Friday Questions

If the best part of your weekend is Friday Questions you need more fun in your life. But here they are:

Peter leads off.

You've previously written about working on Mannequin 2 and how awful it was. I particularly cracked up at your anecdote about the producers wanting to pay you and David in big screen TVs. My question: do you ever get residuals from Mannequin 2? I know the movie tanked but surely every movie must provide some residuals, however small.

No. And the movie has aired on TV and cable channels. I'm actually owed a good piece of change.

The problem is the company was run by a guy who later went to prison and another guy who once swindled Columbia Pictures (when he was their president) by writing bogus checks and forging Cliff Robertson’s signature. So the company and its principles are long gone.

Ryn's Sistehr asks:

It seems like sitcoms and reality shows are so much less expensive to produce, get the highest ratings, and give the most bang for the buck in syndication, versus hour-long dramas. How and why do cash-strapped networks still mount something like 911 or The Orville, or all these cable networks I've never heard of mount period pieces, or Siren on Freeform? (Not that I think it's a bad thing that they do - it just seems so unlike money-grubbing networks to do it.)

Networks felt there was a glut of multi-camera sitcoms and that viewers were turned off by their formula rhythms. So to re-energize the genre they felt there was more nteresting things in single-camera and major audiences would return.  They haven't.  

Networks were right that there was a sameness to multi-camera shows – but just the bad ones.

Meanwhile, the most successful sitcoms in syndication (save for MASH) are multi-camera. THE BIG BANG THEORY, LAST MAN STANDING, and FRIENDS are juggernauts. Single-camera sitcoms (save for MASH) don’t do nearly as well. And they cost quite a bit more.

So why don't networks commission more multi-camera shows?  Why do networks do anything? 

Chris Thomson has a MASH question.

When you were making MASH, was it easier with operating theater scenes to film, as I would imagine you could almost film it once and then re-write at will, as they were wearing masks and no one could see their lips. Basically just reusing the same take?

Following on from that. If this was true, was it tempting to put extra scenes in there if time was tight (sunlight at the park running out etc)?

Only one time did an actor ad lib during an OR scene and we just removed his dialogue. As you said, it’s easy because they're all wearing surgical masks.

But no, we didn’t favor OR scenes. We just tried to tell the best possible stories in the most original way. There were weeks when we had multiple scenes in OR, and other weeks where we had no OR scenes at all.

What I liked best about the OR scenes is they really were the best depiction of the reality of the war and its price. Yes, we were a comedy, but we always felt our primary responsibility was to convey the horror and senselessness of war.

And finally, from PolyWogg:

Any "I remember seeing..." tributes to share about great plays that you've seen where they came out of nowhere for you, totally unexpected diamonds in the rough?

I saw CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD at a small theatre in LA and thought it was brilliant. I saw an early production of SPRING AWAKENING in some church in lower Manhattan and knew that was extraordinary.

Another musical that I loved early on was FOREVER PLAID.

In a small theatre in Soho I saw KILLER JOE  in 1999 and was knocked out by the writing. That was my first introduction to Tracy Letts. It was also my first introduction to Sarah Paulson. I happened to see her after the performance standing on the street and said, “You’re not only terrific; you’re also one of the bravest actresses I’ve ever seen.” Getting completely naked for fifty audience members eight times a week took a real commitment to her art. 

A play that’s kind of faded into the mist but was remarkable was ZOOT SUIT and I saw an early production of that in Los Angeles.

Sadly, I can’t think of any comedies. I saw early productions of Neil Simon and Herb Gardner plays, but they were already major names.

We need more comedies!