Friday Questions

Friday Questions comin’ attacha.

DyHrdMET starts us off.

Is it common to see an actor currently starring in one series guest star in another series on another network? And not necessarily when it's a recurring role. Is there a protocol involved in bringing that actor into the other series? I'm assuming they don't need to audition for the part if they're known and already employed elsewhere.

This particular case (on Antenna TV tonight) was the late John Mahoney guest starring on Becker (on CBS, if I remember correctly) in a prominent role in the episode's story while Frasier was still a big hit on NBC. I've seen it a few other times but the specifics don't come to mind right now.

Generally, networks look the other way as long as it’s a one-time or even two-time thing. And if an actor is on one series for one network and is approached to be recurring on another network that’s worked out in advance between all the parties.   Series are getting shorter so I suspect more of this will occur in the future.  

When an actor commits to a series, he is considered in “first position” for that series. That means if there’s any conflicts he’s obligated to the series first. If he can squeeze in a guest spot during a hiatus week then there’s usually no problem.

During pilot season sometimes an actor who is in a current series that is believed to be soon cancelled will audition for other series. And if they’re signed, they’re in “second position” meaning that if the original series does get a pick up he has to bow out of the new project. Jennifer Aniston was in second position on FRIENDS because she was in a CBS summer series called MUDDLING THROUGH. If CBS had picked up MUDDLING THROUGH for another season FRIENDS would have had to re-shoot the pilot with a new Rachel.

Joe asks:

There are no "Cheers" scripts credited to the Charles Brothers between Kirstie Alley's first episode and the finale. I know other people served as showrunners, but how active were the Charles Brothers during the Kirstie Alley years?

They were very involved day-to-day the early part of season five then backed away. But they still read every outline and first draft and gave notes. And they were involved in the story direction before each season. From time to time they also attended run-throughs.  Their presence was certainly felt. 

For the final season they came back and handled the day-to-day showrunning duties for the last half of the year.

From VincentS:

Have you seen the reruns of MASH aired on ME without the laugh track and if so, what do you think of them?

I like them. When I was on the show I lobbied (unsuccessfully) for the removal of the laugh track.

I’m glad ME.TV is doing that.

Seoul City Sue has been tormented by this question for years and years.

Watching 'The Winchester Tapes' in tribute to David Ogden Stiers, are you the 'Bean Pole Levine' referenced in the episode??

Yes, although I pronounce my name “Lee-Vine.” And I was a beanpole – then.

Phil wonders:

Have you ever attended the Oscars? How was it?

Nope. Never attended. Award shows are generally boring to attend. I just go when I’m nominated for something. So I haven’t been for quite a few years now.

And finally, Kenneth wants to know:

Hey Ken, after years of writing for primetime network television, do you live in a mansion?

You decide.  This is my house.

The TV reboot I'd like to see

The VP of Development is meeting with the Network President. Let’s listen in.

VP: You wanted to see me?

PRES: Yes. These reboots are going through the roof. Have you seen ROSEANNE’S ratings?

VP: Yes. Very impressive.

PRES: What reboots do we have in development?

VP: Nothing yet. We’re talking about maybe bringing back BIG WAVE DAVE’S.

PRES: What the fuck is BIG WAVE DAVE’S?!

VP: It was a delightful show in 1993 that never got the respect it –

PRES: Who gives a shit?! It’s got to be a show that was a HIT, goddamn it. A show that people loved and remember to this day.

VP: Right.

PRES: Let’s do THE GOLDEN GIRLS again.

VP: Excuse me. What?

PRES: THE GOLDEN GIRLS. America loves those broads.

VP: But most of them are dead.

PRES: So get other actresses.

VP: But the reason people watched THE GOLDEN GIRLS is because of those marvelous actresses.

PRES: You don’t think it would work if we just hired new people? What’s Linda Hunt doing?

VP: Sir, this isn’t CBS. We can’t just do a show that will appeal to the 70,000,000 viewers no one gives a crap about anymore. The only way to do THE GOLDEN GIRLS is to use the real Golden Girls and getting them becomes a huge logistical problem.

PRES: They’re really dead?

VP: Yes, all except Betty White, God bless her.

PRES: It’s not that they’re just on a streaming service, right?

VP: No. Dead dead.

PRES: Shit.

VP: Let me work on BIG WAVE DAVE’S.

PRES: Wait. I’ve got an idea.

VP: Sir?

PRES: Let’s just show reruns of THE GOLDEN GIRLS.

VP: They’re already running twelve times a day on cable.

PRES: We don’t say they’re reruns. We say they’re new.

VP: What?

PRES: People will say, wow they look good. Everyone in ROSEANNE looks much older, but those old babes defy time.

VP: Isn’t that dishonest? And besides, won’t fans of THE GOLDEN GIRLS know? They’ve seen each episode ten times.

PRES: We colorize them.

VP: They ARE in color.

PRES: You’re just going to fight me tooth and nail on this, aren’t you?

VP: We can’t put on an old show and say it’s new with actors who everyone knows is dead.

