I want to be a panelist

I want to be a panelist on a TV show.

This has always seemed like the greatest job ever.

And by “always” I mean, since I was a kid.

Back in the Stone Age there were live game shows in prime time. Relics like WHAT’S MY LINE?, I’VE GOT A SECRET, and TO TELL THE TRUTH. Take any one of them – let’s say I’VE GOT A SECRET...

For years this show ran on Monday nights at 8:00 from New York on CBS.

So this was the gig. You swing by the studio at about 7:15 and get a little make up.  There’s nothing to prepare. It’s a quiz show. You’ll be asking questions and guessing.

At a few minutes till 8:00 you’re introduced to the studio audience, you accept their applause even though you haven't done anything and won't.  Then you take your place at the panelists’ desk.

The show begins at 8:00. You’re on national TV. You're a beloved celebrity although, again, you have no extraordinary talent.   You ask a few questions, try to guess the contestant’s secret – and if you can’t so what?  Primarily you’re there to toss in a few wise-cracks. Piece of cake!

At 8:30 the show is over. There are no pick-ups. You’re done. You wipe off the make up, jump into a cab, and at 8:45 you’re in Sardi's.

As one of the panelists of that show, Bill Cullen said on it’s final episode: “I’ve been on fifteen years, and haven’t done one moment’s work. I admit that, and I apologize for stealing the money.” Sweet!

Even as an impressionable young lad I was attracted to making a good living by doing nothing.

So I set out to learn the parameters of this highly specialized and desirable profession. Who are these lucky people who get these jobs and what are their qualifications? As for the first question: they all seem to be personalities – maybe the most general term in show business. They’ve all achieved some level of notoriety. In the case of SECRET – (Bill Cullen, Betsy Palmer, Henry Morgan, Bess Myerson) a game show host, a B actress, radio crank, and former Miss America. So you don’t have to be super famous going in. Did anyone in the U.S. know who Simon Cowell was before AMERICAN IDOL? I write a blog, and from time to time announce baseball. I could easily be Betsy Palmer!

Requirements: Seems to me if you were once the class clown and could stay awake for thirty minutes you’d be qualified. I’m golden in those departments. And judging by SECRET, only the radio crank was expected to be funny. The job is even easier than I thought.

So if you don’t even have to be amusing you should at least be attractive. In some cases that was true. Betsy and Bess were yummy. But on WHAT’S MY LINE? they had Dorothy Kilgallen who had no chin. And Fred Allen whose face resembled an accordion. You could be bald, overweight, wear crew cuts, it didn’t matter. I have a chin.

The other traits a panelist must have are punctuality (they frown on you showing up late for a live show) and you should be opinionated. Has that ever been a problem for me, dear readers?

The position pretty much dried up in the 80s and 90s. The game shows went away or into syndication where Brett Sommers and Tom Poston hogged most of the panels.

But then reality television came along! Panelists are back! In some cases you need to be an expert in a certain field. But even then – Ellen DeGeneres a judge on AMERICAN IDOL? Piers Morgan judging talent? That’s like me judging the Westminster Dog Show.

In some cases the panelists on these shows can’t even string a sentence together. Or they just fall back on inane catch phrases and cliches. Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the only AMERICAN IDOL judge to survive all the changes is Randy Jackson?

So I’m officially proclaiming to producers – I’m available to be a panelist. Quiz shows, talent shows, style shows, snarkoramas, political forums, sports roundtables, you name it. If there’s a desk I want to be behind it. I will even bring my own Coke cup. I’m ready. I’m highly motivated. And I am even willing to work five hours a week.

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My comments on your comments

My Super Bowl Commercials post has generated a lot of comments. Worth checking them out. Mind if the ol’ blogmeister responds?

Reader Carol thought the kid kissing the girl at the prom was inappropriate and disturbing. When I was ten there was a girl in my class I had a huge crush on. One day, for unfathomable reasons, I decided to approach her during lunch and give her a big kiss. She clocked me in the head with her lunchbox. Lesson definitely learned.

