Friday Questions

Here are some Friday Questions, it being Friday and all.

Christine McElfay leads off:

Ken, why do you think Jon Hamm has not won an Emmy? He certainly is powerful in his portrayal of Don Draper.

I scratch my head too. In the past, he’s lost out to actors who have had showier roles, like Bryan Cranston’s character in BREAKING BAD.  But how Jon lost to Jeff Daniels I’ll never know.  Hopefully this will be his year.

Any actor other besides Jon Hamm and I don’t think MAD MEN succeeds, despite the brilliant writing.

Another actor who has a beef is Hugh Laurie, who deserved to win at least once for HOUSE. For many years he wasn’t even nominated.

From Kristina:

I'm currently writing a Goldbergs spec and at the end of every show, the real Adam Goldberg includes a dedication for the inspiration for each episode (usually from one of his home videos). For spec purposes, do I include a dedication? Do I write it in Adam Goldbergs voice? Or do I write a personal dedication for the inspiration for my spec?

I would just leave it out. Producers are evaluating your writing.  Dedications in the tag  are irrelevant.  If they like your writing, by the time they get to the dedication they're already sending a limo to pick you up.  

Arthur has a question about attending Hollywood screenings:

Ken, did you ever attend a screening expecting to hate the movie, and then being pleasantly surprised?

Yeah. I was a weekend disc jockey on TenQ in Los Angeles and we had a listener screening. We were giving tickets away for this new movie opening soon. I knew nothing about the flick except the title and even that was a little vague. The lights went down and STAR WARS came on. Holy shit!

As great as that movie originally was, it was even greater as a surprise.

And kids, that’s why you have to listen to TenQ!

RyderDA asks:

Recently, I saw a "tribute compilation" of the best quotes of Roger Sterling from MAD MEN, each with a photo of John Slattery. When we said goodbye to Robin Williams, there were endless quotes from his shows or movies. But you know and I know that writers wrote all of that stuff. Does is frustrate or annoy you as a writer that an actor playing your character gets credited with "your stuff" in circumstances like that?

Yes. This is a pet peeve of mine, especially with ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. Now, I love EW and I especially love EW radio on Sirius/XM (Tim Stack is one of the funniest people on radio ever), but they do a feature in the magazine called “the week’s best SOUND BITES” and attribute pithy show dialogue to the actors who spoke the lines. It’s one thing if FIELD AND STREAM did that. They don’t know. But EW covers the industry. They do know that writers write these lines.

And of course, through the years it has always bothered me when someone would say “Where does Alan Alda or Ted Danson come up with all those funny lines?” and I have to reply, “They DON’T. I do. And other writers like me.”

I’ll stop before I get too worked up. What’s your Friday Question?