Tim Simmons wraps it up.

Ken, I'm confused as I've read so many different ways to sell a pilot. Some say to pitch an agent, some say to an established producer and other to a network. which would you suggest?

Look, let’s be realistic. The chances of you actually SELLING a pilot if you’re not an established writer are the same as you being abducted by aliens – so 20:1 at best. The real value in pilots for people trying to break in is that they serve as great writing samples. Yes, you could try to sell your idea to an established producer or studio but that usually means they’ll just pay you off and you go away. Fine if the project dies, but if it becomes FRIENDS then everyone makes billions but you.

When it comes to pilots, concentrate on writing a spec. Plus, the more you have down on paper the harder it is for anyone else to steal your idea.

I see college courses in pitching pilots. Why? Who are you going to pitch them to? Devote your energies to the script itself.

What’s your question???

Bigamist busted on Facebook

That's what happens when Facebook suggests to wife #1 that she befriend wife#2.  Oops.   When wife#1 clicked on wife#2's Facebook page there was a photo of her and hubby and a wedding cake.   Alan O'Neill is in a world of shit.  Let's just say wife#1 did not click the "like" button.

You never forget your first time

Hello from Peoria, Arizona, where I'll be spending the next week covering the Seattle Mariners -- calling the games on Wednesday and Thursday nights and then next Sunday afternoon on the M's radio network.  The rest of the time I'll be like these people.   Readers seem to like posts about my suspect radio career and my different mishaps along the way so here's one that's baseball related.

The first inning of my first game as a big league announcer.  As you'll see, it was not what you'd call an auspicious beginning. 

1991.   I had just been hired by the Baltimore Orioles. We were opening Spring Training in Sarasota, Florida against the Chicago White Sox. To say I was nervous is an understatement. I could have been one of those idiot teens at summer camp in FRIDAY the 13th.

I had broadcast three years of minor league baseball but those were on tiny stations with signals weaker than your home wireless router. Now I was to be on a 30 station network that blanketed the entire east coast. Gulp.

I practiced my opening for three days. When the time came I recited it verbatim and probably sounded like Sheldon in BIG BANG THEORY.

My partner was the great Jon Miller. After several commercials, the starting line ups, national anthem – I don’t know, I was terrified – Jon introduced me and I braced myself to begin the play-by-play.

First batter up was Randy Milligan. On the first pitch he hit a ground ball to third. Easy play for Robin Ventura who threw him out.

BUT…

Randy tripped over the bag at first, did a header, twisted his ankle, and laid on the ground for a good twenty minutes. Now I had to fill. I glance over at Jon and he’s just gazing out at the field, mike turned off, a sly little smile on his face. The message was clear: “Okay, kid, you wanted this job? Let’s see what ya got.”

Usually you could recap the game or just reset the stage (talk about the standings, the pitcher’s past performance, the way the team is playing, what happened yesterday, scores from around the league, etc). but this was the first game. There was nothing to reset. We’re here. That’s it.

I have no idea what I talked about. How you need your ankles, the current weather (and ten day forecast), where to park if you should come down here, how far we were from Disneyworld, how successful was Operation Desert Storm – I dunno, it was all a blur. Somehow I got through it and managed to survive that first game.

So just in case, if you tune in to Mariners baseball this week and hear me reviewing the Oscars, you’ll know why.

Best album cover EVER

Now this is who I want to see perform on the Grammys.

What's the best night to film

That's a question I'm asked almost as much as why wasn't there a MANNEQUIN 3?   Any yesterday, in his fine blog, comedy writer Earl Pomerantz answered the same question.  But it seems we disagree on the answer.  For his argument just go here. 

Multi-camera shows that film before live studio audiences (like BIG BANG THEORY and TWO AND A HALF MEN) generally shoot on Tuesday or Friday nights. That way two shows can share one camera crew (back in the day when there were that many shows). I’ve been asked which of those nights I prefer and why? My answer is Tuesday and it stems from my first foray into playwriting.