To clarify – I said the dialect was borderline racist. I can see how it could be taken both ways.

The Oprah ad didn’t move me because I find her so disingenuousMaybe if she bought all the servicemen a car…

It also annoys me when a company wraps itself in a flag to sell cars.

Apparently the supermodel/dork kiss required 45 takes. You think the girl would know how to kiss.

I liked Todd’s comment. “What does it say about the advertising industry today when far-and-away the most effective message was written by a dead radio guy?”

Does it seem like the common denominator in all these ads was: “dad is stupid?”

I didn’t mind the sub-par fidelity of the Paul Harvey ad. It just added to the sense that he was coming back from the great beyond. Oh, and I bet it didn’t take him 45 takes.

The Kaley Cuoco Toyota spot confused me because I didn’t know what it was selling. Chocolate maybe, then Sirius-XM radio, finally it was a car. Why would I buy a car based on that ad? And there’s another example of excess. How much did it cost to do the effects on the witches gag? And was it worth it? Was it even funny?

What does a fish have to do with Beck’s Sapphire beer?

For a far better and funnier version of the Leon Sandcastle bit, see the Felix Hernandez Mariners commercial from a couple of years ago.

And finally, Chris thought I was a little “crotchety” for telling Beyonce and her army of singers to get off my lawn. He’s probably right.

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Super Bowl commercials were not funny

How many times did you laugh at a Super Bowl commercial yesterday? Three times? Five maybe?

Now let’s do the math: Each 30 second spot cost $4,000,000. The production value on all of these commercials was lavish. Safe to say at least $1,000,000? Probably closer to $2,000,000. So think of all the commercials over a four-hour period and hundreds of millions had to be spent on them.

Five laughs.

And the blackout was funnier than any of them.

That’s a pretty bad average.   Maybe thirty mil per laugh?

In the future, how about hiring really funny comedy writers to conceive these high-profile commercials? I’m sorry Mad Men but you’re not delivering. For the most part Sunday’s commercials were just rehashes of similar concepts and tired elements.

Bad slapstick, anthropomorphic animals, slacker “dudes”, hot women and nerds, movie parodies, cameos of actors looking like idiots, goofy production numbers, borderline-racist dialects, and the oldest, unfunniest schtick of all-time – elderly people acting hip. God, can we finally, once and for all, and forever retire that musty gag? The people in that commercial weren’t born the last time it was funny.

The other thing I noticed during this barrage of forced humor was how out-of-touch most of these ads appeared to be. Senior proms, mother-in-law jokes, a guy mortified because he’s holding a pair of panties, and a whole bunch of astronaut ads. Astronauts? Is this 1969?

In their zeal to top each other, in their quest to stand out, Madison Avenue Agencies have turned this friendly competition into an escalating war. And the end result – most of the spots misfire. They're mini ISHTARS.  And they break the first rule of advertising – they don’t sell the product.

How many times were you watching an ad saying, “What is this for?” You think it might be for chocolate and it turns out to be a car. The zany old codgers spot was for Taco Bell. Huh????

They also break a cardinal rule of comedy: You need information before you find something funny. If you’re confused you don’t laugh. And quite a few of these spot so bombarded you with quick cuts, and crazy costumes, and stunts that you had no idea what was happening. I’m sure there were storyboards and the agency tools walked the clients through the spots and they all made sense on poster board, but when they were filmed and edited together they became one dizzying jumble of ideas and images.

It’s time to step back. Time to think of new approaches. Maybe a new pace. Less might be more. Same with the halftime show, by the way. Instead of an extravaganza that only Wayne Newton could love, how about putting Adele at mid-field, give her a mic, and let her blow away the world by just singing? You’ll have a better show and you won’t blow out the electricity in three states.

Why does everything have to be high concept? One of the funniest spots was for Best Buy. Amy Poehler as a customer just asking questions elicited way more laughs than robots beating the shit out of a guy because he kicked a tire.