PRES: Except on Friday.

VP: Well, that’s true. No one watches on Friday.

PRES: Start making the deals on GOLDEN GIRLS. And while you’re at it, let’s reboot MAUDE.

VP: What? I don’t think it’s fair to ask Bea Arthur to star in two shows.

PRES: How is she going to complain?

VP: Good point, sir. I’ll get right on it.

He starts to leave, then:

PRES: And later, let’s get ahead of the pack on rebooting reality shows. MATCH GAME 2018.

VP: MATCH GAME 2018 is already on.

PRES: Not with Gene Rayburn.

VP: Right. I guess I’m just not thinking clearly. I’ll make some calls… or get a shovel.

He exits.

EP66: Meet Writer Phoef Sutton Part 2

Ken interviews the versatile Phoef Sutton who has written sitcoms, dramas, screenplays, and novels.  Among his credits:  Cheers, Newhart, Boston Legal, Terriers, a Robert DeNiro movie, and novels, including one with Janet Evanovich.    Part 2 deals with drama, novel writing, a serious health scare, and great practical advice for writers.

 

Listen to the Hollywood & Levine podcast!

Retro Friday Questions

I'm doing something new this month.  Reprieving some Friday Questions from ten years ago.  People rarely scroll through the archives and there are 3,500 FQ's buried in there somewhere.   So since this will be a crazy month for me, and the huge majority of you will be seeing these for the first time, I thought I'd sprinkle in some vintage classic Friday Questions from years gone by.  Enjoy.

Here are some Friday questions. What’s yours?

rita asks:

It's "did-they-or-didn't-they"-time on the German MASH-forum again. this time the big question is, did Margaret and Hawkeye marry *each other* or did they marry *someone else*?

They married other people. We don’t know who. If I was Hawkeye I would have gone after Nurse Marcia (pictured). Hot Lips probably married Dick Cheney.

Someone who didn’t leave his name but should wondered:

Were you were inspired by something that happened a few years before your great "Cheers" episode where Sam pitches Piels.

A few months after the Yankees' 1978 comeback against the Red Sox, Luis Tiant signed with New York as a free agent.

He did an ad for the short-lived, barely FDA-approved Yankee Franks where he exclaimed "It's great to be with a weiner!"

Actually, no. We gave our casting director a list of possible names and Luis was available. Or at least sort of available. He was pitching winter ball in Puerto Rico and flew in between starts. The scene in question from a first year episode called “Now Pitching: Sam Malone” (that David and I wrote) was a TV commercial that Sam does with Luis, a parody of a then-popular beer campaign. Luis had maybe three lines. It took at least forty takes. Afterward, we gave him a little tour of the set and he said (at least this is what I think he said, it was impossible to understand him) “Hey, I’m going to give this acting a try”. He’s currently in between representation if any agent is interested.

And finally, from Dave Sikula (with parentheticals inside parentheticals):

I've gotten hooked on "Green Acres." Other than the production values (they seemed to have a budget of about twelve dollars, and everything is overlit [but then everything was in the 60s]), it holds up and is still an extremely funny show.

That said, I'd guess that all but a handful of the 170 episodes (over six seasons) were written by Jay Sommers and Dick Chevillat. (I think I've seen only three eps not credited to them, and we're well into Season 4.)

Would it be possible today for a team of two writers to have that kind of productivity? Most shows I see now have a huge staff of writers, assistants, and "producers." I suppose it's possible, but could you and David, say, maintain that pace for six seasons and still keep up the quality, or would you just burn out?

David and I could easily write five or six years worth of television by ourselves. The only thing is – they’d be shit. By season three think Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING. David and I wrote or rewrote practically all of season 7 of MASH and it damn near killed us. Contrast that to Larry Gelbart who essentially wrote the first four years of MASH himself and the show was never even remotely as good after he left.

It takes a very special talent to write an entire season of television considering the time pressures involved. David Kelley can do it. So can Aaron Sorkin. A few others too. Josh Schwartz I believe. It's a real gift and I hate and admirer them for it.

But having a staff of other writers is not a bad thing. Having fresh eyes, different perspectives, and different strengths can only produce a richer show. And keep the show runner out of the UCLA Medical Center (or at least delay his stay).

Time for another RANT

I took some heat last week because I said I didn’t want to watch the new ROSEANNE because I didn’t like her political position. I then said, if others watched and liked it, great. Just because I chose not to tune in doesn’t mean I'm asking others to steer clear too. I was merely stating my objection. Actually, that’s only partly true. I also find her voice grating, and just generally am not a fan. I got into a blog war with her a number of years ago as some of you might recall. That was fun.

But here’s my point: If someone chooses not to watch a particular show it can be for whatever reason that person chooses. If I don’t watch a show because I think the set is ugly, or I don’t care about the subject matter, or a company is sponsoring it that I'm boycotting, or I don’t like the shoes a character is wearing – that's my prerogative.  Am I OBLIGATED to watch a show starring a character spouting a political point of view I don’t agree with? Yeah, maybe, if I were a reviewer and it was my job. Yeah, maybe if I was a program executive for ABC. Yeah, maybe if I were an agent and one of my clients was associated with the show.

