Let's play Over-Under!

It’s always fun to involve you readers in a blog post. Today let’s play Over-Under! Over-under is a betting term. A certain number is assigned (like the total points for a particular football game) and people bet whether the final score will be either over or under that number.

But the category doesn’t have to be sports. Here are a few over-unders. I’m the self-appointed odds maker. Get your bets down.

THE OVER-UNDER…

…on Steven Soderbergh coming out of retirement -- 3 years. He’ll find a script or project that he just “had” to do. Or his investments will tank and he’ll run to OCEANS 16.

… on the number of new steroid charges implicating Alex Rodriquez – 5. If investigators dig deeply enough they’ll probably find his name among the Watergate burglars.

… on the number of stupid questions Sam Rubin will ask during the Oscars red carpet show – 25. The show is only an hour and he has a co-host.

… on the number of years Lena Dunham is the flavor-of-the-month – 3. Since she writes, directs, and acts you have to take Diablo Cody’s flavor-of-the-month tenure and multiply by three.

….on the number of years Seth MacFarlane hosts the Oscars – 1.

…on the number of shows Chuck Lorre will have on the air next year – 4. He’s the Dick Wolf of CBS.

…on the number of years before big movie star Nicole Kidman winds up on television starring in the spinoff, NCIS-WALLA WALLA – 3.

…on the number of times NBC develops a reboot of THE MUNSTERS – 37.

…on the number of years before big movie star Jennifer Aniston returns to television starring in RACHEL & ROSS – 2.   They have a baby and must deal with first-time parenthood.  NBC is going to do UP ALL NIGHT if it kills them. 

…on the number of years until Justin Bieber is performing at Six Flags Magic Mountain: 6. It would be 5 but he’ll be touring for a year in the national roadshow of BOOK OF MORMON.

…on the number of times Lindsay Lohan is arrested this year – 8. And none of them will be her fault.

…on the number of TWILIGHT sequels that will be released this year – 6. They hope to surpass the James Bond franchise of 50 films by June.

…on the number of years before Hugh Hefner leaves his latest wife Crystal Harris – 1. That’s when she turns 25 and will be too old for him.

…on the number of guys who look forward to Valentine’s Day – 0.

Feel free to weigh-in on these or offer your own.

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M*I*S*H M*A*S*H

By popular demand, more MASH stuff. (I never get this kind of reaction to my pitches for my book) Here are some random questions and thoughts:

How did we get the medical jargon? We had a consultant on staff, Dr. Walter Dishell. When writing the script, David and I would just slug in medical nonsense.

HAWKEYE: I think his freebazzber is ruptured.

BJ: You might have to gumenford him and eeknonoogle his interior norgalflagle.

HAWKEYE: Nurse, zignuts. Stat!
 
Walt would send the script back replacing the zignuts. Eventually we became more proficient in operating procedures and by the end of our tenure we were taking a crack at the jargon ourselves, just calling him and running the scene by him. One of our proudest moments on the show was once writing an OR scene that required no changes. Of course the patient did die.

If you’re writing a spec script like a GREY'S ANATOMY that requires medical-speak, consult a doctor to get it right.

When breaking stories, we would often call Walt and say something like, “Here’s what we need -- a patient that comes in with a bad fever. He becomes delusional that night. The next day he’s better. But that night he dies.” An hour later Walt would call back with Hemorrhagic Fever or some other exotic disease.

At MASH we also had a nurse on stage who served as our technical adviser. That is why you never saw Hawkeye operate with a band saw.

A few people commented on the number of inconsistencies in the show. Yes, a show bible might have been nice. To me there were two GLARING inconsistencies: Harry Morgan initially appeared as an insane general (maybe the funniest MASH episode EVER – “The General Flipped at Dawn”) and then later as Colonel Potter. And the other – we’re supposed to believe that eleven years of stories, main characters coming and going, actors aging over a decade, etc. all took place in less than two years.

The theme song, taken from the movie, “Suicide is Painless” was never sung on the series.

The show was shot at Twentieth Century Fox on Stage 9, and on location in Malibu canyon. A later brush fire destroyed most of the exterior sets. The sets from the stage are in the Smithsonian in Washington. I didn’t steal any of the props. I’m an idiot.

It took four days to shoot an episode. One day to read and rehearse, and three to film. One of the three shooting days would be out on location. But only until the end of Daylight Savings Time. After that the days were too short. The final six or seven episodes were always filmed exclusively on the stage, even the exterior scenes.