Interestingly, I thought the two most effective commercials were the Budweiser Clydesdale spot and the Dodge Truck ad featuring Paul Harvey’s essay on farmers. They worked because they were emotional. I imagine in both cases the client was pitched these:

For Budweiser: The Clydesdale farts and because he’s such a big horse the fart knocks down a whole grandstand and two slackers spill their beer and yell out at the horse, “Dude!” Now we do a kind of cool Quentin Tarantino thing here – we have the horse talk like Samuel L. Jackson in DJANGO – and the horse says “Nex’ time you no be drinkin’ Bud I stomp on yo’ ass. You can be’lee dat!”

For Dodge Trucks: We want to sell this to farmers so we see him gathering all his wheat or corn or whatever shit he farms. Maybe throw in a few cows, I don’t know. But his barn is completely filled with his farm… produce/whatever. Then he gets a call. “Remember tomorrow is a farmer’s market.” “Oh, hell, how do I transport all this … produce/hay/beans/whatever?” Next shot is the farmer’s market. People are setting up their stands. And here comes our guy. He’s got his whole barn in the cab of his trusty Dodge truck. Now the farmers look up in awe, and we get a famous farmer – Eddie Albert – the guy from GREEN ACHRES – to say, “And I hear he gets good gas mileage too.”

Hire professionals. There are many comedy writers who can bring in a laugh for under $30,000,000. And think of all the money you'll save on space suits alone!

What were your favorite and least favorite Super Bowl commercials?  

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For those who don't know who Paul Harvey is

Here's a repost from 2009 when Harvey passed away.  His Super Bowl commercial was so good that I'm becoming a farmer.

On Friday night I signed off my radio show on KABC at 7:00 and was followed by Paul Harvey News and Comment. It wasn’t actually Paul Harvey, it was someone filling in for him doing a woeful impression. But I drove away feeling very proud that I was on the same radio station as the great Paul Harvey.

Paul Harvey passed away on Saturday. He was only 90.

I’m sure there will be tributes galore the next few days. They will talk about his influence. For almost 60 years he broadcast on the ABC radio network. At one time he was heard on over 1200 radio stations. They’ll praise the uniqueness of his delivery. They’ll all end their pieces with … “And now you know the rest of the story” thinking that no one else thought of that.

But they’ll probably overlook the one attribute that I think was his real genius. Paul Harvey was the greatest salesman that ever lived. I used to listen to him every chance I got, not for the news, not for the profile of the guy who invented leotards, but for the commercials. He was absolutely spellbinding. He made every product sound like something you just had to have. He was so convincing even I went out and bought Bose speakers and arthritis medicine… and I don’t even have arthritis. (I did stop short of Amway products though.)

I must say I have a soft spot for pitchmen. At State Fairs I always make a beeline to the tent where guys in bad suits and worse toupees are selling car wax and miracle vacuum cleaners. I love hearing their spiels. There’s a genuine art to being persuasive. And I always think, these hawkers are good, but Paul Harvey could sell them a miracle vacuum cleaner, and they know it’s a piece of crap.

What was his secret?

He truly communicated. He talked right to YOU. In words you could understand. He looked straight into your eyes even on the radio. He spoke with conviction, enthusiasm, and all of his arguments made so much doggone sense. Someday I may get arthritis so I better have this stuff just in case.

He ended every broadcast with: “This is Paul Harvey”… and then a beat, “Good day.” Forevermore that beat will be a moment of silence for radio’s greatest newscaster and Madison Avenue’s greatest Mad Man.

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The "Lost" CHEERS Super Bowl scene

For several years I've been talking about the "Lost" CHEERS scene. David and I wrote it for the 1983 Super Bowl Pre-game show to promote our fledgling series. They ran it just before game time and it was seen by 80,000,000 people. Nothing we've ever written before or since has been seen by that many eyeballs at one time. But the scene was never repeated. It never appeared on any DVD's. It just disappeared.

Until a couple of years ago.