But otherwise, I can choose to skip it and don’t have to justify my decision. No one is paying me to watch it.

Must I watch in order to prove I’m an open-minded person? Sorry but NO. And if you don’t want to watch MASH because I wrote it that is every bit as valid as you don’t like shows set in Korea, you don’t like shows where people wear green uniforms, you don’t like the size of the credits, you don’t think a guy wearing a dress is funny, or you don’t like shows that are incredibly liberal. If you were to say you didn’t watch MASH because of its constant anti-gun preaching I would say that’s fair. I wouldn’t say you are not a good person because you won’t subject yourself to Hawkeye’s constant railing over the dangers of firearms.

Today however, if you don’t watch a particular show you’re close-minded, or racist, or sexist. There are “acceptable” reasons for not watching a program and there are “unacceptable” reasons. And people are quick to tell you whether your reason is permissible.

ALL reasons are permissible.

If you want to watch ROSEANNE tonight be my guest. May you love it. I won’t be watching. I’ll be watching baseball. I hope that meets with everyone’s approval.

RIP Steven Bochco

Television has lost a GIANT. There’s just no way to overstate the impact Steven Bochco had on the medium. All the David Chase’s and Matthew Weiner’s and Vince Gilligan’s and other masterful storytellers who created series that elevated the TV drama to an art owe a huge debt to Steven Bochco. And I bet each and every one would be the first to agree.

HILL STREET BLUES was revolutionary. Viewers had never seen a TV drama that complex, that gripping, that real. To be honest, most viewers didn’t know what to make of it at the start. It took the unflagging support of Grant Tinker, who presided over NBC, to keep the show on the air despite it’s paltry initial ratings.

Once America did catch on, the show received the appreciation, ratings, and Emmys it deserved. When CHEERS premiered in September of 1982 we were the lead-in to HILL STREET BLUES. Talk about “the Best Night of Television on television.”

I’m sure there are a thousand tributes. More groundbreaking shows like NYPD BLUE and LA LAW followed. Bochco also discovered and nurtured some pretty astounding writers like David Milch and David E. Kelley. Bochco pushed envelopes, he challenged networks, and he challenged audiences.

And all the while, he was a mensch.

That’s an important key. Without naming names, there are a number of these brilliant show creators that followed who were horrible to work for. They’d pummel their writers, take all the credit they could, and created a toxic atmosphere. Not Steven Bochco. He supported writers, protected writers, and allowed them to blossom.

I can’t say I was a friend of Steven Bochco’s. I was, at best, an acquaintance. We had seen each other enough at functions, or when we both worked at 20th Century Fox that he knew who I was. The first time I met him was when David Isaacs and I were nominated for a WGA Award for an episode of OPEN ALL NIGHT we had written. By the time the nominations were announced the show had been cancelled and the production company disbanded. We had to pay for our own tickets. We were placed at the HILL STREET BLUES table. Needless to say, none of the HILL STREET BLUES writers knew who we were or that OPEN ALL NIGHT had even existed. But Steven was warm and welcoming. He was the first to console us when we lost and the first to congratulate us when we won our Emmys. (Of course he had just won one too.)

The last time I saw him was a year ago. I was recording my interview segment for the CNN documentary series, THE ‘90s. Steven followed me. I remember thinking he looked very thin. But he was his usual chipper self. I didn’t know he was sick. Perhaps others who were more on the inside did, but I had no idea. If you watch that segment (and CNN reruns it a lot, God bless ‘em), see for yourself. But anytime I was with Steven Bochco I knew I was in the presence of a giant. He leaves behind a legacy of excellence, vision, innovation, conviction, and inspiration. I wish I had had the chance to work for him.

What Easter means to me

Easter is not one of my big holidays. I’ve never gone to the Hollywood Bowl for the Sunrise Service. The closest I’ve come was the Universal Amphitheater for a production of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR.

In grade school we used to paint hardboiled eggs. But who could we give them to? What kid ate hardboiled eggs? We might as well have painted prunes.

And I never got the point of an Easter Egg hunt. When I was a disc jockey at WDRQ in Detroit we had an Easter Egg hunt at a big local park and there were five stabbings.

What Easter meant to me was candy – the good and the bad.

The good was Yellow Peeps. These were chick shaped marshmallows covered in some yellow sticky crusty sugar coating. I have no idea what I was eating. But I loved them. It’s been years since I sampled a Peep. I wonder what I would think today. My guess – I’d gag at how sweet the first bite was… then finish the whole thing.

The bad candy was the chocolate bunnies. Sometimes solid but most of the time these too were marshmallows coated in chocolate. Except it wasn’t chocolate. It was wax. Even at six years-old I thought they were disgusting.

My guess is there are enough preservatives in Easter candy to last until the next century. After all, starting tomorrow all stores carrying Easter candy will sweep it out and get ready for Halloween. What happens to all those leftover Peeps and bunnies? Are they just going to be thrown out? What do you think?