For my money the best episodes were written by Larry Gelbart and the team of Everett Greenbaum & Jim Frizzell.


I was there for the creation of Charles Emerson Winchester. The idea was to replace Frank Burns with a character that was very much his opposite. We all wanted Charles to be smarter and more gifted as a surgeon than Hawkeye or B.J. and, as opposed to Frank, a worthy adversary.

There were no auditions for the part. Producer Burt Metcalfe had seen David Ogden Stiers guesting on an episode of the MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and thought he’d be perfect. It was only after David was hired that we learned he could do that slight Boston accent.

MASH tribute sites have trivia contests. I often can’t answer questions from episodes I wrote.

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Rock stars given dress restrictions for the Grammys

Publicists, managers, record company executives (i.e. rock star wranglers) received an email this week from CBS essentially laying down a dress code.

It states:  "Please be sure that buttocks and female breasts are adequately covered. Thong type costumes are problematic. Please avoid exposing bare fleshy under curves of the buttocks and buttock crack.  Bare sides or under curvature of the breasts is also problematic. Please avoid sheer see-through clothing that could possibly expose female breast nipples. Please be sure the genital region is adequately covered so that there is no visible 'puffy' bare skin exposure.

It goes on to say no product name or profanity can be printed on any garments.

This of course comes from Standards & Practices.   What makes this so amusing (at least to me) is that we're talking about the Grammys.  The music industry.   No one dresses more outrageously than the music industry.  That's part of their world.   CBS is going to tell Lady Gaga what meat is appropriate to wear? 


This of course stems from the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl a few years ago that caused a huge stir. There was talk of suing CBS for millions of dollars for destroying the lives of America's impressionable youth who were unexpectedly subjected to the shocking sight of Janet Janet's nipple... for less than a second. Live shows were put on delay as a result and our hypocritical puritan nation was shaken to its very roots for months.

This year, following in that proud tradition -- Beyonce sang at the Super Bowl. 

Remember the 2009 Oscars (a show seen by billions more people worldwide than the Super Bowl)?  Beyonce exposed her nipple for a fraction of a second and the reaction?

Nothing.

I think when you see this you'll agree -- American children were traumatized by the sight of Beyonce's nipple, and you're kicking yourself for deleting the Oscar telecast from your DVR menu.


And now we can't see the sides of breasts.  Oh well.  There's always the Oscars in a month. 

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Christina Applegate leaves UP ALL NIGHT

Last Friday it was announced that Christina Applegate has decided to exit UP ALL NIGHT in light of the format change from single camera to multiple camera (shot live before a studio audience). Since she was the star and best thing in that show I would say that’s a blow. But it’s just the latest in a series of tweaks, retooling, and rebooting that troubled series has undergone since even before its debut. UP ALL NIGHT has had more facelifts than Mary Tyler Moore. Showrunner-wise it’s been a revolving door. At what point do you say put it out of its misery? The expression we have in the writers room for all these changes is they’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

UP ALL NIGHT is a cautionary tale in what happens when you don’t have a strong vision for a show. Obviously, shows evolve – especially the first season – and the writers must be willing to see what works and gravitate towards that. And sometimes you get lucky and have a breakout character like the Fonz. But all of these can be accomplished if there’s still a strong foundation for what the series is.

When UP ALL NIGHT was originally conceived the focus was on a young couple coping with parenthood for the first time.  That's a solid concept.  Maya Rudolph was hired in a supporting role. Then BRIDESMAID hit and the decision was made to beef up Maya’s role. On the surface it sounds like “Just give Maya more to do.” But it’s more than that. What was the series about now? Was it about the couple or Christina juggling motherhood and her career? Those are two very different concepts. And from there the storyline kept changing.

When I first read about the Maya shift I thought back to the first pilot we created and produced. It was called CHARACTERS for NBC many years ago and was passed on for PINK LADY AND JEFF. But from day one CHARACTERS was like THE LIFE OF PI except the tiger was steering the boat. Here’s why:

I had read the book SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY about the formation of the Second City improv troupe in Chicago. Many great people came out of that group including the team of Mike Nichols & Elaine May. For about five years they were a national sensation.  (Good article about them in the recent comedy edition of Vanity Fair.) So our idea was to center the show on a Nichols & May-type team. And since me and my partner David always have a theme for our shows, this one was “can a man and woman work together and be friends without letting romance get in the way?” That seemed fresh and interesting. Yes, it was WHEN HARRY MET SALLY but ten years before that movie.