Sportswriter supreme, Joe Resnick has taped every Super Bowl including that one. And since the scene aired so close to the game, it was on the tape. Thanks to friend of the blog, Howard Hoffman, he was able to digitize it and post it on YouTube.  Here's the text of the scene.

So here it is. The Super Bowl is next.

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The best way to watch MASH

When we did MASH back in the Dark Ages (the 1970’s), it was a pre-digital world. The show was shot in 35 mm film. All of the editing was done by physically splicing film. Today everything is edited on computers. Point and click.  You watch the process on monitors. But back in the ‘70s (when dinosaurs still roamed the earth) the only way we could see a rough cut of an episode was to go a screening room and watch it on the big screen. We couldn’t hit pause or rewind. The projectionist ran the show and we gave editing notes on the fly. If there was something specific we wanted to see we would schlep up to the editing building and watch the scene on a Movieola, which was like a viewmaster attached to a projector. The screen was maybe eight inches. So it’s like our viewing choices were either Imax or iPhone.

Once the show was edited the post production process began. The film was color corrected, the sound fixed, credits added, and of course the damn laugh track was added.

When it was all completed, one of us on the staff had to drive to the lab in Hollywood and screen the finished product one last time just to make sure everything was perfect. I was not the most conscientious watchdog. “My name is spelled correctly?  It's fine.  Send it off.”

But seriously, I was struck by how dazzling the print was. The colors were amazingly vivid.

Then I’d watch the show on CBS the following Monday night and it never looked as good.

Once we approved the final product the show was shipped to CBS. They transferred it to videotape and that’s what they aired. First off you lost a generation due to the transfer. And then for whatever reason CBS’s color was off just a bit. The hue was a degree or two red. Red and green don’t mix and on the air the show always looked just a touch drab. This was true of most CBS shows back then. ABC was super-bright, and NBC had to best, richest color – at least to my eye.

Once in syndication the picture quality of MASH varied wildly. Depending on the quality of the print, what generation it was, the station that was airing it, and the passage of time it could look passable or your grandpa's home movies.

Why do I bring this up? Because the DVD’s of MASH look better than they ever did when they first aired. They look the way I expected after screening the final cuts. I haven’t watched any of the series on Netflix (if it’s even on Netflix) so don’t know how it compares to the DVD’s. But if you want to revisit MASH, the DVD’s are the way to go. And you can turn off the goddamn laugh track.

It always used to drive me crazy watching MASH on the air. I’d fiddle with the color and could never get it right. No one else in America had the advantage of seeing the pristine 35 mm version first so no one knew the difference. And again, it’s not a big thing – but it made me nuts.

Now, finally, after almost forty years, I can watch and really enjoy MASH episodes… except that I can’t

Now I’m constantly thinking “we could do a better joke here”, “there’s got to be a more clever ending to that scene”, “that explanation was a little clumsy,” etc. I’m hoping that somehow in the next forty years technology will fix that too.

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Friday Questions

My posts on writing this week elicited quite a few Friday Questions. Thought I’d answer them while the subject matter is still fairly fresh.

Ron asks:

If you're writing a spec script should you target network or cable and also a specific network, i.e., TBS or FX, etc

Write the best pilot you can and then decide whom it’s best for, not the other way around. Don’t try to outguess the marketplace. Producers and agents are looking for original material, not the next FX show. Write something great and let all these networks fight over you.

The Curmudgeon wonders:

You're in the writers' room and someone pitches a joke and everyone laughs -- who remembers the exact joke and how? Is there somebody there who used to work for the CIA, who's had their sense of humor surgically removed, available to record these pearls as they issue? I mean, the inspiration strikes, you pitch a line, everyone laughs -- but who catches the exact line?

Tom Reeder, one of my favorite comedy writers, graciously answered this in the comments section, but it’s worth re-printing in case there are one or two of you who don’t read every comment.

In response to The Curmudgeon: The writer who pitched the line usually remembers what he or she said, and if not, there are a couple of writers' assistants in the room. It's their job to record the pearls that are produced in the room.

