Tuesday, March 02, 2021

A follow-up to yesteday's post

Several readers brought up other improvised projects, notably "the Interview" episode of MASH and the series CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, and wondered my thoughts on them.  When have I ever been shy about offering opinions (even if I had no idea what I was talking about)? 

"The Interview" segment of MASH was from season 4 and many consider to be the best single episode of the series.  I can't disagree.  Breaking the format, we're watching a documentary with a TV journalist asking questions to members of the 4077 about the war and their perspectives.  Each actor was given the questions and recorded their improvised answers into a tape recorder.   Those recordings were transcribed.

But then Larry Gelbart rewrote them.  He added things, cut things, inserted some jokes, re-phrased some thoughts, etc.  At that point an actual script was printed.   The actors then performed the written text.  So improvisation was just an early part of the process.   That said, what remained of the improv was pure gold.

 CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM works off a detailed outline.  Scenes are improvised and refined during rehearsal.   Larry David also tries to surround himself with actors who are adept at improvisation.  

For my money the results have been mixed.  There are some absolutely HYSTERICAL episodes -- fall-on-the-floor funny.  I could watch them on a loop.  But there are a lot of other episodes that are very uneven, arguments and scenes that feel forced or scenes that wander and get repetitive.  

Improv can be a very useful tool.  I've been doing improv myself for many many years. And if you get a master of it, like Fred Willard in BEST IN SHOW you can produce something absolutely magical.  But I think relying on it can be a trap.  Actors are better at acting and writers are better at writing.  Why not take advantage of the best of both? 


18 comments :

Brian said...

...and with that you can get the wonderful convergence of both worlds. Case in point: On Friends, it took to the writers to have Chandler handcuffed to a file cabinet, but as an actor, when the drawer accidentally opened and hit him in the back of the head, Matthew Perry knew enough to stay in character in his reaction to a great and unscripted sight gag.

Arlen Peters said...

Over the years I have interviewed hundreds of actors and dealt with all levels of adlibbing and improv. The best, hands down, was Robin Williams. When he got started he was like a comedic freight train, hitting one comedic grand slam after another, rarely, if ever, whiffing. I worked on BEST IN SHOW and happened to be on set when Fred Willard did his magnificent improv/ad lib session. Chris Guest, who was directing, just called action and Fred went and went and went until they had shot a full roll ... nothing better. Truly sublime. Two examples of the ridiculous: I was told by the studio that David Spade was exceptional with improv ... on the contrary ... he looked at me in a most condescending way, and said "I don't adlib." A very unfunny man in my opinion. Dave Thomas, on SCTV fame, was at least pleasant about it. He literally broke out in flop sweat when I suggested some adlbbing. He needed it on the page and was very honest about, which I respect. All actors seems to think they can do it: VERY VERY few can.

Todd Everett said...

Pretty much what I think of singers who think they can write songs, and vice-versa. Some can pull it off, but not nearly as many as think they can.

Kevin FitzMaurice said...

A pity that Loretta Swit--who, I think, was involved in another project--and David Odgden Stiers--who had not yet joined the cast--did not appear in "The Interview" in 1976.

Fortunately, they were able to participate when Clete Roberts returned for the 1978 clip show.

Thank you, Mr. Levine, for offering a detailed background on how "The Interview" was produced. If I'm right, that was Larry Gelbart's last episode for "M*A*S*H"--what a way to go out!

Kevin FitzMaurice said...

...David OGDEN Stiers (sorry)...

Jeffrey Graebner said...

I've wondered if stories about improv, particularly on movies, are sometimes more marketing hype than reality. For instance, a lot of the reporting around the original Ghostbusters suggested that the actors were mostly making everything up as they went, but copies of the script that have circulated have shown that most of the dialog was in the script. Considering the large amount of special effects, which were not CGI, that movie had to be pretty tightly planned out.

Canadian Dude said...

FYI - Dave Thomas came up through the Second City system... which emphasizes improvisation... and the Bob and Doug McKenzie 'Great White North' segments on SCTV were all improvised...