A hundred and ten years ago my writing partner, David and I wrote an evening of one-act plays. It was more of an exercise really. We did four one acts in four different comic styles. The small theatre scene in LA was booming at that time. Melrose Ave. had ten or fifteen 99 seat theatres, one more charming than the next. To get to OUR theatre you continued east on Melrose until you heard gunfire then you turned right. Once you got to the first building that wasn’t on fire you turned into the lot and you were there. The 5th Street Studio theatre on 5th and Western over a pizza parlour. We were practically on Broadway.

Our shows ran Friday and Saturday nights for a month. We wanted to close before the summer and any riots. Amazingly, we had good crowds. (These are the same people you see on FEAR FACTOR.) On the first Friday night things were going great. Each act worked. Lots of laughs. The finale was an all out farce – people running in and out of doors, hellzapoppin’. It was 45 minutes long. For the first half hour the audience roared and then suddenly…they just stopped laughing. We couldn’t believe it. The last fifteen minutes (the big wild finale) was greeted with stone silence.

David and I were so thrown we didn’t know what to change. So we decided to just leave it, watch carefully the next night and see just where the play goes off the track.

On Saturday we had another good house. (Must’ve been a GREEN BERET convention in town.) The farce started, the laughs started, we braced ourselves…but this time they didn’t stop laughing. All the way through. In fact the laughs were bigger at the end.

Tremendously relieved, we concluded we just had a bad crowd the previous night (all of their cars had been broken into and they were bummed) and left the script alone.

But the next Friday night the same thing happened as the previous Friday. At the half hour mark the laughs stopped. But on Saturday night they were there wire to wire. And this pattern continued throughout the run.

What it taught us was that Friday night audiences are tired. It’s been a long week, they’ve just come from work and at a certain point they’re just pooped. Saturday crowds had a day to relax.

Since then we’ve always shot our shows on Tuesday nights. It’s the middle of the week, it gives people something to look forward to, and most importantly, they have more energy.

I’d feel bad for those four Friday night audiences but hey, they got home alive. You can’t ask much more from theatre in Los Angeles than that.

I will admit that it's a huge pain-in-ass to finish a show Tuesday night and jump right into the next episode.   It would be nice to have that weekend buffer between shows.  But having a weekend in the middle of production means that if the show on the stage is in trouble you have two extra days at your relative leisure to fix it.   So again, it's less good and convenient for writers but better for the show.  

Still one final advantage:  Every so often you might have to push filming back a day.  There's some emergency, an actor gets sick, there's a riot, whatever.  You can push back to Wednesday easily.  The crew is still available.  If you have to push back from Friday to Monday you're screwed.


Update: Earl Pomerantz replies:

Well, there you have it. Ken's thinking about the show; I'm thinking about myself. Of course, when you're in charge, you pretty much are the show, so you might say it really amounts to the same thing. Are you buying that?

Everybody Loves Radomir

As I prepare to head off to Arizona for Mariners’ spring training, here are this week’s Friday Questions. Will try to add a couple extra Question days in the next few weeks to catch up a little. But still, submit yours in the comments section. And as always – many thanks.

Dennis Johnson starts us off:

Have you seen "Exporting Raymond" and if so, any comments?

I have and loved it. I believe it’s now playing on HBO. This is a documentary of Phil Rosenthal, the creator of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND going to Moscow where Russian TV was developing their version of his show. Phil is just a naturally funny guy, and to watch him deal with his creation being “adapted” for Soviet viewers is a riot. Every change they made was seemingly wrong and even appalling. How did the new version do?   See the movie.  I strongly recommend it.

Meanwhile, I understand they are about to do the same thing with RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, adapt it for Russian TV. Good luck.

Not too long ago Spain did a version of CHEERS that apparently was a flop. Still, I got writing credit on an episode so that should be good for $.03 in royalties!!!


From Helena:

How excited were you when you for the first time heard your words spoken by an actor? Does that become less exciting over time?

It was exciting and brief. The first show my partner, David Isaacs and I wrote was an episode of THE JEFFERSONS. 98% of our draft was changed. But the three lines of ours that did make it were exciting to hear. Two of the three were then cut in editing. Note: We got our MASH assignment based on our draft of THE JEFFERSONS. So somebody liked it.

