Philly Cinephile starts us off:
Ken, I have a Friday question about billing, although I think you've discussed this before. Each December, I watch a favorite made-for-TV movie called HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. It features several well-known actors and this is how they are listed in the opening credits. Each name and descriptor is shown by itself, centered on the screen.
Starring Sally Field
Jill Haworth
Guest Star Julie Harris
Special Guest Star Eleanor Parker
Special Appearance by Jessica Walter
And Walter Brennan as "Benjamin Morgan"
Co-starring John Fink
Featuring Med Flory
Do these various descriptors have specific, set meanings? What distinguishes a "Special Guest Star" from an ordinary "Guest Star"? Does listing the name of an actor's character carry a certain cachet? And why does poor Jill Haworth have no descriptor?
I'm imagining lengthy contract negotiations over billing…
Lengthy and INSANE. Each actor wants some special recognition so these credits such as “and…” or “guest star” were created.
Size of the credit is an issue, placement on the screen is an issue, order is an issue.
Then when you have three or four stars all jockeying for special recognition it gets ridiculous. Glad I don’t have to negotiate those deals.
From thomas tucker:
What are the table readings for, and what are they like? Is it to work out timing, try out new lines, and are the lines said the way they will be when the cameras are rolling? What happens during those table readings? Inquiring minds want to know!
A table reading is when all the actors sit around a table and just read the script out loud. This is done at the beginning of any production — TV, plays, movies. Usually writers, the director, key crew members and executives are in attendance.
It gives everyone involved a chance to hear the script from start to finish. It’s a great tool for writers. We learn a lot from table readings. Does the story work? Does it track or get confusing? Is it too long? Are some characters underwritten? Or overwritten? In the case of a comedy, do the jokes work?
Table readings give us a real jump on polishing the script.
jcs asks:
I started to systematically watch all SEINFELD episodes a few weeks ago. Pretty soon it became clear to me that Jerry Seinfeld is the weakest actor of the ensemble. He proved himself to be a grandmaster of creating and polishing hilarious dialogues, but he has less range, displays less emotional depth and often can be seen on the verge of corpsing. To his credit, Jerry Seinfeld admitted in at least one interview that he possessed less acting skills than his three colleagues. - Should he have done what Carl Reiner did in THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW and handed his almost autobiographical role to a more talented thespian?
It’s hard to argue with success and SEINFELD with Jerry as the lead proved to be a mega hit.
Although Jerry is not a great actor, he certainly set the tone of the show. Not sure anyone else could.
Also, give him credit for really allowing the ensemble to shine. The Rob Petrie part was key to that series. Jerry’s character didn’t have that pressure on him.
I think Jerry made the right call. And I’m sure he’s relieved that I think so.
And finally, from Wild Bill Hagy:
There's a new podcast out about the rumor around Baltimore that Carl Ripkin once had them cut the lights in Camden Yards because he would have lost his consecutive game streak. The reason he would miss the game is because he just beat up Kevin Costner for sleeping with his wife.
Thoughts on this old story?
As someone who was associated with the Baltimore Orioles I can tell you that story is absolute bullshit.
Don’t believe a word you hear on podcasts… except mine.
What’s your Friday Question (or Wednesday Question if you post it today)?
31 comments :
If you want to see some real credit wrangling, watch THE TOWERING INFERNO. Two studios, two name-above-the-title superstars, and a host of luminaries. It's a mess.
From Jay in NYC
I have a Friday question.
On long running sitcoms which characters have developed the most over the run of the series. My choices are Radar in Mash, Penny in Big Bang and Rachel in Friends. Are there any others?
FRI-WED QUESTION: I hope I have the terminology right: do show "bibles" still exist? What were some of the good ones that you have seen?
Your Seinfeld question reminds me of the Mary Tyler Moore show where Mary, who actually is an actor, usually played it straight, while an interesting array of characters put the zing into the show.
You declare as utter BS any claim that one Carl Ripkin caused a Baltimore Orioles ballgame to be canceled by and through nefarious deeds.
Let the record reflect that you have not denied that Cal Ripken did so.
I'll never forget the great line Jerry Seinfeld said at some awards show one time (I think it was the Emmys). It was something to the effect of: "I wasn't nominated for an Emmy as Best Actor in a Comedy this year. Apparently none of you thought I was believable as...me". Not everyone acts like Robin Williams. He was perfect being...himself.