The writers' assistant who is at the keyboard types in the proposed change; everyone looks at it on the monitors, and most of the time it's correct -- as pitched. Once in a while, someone will say, "The way David pitched it, he had 'corn nuts' at the end." That gets fixed, and then the showrunner says the words we all love to hear: "Moving on."

Thanks, Tom. Okay, moving on…

From Wade:

Ken, you've mentioned a number of times that scripts today are by and large developed in the room and that, with the exception of a few rare individuals, no one person could write a script (i.e. from concept to final shooting draft) for shows as they are produced today.

That being the case, how are the scripts written by prospective/aspiring writers regarded when they are being assessed by potential agents, producers, etc? Are they still expected to be as good as a room written script?

Yes. Unfortunately, your spec is expected to be as good or better than the show itself. No, that’s not fair but that’s the way it’s always been.

Although, in fairness, if I’m reading a spec that’s not a home run but detect a real spark – a very funny voice, or terrific banter, or maybe very clever storytelling, that alone could get my attention. I understand that the writer is not seasoned, but if I think there’s some genuine raw talent I might be inclined to give him a shot.

Michael queries:

Do you think being a team made it easier or harder for you and David to get hired for your first staff jobs? Did you get paid less than if you were solo?

It made it easier because the scripts were better. Yes, writing teams have to split salaries but I’ve always believed that, in our case, the quality of the work was better as a result of the partnership and that ultimately we had a better and longer career. Half of something was a whole lot better than all of nothing.

To me the trade-off was worth it. And as you rise in your career you’re able to make better deals than just the Guild minimums so the money improves even if you’re in a team.

I also think that today it’s easier for teams to get hired because shows have smaller budgets and they get two writers for the price of one. 

From Ane:

I recently watched an episode of a series and noticed that an actress name was shown in the beginning of the episode, announcing she would be in it. This was not a regular of that series, but someone who had been in the show maybe 5 times all together in 6 seasons. I only noticed the name because she is the daughter of one of the regular cast members. But then she wasn't actually in that episode. Simply a mistake, or can actors get credited for more episodes than they're really appearing in? Say they're signed up for 3 episodes that season and only needed in two?

Actors who recur in series sometimes negotiate a deal for say 7 of 13. That means that they have to be paid for 7 episodes and get credit on those episodes whether they’re used or not. My guess, in this case, is that the actor was used in the episode and then his scene was cut. (And perhaps in the DVD his scene will be restored.)

In any event, it’s a fairly unusual occurrence.

I love when a character is killed at the end of one episode and then in the next there’s a scene of investigators standing over the dead body. The actor gets paid and a credit for lying still. Where do I get that job?

And finally, Carol has a question on my weekend posts about memorization:

How long does a television actor get to memorize their lines? It doesn't seem to me that they have a large amount of time for rehearsal or memorization!

They don’t. Soap opera actors have new half hour scripts every day. I don’t know how they do it.

Sitcom actors on multi-camera shows occasionally get entirely new scripts the day before they’re supposed to shoot. Occasionally, they get whole new scenes after the dress rehearsal. That can be a seven-page scene delivered to them an hour before they’re supposed to perform it in front of cameras and a live audience.

This happened to me on the very first episode I ever directed. It was a WINGS. I literally got the scene as the audience was being led in. I went to the actors backstage and just sort of roughed-out blocking in the make-up room. I told the cameramen to just get what you can and after the audience was released I’d go back and block and shoot the scene properly. You should have seen the four monitors. It was utter chaos. Camera were practically crashing into each other, swishing around trying to follow the actors. The NBC executive on hand had not been briefed on this new scene. He watched in utter horror. After the scene was over I said, “Great, moving on!” The NBC guy was practically apoplectic. I said I was trying something stylistically and it would look great on the air. The showrunners picked up on this and said they were on board. The NBC guy left when the audience did and I bet he was surprised to see the show on the air with that scene perfectly blocked.

Your questions are ALWAYS appreciated. Just leave them in the comments section. Thanks!

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