The next show we wrote that was produced was an episode of JOE AND SONS. I know. You’re saying – “Huh? What the hell was that?” It was a short-lived series on CBS in 1975 starring Richard Castellano (the fat guy from THE GODFATHER) and Jerry Stiller. Maybe 60% of our draft was still in tact and that was definitely a thrill hearing real actors do our lines… and even better – getting laughs with them.

But the real high came watching our first MASH.  95% of the final version was from our script. And to hear Alan Alda, Harry Morgan and the rest of the cast perform our material was not just amazing; it was practically surreal.

And to answer your next question: I am just as excited today as I was then to hear my words come to life. I still pinch myself every time. To me, for a screenwriter or playwright that’s the ultimate reward.


Barefoot Billy Aloha asks:

When you create a series idea, is it safer to pick a common-experience setup like military service (MASH) or bar patronage (Cheers)versus a specialty-experience setup like Big Wave Dave's? What's the rationale behind your decision? In other words, what were you thinking? Very few folks have been to Hawaii...but nearly all of us have been in the military and bars...

It’s always good to find a fresh venue, but that wasn’t our objective with BIG WAVE DAVE’S. Like I’ve said in the past, pilots have to be about something. The theme we were exploring here  was a mid-life crisis. Three disgruntled guys approaching 40 (and one wife) decide to chuck it all and move to Hawaii where they feel they will leave their problems behind. In a sense, it was “Wendy and the Lost Boys”. Once in Hawaii they learn, of course, that they can’t escape life’s problems… even in paradise.

We chose a surf shop because we wanted them to take on a task that was indigenous to Hawaii and yet a lot harder than they had imagined.

We shot the show in front of a studio audience. In retrospect, I wish we had done it single-camera and been able to take better advantage of Hawaii.

Michael queries:

Do TV writers retain any sense of ownership in characters they create? For example, are they automatically entitled to compensation if one of their characters is spun-off to a new series, even if they are not involved in the new series?

Yes. And the characters don’t have to be spun-off. They can just become recurring. Writers of the episode that introduced the character make a nominal creation fee. David and I received that on CHEERS for the Eddie LeBec character.

Usually, you have to ask the studio for it. They will NEVER just offer it. You have to remind them of the provision…. And then threaten legal action when they initially refuse.

One more, from Rick Mohr:

Why do the best friends/neighbors never knock on so many shows, the just walk in and the leave the door open the entire time they are there?

They never knock because it takes time for someone to cross to the door to answer it. But I will grant you it is a big cheat. Still, it sure makes Kramer’s entrances on SEINFELD funnier when he can just burst in.

I’m not aware of neighbors leaving the door open, however. Maybe that happens. I just don’t pay attention.

The bigger issue is devising excuses for why the neighbors are coming over.   The best neighbor entrance EVER was Howard on THE BOB NEWHART SHOW. Written by Tom Patchett & Jay Tarses, Howard barged into Bob’s apartment one time and said, “Hi, Bob. I’m here for no apparent reason.”

Do shows steal stories from other shows?

A reader/Sitcom Room attendee, Johnny Walker, posed an interesting question:

I was recently surprised to see a storyline I recognized in an episode of How I Met Your Mother: In the 2009 episode "Double Date", Marshall reveals that he can only fantasize about other women in his head, if he imagines a tragic illness has taken Lily away from him first. (He feels too guilty, even in his dreams, to cheat on her.) She discovers this and is upset.

I recognized this storyline from a 2004 episode of King of Queens called "Damned Yanky" I happened to catch recently. In it, Doug reveals the same thing to Carrie, who has a very similar reaction to Lily.

I was really shocked to see two shows doing the same scenes with different characters, not five years apart.

What do people (or Ken) think? What's most likely: Did the writers unwittingly duplicate the story, or did they come up with the idea, realise it had been used recently, but decided to go ahead with it anyway?

Not being on staff of HIMYM I have no way of knowing whether that particular instance was a coincidence or a lift (or “sampling” as they say in music when they just steal someone else’s song). And I’ve seen neither episode so I can’t compare the similarities and details. But I could almost guarantee that HIMYM didn’t knowingly copy another show. Those guys pride themselves on creating original stories inventively told.