By making them a comedy team it also allowed for two naturally funny characters. It’s not like we had to create two wise-cracking morticians. And since our arena was the world of improv, all the side characters could be as wacky and Robin Williamiish as we wanted.

So that’s what we pitched to NBC. They loved it. Wanted just one little change. The book SEMI TOUGH was the current best-seller and it focused on a love triangle. NBC was looking to develop a triangle. What if the girl in our show had a boyfriend? It would be an added complication. The network people all got very excited in the room. Something felt wrong about it to us but we couldn’t put our finger on it. And we this close to selling our first pilot. So we agreed to do that.

A fatal mistake.

The major flaw was if the Nichols & May team were just friends there was no triangle because Nichols posed no threat. And the added complication just undermined the theme. This became clear the minute we tried to break the story.

But we pressed on, filled the scripts with jokes, and did the best we could to massage the story. We hoped that when they read the draft they would see that the triangle was just shoehorned in and not necessary. No. They liked that part the best. In fact, that’s why they greenlit the pilot to be shot.

Now we faced casting problems. Originally we could have hired a weird nerdy-looking guy. Now we had to find someone handsome enough to be a threat yet still quirky and zany. We had to find a boyfriend not so handsome that it wouldn’t be a contest. And finding the girl was a bitch. We’d bring in gifted comediennes and NBC would reject them because they weren’t pretty enough to attract two guys.

Somehow we put it together and found a terrific cast. Maggie Roswell played the girl, Philip Charles MacKenzie played her partner, and Terry Lester played her boyfriend. All did a terrific job. But I remember standing on the stage on the night we filmed it. The audience was laughing and an NBC exec said, “This has a great chance of getting on.” And I thought, “Holy shit! Then what do we do? How do we make 13 more of these? Or even 3? I have no idea what this series is about.”

Needless to say, when PINK LADY AND JEFF got the nod over us I wasn’t crushed. (Although, full disclosure: when I saw the pilot of PINK LADY AND JEFF I did say, “What the fuck?!  We lost to THAT?”)

The point is if you don’t have a solid premise and a real handle on what the series is you be in the writers room up all night every night.  

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Friday Questions

Warming you up with Friday Questions….

Michael Stoffel asks:

Would you prefer to completely wrap a season before it even starts airing ala the upcoming season of COMMUNITY.  Or have the flexibility to change course after public input, like THE GOOD WIFE did this season when they had to dump Kalinda's husband because the storyline was so detested.

I would prefer the flexibility of receiving viewer feedback, especially if I were doing a single-camera show. If you’re doing a multi-cam show you have studio audiences to tell you whether things are working or whether a certain character is really start to break out.

And yes, it’s tough when you have the whole season in the can, they start airing, and there’s a character or story arc (a la Kalinda’s husband on THE GOOD WIFE) that the audience clearly doesn’t like and you have ten more shows that go down that road. It’s a bitch to make mid-course corrections but it’s nice to have that option.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s a God send to produce your show in a vacuum. Everything is fine, everybody loves everybody – and then the show premieres – the reviews and ratings come in. And suddenly it’s a mutiny. You long for the days of blissful ignorance.

From Pete Grossman:

How are full length scripts presented today? Are they still submitted on paper? Printed on both sides of the paper to be environmentally friendly? Or, have paper scripts gone the way of the dodo - submitted electronically and being read on computer screens, tablets, etc,? Then if liked, printed out and delivered to clients, talent, etc? Thanks!

A lot of scripts are now submitted electronically. PDF files. When scripts are delivered to a network (either the pilot of episodes) there are numerous departments that receive them. In the past, a messenger would drop off a package of twelve or twenty scripts. I don’t know if that’s still the policy or if the scripts are just emailed.

Agencies do still have printed copies of scripts. There are still actors, producers, directors, etc. who prefer printed copies. If I have to give notes I prefer printed scripts, although there are programs that allow you to electronically make notes on files. But that’s way too technical for this nimrod. 

And of course, when a script is in production then everybody works off printed copies.

Justin Hyde chimes in:

Saw an old clip of Kirstie Alley hosting SNL with the rest of the "Cheers" crew popping up in the monologue, and it made me wonder: How much writing work do show writers do for their stars when they go on talk shows or other off-duty appearances?