I suspect they go back to the warehouse and wait until next year. Or the year after.  Or the year after that.

It’s possible an Ed Snowden will reveal the company making those chocolate bunnies went out of business in 1956 and this is just the unsold inventory. In another 34 years we’ll see the last of the brown wax bunnies.

But for those of you who do celebrate Easter, have a wonderful day.   Stay out of Detroit parks, set your alarm for 4:00 AM, use the chocolate bunny as a hood ornament, and save me a Peep. 

A discovered treasure

Tomorrow is the Real Don Steele's birthday.   He would have been 82.   He was the world's most exciting disc jockey and proud to say -- a dear friend.  We were jocks together at two stations in the '70s -- K100 and TenQ, both in Los Angeles.  This was when I used the air name Beaver Cleaver.

Steele was famous for his Friday night sign-offs.  They were wild rants designed to get you amped up for the weekend, delivered in machine-gun fashion.   From time to time I would follow him on Friday night (which was like being the next act after the Beatles on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW) and noticed that he always had the sign-off typed out.   So one Friday I asked if I could keep it and would he autograph it for me?   Gracious person that he is, he said sure. 

And now, in honor of his birthday, I am sharing it with you dear readers.  Try reading this whole thing in one take without making a single mistake... in about thirty seconds.

I love you and miss you Don and always will.   You and Tina Delgado will always be alive!

UPDATE!!!!!!

BIG treat. Thanks to friend of the blog, Kevin Gershan, here are a few Real Don Steele Friday night sign-offs. Get ready to have your mind blown.

Friday Questions

Getting you ready for Passover and Easter with traditional Friday Questions. What’s yours?

Bob Paris starts us off:

I felt that FRIENDS was running out of steam at the end of its run. When the spin-off JOEY was announced, I thought if I were Matt LeBlanc I would agree to do the show with Kauffman & Crane as show-runners but replace most of the others with the creative staff of FRASIER, that was also ending its run that season. Can you contribute your 20/20 perspective on writer's burn-out with the same characters year after year and if you think this may have helped avoid the creative fiasco that JOEY became.

I do know a little about failed spinoffs. A big problem with JOEY was that the premise wasn’t great. Nothing really distinct or interesting about it. They just took a character and plopped him down in a different setting. Matt LeBlanc was also a supporting player. Matt is GREAT in the right role like on EPISODES, but I don’t think he could or even today, can carry a show by himself (MAN WITH A PLAN).

Getting the FRASIER writers would not have helped. The writers they used were FRIENDS writers so you’d think they’d know the character, tone, world, etc.

At the end of the day it just felt like… a spinoff – nowhere close to the brilliance of the original. Hey, it happens. Like I said, I KNOW.

Edward weighs in.

You were associated with three television series that lasted 11 seasons. There was cast turnover on MASH and Cheers. What about Frasier? Was there any contemplated turnover that has not been discussed? Any drama with that show?

To my knowledge, no. Everyone on FRASIER was happy to be there the entire run of the series. And I’m being 100% totally honest here – there was ZERO drama at that show. All eleven years. It all springs from the star, who sets the tone on the stage, and Kelsey was as gracious and nice as a star could possibly be. I know it’s boring to not have any real “dish” to spill, but the FRASIER set was truly a love fest.

Mike Bloodworth asks:

In the days before Google and Wikipedia how did you deal with all the research needed for any given script? Did studios have a reference library? Did you hang out in the PUBLIC library reading the Encyclopedia Britannica? (Or the 24 volume, Grolier Encyclopedia? {Another obscure reference.}) I'd love to know.

The studios all had research departments, and for a fee (that went against your budget but was accounted for in your budget), would look things up, Xerox articles, etc. It was kind of a racket because the studio was essentially charging itself.

When David and I were working on something on our own I’d go to the UCLA library. Or we would interview someone privy to the information we sought.

And finally, from Ted:

A lot of articles are calling Golden Globes a far better managed awards show than Oscars. Their arguments are based on bringing the stars to grab the eyeballs and keeping the show short and funny, and cutting off other "useless category" awards.

I know you hate Golden Globes, but do you also think that NOW, Globes are better than Oscars?

No, for the simple fact that the Golden Globes awards are meaningless. Their award shows might be more entertaining and better for star gazing, but there’s no way of even approaching the honor and gravitas of winning an Academy Award.

Thus, there’s way more at stake with the Oscars. There’s genuine suspense (sometimes).

The best that PR flacks in the industry can do to hype the Golden Globes is to say they might help predict who will an Oscar. Find me a movie trailer that touts an actor as being a former “Golden Globe” nominee. But someone wins an Oscar – that’s a distinction that stays with you proudly the rest of your life.

A Peoples’ Choice Award can’t compete either.

Sneak previews

Who remembers sneak previews?

What I don’t know is if it’s an age thing or an LA thing. Did they have sneak previews in Kansas City? Here in Los Angeles they were the suburban rage.