Coincidences do happen.  I doubt if many showrunners actively steal another show’s idea. They don’t come into the room and say, “Hey, I saw a great story on THE OFFICE. Let’s do it, too.” But sometimes you see things that stay with you subconsciously and then a year or so later you pitch it, honestly thinking you came up with it.

I remember once Neil Sedaka told a story of when he was writing songs during the Brill Building era in New York in the early ‘60s. Neil was one of the most prolific songwriters of that era. Among the songs he wrote or co-wrote were “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”, “Love Will Keep Us Together”, “Where the Boys Are”, “Laughing In the Rain”, and about a thousand others. One day he came up with a sensational melody. He quickly assembled musicians to record a demo. He was very excited as he gathered them for a session, saying it was the best melody he had ever came up with. The musicians read the charts and said, “Neil? Are you kidding? This is Gershwin.”

A mortified Neil realized that he had subconsciously lifted a melody from George Gershwin. No wonder it sounded so great.

These things happen.

But what’s inexcusable is this:

A writer I knew on a long running sitcom said someone in the room pitched an idea one day. Everybody loved it. Then another writer in the room said another show did essentially the same story a year before. The showrunner rationalized that it was a while ago, different network, most people probably didn’t see it, etc. and decided to go ahead with the story. So that’s both stealing and lazy showrunning.

That showrunner, by the way, was always crying that his show never received any Emmy nominations. Well, THAT’S why. Cause he’s lazy!

On all the shows I’ve been lucky enough to work on, story notions were discarded immediately if it was discovered they had been used before.

But the practice happens enough in television and features that you can’t go a week without reading about six plagiarism suits and four cease and desist orders.

Ideally, you’d like to create a show so specific that no one else can do your stories. Good luck to the writers of THREE’S COMPANY trying to do the Korean black market stealing medical supplies story we did on MASH. But the reality is, most stories you do on any show you can do on any other show. And so there’s going to be overlap. A version of the daughter not doing her homework story that they did on LAST MAN STANDING has been done on every family sitcom featuring teenagers since OUR MISS BROOKS (and the fact that you probably have never even heard of OUR MISS BROOKS only underscores my point). The trick is to find fresh ways of telling those stories. And that’s not easy because…


BREAKING STORIES IS THE HARDEST PART OF THE SITCOM PROCESS. 

Not the jokes, the STORIES. So the temptation is always there to take a shortcut. But the good writers don’t.

And still there are times they find their stories are similar to others. In those cases, the best you can hope for is that you did it better.

By the way, that HIMYM/KING OF QUEENS story was a damn good one!

Topless table readings

Table readings are a necessary part of the production process. The cast will sit around a table and read the script aloud before putting it on its feet and beginning rehearsal. For us writers, it’s the first chance to hear what we have and what might need work. Usually we’re listening to hear whether the story works. We’re less concerned with jokes (assuming that some of them worked) at this stage of the process. The actors are not expected to give full performances at table readings. Plus, we have a full week. If, by day three we’ve just got some jokes to fix we’re in great shape.

Some reflections on memorable table readings:

The network and studio also have representatives in attendance. And usually they’ll grace us with their notes. Page after page of them. Suits must assume that if they left writers to their own devices we would never change a thing. But the truth is most of us are tougher on the material than they are. Except we have a better idea of what’s wrong and how to fix it. Yet, that doesn’t stop them from thinking they’re saving the show with suggestions that are often obvious or useless.

On one show I was showrunning we had a network executive who was terrible at notes. He was a administer, but script doctoring was not his forte. We’d have a mediocre table read and could see him approaching us. He would practically be sweating. Obviously he didn’t know what the hell to tell us but was obligated to give notes anyway. Before he could speak we'd jump in, saying: “We know. We have some work to do.” That’s all he needed to hear. Like a shot he was out of there. Then on show night he would thank us for taking his suggestions.

