The Brian Williams saga

Okay. This is going to be interesting. Let’s see how NBC plays this.

Their lead anchor, the “face” of NBC News has been caught in an unbelievable lie. It’s the kind of whopper that potentially destroys all of his credibility. On the other hand, Brian Williams’ newscast is number one among the networks. In how many day parts can NBC claim they’re number one?  Can they afford to lose him?

But backing up. I’ve never been to a war zone, but I would imagine that if I were in a helicopter that was shot down I would remember the details. Unless of course, I made it up. And then the details might shift. Ooops. I was really in the other helicopter. No, wait. I was at the Ritz-Carlton.

Someone on Facebook wondered if he was also in the Bronco with O.J. I don’t know who said that but wanted to acknowledge that someone other than myself came up with it. No, wait. Maybe that was my line. Yeah, I said it last night when I guested on Letterman. (No one will be able to fact-check to see if I really was on Letterman.)

If I were fudging somewhat on the details of being in a helicopter that was shot down (like whether the incident even occurred) I might not want to go on national television to tell my story. Yes, NBC is ratings-challenged, but there have to be some people out there who were present and could blow the whistle. Seriously, what the hell was he thinking?

At the moment he and the network are in mega damage control mode. There’s more tap dancing than a Busby Berkeley musical. PR people, lawyers, spin doctors, probably even Oprah are huddling in hopes of defusing this bomb.

But is it too late? It was for Dan Rather at CBS when he reported a bogus story about President Bush’s military service. And it’s not like Dan was part of the story. Can Brian Williams withstand this huge blow to his credibility?

To me this poses two questions: Will NBC value ratings over credibility? And is credibility even that important anymore? It should be.  It used to be. It used to be the bedrock of a news organization. Of course now, all news organizations are mis-calling elections, reporting people dead who are still alive, and airing scoops that prove to be false. They all have to make so many apologies that the retraction segments should be sponsored. (I bet this is the only time Aaron Sorkin is sorry he’s no longer doing THE NEWSROOM.)

Finally, I must say I take no joy in this story. I like Brian Williams. He has a sense of humor. He seems like a good guy. But I grew up in an era where our news anchors were pillars of integrity and trust. I can’t imagine Walter Cronkite saying, “Oh wait. I wasn’t in a helicopter that got shot down, I was guesting on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW that week.”

It will be fascinating to see how this all plays out. What do you guys think?

One solution could be:  THE NBC NIGHTLY NEWS WITH ALLISON WILLIAMS. 

UPDATE:  Brian Williams announced he is "stepping away" from NBC News for a few days.  Probably to get a jump on Valentine Day's shopping. 

Read More

Friday Questions

Ready for some more Friday Questions?

Dan Ball gets us started.

What's the quickest amount of time you and David had to turn around the most amount of writing?

A rewrite of JEWEL OF THE NILE, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. There was a looming WGA strike and they had to have a draft to give to the Moroccan government for approval of shooting in their country. We pretty much had a weekend to rewrite the entire screenplay.

We usually worked with a writers’ assistant taking dictation. We hired two and just rotated them. It was a crazy lost weekend.

Carolyn wonders:

With approximately 5 million actors in LA , why do some shows use the same actors over and over for different characters? We've been watching a LOT of MeTV, and I think, for instance, William Schallert has appeared on _everything_ at least three times. More lately, there is a webpage that lists "repeat offenders" on Law & Order, with some actors guesting four or five times, again, playing different characters.

They keep getting hired because they’re reliable, know the drill, and can give a solid performance. It’s simply a “set it and forget it” deal.  And in some cases, they are favorites of certain showrunners.

But the downside is that these character actors do get over-exposed. There have been many times a casting director will suggest someone for a guest spot and I’ll say, “Jesus, he’s been on every show since the dawn of man.” The last thing you want a viewer to say is “That guy again?” when an actor appears on the screen. It takes the viewer out of the story.

It’s always great when you can discover somebody new, but the truth is, quite often you’re pressed for time. You rewrite a script, add a part, it’s 5:30 in the afternoon and you’re scheduled to shoot the scene first thing the next morning. You don’t have time to hold a casting call. You say, “William Schallert could play this. Let’s just get him.”

I think on LAW & ORDER they have a rule where a guest actor can only appear once a season. But they sure use a lot of people. If you go to any Broadway or off-Broadway production and read the Playbill bios, virtually every actor will have LAW & ORDER on his resume.

Longtime friend of the blog, Wendy M. Grossman asks:

Do you think it's easier for a show that's not recorded in front of a live audience to lose its way creatively? For example, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER seemed to me to fall off a cliff quality-wise after about season 4 (and had some truly terrible episodes in its last couple of seasons).