Some background…

There once was a time when there were “first run” movies. They’d be released with great fanfare and play in big movie palaces. There were other movies that were released that didn’t have the star power, the budget, the Red Sea parting. They were called “B movies.” They opened in secondary neighborhood theatres and Drive In’s.

Those neighborhood theatres generally had double-features. Interesting that people could cheerfully sit through five hours of movies back then. (What this says to me is that two well-paced movies feels shorter than a single feature that is a half-hour too long.)

Once “first run” movies cycled out of the big movie palaces they too wound up in the neighborhood double-bills, sharing the marque with these B-movies.

But every so often there were sneak previews. The theatre would advertise that in addition to the former first run feature a brand new upcoming movie would be shown. What that movie was was always a secret.

Yes, it was a crapshoot for the theatergoer but also kind of exciting. It was our only chance to see movies before they came out. Today, of course, there are test screenings prior to release, but often you know something about the movie going in. Why? Because studios are only interested in target audiences so only specific people are recruited and to entice them into the theatre they’re told “It’s a new Will Ferrell comedy” or “It’s a superhero flick.” Etc.

Not so with sneak previews. You paid your ticket and took your chance.

As best as I could remember, the few times I attended sneak previews the mystery movie was a disappointment. I vaguely recall some Rick & Kris Nelson comedy. Ugh. On the other hand, I did see HUD as a sneak preview and that was startling. Paul Newman played this mesmerizing asshole and I was riveted.

But good or bad, you felt privileged because you saw a movie three months before everyone else. You were a Hollywood Insider even if it only meant you screened a Ricky Nelson film that would go on to sell eighteen tickets total.

My favorite personal sneak preview story takes place in, I believe, 1962. I was just a kid. We took my grandmother to the Lido Theatre in Pacific Palisades to see Billy Wilder’s new movie ONE TWO THREE and then a sneak preview. Going to a sneak preview was such a big deal that we drove thirty miles to get there.

The first run movie always screened first.  ONE TWO THREE was a great movie. Smart, biting, hilarious. Usually the sneak preview is a film that complements the first run. It only stands to reason that whatever new movie follows be geared to the same crowd. So we all had very high expectations – especially my grandmother.

There was that big moment of suspense. The lights went down and roaring onto to the screen was FOLLOW THAT DREAM starring Elvis Presley. My grandmother loudly called out, “What the hell is this?” Laughs from the whole theatre.  For the entire movie she grumbled. “Who watches this crap?” “This is stupid.” “Even these songs are no good.” I can only think of four or five screen comedies that ever made me laugh as hard as FOLLOW THAT DREAM with commentary by Pearl Levine. And I’m sure if Billy Wilder had been in that audience he’d be saying the exact same things she did (in a similar accent).  

God, I miss sneak previews.

EP65: Meet Writer Phoef Sutton Part 1

Ken interviews the versatile Phoef Sutton who has written sitcoms, dramas, screenplays, and novels.  Among his credits: Cheers, Newhart, Boston Legal, Terriers, a Robert DeNiro movie, and novels, including one with Janet Evanovich. Part 1 deals with comedy, features, and how he got that rather unusual name.

Listen to the Hollywood & Levine podcast!

The Roseanne re-boot

Many have asked if I saw the ROSEANNE reboot last night. 

No.

It got huge ratings and I'm happy for a number of the writers I know who are on that show. 

But I am not a fan of hers nor her political position so I didn't watch a minute of it.   If you saw it and loved it, great.  It's just not for me. 

"Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling"

HBO has premiered a documentary on the life of the late comedian, Garry Shandling. Produced by Judd Apatow.

Let’s cut to the chase (something this documentary doesn’t do). It’s 4 ½ hours long. Four and a half hours. Devoted to Garry Shandling. Documentaries on the Civil War are shorter.

Not that it isn’t well done and filled with diary entries and behind-the-scene footage – but 4 ½ hours? Really?

Let me save you some time. Garry Shandling was a very talented guy who was always miserable, always searching for happiness, could be difficult to deal with, kept journals, achieved a certain level of success in the world of comedy, and was the creative force of the sometimes brilliant cult hit HBO series, THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW. In some ways it was a groundbreaking show. But for all his success, Garry Shandling remained tortured.

Does it require 4 ½ hours to tell that story? Judd Apatow, who is notorious for churning out good work that is always marred by excessive length, outdoes himself here. I suppose if you’re a huge Garry Shandling fan you could easily sit through 6 hours of footage of colleagues saying over and over he was complicated and generally unhappy. But if you’re the average person, even if you were a Garry Shandling fan (which I was), I wonder if 4 ½ hours might be a tad much (like by half).

Even the excellent PBS documentary on Walt Disney, who was one of the most influential cultural forces of the 20th Century and created an entertainment empire that was groundbreaking in many areas – from animation to television to theme parks – even with home movies never seen before and a career that spanned forty years leaving behind a legacy that may last hundreds of years – that documentary was only 4 hours. THE SORROW AND THE PITY was 4 hours and 25 minutes. Garry Shandling’s life required more time than that?