Actors sometimes have embarrassing moments – especially when they mispronounce words they should know but don't. One actress pronounced epitome “ep-a-tome”. Another pronounced hyperbole as "hyper-bowl".  Worse was the thirtysomething actress who referred to a famous New York neighborhood as “Green-witch Village.”

One time I was directly across the table from an attractive actress. It was summer and she was wearing a little halter top. She was so engrossed in the reading she didn’t notice that one of her breasts had popped out. I sure noticed it. I tried to silently signal her. She waved me off, essentially saying “stop bothering me during a reading.” Ohh-kay. So for the next fifteen minutes I enjoyed a delightful view. Eventually she realized it, and to her credit, just popped it back in like it was no big deal. No embarrassment, nothing. She did thank me later for trying to warn her though. I said, “oh, you’ve thanked me enough.”

Right after 9-11 we had a bomb scare at the studio during a table reading. The inspectors alerted us of the situation and advised we just stay put. He told us not to worry. It appeared to be a false alarm. That didn’t stop one of the cast members from freaking, screaming at other cast members who tried to calm him down, and then running out of the room.

One table reading was delayed when the star was late. She finally swept in and said, “Sorry I'm late. I was fucking my husband.”

On another show I co-ran, we decided to have an early table reading so we’d be done by the O.J. verdict that was expected later that morning. That proved to be a good decision. Imagine trying to be funny after that?

On Kirstie Alley’s first table reading at CHEERS she came in wearing a blond wig a la her predecessor, Shelley Long.

My partner and I got our first staff job on THE TONY RANDALL SHOW at MTM. Our first day was the table reading of a script we had written. Just before the reading, Tony stood up, announced that he had just come back from London and was so impressed with British comedies. “Compared to them, everything we have here is shit!” he proclaimed.  With that lovely introduction he neatly segued into our script.

Where you hold table readings is important. We always tried to do them in large conference rooms. Some shows do them on the stage. But laughs get lost in such a cavernous space. Better to hold the readings in close quarters where laughter can fill the room.   The SOUL TRAIN stage was not conducive for comedy it turned out. 

Big laughs at table readings can be deceiving however. Sometimes a line that worked at the table falls flat on stage. When that happens you’ve got to take out the line even if it originally got a big response. Likewise, there are jokes that are dependent on physical performance. Writers need to resist the urge to change everything just because they don’t get laughs.

There is always a crafts-services table set up in the corner with fruit, lox & bagels, Danish, etc. One of my pet peeves is that some actors will eat during table readings. They’re trying to deliver lines with their mouths full of food. You can’t understand what they’re saying, much less whether their joke works. At best they sound like Sylvester the Cat.

And you can always tell which actor read the script beforehand and which actor is just winging it, reading it for the first time.

Usually actors will give so-so table readings but after rehearsal they lock in and deliver great performances on show night. But there are a few who just have great natural instincts and will give sensational table readings. Unfortunately, as the week unfolds they start to over-analyze the script and their performance gets progressively worse.

Table readings have changed over the last few years. The original idea was that actors sit around a table and relate to each other as they read the script. But now there are so many network and studio and standards & practice people at table readings – not to mention agents, managers, and oh yeah – people who work on the show, that these conference rooms can’t hold everybody. So someone got the bright idea to set it up like a celebrity roast. Actors now sit on one side of one long table (a la a dais) in front of an audience. It’s easier and more convenient for the suits but horrible for the actors. How do you relate to someone who is sitting at the other end of the table from you? Not that the executives care.

And pilots are worse. This is how crazy things have become. A lot of studios will want to have pre-table readings before the actual table readings with the network. This was suggested before one of our pilots. We said okay but only we would be present for the pre-table reading. No studio presence. The executive then said, “Well, I want to be there, so if that’s what you want, then maybe schedule a pre-pre table reading for just you guys.”

And remember, this is just the START of the process.

How to get the most out of life

photo by H. Hoffman

I was driving on the 405 Freeway recently, coming home from the airport, when I happened to glance at a billboard. It was for Wells Fargo Bank. In big letters it said:

THE PATH TO RETIREMENT STARTS HERE

I laughed out loud.

Right behind the billboard was Hillside Cemetery. Could the billboard have been placed in a worse location?