Mark Evanier did a post on his blog awhile back, on the subject of special billing:
https://www.newsfromme.com/2020/01/13/ask-me-12/
For those who do not want to click, I will summarize: He states that there were some performers who would insist on the "special guest star" credit (Sammy Davis, Jr. is named), most of the time it is an in-lieu-of-money deal. That is: actor wants more than the usual guest star fee; studio refuses to budge; actor needs the work so he has to accept it, but he lets his agent know he is unhappy; agent tries to get a few perks for his client, which might include special billing.
-- Now, how do you conduct table readings for action shows/movies? Characters will be exchanging gunfire, breaking into buildings, careening Porsches through city streets, and trading punches. Do the actors just sit there while the head writer says, "Joe throws Steve through a window and jumps into a waiting getaway car"?
-- Didn't the Orioles have a superfan named Wild Bill Hagy back in the '70s?
For Thomas Tucker
If you want to hear a MASH table read, the MashMatters podcast recently found this tape
https://mashmatterspodcast.com/ep056/
Not sure why, but on BLUE BLOODS, both Gregory Jbara and Robert Clohessy are always listed as "GUEST STARS," even though they both appear in pretty much every episode.
I had no problem with Seinfeld playing Seinfeld. As Ken says, he set the whole tone of the show.
However, I had to fast forward through his opening monologues. I didn't know him as a standup comic before the TV series. Those monologues with the canned laughter wouldn't convince me otherwise.
It was a very funny show, and he was clearly the epicenter.
Friday questions on Wednesday!
A Festivus miracle!
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"Not sure why, but on BLUE BLOODS, both Gregory Jbara and Robert Clohessy are always listed as "GUEST STARS," even though they both appear in pretty much every episode."
On FUTURAMA, Phil LeMarr (Hermes) and Lauren Tom (Amy) were always listed as guest stars, while Tress MacNeille was included in the regular cast, though her role was essentially "Other Voices." Granted, in a typical episode, MacNeille had more lines than LeMarr and Tom combined (basically, 90% of the female characters on the show other than Leela, Amy, and LaBarbara were played by her).
I always watched "Lost In Space" [original, not the remake] as a kid growing up and I noticed that Jonathan Harris was always listed as a "Special Guest Star". I've heard over the years that he was supposed to have been killed off in the first episode but was such an over-the-top bad guy that they kept him on and he retained that billing for the rest of the series. If that had only left him as he was in the first episode and not turned him into a buffoon over the rest of the series it would have been a lot more interesting. Also heard that he was the first actor to receive such a billing on any TV show. Since I'm not going to go back and watch every pre-LIS show to see if this is true, I'll take it for what it's worth.
and a Friday question: I always noticed this that during a lot of the 50/60/70s TV shows that there always seemed to be an announcer reading off the list of actors/credits/etc., especially during Quinn Martin shows, and the end of some shows -Green Acres comes to mind with Eva Gabor saying "This has been a Filmways presentation, dahling"- I always thought it was sort of stupid as in "What the hell? Do they think we don't know how to read?" Was this just a holdover from the good old days of radio, some contractual thing or just somebody giving an old radio buddy some work since they weren't pretty enough to be on screen?
Tony Dow, who played Wally on "Leave It to Beaver," has said that any line in a script that got a "laugh-out-loud" reaction during the table reading was taken out.
As for billing that squeezes every bit of verbiage and gravitas, try The Big Valley. AT the end of the credits it says, "And Miss Barbara Stanwyck as Victoria Barkley."
As long as we are noting special ways of crediting actors, I will mention two favorite examples from 1960s shows:
The opening titles for JULIA began "Diahann Carroll as JULIA...frequently starring Lloyd Nolan."
Over on THE JIMMY STEWART SHOW, the opening credits concluded with "and very often John McGiver as Luther Quince."
I assume that this was through some combination of the actors having enough clout to insist on regular billing, and the producers wanting the audience to understand that they would not be in every episode.
