Working with Robin Williams

A reader asked me recently to talk about my sordid days doing improv. I started in 1979. Disco was dying and I was looking for the next big thing. My partner, David and I sold a pilot to NBC about a Nichols & May type improv team. The concept was could a man and woman work together and just be friends (long before Sally faked her orgasm for Harry)? To research the arena I called Dee Marcus, director of the improv group OFF THE WALL...

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Friday Questions

First off, Happy Birthday to my daughter, Annie. Hope you like the autographed copy of my book. I know, I know... sometimes I spoil you.Here are these week’s Friday Questions:An (is my actual name) starts us off: Watching later episodes of Cheers, I can't help but notice all the negative Diane Chambers references. She comes up a lot for a character who was long gone. It seems odd that a character who left on good terms (Carla notwithstanding)...

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Kevin Spacey's take on the future of television

Worth a listen. It's about 5 minutes. He makes some great points about how television is changing and what it should do to accommodate viewers. The only problem I see is that to greenlight a thirteen-episode series without any kind of pilot is a huge gamble.  And just as most pilots fail, so will most series.  Except, you put a series on the air, it dies quickly, you halt production after four episodes.  You cut your losses.  You can't do that with a Netflix type series. So after being burned big time a few times, Netflix...

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Why you can't let rejection dash your hopes

Our first agent wasn’t very good. When David Isaacs and I were starting out, writing spec scripts, living on Kraft macaroni, and trying to break in we managed to get an agent. She was a legitimate WGA signatory but she wasn’t top tier. She wasn’t third tier. But shows would accept her submissions, which was all we really needed.She sent our spec MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW to the great David Lloyd, who was one of their producers. When she didn’t hear...

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Why is poker night like rewrite night?

Got invited to a poker game last weekend. A friend plays in a regular game and needed an extra body. Poker is an ingenious game. It involves both skill and luck. If only I had either.I hadn’t played poker in probably fifteen years so I pretty much had forgotten everything other than I always lose. Still, I enjoyed myself.  The players were usually a group of comedy writers or improv chums so there were always more laughs than chips (especially...

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Another humiliating adventure in radio

This is yet another sordid true story from my early radio career – those halcyon days in the ‘70s when I bounced around the country playing top 40 hits as Beaver Cleaver. Top 40 stations back then courted teenagers. So a number of our promotions centered around high schools.We jocks would host Friday night dances and pep rallies. Those were fine, but at a couple of stations we put together a basketball team made up of the disc jockeys and we...

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Here's a first look....

at the cover of my new book:...coming to a Kindle or ebook near you!If there's a genre of "Comedy Noir" it fits into that category.  MUST KILL TV is a scathing satire on television and murder.  It's the only novel that asks the question:What's more important -- Renewing your Tuesday night line-up or human life?And there's sex in it!  So this is just a tease.  If I had the time and money I would have made a trailer.  ...

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Why I love Meryl Streep

The only thing better would be if she were holding one of her Osca...

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Technical advisers

A lot of shows use technical advisers. It’s hard enough to write a good autopsy scene without also having to know anatomy. Sure, writers spent a lot of their high school nights at home alone, but we didn’t spend the time learning forensics. While others were taking pre-med courses in college we were taking Sitcom 101 and playing poker.  So when we’re asked to write lawyer/cop/doctor/dance shows we need a little help. On MASH we had...

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Friday Questions

Here hey are:Todd A. starts us off:Both Cheers and Wings went through a couple cast shakeups.Wings alone added Tony Shaloub, Farrah Forke & Amy Yasbek, while losing Thomas Haden Church. Have you ever had any less than favorable reactions from original cast members when a new castmember is added? Conversely, how do cast members react when a colleague gets another opportunity and bails, potentially jeopardizing the harmony of a tight ensemble?...

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IN A WORLD -- my review

In a world of mind-numbing hollow big budget summer blockbusters and lackluster sequels, one little film dares to be sweet and funny and real. I wish I had the big booming voice to do that last sentence justice, but you get the idea. IN A WORLD written, directed, and starring Lake Bell is the most enjoyable movie I’ve seen this summer. In a world where Lena Dunham is overrated for her self conscious look-how-cool-I-am calculatingly shock dialogue,...

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R.I.P. Elmore Leonard

Like all writers, I was greatly saddened to learn of Elmore Leonard’s passing yesterday. He was 87. Until a recent stroke, he was writing until the end. His fiction was always so vivid, his stories clever, and most of all his characters jumped off the page. When people ask me for examples of good dialogue I say pick up any Elmore Leonard book. His work was also filled with humor. He was Quentin Tarantino long before Quentin Tarantino. He...