Generally not very much. Although once on CHEERS the producers agreed to participate in a Disney special – Mickey Mouse’s birthday or bar mitzvah or something, and there was a scene where Mickey enters the bar and interacts with our characters. The Disney people wrote the scene and it was uh... lacking. Michael Eisner called Jimmy Burrows and asked if the CHEERS staff could rewrite it as a favor. We were happy to. It took maybe a half hour.   The following week we all received these giant goody bags of Disney merchandise – stuffed animals, VHS tapes, phones, jackets, watches, etc. At the time most of us had small children so these were the coolest gifts ever. If we had gotten paid we probably would have each made two or three times what those gift bags cost, but in many ways the bags were better.

I remember a story about Desi Arnaz. He was Lucy’s husband on I LOVE LUCY (and also in real life). He also produced the show. One Saturday morning he called one of the show's writing teams – Bob Schiller & Bob Weiskopf – and said he had just accepted a last minute invitation to speak at a roast. Could they come over and give him some material? They spent the afternoon crafting a monologue. Desi thanked them profusely.

The next morning the two writers woke up to find brand new Cadillacs sitting in their driveways. And you wonder why writers loved working for Desi Arnaz.

And finally, from Andrew:

Just caught your "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" Frasier episode on Netflix. I thought the writing was even stronger than on the Emmy winning pilot, "The Good Son". Did you think while sitting at that Emmys that you had a shot at winning?

No. The best we had hoped for was maybe a tie. Pilots almost always win and that’s fair. There is so much more involved in writing a great pilot – the story, setting up the premise, introducing the characters, establishing the tone and style. Casey, Lee, and Angell deserved winning that Emmy. This was one case where I truly was thrilled just to be nominated.

What's your question?  Leave it in the comments section.  Thanks, gracias, and mahalo.  

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This is 40 -- this is my review

Maybe if everybody stops calling Judd Apatow a comic genius he can make some good movies again. I laughed a lot at THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. I liked KNOCKED UP (despite its length and Katherine Heigl). And SUPER BAD (which he only produced) was a riot. Then Hollywood anointed Apatow as a master comedy filmmaker. Uh oh. Now he’s editing Vanity Fair comedy issues, moderating panels, the subject of retrospectives, going on talk shows, putting his name above the title – and every movie he’s made since has fizzled. He seems to have forgotten the first rule of comedy – don’t take yourself too seriously.

You stop thinking “what would audiences want to see?” and start thinking, “what would I want to see?” You assume that since you have your finger on the pulse, anything that interests you must surely fascinate everyone else.

And now we have THIS IS 40, clocking in at a brisk 2 hours and 13 minutes. Here’s the premise: a spoiled upper-middle class couple of Brentwood assholes who live in a huge house in the exclusive section of Los Angeles Judd Apatow lives in are bothered that they’re entering middle age.  Not a big problem plus you hate them.  To combat this crippling crisis they whine and try stuff.

Clearly, turning 40 was a major issue for… Judd Apatow. And if it weren’t obvious enough that this was all about Judd Apatow, he cast his own wife and children in the movie. His kids, to be fair, were terrific! But Leslie Mann? Let’s compare Leslie Mann for a moment to Julie Bowen of MODERN FAMILY. Similar role. Similar age. Similar hair. Julie plays real, natural, and the comedy – verbal or physical -- seems almost effortless. Leslie Mann, mugs and is working hard every minute. God bless her for trying but there are better, more skilled Julie Bowens or Sandra Bullocks or Nancy Travis' out there.
 

And does Paul Rudd now have to star in every romantic comedy? He’s becoming the Ryan Seacrest of the silver screen. I’m a big fan of Paul Rudd and I’m saying, “let’s give someone else a chance, shall we?”

Rule number two in comedy is don’t wear out your welcome. Keep it short. Film comedies work best at about 90 minutes. FUNNY PEOPLE was 2 hours and 26 minutes. Holy shit! That’s longer than CHINATOWN. 

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE was only 2 hours and 1 minute.

UNFORGIVEN was a mere 2 hours and 11 minutes.

The story meanders. Perhaps that's because the subject matter isn't particularly compelling.  Scene after scene is just cobbled together. Paul learns that he has big money problems and should sell his house. Four or five scenes later he’s taking Leslie to a swank resort hotel for a weekend celebration. Huh?

HURT LOCKER was only 2 hours and 11 minutes.