• If anything about Jerry Seinfeld bothers Jerry Seinfeld — and reading his interviews, it would seem his self-satisfaction has always grimly exceeded his net worth — it may be his gnawing realization that folks rightly, increasingly, credit Larry David with the success of the Seinfeld series. Jerry’s stand-up out-blands Gaffigan’s, and his post-NBC film/TV career runs on fumes.
• For examples of Jack Benny’s radio cast table read-ish rehearsals, below are links to two recordings. The subsequent studio broadcasts with audiences can be heard on the same site
https://otrrlibrary.org/OTRRLib/Library%20Files/J%20Series/Jack%20Benny/Jack%20Benny%20Program%2054-09-24%20Rehearsal%20for%20Broadcast%20of%2054-11-21.mp3
https://otrrlibrary.org/OTRRLib/Library%20Files/J%20Series/Jack%20Benny/Jack%20Benny%20Program%2055-xx-xx%20Rehearsal%20for%20Bob%20Hope%20and%20Jack%20Double%20Date.MP3
• For Cole Porter and Lindsay and Crouse’ s “Red, Hot and Blue” (1936) — Bob Hope’s last Broadway show, Vivian Vance’s third — Jimmy Durante and Ethel Merman resolved their top-billing conflict by having their names criss-cross, as can be seen in the silent color home movie footage linked below:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?&v=cNIeQCEXOLg
Julia and The Jimmy Stewart Show were both produced by Hal Kanter, who created those billings to persuade old friends Nolan and McGiver to sign for the respective shows.
That Cal Ripken rumor angers me more than it should. Because all a person has to do is to sit on their butt for a few minutes and do an internet search and they'll find contemporaneous news accounts of that game which place Cal at Camden Yards waiting out the delay. Which of course destroys the whole silly narrative. But what fun is that?
Question about table reads where you mentioned the writers got to see if the jokes worked: since the actors were familiar with the scripts, having had them for a couple of days, wouldn't the jokes not seem as funny to them by the time they got to the table read? Though listening to the MASH table read DwWashburn posted (thanks, DwWashburn), they sound as if they're doubling over in laughter but is that more a reaction to how the actors are delivering the laugh lines or other factors?
Thanks for answering my FQ, Ken, and for the great photo!
By the way, HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS is available on YouTube. It's great fun -- a made-for-TV slasher flick but without the gore. It's as much a part of my holiday viewing traditions as IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET.
• I love how, on "Leave it to Beaver," the announcer says, "Tony Dowwwe..." I told Tony Dow that once. He is a nice guy and humored me with an affable smile.
• We did table reads for the Disney Christmas Parades. Live parades are done with notebooks filled with often-changed pages (they are behind the festive flowers you always see on the desk). Some parade speak is spontaneous based on what happens on the street and printed in basic bullets, other things like throws to specific info, segments, and breaks are scripted, along with prompters. It's extremely difficult and looks so easy. The table read is vital because most script and show content can be discussed there. Plus I threw in some jokes (one of the sponsors was Delta so for Santa's sleigh I wrote that the reindeer loved to fly and it showed, rim shot).
• The original Lost in Space pilot did not have a robot or Dr. Smith, but it was very spectacular and expensive. CBS asked for a villain and a new pilot. Jonathan Harris was cast after Guy Williams and June Lockhart but wanted star billing so instead, for the first time, he was named "special guest star" for the entire three-year run of the series.
The pilot was cut into four parts. It was cleverly written and edited so Smith and the robot were part of the story using the same footage. You would probably know if you did not see the original.
Harris deliberately played Smith with a wink, even from the beginning when he was truly an evil killer, to make Smith a Long John Silver/Captain Hook villain and keep his job. The show was made for kids and families. CBS and standards and practices constantly took the violent stuff out, so they liked that. They even lowered Angela Cartwright's screams in the soundtrack. The romance between Judy and Don was curtailed. Mom and Dad could not cuddle. Mom could not even rescue her husband after the second episode--a mother could not be seen in danger of dying in space. The network was why June Lockhart didn’t get much to do except in a few episodes. They would get letters, or they had received letters in the past like it and did not want to get more. This was the '60s.
The network and Irwin Allen encouraged Harris to keep embellishing the character. He took the script home and added the alliterative phrases "bubbleheaded booby" and the like. TV started moving into the Batman groovy escapist era and Lost in Space became more silly.