But the juxtaposition was hilarious to me.

As I drove on I wondered how many thousands of people saw that billboard each day and of those, how many recognized the absurdity of the scene? My guess is very few.

But I bet if you had fifty comedy writers all drive by that billboard at least half would spot the humor. It’s not that comedy writers are more perceptive or have better powers of observation – it’s just that we’re wired to spot comic situations.

Can this skill be learned?  To a degree I suspect it can. You just have to keep your radar up. I’ve received some nice compliments about my travelogues (ebook still only $2.99… order one for godsakes!) from people who say I spot the funniest things. Well you can, too. I get lost on the same streets and take the same tours that you do. It’s primarily a matter of being on the lookout for comedy. And trust me, it’s there. Everywhere. As an exercise, for your next trip, prepare your own travelogue. Whether you actually write it or not, I’m guessing you’ll see things you never saw before – things that were right under your nose all along. Try it.

Another exercise I recommend is listening carefully to bits of conversations as people pass by. Park yourself at a table in a mall food court and just make note of what you hear around you. You’ll be amazed at the snippets of delicious dialogue you pick up.

And here’s the best part – it’s all FREE ENTERTAINMENT. Goofy headlines, embarrassing auto-corrected text messages, ridiculous wardrobes, surreal niblets of conversations – yours for the laughing. Sometimes you can get ideas and stories and jokes from what you observe, but even if you don’t – what a gift it is to be able to go through life and find amusement in the world!

THE PATH TO COMIC APPRECIATION BEGINS HERE.

Stunt casting

I’m often asked about stunt casting – that’s the practice whereby shows will feature special guest stars, usually movie stars, in the hopes of getting a ratings boost. A Nielsen sugar rush.  Networks love stunt casting likes Charlie Sheen loves breakable objects in hotel rooms.

Especially now with so many options, networks cling to anything that will bring them five additional viewers.

The bigger star, the better when it comes to saving struggling series, but ironically it’s the hit shows that have the best chance of catching one of these big fishes. In general, movie stars think appearing on TV is slumming it. But if the show is really popular then it can be considered cool to appear. Julia Roberts did FRIENDS. Good luck getting her on ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA?

When we were really struggling the first year on CHEERS the best we could do was then-Speaker of the House, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill. Sure, that brought in the kids but they were hardly enough. On ALMOST PERFECT our big “get” was Marie Osmond.

Often networks will encourage you to stunt cast but not help in getting the celebrity or be willing to pay additional funds to get him. Most movie stars agree to appear in series because someone on the show has a relationship with him and they’ll do it as a favor. One of your actors once did a movie with Michael Douglas, that sort of thing. On MASH we were able to get the dog from THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR because he was drinking buddies with one of our directors.

Bob Dylan, of all people, once guested on DHARMA & GREG. He’s good friends with one of their writers, Eddy Gorodetsky. Of course Dylan has also been on the Chabad Telethon. 

When stars of long-running sitcoms go onto new sitcoms they will frequently enlist the help of former cast members to get their new project off the ground. That’s how Courtney Cox got Jennifer Aniston to be in COUGAR TOWN.  Of course it also helps if Jennifer Aniston has a movie to plug right around that time. 

When there are spin-offs networks beg for cast members of the original series to make an appearance. On FRASIER we pretty much had everyone from CHEERS except barfly Paul come on at one time or another. I’ve told this story before but on AfterMASH the studio lobbied hard for Hot Lips to return for an episode. We reported that Loretta Swit respectfully passed, and this studio idiot said, “Well, it doesn’t have to be her. Just get someone to play Hot Lips.” Seems to me that defeats the purpose, but I dutifully checked on Diana Ross’ availability.

Being associated with hit shows it was my great fortune to meet with, work with, and write for some pretty heavy people. Johnny Carson, Emma Thompson, John Cleese, Harry Connick Jr., Dick Cavett, Debbie Reynolds, Bill Medley, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Arthur Godfrey, Bob Elliott (from Bob & Ray), Dick Van Dyke, Tea Leoni, Elaine Stritch, Barbara Felton, Michael Keaton, James Cromwell, Clint Black, and of course that dog from GHOST AND MRS. MUIR.