I suspect Arlen was asking him to 'ad-lib' something without a proper foundation - "Here - be randomly funny but in a way we can use." - or expected him to instantly punch up an existing dialogue run while the cameras rolled.

Having said that... he is a wonderful writer.

Unknown said...

Poor improv or comedy, relies on swearing. Dropping the f-bomb continuously wears thin VERY fast. So the recent Curbs with all the swearing turned me off.
Well placed, limited swearing can work.
Oh, you didn't mention Golden Globes, I think we need more awards shows.

IMOHO, then again, I'm not a robot

John B. said...

Ken,

I read an article this morning that talked about some of the Censorship that the network did when MASH was still early in the run and that later years it was not as much an issue.

Can you talk about your experiences on shows/radio with censoring...?

Anonymous said...

"The Emperor's New Script"

Ere I Saw Elba said...

As a side note, I find it hilarious that the voice-over at the beginning says "The following show is in black and white", as if there would be a million angry letters tomorrow after people spent the entire half hour fidgeting with their color control and banging on their TV sets. Was CBS just trying to calm people down?

Was that actually a common thing in the black-and-white to color transformation of television at the time(late 60s-70s)?

blinky said...

Imagine MacBeth done by improv!
Shakespeare's notes to lead actor: Be murderously crazy and kill a bunch of people. Also talk to a skull. Don't forget to make it Shakespearean. OK....Action!

Anonymous said...

Canadian Dude, have to agree, to ask someone to be funny on the spot than when he can't or won't say he flopped sweated is absurd.

Arlen, what exactly did you do on Best In Show?

sumerlad said...

I remember for a long time in the early to mid-60s that an announcer would say with a flourish “ the following program is in color.” I wonder if saying that the following program is in black-and-white was a subtle joke.

Saul said...

Friday Question: Do you think it’s fair to say that audiences are becoming harder to please? Negative reviews from critics and viewers are becoming less objective and more vitriolic, and everything out there seems to generate some sort of controversy. Perhaps one could view this as tastes becoming more discerning, but shows or films people previously simply wouldn’t like are now generating outright hatred and anger towards the creators. What is your take on this?

Barry Traylor said...

This has to one of my very favorite episodes of MASH.

Brian said...

Ere I Saw Elba: There was a time that the TV Guide used to put this symbol in the TV Guide: (C), which meant the show was in color. The default was Black and White and eventually, this was superseded by the letters "BW"in a square, because color became the default.

No, I doubt if, en masse, people would have gone into hysterics, but there would be enough ardent people that paid for the more expensive Color sets and wasn't getting their money's worth.

Some announcements are made for the public good, others are made so the local stations will not hear from the overly-verbal, self-appointed videophiles.

Take it from a man who worked at an internet service provider. Over the years we got complaints about:

The snake cartoon in the Eudora e-mail program that showed up when you had no mail. This was regarded as evil by some.

The fact that the Wall Street Journal webpage came up "off-center". Not ALL webpages, just the WSJ.

The "group that wanted to take over the internet" and the call that I got came from a man that wanted our management to fight this.

Not that this policy completely went away. Just Shoot Me did a fantastic parody of an A&E Biography with Nina as the subject. Perhaps it was a legal issue, perhaps they were worried that people were looking at the wrong network, but they had David Spade announce at the top of the program, "Tonight, we're going to try something a little different..." The subsequent hysteria over Martians landing in New Jersey was more than likely unrelated.

Dave Creek said...

Ere I Saw Elba, regarding the notice that the episode was in black and white, you can bet there were probably calls and letters about it. I worked at the then-CBS affiliate WHAS-TV in Louisville when a different episode, "Life Line," aired. It was the one where the surgeons had to work against the clock to perform a life-saving operation.

The episode aired in real time, and there was a clock superimposed in the corner of the screen showing how much time the surgeons had left to save this soldier's life. I got dozens of calls in the newsroom wanting to know why the clock was there. Since, as I explained to a couple callers, I didn't get to watch TV at work any more than they did, I had to call the station's master control to see what the deal was. At least then I had an explanation. In those pre-VCR days, it was years before I saw the actual episode, which is, of course, one of the great ones.