There is always the danger of that when you’re no longer held accountable for your episodes. You work much harder to ensure the show is funny if you know there will be 200 strangers in the audience when you tape it. So yes.

But…

You can also be fooled by a studio audience, especially once a show is an established hit. Adoring audiences will start laughing at everything and give you a false sense of security. By the last few years of CHEERS, if I’m being honest, we didn’t have to earn any of the laughs. Norm would just enter and say “Afternoon everybody” and the audience would go into hysterics.  He didn't even say anything funny.  On the one hand it was very gratifying, but also hard to judge what really worked. Home audiences would be less enamored.

And finally, a long one from Steve:

In your post about creating characters, you mentioned making characters real, 3-dimensional people. But one question I've had concerns rather cartoonish characters on terrific shows, such as Frank on MASH, Ted on Mary Tyler Moore, etc.

Ted, for example, was so over-the-top stupid and could never actually earn or keep his job, but most thought of him as a hilarious character (although for me personally, he was often so ridiculous that it took me out of the show to some extent). Frank was such an obvious and pathetic villain. Yes, of course, once a season or so there'd be some episode that would give a Frank or a Ted some more nuance, but for the most part they were cartoons. (And replacing Frank with Charles was, to me, an improvement because although Charles could be ridiculous and a villain, he came across as an actual human being).

Can you comment on finding this balance between a cartoonish side character built for laughs and as a foil, versus the need to have characters who are at least somewhat realistic people?

You’re right. It is a real tightrope we have to walk. There is the temptation to lean towards cartoonish because the laughs come so easily. But those characters can undermine the integrity and quality of your show if you’re not careful. To make them work you need (a) a truly hilarious character, and (b) a brilliantly funny actor to play him. If either a or b is missing, the character won’t work. And if you have a and b it still might not work. 

Frank Burns was a harder sell than Ted Baxter. You could almost buy that a news anchor could get by on looks and delivery alone. I’m sure there are local news producers who would insist idiots like Ted do indeed exist.

But Frank Burns, military incongruities aside -- it’s really hard to believe this guy was an actual doctor. And we made him so incompetent and stupid. I look back and cringe at times.   But dirty little secret – God, he was fun to write.

Larry Gelbart has even said on record that he regrets making the character so one-dimensional and takes the blame. He sympathized with Larry Linville’s frustration in playing Burns.

But I was at MASH when Linville left and was subsequently there for the development of Charles. And the first thing we did was make sure we didn’t repeat the same mistakes. Yes, Charles was the antagonist, but we made him super smart – in fact, a better surgeon than even Hawkeye. He was a worthy adversary. And his superior attitude felt real. Hawkeye and BJ might have felt he was a pain in the ass, but they had to respect him. There was no reason for anyone to respect Frank Burns, and that was the big problem.

What’s your Friday Question?

Read More

Friday Questions on Thursday

The Friday Questions are starting to pile up so I thought I’d sneak in an extra day. Hope this doesn’t throw you and you take off from work early to get a jump on that ski weekend.

cd1515 asks:

The sitcom ads that I see now seem to promote beautiful people trying to be funny. I guess they're trying to copy the Friends model, but in your experience are beautiful people any less or more funny than average looking people?

Certainly there are beautiful people who are funny. But not as many as producers and networks would like – which is why you see the same faces appearing in pilots year after year.

The trouble comes when networks demand you ONLY cast attractive people. As a writer/producer, my priority is to cast people who are naturally FUNNY – either in appearance, voice, height, attitude, or body language.

Danny Devito was not who the producers of TAXI imagined for the role of Louie, but when he came in the room they saw the possibilities.

Nat Hiken, one of my idols, and the creator of SGT. BILKO used to say that if an actor came in to audition and he wanted to write a page of dialogue for him, that’s the actor he wanted. And just look who he chose (see above photo).

Same with his other series, CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU? Check out those mugs. Can you imagine any of them testing for FRIENDS?

Lis Riba asks:

Given Hollywood's penchant for remakes, why *haven't* we seen any attempts at rebooting M*A*S*H, given how successful it was?

Is it a case of Hollywood not asking, or is there a rights-holder refusing?

Usually when you remake a show you update it. How can you update MASH? It’s specific to a time and place. Plus, the original series is so iconic and still has so many viewers that it seems crazy to do another one. Imagine the poor actors who would be compared to Alan Alda, et al? Just like if they tried to remake I LOVE LUCY. Good luck to Kristen Wiig or whoever.

Billy Wilder always wondered why they remade hit movies. His feeling was you remake movies that didn’t work and fix them. There’s really no reason to remake MASH. But AfterMASH…

Terrence Moss wonders:

I just watched an episode of "The Jeffersons" written by Laura Levine.

Any relation?

Nope. No relation to writers Emily Levine or Deborah Joy Levine either. Just writer Annie Levine.