And the result is the documentary does Shandling a disservice because the length might scare off people who otherwise might tune in. And what’s more important – tracing his life in day-to-day depth, or attracting more people who might for the first time appreciate him and his contribution? I bet you could do a two hour documentary and not feel cheated.

The CHEERS conspiracy

This article was brought to my attention yesterday by several of you loyal readers. Apparently there was a local sitcom in Boston in the late ‘70’s called PARK ST. UNDER that bore many similarities to CHEERS.

You can read the article here.

And of course I was asked to comment on it.

First off, I can’t speak for the Charles Brothers or Jim Burrows – the creators of CHEERS.

All I can do is talk from my experience, and I was there since pre-production of season one.  

I have never heard of the existence of this other sitcom until yesterday when I read the article. And that’s the honest-to-God truth.

No one ever mentioned this in the room. There were never any rumors about it. I have friends who lived in Boston and none of them ever brought it up. I was in Boston on several occasions for CHEERS-related events and no one mentioned it.

However, in the article Jim Burrows said the show was modeled somewhat after the radio series set in a bar, DUFFY’S TAVERN, and that I heard mentioned numerous times.

Also, in the original first draft of the CHEERS pilot Sam Malone was a former football player, an ex-Patriot. The switch was made to baseball when Ted Danson was hired and it was more believable that he had been a ballplayer. Coach originally was addled because he suffered so many bone-jarring gridiron concussions (it’s not like this is a new phenomenon in the NFL). Frasier wasn’t brought on until season three. Carla was created specifically for Rhea Perlman, who the guys knew from playing Zena on TAXI and being married to Danny DeVito.  The Cliff civil service character evolved during the first season.  He had very little to do the first couple of episodes. 

And finally this – I’ve mentioned numerous times that when we were breaking stories on CHEERS, if we learned an element even approximated something done on another show we automatically threw it out. That was one of the Charles Brothers strictest rules. In eleven years I never saw them waver from it, not even once. So it seems odd to me that they would lift an entire series from an existing show that had aired. I can’t imagine them leaving themselves open to premiering the CHEERS pilot and have the whole city of Boston up in arms because they had stolen a show everyone there was familiar with. And by the way, there was no uproar. Not even a peep. No Boston papers brought it up in their reviews. Like I said, this is the first I’m hearing of it.

Why didn’t the creators of PARK ST. UNDER sue? It says in the article they didn’t think they’d win. Episodes of this show are not available on line. Apparently they’re very hard to track down.  There are just a few clips, which I've seen (and for a local production they are pretty good). 

From the article it sounds like there were definite similarities. And I wasn’t there when the Charles Brothers and Jimmy batted around ideas for this new show they were creating. All I can tell you is from my perspective on the inside, and knowing the integrity of Glen & Les Charles and Jim Burrows, any similarities were purely coincidental. And if Robert Mueller calls, I’m happy to go before the committee and say the same thing.

Who's your favorite...?

Who’s your favorite Superman?

Who’s your favorite James Bond?

Who’s your favorite Darren Stephens?

Who’s your favorite Dolly (as in “Hello”)?

Who’s your favorite Olsen twin?

Who’s your favorite Sherlock Holmes?

Who’s your favorite RoboCop?

Who’s your favorite Danny Ocean?

Who’s your favorite Captain Kirk?

Who’s your favorite Lois Lane?

Who’s your favorite Norman Bates?

Who’s your favorite Elizabeth Bennett? (“Pride & Prejudice”)

Who’s your favorite Batman?

Who’s your favorite Spiderman?

Who’s your favorite Catwoman?

Who’s your favorite Wonder Woman?

Who’s your favorite Anna Coleman (“Freaky Friday”)

Who’s your favorite “King Kong” heroine?

Who’s your favorite Sarah Conner? (“Terminator’)

Who’s your favorite Incredible Hulk?

And finally, who’s your favorite Dr. Who?

My all-time favorite TV job

Readers have asked me what was my all-time favorite job? Here’s how blessed I am – it’s really hard to pick. I could easily say MASH, CHEERS, or ALMOST PERFECT; each for different reasons. Throw in FRASIER too. But that’s like trying to pick which of your four kids is your favorite? So putting those shows aside, I’d have to say the winner was BIG WAVE DAVE’S.

For the 95% of you not familiar with BIG WAVE DAVE’S, it was a short-lived series that my partner David Isaacs and I did for CBS in 1993. You can watch the pilot here.

We made the pilot in March of that year. It was multi-camera, in front of a live audience. Usually you’ll have a laugh spread of two or three minutes, which allows you to trim out the things that didn't work. BIG WAVE DAVE’S had a ten minute laugh spread – pretty good for a twenty-two minute show.


We tried to edit it down to time but it was impossible. So we figured, “what the hell?” and submitted a rough cut that was seven minutes too long. The heads of CBS noted it was too long and offered to watch it with us and determine further cuts. They couldn’t find additional trims either. We were allowed to turn in that version. (When the show got picked up we had reshoot some scenes so characters didn't fly across the room when certain lines were cut out.)