Another network stunt is to cross-promote. Stars from your show appear on other shows and vice versa. Coordinating this can be a nightmare. CBS had us do a scene with Nancy Travis and Cybill Shepherd (from CYBILL). So the big question: who writes the scene? Do we write for Cybill or do her writers write for our character? Fortunately, in that case, the show runner of CYBILL, Howard Gould and I are friends. So we passed the script back and forth and I think got the best from both staffs. But that could have been a big issue.

There are numerous problems with stunt casting. In the case of spin-offs, casts of the new shows generally feel upstaged by the guest stars (and rightly so). Production schedules can get way out of whack accommodating these guest stars. Some movie stars are not used to performing in front of live audiences and I’ve seen cases where they couldn’t deliver two lines without screwing up. Filming took forever and it effectively sapped the energy of the other cast members. The other problem is that stunt casting is, at best, a temporary fix. Ratings may go up the week Britney Spears appears but they go right back down the next week.

Ultimately, your show has to live or die with the cast you’ve got. Audiences have to tune in to see them, not Diana Ross as Hot Lips. And too much stunt casting can hurt you. I think an example of that is 30 ROCK.

Don’t count on Oprah to save you. Heck, she’s probably exploring stunt casting possibilities for her OWN network.

A recommendation to writers

While we're on the subject today of writing...

This is a great opportunity -- your chance to hear major film and TV writers candidly discussing their writing process.

Winnie Holzman (Wicked, My So-Called Life) and Robin Schiff (Romy And Michele's High School Reunion and the brilliant Almost Perfect) lead a six night series of interviews, where they discuss one work from each writer, from inception through finished product. The first evening is March 13th, and you can buy individual classes as well as the entire series.

Their guests are Mike White (Enlightened); Russell Gerwitz (Inside Man);
Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon (Homeland); Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King (The Comeback), Mike Mills (Beginners) and Florian Henckel von Donnersmark, who wrote and directed The Lives Of Others, which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2007. Here's the link where you can get more info and buy tickets.

All proceeds go to the WGA Foundation, an organization near and dear to my heart.  But even if the money went to restock Barbra Streisand's aquarium I would still recommend this program.

Overwriting and why it's bad to write more than you need to make the same point

When reading a spec, one of the most common traps I see young writers falling into is overwriting.

When I receive a spec the first thing I always do is check its length. If I get a hernia lifting it, that’s not good. A comedy screenplay should be no more than 120 pages and that’s stretching it. Sitcoms vary depending on the rhythm and format of the show. But if you write a spec MODERN FAMILY and it’s 55 pages, I can tell you sight unseen it will be unseen. WINGS scripts (multi-camera) generally topped out in the low 40’s. When I was consulting on the show we had a writer who routinely turned in 65 page drafts. His rationale was that he gave us choices. We could whittle it down to the best 42 pages. Fine and dandy except THAT’S HIS JOB!!! If you can’t tell your story in the allotted time then maybe you’re not telling the story right. Or there’s too much story and that has to be addressed.

The only thing worse than a TV script or screenplay that’s overwritten is a stage play. Plays have no length requirement so the playwright has free rein to torture us long into next month. When a two character piece about what to pack for a vacation is longer than NICHOLAS NICKLEBY that should be a clue.

And then there’s the dialogue.

This may sound obvious but worth stating anyway: Always remember that actors have to perform your script.

Soooo many times I’ll see full page speeches with sentences so long and complicated that no human being on earth could ever deliver them. And certainly not in one breath. Read your script out loud. If you need CPR by the end of a speech, rethink. Dialogue has to sound natural, conversational. And rarely do we speak in big whoppin’ speeches.

When writing a TV spec, writers often go overboard on character quirks. They’ll hear Frasier utter something a little flowery and think that every word out of his mouth has to be Noel Coward. In fairness, shows themselves get caught up in that trap. On MASH the tendency to give every line a spin evolved into absurdity. In a later season (after I had left the series) Potter once said to Klinger, “It was curiosity that KO’d the feline.” WTF?? Who would ever say that? And why?