And finally, from Belle:

I recently saw an old interview with Glen and Les Charles where they talked about a spec script they wrote for MASH, which the writers liked, but featured too many outdoor shots for them to use at the time. I was just wondering if you have any similar stories of good ideas or scripts for the show that had to be thrown away for practical reasons?

No. There were a couple of spec MASH scripts that got our attention because of the writing, but we never used a story from any MASH spec. And trust me, we would have been happy to. At the very least we would have given the writer a story credit.

I remember we hired a freelance writer once based on a spec MAUDE he did. At the time you didn’t have to write a spec MASH to be considered.

What’s your Friday Question or Whatever-Day-It-Is Question?

Read More

Something fun to do (maybe)

A final thought on the DMV. It brings to mind a writing exercise. (“Hey, what the fuck? I’m getting homework from a blog?”)

Just as professional golfers will still go to the driving range and hit a bucket of balls, it never hurts writers to exercise their creative muscles.

And this is an assignment you never have to turn in.

But just as I did a post on my day at the DMV, see if you can write a one-page description of something that happened to you. And if you’re a budding comedy writer, try to make it humorous.

In selecting the topic to write, here is what you’ll find: Those incidents that caused you frustration work better. Comedy comes from tension. If you go to the market, find a parking space right out front, buy a lot of things on sale, and encounter no line at the check out stand you’ll have a much tougher time mining mirth than if you had gone to any Costco on any Saturday afternoon.

The exercise also teaches you to be observant. You’d be surprised how many funny things are going on around you all the time – you just have to recognize them.

So think.   Could you write a one-page account of the Super Bowl party you just attended? Or trying to do your taxes yourself? Or jockeying for position in the carpool line? Or going to the mall to buy a suit? Or trying to assemble some piece of Ikea furniture? You get the idea.

There used to be a radio commentator named Jean Shepherd. You may know him from A CHRISTMAS STORY. It was his story and he did the narration. For years he had a radio show on WOR in New York. For forty-five minutes a night he would just talk. Just tell stories.

I remember being in New York and catching his act one night. He talked about trying to get a piano moved into his apartment. I was enthralled for forty-five minutes. There’s a real art to storytelling.

If you ever start a podcast this is a real good skill to have.

Two friends of comedy are attitude and specificity. There’s gold in the details. And the piece comes alive when you have a take.  You can get a lot of humor from just your description of events if you do it with a point-of-view. 

Like I said, no one has to read it. You’re not being graded. You won’t even get extra credit. But it will sharpen your skills. And you don’t have to blow ten bucks on a bucket of balls (unless your story is your day at the driving range).  

Read More

How to develop a TV show

Got some interesting comments on a piece I posted last week about visiting the DMV. You can read it here if you missed it or repressed it.

A number of you suggested the DMV might be a good setting for a sitcom. You talked about all the wacky people the staff could encounter, etc. There must be plenty of goofy anecdotes that a writer could draw from. It’s an arena ripe for comedy.

You’d think it was a natural.  And it might be.

But it's also a big trap.

What you’ve developed is a setting not a series. Good shows start from characters.

So how would I develop this? I keep a file of interesting settings, funny possible characters, fragments of ideas – a lot of stuff I’ll end up never using. In that file, among the crap, will be the DMV.

Let's say that some time later I’m developing a series about a character who feels trapped. How does a person cope while trying to escape the chains of his life? I need to give him a job. What’s an arena that’s soul sucking and suffocating? Well, there are many to choose from, but that too is a trap. You need a boring job that won’t be boring for the audience.

Probably a good start is a work environment where he has to deal with the public. That also distinguishes it from THE OFFICE. So now I’m running through situations where the public is involved. A bank? A store maybe? But it’s conceivable there is advancement in either of those scenarios. It’s also conceivable that the employee could enjoy the job. If he sells used cars he could be a car freak. He could have a foot fetish and love selling shoes. I need a job that no one would want. When you think of a bank your first thought isn’t “nightmare.” I want a job that’s immediately identified with Hell.

This thinking would lead me to a government position, probably in civil service. First thought: Post Office. And since it was my first thought and the most obvious I immediately discard it. Besides, how much could I do in a Post Office? There’s one line of people. I’d want a venue with more activity. I’d also want a venue that most people can relate to. How many people in America have been to the Bureau of Consular Affairs?

I go to my file and voila – the DMV. To my knowledge there’s never been a series set in the DMV so that's another big plus.   (There may have been pilots but nothing that got on the air.)

But my next thought is how can I use this venue to best promote my theme? What if my lead guy has an aged mother? Her license is up for renewal but she can’t pass the eye or driving test. He has to fail his own mother. And since she can no longer drive he has to more or less become her chauffeur. And she’s bitter about it so that strains their relationship. Thus, he’s even more trapped and it’s his own fault.

