What to watch? MAD MEN or ICE ROAD TRUCKERS?

Here are some Friday questions and answers. Leave yours in the comment section.

Let’s start with Patrick:

With dialogue that deals with the involvement of lawyers, is there often a decision to just try something else in order to avoid a hassle? On The Office tonight there were two lines that seemed odd. At one point Dwight said something like, "... I search engined her." Obviously he meant Googled. Seemed like a specific choice to not use the term. Then later their was an entire segment based on a youtube video, and a character actually said, "I saw it on youtube." Any ideas on why one monstrous, topical, copywrite protected term was used and the other wasn't?

Yes, it makes no sense but that’s what we deal with on a daily basis. It depends on the network and the reference and the day and the phase of the moon. When I was consulting on the show IT’S ALL RELATIVE a few seasons back, ABC had a policy where any mention of brand names was forbidden. I don’t know if it’s like that over there now. But since comedy is specific it made things incredibly hard.

I remember once we had a character come back from a 7-11 in the middle of the night. But he couldn’t say “7-11”. Well, who says, “I just came back from an all-night convenience store”? We wrestled with this for a half hour. I don’t even remember what we finally landed on but I did make the observation that here were seven highly-trained comedy writers wasting valuable time looking for synonyms for 7-11.

I will say that on CBS we didn’t have that problem and when we were doing CHEERS, NBC let us mention specific brand names of liquor. Customers didn’t have to order “Jack Dandies” or “Granny Goose” vodka.

From David:

My question dates back to the beginning of season 4 of Cheers - after Diane leaves Frasier at the alter at the end of season 3 --- what was the thought process in keeping the Frasier character around past the first ep of season 4 when he comes back to say Diane left him? He certainly was expendable at that point. Glad you kept him, but wondering what led to that.

Kelsey really scored with the audience and the producers saw the potential of making him a series regular. Having a tightly-wound psychiatrist hang out in a bar exposed daily to the woman who jilted him seemed very funny, and a real test of his sanity – a test he rarely passed. By the way, doesn't he look a little like Jack Torrance from THE SHINING in this picture?

amyp3 asks:

Do you think mockumentaries AND flashbacks are a lazy way of storytelling? (I can remember taking a screenwriting class years ago and being told "Don't do flashbacks.")

It depends on the project. Would SPINAL TAP be anywhere near as good if that story weren’t told as a mockumentary? And would LOST be as rich if we didn’t see flashbacks that really illuminated the characters?

But certainly these devices can lead to shortcuts. Characters in mockumentaries just tell the interviewer what they’re feeling instead of us seeing it in behavior. And flashbacks are an easy way around exposition.

Lazier still are the devices of narration or popular songs. Why expend a lot of energy trying to craft an artful way of conveying a character’s attitude through behavior when you can just say in voice-over what they’re thinking? This is one of my pet peeves, as you’ll recall in my review of Woody Allen’s VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA.

And why use dialogue and acting to create a mood when you can just show the character and play an old song that conveys the message the director wants to convey? Nora Ephron is a big fan of this. So is Nancy Meyers. I’m not sure either could make a movie without Louis Armstrong.

And finally, from Richard Y:

I'll chime in on a Friday Question regarding the Nielsen television ratings. I have read (or heard) that they claim to have a 50,000 household list (also heard that it is only 5,000). Regardless of the number it is what advertising rates are established by and if a TV program fails or succeeds.

With that low of a number generating what the rest of the country watches long term why can't they tap into the two largest cable providers, Cox and Comcast, for example to generate the figures? They would be able to see not only what is being viewed 'live' but what is also being recorded (Tivo, DVR) and does not make any difference when it is watched.

Wouldn't this be a more accurate figure for the networks and advertisers to go by? No privacy issues as only the program information is gathered not where you live although they could also include geographical areas. Just a thought.

First of all, there is a privacy issue. Because if they can collect data from cable boxes they can determine exactly where they came from. This was actually an issue with Tivo. They were able to monitor just which shows were being taped and from where. Not sure if it’s still like that.

Not every house is hooked up to cable. Or satellite. And if the method of measurement is different depending upon how you receive television then you’re still not getting an accurate account of just who is watching.

There is some formula for registering data recorded on DVR’s but I’m not sure how that works. I do know it saved DOLLHOUSE.

All of this used to be less of an issue when there were only three networks. Even with a larger margin for error you basically knew that ALL IN THE FAMILY beat the living crap out of GETTING TOGETHER. But now everything is so fractionalized. It doesn’t take too many Joe Six Packs with Nielson boxes to kill PUSHING DAISIES or make ICE ROAD TRUCKERS a hit.

I find it interesting that since radio has abandoned diaries for people meters (little pager devices that accurately record whatever radio is within earshot) station rankings in most markets have been completely upended. Turns out the oldies format that just two years ago was considered dead and obsolete is now leading in most major markets.

So you wonder, does MAD MEN really get beat by ICE ROAD TRUCKERS?

All the Neilson and other rating services can tell us with 100% accuracy is that no one is watching Jay Leno.