Star Trek was in a different time slot and was not under the same heavy restrictions, though Gene Roddenberry pushed back more than Irwin Allen did with the networks. But Lost in Space does get maligned more than it deserves when it is really more of a '50s/early '60s sitcom (without a laugh track, thank you) and it rolled with an enormous amount of scrutiny and interference. There was nothing else like it before, including Star Trek, which was rejected by NBC until the ratings for Lost in Space convinced NBC to ask for another Star Trek pilot. And let's face it, William Shatner could chew the scenery with as much gusto as Jonathan Harris.
Greg E.: Sorry, but the second Star Trek pilot was filmed in July 1965, before Lost in Space was on the air.
I like to read out the opening credits of Leave It To Beaver. I have timed it out perfectly, so it sounds like the narrator is repeating back to me what I said.
The announcer says Tony Dow, as if Dow farted in his face.
You are correct, gottacook, thank you, my mistake (I was recalling from memory). Either way, NBC became sold on the genre through the ratings for Lost in Space, which did it first and helped sell Star Trek with its completed second pilot. Networks are scared of something new. Even the Smurfs made some NBC execs nervous because it was different. A genuine expert on Lost in Space (and Star Trek) is Marc Cushman, who has written great books that detail the history and production of the series and are fun and fascinating to read.
https://smile.amazon.com/Irwin-Allens-Lost-Space-One/dp/0692750185/ref=sr_1_2?crid=100JDWWDUH2XO&keywords=lost+in+space+season+one+book&qid=1640378470&sprefix=lost+in+space+season+one+book%2Caps%2C919&sr=8-2
On the subject of announcers reading what we can see on the screen, that is a carryover from radio, where all the credits were spoken. In early television, the key credits were spoken. You can follow how that changed by watching how I Love Lucy did this less and less in each season. (BTW, the Lucy announcer for the first several shows' end credits was the great John Stephenson, who voiced Mr. Slate on The Flinstones and Dr. Quest on the first episodes of Jonny Quest (before Don Messick).
TV cartoons aimed at kids almost always have someone in the cast reading every sign that comes on screen, because small children are not always reading yet. Also, it helps when attention is focused away from the screen. Today's ads that emphasize clever visuals only at the expense of clever, informative copy are doing themselves a disservice because fewer people than ever are always staring at the screen or phone while watching. Garry Marshall talked about how he was always aware of that.
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Ah yes, the FAMOUS Carl Ripkin rumor has reared its ugly head, yet again. Reminds me, for some inexplicable reason, of the equally famous Cal Pirkins rumor that once circulated regarding Ellis Presbey's VIOLENT temper tantrum thrown over Pirkins' inclusion as an original member of the Million Dollar Quartet, that included Presbey, Jimmy Cash, and the legendarily egoless Jerry Lewis (of Jerry Lewis and The Playboys fame) !!
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FQ: Now, I'm sure you've already been asked this at least a few times but I'm still gonna ask. About Alan Arbus' Sydney Freedman being such a beloved and popular character, do you know why he was never made a regular? You would think that what he brought to the show and how well he fit in with the cast that he would've eventually become a regular and frankly more Sydney could only have helped the show, especially its last few years.
Having watched several Comedians in Cars Listening to Jerry Seinfeld Getting Angry at Dealing With Normal People, I can say that Jerry Seinfeld isn't that convincing as a human being.
Of course, I love Bobcat Goldthwait, so maybe I'm not predisposed to like Jerry.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bobcat-goldthwait-breaks-down-his-30-year-beef-with-teen-loving-jerry-seinfeld
FQ: This is a longshot, given that it was four-and-a-half decades ago, but....
I have an occasional tradition where I watch all four of M*A*S*H's Christmas episodes around the holidays. (Still love that a show that took place during a three-year war had four Christmas episodes.....)
I was watching "Dear Sis," and I had the captions on, something I've started doing for pretty much everything the last couple of years, and the captions completely changed a line of dialogue for me.
When Winchester is waxing rhapsodic about the Christmases at the Winchester Family Estate in Beacon Hill, he mentions the servants standing the firelight -- I always thought he said they stood in "utter servility." But the captioning says, "utter civlity," which, well, isn't as funny.
I don't suppose you recall what the line is from your position as executive script consultant way back in 1978? :)
---Keith R.A. DeCandido
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