It tested great. Jane Kaczmarek tested better than Bob Newhart did on his new show. We went back to New York for the May Upfronts feeling we had a real shot at getting on the fall schedule.

Unfortunately, CBS had commitments to Diane English and Linda Bloodworth and there was no room for us. But we knew they loved the show and figured we’d at least get a pick-up for mid-season.

Several weeks went by. We heard nothing.

Finally they came to us with this proposal: As an experiment they wanted to try putting new shows on in the summer. They had success with that strategy with NORTHERN EXPOSURE. They wanted to air six episodes of BIG WAVE DAVE’S on Monday nights at 9:30 following MURPHY BROWN (their top sitcom at the time).

Here was the problem: it was the beginning of June. They wanted the show to begin airing mid-summer. We’d have to assemble a staff, hire a crew, rebuild the sets, and go into production in two weeks. We had no scripts, nothing.

So we came back to them and said, “We will do it… but only under one condition. There can be NO NETWORK INTERFERENCE.

At all.

We will not run story notions by you. You will see no scripts ahead of time. No notes after runthroughs. No casting input. No rough cuts for approval. Nothing. You could watch the show on the air." (We gave them that.)

Every show must deal with Standards & Practice but even then, we said their notes had to be minor and any disputes easily resolved or we had to shut down production.

This was not about us being prima donnas; we physically could not do the show if we had to go through those hoops. As it is we would be making a lot of decisions on the fly. And we understood if that kind of autonomy went against CBS’ policy but then we’d respectfully pass on their offer. We’d take our chances that they still would order us for mid-season.

To our shock and amazement they said okay; they’d go along with that arrangement.

We quickly assembled a staff (Dan Staley, Rob Long, and Larry Balmagia), brought on Andy Ackerman to direct and Larina Adamson (who I mentioned yesterday in Friday Questions) to gather a crew. The next three months were insane. We were writing around the clock, editing, casting, post production. But God bless CBS, they were true to their word. They did not interfere even once.

And that’s what it made it my all-time favorite job. I can’t tell you how creatively invigorating it was to have the chains removed. I think we did some of our best work (even under ridiculous circumstances). The truth is I’m sure we were tougher on the scripts than the network would have been. Rewrite nights tended to go long. But we all had so much fun.

The show aired and got a 19 share every week. We kept close to 100% of MURPHY BROWN’S audience. The headline in the LA Times entertainment section when the first week’s rating came out was BIG WAVE DAVE SAVES CBS. If you got that number today you'd get a five year pick-up.

Everything was going great (except for the Tom Shales review – he said we single-handedly destroyed television, which I view as a pan and was not tearful when he was later fired) and thought we were on our way. But after the six episodes CBS cancelled us. Why? They felt they didn’t need us. They had sitcoms coming on in the fall starring Peter Scolari, Faye Dunaway, and Shelley Long and there was no need. Besides, they felt our star, Adam Arkin wasn’t strong enough to carry a series. A couple of years later he proved them wrong with CHICAGO HOPE on their network.

But that was my all-time favorite job... in television. (I have all-time favorite radio and baseball jobs too. Subjects for future posts.) And I still believe television would be better today if selected writers who have proven their worth were given that kind of autonomy.

TV Theme Song medley

Even though they didn't do CHEERS or ALMOST PERFECT (how could they leave that out???), this is still pretty cool. Jimmy Fallon & Will Smith on a recent TONIGHT SHOW. Sing along.

Crocodile Levine

Happy to say my play, THE HOOK UP, has made it into the "Peoples' Choice" playoff round of the Sydney Short + Sweet Festival. So if you're anywhere in that hemisphere, please come see it this Tuesday and Wednesday. I need your votes.

Friday Questions

Closing out a rather soggy week in Tinsel Town, here are this week’s FQ’s.

Xmastime is up first.

Thanks! My question: what are your thoughts on British sitcoms? Thanks to streaming services I've discovered dozens over the last few years, including the greatest of all, "Only Fools and Horses." Would love to know if you've ever had any favorites.

I love British sitcoms. They never write down to the audience. And yet they often manage to combine sophisticated comedy with sheer silliness.  They're allowed to be political, historical, deal honestly with sexuality, and feature age groups over 27. 

Another thing I appreciate about British sitcoms is that great actors will do them without feeling like they’re “slumming.” Judi Dench can go from an Oscar winning movie to AS TIME GOES BY, a sitcom.

My three all-time favorites are COUPLING by Steven Moffat, BLACKADDER by Richard Curtis and Rowen Atkinson, and YES, MINISTER by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.

UPDATE: Make that four.  How could I forget FAWLTY TOWERS?  That's maybe my number one.  

I must confess, I haven’t seen the current crop. Feel free to recommend some.

Steve Hoffman has a question regarding my recent post on pilot updates.

The article you posted here describes the premise of this new pilot, and I'm struck by how this reads as the same exact premise as "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." Does this happen often? Wouldn't networks want to green light pilots that don't sound like exact duplicates of something that's already out there and is reasonably successful? Or do they really not care?