I would next think about his co-workers. What would the dynamics be and what would his relationships be with them?   Might there be a character who has just checked out? Or one who has big plans?

At this point I would contact the DMV and see if I could spend a week there. I would talk to the employees, find out their real frustrations, and gather anecdotes. The more real I could make the world, the better.

After all of that had been assembled, then I would turn my attention to the possible wacky people who walk through the front door.

But the point is it’s a show about desperation, feeling trapped, spinning wheels – not a show about the DMV. And because the setting is filled with comic possibilities and my lead character has a strong drive, the series could be very funny.   See what I'm saying?  Same venue, different approach. 

Now if you steal it, I want shared credit.

Read More

My thoughts on the Super Bowl

WOW! A Super Bowl that lived up to the hype. And in true NFL fashion, an ugly unnecessary fight broke out with :18 seconds left in the game.

Congratulations to the New England Patriots. The victory parade will be in June once the snow melts.

And nothing holds down riots like blizzards. 

Malcolm Butler went from obscurity to Big Papi in one catch.

Some player won a big trophy before the game for being the only NFL player never arrested.

My favorite commercial: THE BRADY BUNCH Snickers spot with Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi.   Will there now be rumors that Danny Trejo slept with Florence Henderson?

With .36 seconds to go I couldn’t understand why Belichick didn’t call a time out. But as always, he was one step ahead of me. Let the clock run down, intercept the ball, then take a knee. The man is a genius.

As always, Al Michaels was as great as the game.

What was Pete Carroll thinking calling for a pass play on the two yard line? But I’m sure Patriot fans and USC fans were delighted.

Note to Idina Menzel: For once, just sing the fucking melody. It’s not about YOU. It’s about the song. Stop with the vocal gymnastics. We get it. You can belt. I thought her rendition of the National Anthem was atrocious. Meanwhile, John Legend’s version of “America the Beautiful” was understated, stirring, and elegant. As a general note: When you don’t need a microphone to be heard in the last row of a football stadium you are singing too loud.

Since they showed John Travolta in the stands, why didn’t they have him introduce Ms. Dazeem?

Ads cost $4.5 million for 30 seconds.  Scientology had an ad.  Pay up, Travolta. 

If you hated the Patriots before, this game will do little to change your sentiments.

Notice that NBC only promoted THE BLACKLIST, THE VOICE, and some new shows? None of their other primetime series got mentioned even once. And of those new shows, who isn’t excited about THE SLAP?

So if you tell your mom you love her you get free food at McDonalds? What if your mom is dead?

Does Bob Costas ever blink?

Big game for Julian Edelman, All-American from Yeshiva University.

It’s hard enough for voice over talent, now they have to compete with John F. Kennedy?

Were it not for the last second interception, the circus catch by Jermaine Kearse would go down in history as one of the greatest receptions of all time. Now it’s the Endy Chavez catch in game 7 of the 2006 NLCS.

After the game when Kurt Warner was bringing the Lombardi Trophy to the stage and all the players were touching and kissing it, I was yelling, “It’s not the Torah!”

How could a receiver as great as Chris Matthews not have a catch in three years before this Super Bowl?

Chevy thinks that chicks love trucks? I don’t know one Jewish guy who ever tried to impress a girl by buying a truck.

I enjoyed the Katy Perry halftime show, even if I couldn’t make out a word she was singing. But I liked what I assume was her salute to JAWS. And when she flew high above the field I thought, “In only five seconds this is way better than NBC’s PETER PAN.”

I loved her entrance, sitting atop a Seahawk nose tackle.

I guess Tom Brady can throw touchdowns with a fully inflated football.

A couple of my Tweets: Stay tuned after the Super Bowl as NBC tries to relaunch WHITNEY.

And… For the Super Bowl, hopefully the stadium is inflated. It looks like a giant Jiffy Pop bag.

Some of the commercials were depressing. I don’t want to be reminded of children tragedies and Kim Kardashian.

I miss the Bud Bowl. But glad to have the Clydesdales back.

The Nissan commercial that used Cat’s in the Cradle missed the entire point of the song. Great to hear my buddy, Howard Hoffman, on the spot though.  He was the announcer. 

Good luck getting Marshawn Lynch to talk at Media Day now.

So if you drop a Viagra into a Fiat gas tank the front hood will grow. She still won’t let you enter the garage.

The Victoria Secret ad was more provocative than Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.  

I’m only sorry this year’s game wasn’t in New York.

Mindy Kaling was not funny.  Again.  

The spot showing Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbal in 1994 and today was interesting. She looks much better now and he looks much worse.

The NFL Network had 84 hours of pre-game analysis. 83 hours proved to be wrong.

Bring on baseball!

Read More

The "Lost" CHEERS scene

A yearly tradition...

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.

Read More