Still, all of this would be forgiven if the movie was funny and for the most part it’s not. Lots of obvious crass sex jokes and on-the-nose set pieces. Leslie is trying to give Paul a blowjob while the kids are outside banging on the door. Leslie and Paul keep yelling, “Stop that!” “We’ll be out in a minute!” and the kids keep banging until finally Leslie gives up and that’s that. Not what you’d call inspired lunacy. In the hotel sequence they get high on marijuana cookies (haven't we seen that scene in fifty other movies and sitcoms since 1966?) and are silly when the room service waiter arrives. Paul takes a banana off the tray and says “it looks like a dick!” then he takes a bite and says, “I’m eating a dick!” Wow. Now an argument can be made that the point was he was stoned and not as funny as he thought he was, but you could also achieve the same value and give him hilarious, outrageous, goofy, inappropriate things to say. (See the BARNEY MILLER version written by Tom Reeder.  You'll be on the floor.) I think the pre-genius Apatow would have. Judd Apatow can write a funny line as well as anybody in the business… IF he wants to. IF he’s willing to put in the effort. “I’m eating a dick” and many other lines in the film are just plain lazy. So is doing a sequence in a ritzy hotel when you've established financial problems.  Not worthy of a comedy master. 

THE KING’S SPEECH was only 1 hour and 51 minutes.

I know there are Judd Apatow haters. They resent everything he does. I’m not one of them.  I admire his achievements and think he's enormously talented.   And he has a golden opportunity. At least for now he can make any movie he wants.  So if I may offer some constructive advice:  Step back. Get out of your head. Instead of making a raunchy sex farce disguised as an important incisive look at modern mores (and don’t kid yourself – when you send out screeners and copies of the screenplay you’re trolling for Oscars), find a good comic premise, just have fun with it, don't try to top yourself, keep Leslie Mann at home, keep it at 90 minutes, and make an entertaining movie the whole family can enjoy that isn’t just your whole family. I will be the first in line.

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Punching the puppet

One of the dangers of writing a spec for an existing show is that you land on a story that they are already in the process of doing. You finish your script and see the same story next week on the show. You want to throw yourself in front of a bus.

A few thoughts before you lay down in the street:

The fact that you came up with a story similar to theirs says that you’re on the right track; you have a good feel for the show. Take that as an encouraging sign. 

Readers are not going to hold it against you that you did something similar to what was shot. Obviously, if they did the story last season and you just now are writing it, then yeah – do your homework. But if your spec treads on something recent, people understand that those things happen.

Yes, you won’t sell that spec to that show now, but realistically, you probably wouldn’t have anyway. Except for super rare cases, the best you could hope for is that the show’s producers are impressed and call you in to do another episode for them. But you'd be happy with that I imagine.

And finally, should you find they’ve done your story it can be a great learning experience.  You can compare the way you handled the story to the way they did. This happened with my partner David and me when we wrote our spec for THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW.

In our case, it was several months after we had finished the script that we saw essentially the same story on the air. (No, we never felt they stole the idea. By the time our script was submitted to them this episode was already in the can.) And it was a real eye-opener.

Here’s why:

The story (ours and theirs) was that Murray becomes unhappy writing the news for WJM. He gets another job offer. He discovers that the new job is worse and enlists Mary’s help in getting him his old job back.

In ours, he gets an offer from a competing station to write their newscast and takes that job. We then do a scene where Murray comes over to Mary’s apartment to explain that he’s miserable, the new job isn't what he thought, and could Mary talk to Lou on his behalf? This puts Mary in a tough spot because Murray had burned some bridges with Lou and now Mary is right in the middle. Sounds like a viable story, right?

They did practically the same thing… with one exception. Instead of taking a job at a competing station, Murray accepted a position working for Sue Ann. And it was like a light bulb went on over my head. Instead of a character telling another character how bad things were, we SAW it. There was a hilarious scene where Mary and Lou came down to Sue Ann’s set and observe first-hand what a nightmare this new job was for Murray. I don’t remember the particulars. I just recall it was a hilarious scene, involved the central cast characters, and at one point Lou punches a puppet.

But it was a great lesson. Find a way to SHOW something rather than hear about it later. A teacher could have told us that in a writing lecture but it never would have made the impression that the MTM episode did.

And by the way, we got our first assignment – THE JEFFERSONS – off that MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW spec.

So take heart. All is not lost if your spec resembles a recent episode of that show. In fact, in some cases it can be a real plus.

UPDATE:

Thanks to reader Rob, here's that MTM episode.

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