There is a tendency to want to impress by working in all kinds of complex themes and philosophies – show how you’re the next Paddy Chayefsky. In truth, it’s your inexperience not intellect that’s being put on display. If long intricate theories and complicated Byzantine ideas are your cup of tea, write a book.

More often than not these long speeches have characters express in detail their emotions and attitudes. Not only is it taxing to listen to this balloon juice it also gives the actor nothing to play. Might as well go on to the next scene. Sometimes a look or a gesture can say volumes more a two page speech that James Joyce would find too convoluted.

Whenever my partner, David and I go back to polish a draft we thin out the big speeches. If the speech is 14 lines we make it 11, if it’s 11 lines we make it 9. There are ALWAYS trims.

Same is true in stage direction. A reader sees a big block of stage direction I GUARANTEE he will not read it. You could describe a sex act in detail and he’ll flip the page.

As a rule it’s better to underwrite than overwrite. We have an expression. We like “open pages”. Much more white than type. This may sound obvious too but: You don’t get paid by the word.

Go back through your script. I bet you could lose two pages.  Writer/blogger extraordinaire Earl Pomerantz always maintained that you could lose page 8 from any script.  He's right!

The Sopranos starring the Muppets

This is a RIOT and it's REAL. When cameras weren't allowed in a recent court trial, one local TV station decided to go one better than just sketches. They recreate the trial with puppets. And the ratings have skyrocketed. See for yourself.

Love kills comedy

Here are some Friday Questions, written in between pitches. Spring Training is back!

Mitchell Hundred is our lead off hitter:

Often sitcoms have an ongoing storyline where one character is in love with another, but cannot ask them out for some reason (resulting in shenanigans). Niles and Daphne in 'Frasier' is the best example that I can think of, but Leonard and Penny in 'The Big Bang Theory' also qualifies. My question is: How do you know the right moment to break the tension and have them get together?

It’s a judgment call, but I always try to key off the audience. During show nights you get the sense whether an audience is really on board with a storyline or if they’re kind of glazing over.

Another indicator is how hard it is to come up with stories.  Are you running out of ideas and premises?

The major problem is that the sexual tension and build-up is usually a lot more fun than the aftermath of the couple finally getting together. But you have to realize that you’re dealing with adult characters in 2012. It’s not high school. After awhile if two people who are attracted to each other don’t get together it starts feeling very juvenile and silly.

So you have to walk that fine line.

And then there’s network pressure. The episode where a couple finally hooks up usually gets a rating spike. And networks love love love weddings… during sweeps. They’re highly promotable. But they can also mortgage your show’s future.

Best example is a series from the ‘70s called RHODA. This was a spin-off from THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW. Perennially unattached Rhoda Morganstern moves to New York, gets into a relationship, and during the first season gets married in a big hour-long episode. The ratings were huge, people talked about it for days – it was a real event. And the show was never as good. Eventually they got divorced and the series just became aimless.

The only people who should really cry at weddings are comedy writers.


Raj asks:

I was curious about how the actors in sitcom get paid. I can understand the lead actors who appear in every episode having a fixed contract. But sometimes, the supporting cast appears in just one scene or does not appear at all. How do they get paid in such cases?

Usually they’ll make a deal to appear in a specific number of episodes like 7 of 13. Series regulars get paid for all episodes, even if they’re not in all of them or they’re only in a brief scene. You might think, “Sweet!” But trust me, they’d rather be doing more.


From Johnny Walker:

As writers get promoted from Staff Writer to Story Editor, etc. do they get any more responsibilities, or extra "say" in the writers' room? Or is it purely financial/status promotion?

I always have to preface with: it depends on the show. But as you move up through the ranks you do tend to gain more responsibility. You may be included in casting decisions, editing sessions, or even running the room during a rewrite. More “say” comes from trust and that comes from your contributing more.

Generally this means additional work. But I’ve always believed the best thing you can do is become indispensable. Your added value is well worth the added effort. Just keep a sleeping bag in your office.

What’s your question? Leave it (along with your name) in the comments section.  Thanks.