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One of my most cherished possessions

When working with the great Larry Gelbart, I had mentioned to him that my favorite MASH script of his an episode called "The More I See You" from season four.  Blythe Danner guests as Hawkeye's former love who is assigned to the 4077.Larry used to write his scripts in longhand on legal pads with black Sharpies.  Rarely would he have cross-outs.  It was like Mozart.The next day Larry came in and gave me a Xerox copy of his handwritten...

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Lee Daniels' THE BUTLER: My review

I truly wanted to love this movie. The story is important and its message is one that everyone needs to hear. Unfortunately, LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER falls way short of the mark. The subject matter deserves way better. If only it was MARTIN SCORSESE’S THE BUTLER or KATHRYN BIGELOW’S THE BUTLER. Instead it was more like SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’S THE BUTLER. All of the stunt casting took you right out of the movie. Just as you watch an SNL skit...

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Attention fellow Natalie Wood freaks!

TCM is devoting this whole day to a Natalie Wood marathon. There goes my Sunday. As longtime readers (two weeks) of this blog know, I am obsessed with Natalie Wood. Whenever I can’t find an appropriate photo to go with a post I present pictures of Natalie Wood. And according to recent feedback, you guys seem to like the photos more than the posts themselves.This infatuation began when I was an impressionable teenager (read: hormones exploding)...

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The 44th anniversary of Woodstock

What's more monumental than a 44th anniversary?  This is Woodstock's. 500,000 long-haired stoned members of my generation attended this three-day open air music festival. I was not one of them. But at least I admit it. For every person who attended there was another thousand who said they attended but really spent that weekend doing chores for mom. And while half a million rain soaked, bathroom deprived, hippies grooved on ...

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"What is time again?"

A movie that David Isaacs and I wrote, VOLUNTEERS, opened this weekend in 1985.  As you know, most potential summer blockbusters open two weeks before Labor Day. Of those of you who remember VOLUNTEERS, the scene most recall is the “what is time again?” scene. So as an anniversary treat, here it is.To refresh, it’s 1962 and Tom Hanks plays Lawrence, a spoiled preppy who takes his roommate’s place in the Peace Corps in Thailand to avoid...

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Who is that guy with the weird laugh?

Here are answers to some of your Friday questions.velvet goldmine wondered this last week:I know that even shows filled before a live audience sometimes used to "sweeten" them with recorder laughs. But there's this one man's laugh that you hear on TONS of shows from the 70s, from MTM to Taxi. You know the one I mean? First there's a startled "Haw!" as the setup gets underway, then this extended "Haw Haw Haw..." when the joke reaches its zenith.Why...

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The unsung heroes of Hollywood

HBO is currently running a terrific documentary called “Casting By.” It’s primarily about the dean of casting directors, Marion Dougherty, but features a lot of other highly influential casting directors and quite a few major stars along with film directors. I highly recommend it. Casting Directors are the unsung heroes of Hollywood (and New York). I’ve always said that the most important decisions producers and directors will ever have to make...

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Lunch with Sally Rogers

It’s always risky meeting people you’ve really admired. There’s always that danger that in person they scream at waiters, preach Scientology, or think A-Rod is misunderstood. They use the pedestal you put them on to throw rocks down at you.  They belittle you for wearing an authentic HERMAN MUNSTER costume when you stop them at Costco.  And so it was with great delight and relief that I can report that Rose Marie is an absolute doll....

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Deja View

CHEERS – year three. My partner, David Isaacs and I were writing movies that season and doing a few CHEERS episodes on the side. So we were aware of the story arcs but weren’t there every day.One Thursday night I was watching a first-run episode that I believe Sam Simon wrote. It was very good. I was laughing at the jokes, surprised by the story turns. All of a sudden a scene came on and the dialogue sounded vaguely familiar. It’s as if I...

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Rejecting Woody Allen

Dating back to the ‘30s, THE NEW YORKER has always had a feature called “Shouts & Murmurs”, a weekly essay by one of the premier comedy writers of the time. This was the gold standard. Today the best of the best contributors is Paul Rudnick. Always hilarious, head and shoulders above the rest. Back in the ‘70s when I was starting out and devouring comedy in all forms, I often gleaned inspiration from the “Shouts & Murmurs” pieces....

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