Checks 'n' Balances

Every so often, I receive a residual check for some TV show I've written. I've gotten eight or nine from the Writers Guild in the past week and I think so far, they total under ten bucks. The lowest is for an episode I wrote for Bob, the sitcom in which Mr. George Robert "Bob" Newhart played a comic book artist. The check was for a nickel. Fortunately, I do not have to give my agent back then 10% on residuals.

I was shocked…but not at the amount. I was shocked that Bob is still running somewhere.

Actually, that one may even be worth less than a nickel to me because I may not be able to cash it. It was made out to a personal corporation I no longer have (but did when I wrote that episode) and interestingly, addressed to my then-agency which is no longer in business. Fortunately, the way residuals work, it wasn't sent to that now-extinct agency. It was sent to the Guild which forwarded it directly to me. That's just one of about eighty thousand services the WGA does for its members. I'm guessing I could persuade my bank to accept it anyway and if not, I could send it back to its maker for a name change…but it is, after all, for five cents. It's of more value as a conversation piece. Or scratch paper.

Such checks are not uncommon. One day one year, I sat down to lunch with Howie Morris, a wonderful actor/friend I miss very much. He hauled out a large wad of checks he'd just received. "I guess lunch is on you," I said…but he responded, "Take a look at some of these." They were mostly from Hanna-Barbera shows like The Flintstones and Atom Ant and there was even one in there for the episode of The Jetsons in which he played rock idol Jet Screamer and sang, "Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah." The tune went something like this…

No, come to think of it, it went exactly like that. That was, by the way, Howie's first voice job for H-B and the first such gig he had in Hollywood when he moved out here from New York.

After lunch, Howie began endorsing those checks and being a good forger, I helped out. This was back when he was doing autograph shows and selling his signature for ten, sometimes twenty dollars…but here he was writing it over and over for an average of about eleven cents. I suggested he get a rubber stamp made but he said, "No, they cost eight dollars and I'd lose money on the deal." The whole inch-thick pile turned out to be around forty dollars.

There is or was (I'm not sure of the proper tense) a bar in the valley called Residuals — a place where actors and writers could congregate and drink their checks. If you brought in one for under a buck, they'd give you a beverage in exchange and then put the check up on the wall. Makes you feel sorry for the poor guy who gets one for $1.01. If it had been for the amount of my Bob check, it might have bought something.

Every so often in one of the above-the-line Hollywood guilds, someone has a brainstorm. Whenever Paramount or Universal or any studio processes and sends a check, it costs them ‐ by some accounts — around ten bucks per transaction. If it's that, they spent $10.05 to send me my nickel Bob check.

Such checks have prompted many to suggest the following bargain: The union and the employer agree that the latter will pay no check under, say, ten bucks directly. Instead, they will triple the amount and give it to the proper union's pension and/or health fund. Obviously, the precise numbers can be juggled a bit but there's surely a configuration where it would be a win/win for both sides. The studios would spend less. The writers, actors or directors would get more, albeit indirectly.

Why hasn't this been instituted? The producers would go for it in a flash. So, I have a feeling, would the majority of members in the Writers, Actors or Directors Guilds. The obstacle seems to be that it would infuriate — and perhaps rightly-so — a minority in those labor organizations. I'm told that when it was brought up once at a Screen Actors Guild meeting, several livid actors leaped to their feet and began screaming. One reportedly hollered, "I haven't worked in three years! Residual checks under ten dollars were all I got last year…and now my union wants to confiscate 100% of my income for the year!?"

The fellow who told me this, who worked at SAG, said, "It just didn't seem worth getting so many people so upset. They really looked forward to getting those one-dollar checks." That's apparently why this will never be instituted. But it's still a good idea…