Friday Questions

Happy Valentine’s Day to you, Happy Birthday to me, and Happy Friday Questions to us all.

James starts us off:

I was watching the Steve Gordon version of The Practice with Danny Thomas. In-between seasons, one of the tweaks they made was to completely change the set of the son's house, but with no explanation that he'd moved. But other than the entrances and exits being rotated, it didn't do anything other than redecorate with new furniture and fixtures. They also changed the theme song, and not for the better.

As a show runner, do you ever see set changes or theme-song changes as ever being for the better? Do they ever help? On a long-running show I can see it breaking the monotony, but on year 2?

I can’t speak for the specifics of THE PRACTICE. Maybe the original apartment set was hard to film. The new one might have had ports built in so cameras could get farther into the set.  Or for year two they moved to a smaller sound stage and didn't have room for the original apartment set.  I dunno. I’m just guessing.

Changing opening titles and the theme is usually rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Ratings aren’t great so the network starts asking for tweaking – like a new opening theme is going to turn the whole series around.

Bob Uecker is a National Treasure asks:

So many of The Office blooper reels are Jim Krasinski or Rainn Wilson unable to stop laughing during a scene. As a comedy writer, were you proud when actors couldn't get through a scene without giggling? As a director, were you annoyed? And of the shows you worked on, which actors were most prone to giggling during multiple takes?

First off, Bob Uecker IS a National Treasure.  Now to answer the question:  

I’d so much rather have the actors laughing than not liking the script.

Shows like THE OFFICE were “block and shoot,” meaning they’d block the scene, shoot it, then move on to the next scene so the actors don’t spend a lot of time with the material before cameras roll. Therefore when they think it’s so funny they have to laugh, I sure don’t mind that.

But for a multi-camera show shot in front of a live studio audience it’s a different story. The actors have a week to rehearse. By the time shooting begins they should be focused enough to no longer laugh.

Now obviously, if someone goes up on a line it breaks everybody up, and that’s fun. But at some point the cast needs to buckle down. So as a director I find it mildly annoying because it means the actor is not really committing to the character.

That said, I’ve had very few occurrences of this. Most of the actors I’ve been fortunate enough to work with are consummate professionals.

From Dave H:

Is there a topic on your blog about old shows that have not aged well, where you can’t believe that people thought they were funny?

Well, I can only speak for myself.  

The one show that jumps out at me is LAUGH IN. It’s painfully unfunny. But in its heyday in the late ‘60s it was a massive hit, and even I was laughing at the time.

Same for BATMAN in the ‘60s. Hilarious at first when I was a kid and now cheesy beyond belief.

I look back and wonder what I ever saw in THE PATTY DUKE SHOW (other than having a little crush on Patty Duke). Same with GIDGET and Sally Field.

Now BEWITCHED is an interesting case. The first couple of years in black and white remain smart and funny, and the later years (which I watched and enjoyed at the time) are awful.

On the flip side, I was channel surfing recently and came upon an episode of ALF. I was never a big ALF fan but found myself laughing. And no one was surprised at that than me.

And finally, from C. Warren Dale:

More and more shows these days - almost all streaming dramas, more and more network and cable dramas, and even a few streaming (The Kominsky Method) and network (The Good Place, The Conners) comedies embrace a serialized story structure. This can make for good television but it makes it impossible to write a spec. Any assumptions you make about the characters, setting, or storyline could be blown apart by the next episode that airs. As television moves in this direction, how do you think new writers will be able to demonstrate their skills in that context?

When I taught a spec class at UCLA I advised students that if they want to write a spec of a serialized show just pick a place in the series and write from there. The producers understand that you won’t know what their plans are and take that into account.

But yes, it’s hard enough to write a spec without having to shoot at a moving target.

Happy Valentine’s Day.