It baffles me too, but that happens more frequently than you would expect. Sometimes the same network will develop projects similar. Remember when NBC had STUDIO 60 and 30 ROCK? Both were behind-the-scenes looks at SNL. Usually though, the network will pick just one of the two contenders. In this case NBC ordered them both.

This also happens in features. Suddenly you’ll have two Snow White movies or Wyatt Earp movies that come out around the same time. And in both cases – why????

From ODJennings:

How common is it for actors to get stuck on a show they hate? The reason I'm asking is that the Steppenwolf Theatre comment reminded me of a story I once heard from someone in Chicago who was in a position to know.

He swore that a supporting actor on a popular sitcom only took the part because they were 110% certain that the show would be a flop. They bragged to their friends and coworkers that the money would pay for their home remodeling, and they'd be back in Chicago before anyone even noticed they were gone. The show became a hit and they were stuck in LA for 6 seasons hating every minute of it. (And no, it wasn't John Mahoney although I've read that he didn't think much of LA either.)

John didn’t love LA (he was a Chicago boy), but he did love working of FRASIER.

As for the Steppenwolf actor – Fuck him.

You know how many actors would KILL to be on a hit series? You know what a privilege it is to be on a hit series?

If an actor thinks a part is wrong for him or the series is beneath him then don’t take the role. Make way for an actor who will appreciate the opportunity.

Sometimes actors will grow unhappy during the course of a series, but in most cases the producers are happy to let them out of their contracts. Who needs that cancer hanging around?

But I see how hard actors try to get on series, how few openings there are, and when I hear of one who took a pilot just for the money, hoping it would fail I again say Fuck You!

Liz asks:

Jennifer Lawrence says that she is gonna take a year off to educate young people about politics. What's your take on that? 

God bless her. A whole giant subculture is reaching voting age. Let them get involved and begin carving out a better world for themselves. And cleaning up the one we left them.  Unlike 2016, Millennials can now really make a difference.

REGISTER TO VOTE.

And finally, from Kirby:

I recently saw a "Wings" episode where David Schramm appeared in the background but had no lines. I seem to recall a similar situation on "Cheers," where Kelsey Grammer could be seen sitting at the bar, but Frasier didn't speak the entire episode. In these instances, would the characters have had lines that were cut during editing? Or are there occasions where there isn't room for a main character to speak, but the actor is called in anyway just to be present in the background?

Almost ALWAYS, when that occurs it’s because their lines were edited out for time. On both of those shows we would NEVER ask an actor to appear in a scene where he didn’t have lines and contributed.

There’s the common misconception that all actors want as much screen time as possible, but that’s not true. Most actors would much prefer to not be in a scene rather than having little to do with it other than lobbing in a line. And I have to say, I absolutely agree with them. It’s hugely disrespectful to ask an actor to just sit in a scene and do nothing.

What’s your Friday Question? I answer as many as I can.

A modest question

I’ve been watching THE GOOD FIGHT on CBS All Access. (It’s even better than the GOOD WIFE … at least since Will was killed.) And since it’s not on a broadcast network, they’re able to get away with language and nudity they never could before. And it’s somewhat startling to hear a character you’ve watched for seven years suddenly say, “Fuck you!” (Startling and refreshing.)

This week’s episode featured a storyline where a young woman contestant on a BIG BROTHER-type show was drugged and had sex without her consent. As expected with the creative team headed by Robert & Michelle King, the story was handled very responsibly and very elegantly. The nudity was not overtly gratuitous. It wasn’t like CALIFORNICATION where women take off their clothes to read their mail.

But a young woman had to be topless for more than a few fleeting seconds and even completely naked although in a long shot and not full-frontal.

I’m sure the casting office has to declare that there will be partial nudity required in the initial breakdown. It’s not something they just spring on the actress during the audition, or worse, after she’s agreed to the part. But there must be times it’s very hard for an actress to decide whether the nude scene is worth it. THE GOOD FIGHT is a classy show. But what if some sleazy cable show demands it? Assuming you even consider it in the first place, are there personal boundaries? Example: CBS All Access and HBO yes, FX and Cinemax no.

An actress friend of mine said she loved going on auditions where being topless was required for a scene. “They’re just tits,” she used to say and it meant most of her competition for the part dropped out. She got more gigs as a result.

Other actress friends contend that especially now, with things staying on the internet forever, it makes no difference whether you’re doing it for a classy show or soft-core porn, the world can and WILL at some point see you. Your topless shot, although it occupied only five seconds of screen time, could be the wallpaper on the president’s computer.

So my question, in this era of #MeToo, social media, but jobs-are-hard-to-come-by, what is your position on partial nudity? Do you have boundaries? Has your position changed due to any social sea changes or financial pressures? And this is one time you’re welcome to post anonymously. Reminder: I moderate all comments so anything juvenile or inappropriate to a legitimate grown-up discussion will be deleted. But this question comes from me watching THE GOOD FIGHT episode and wondering, would I do that? It was a good part and the actress had lots to do including a couple of wonderful speeches. Would it have been worth it to me? I honestly don’t know.