From the E-Mailbag…

Robert Rose writes…

Nice point about overdoing things on taping game shows. But, for the counter-argument, pretty much everyone involved with the original You Bet Your Life thought that recording and editing the show rather than doing it live was a major factor in its success. It gave Groucho time to probe the contestants until he got the good lines out, and it also meant that if they happened to get two dull sets of contestants in one show, they could swap them with another episode so that at least half of every show would be good. (Which is why Groucho is always seen wearing the same jacket.)

Of course, on the other other hand, Groucho did insist that he not meet the contestants prior to their walking out on stage; he had tried that in a few early episodes and found it ruined the spontaneity So I guess he kind of had it both ways.

And, of course, on the other, other, other hand….there's only ever been one Groucho.

Good point. And of course, a lot of Groucho's ad-libs were composed by folks who were listed under other titles in the credits but were actually gag writers. For that matter, a lot of game shows had planted gags. While trying to identify the occupation of a contestant on What's My Line?, Bennett Cerf didn't know that the person sold mattresses but he was told by the staff that he'd get a huge laugh if he asked, "Is your product something that men and women can use together?" They did a lot of that kind of thing.

But at least most shows (Groucho's was an exception) were live so there was the chance of an unplanned moment.

I heard an interview once with Henry Morgan, who was a panelist for years on I've Got a Secret. The show was done live for most of its run except for two periods. Once videotape was available, they'd sometimes do two shows an evening — one aired live and the other was "banked" to be used later during vacation periods. Then the last few years of the show, Steve Allen took over from Garry Moore as host. Allen lived in Los Angeles so to cut down on the number of times he had to fly in, they'd go into the studio every other week and do two shows. One would air live and the other would air the following week.

The taped shows were done in real time — no stopping, no editing — but, Morgan said, there was always something different about them. He said — this is not a precise quote — "There's a difference I can't explain about doing the show and thinking 'America is watching me right now' and doing the show and thinking, 'America is going to see this in three weeks.' We were all just sharper and faster on the live shows, and it was funnier and more interesting when things didn't go right."

He also said that the live shows were a bit duller once they started taping some. If the producers had a segment that was a little dangerous — meaning that things might not go as planned — they'd move those to the taped shows.

Of course, people have tried a few live game shows lately but they're all so full of pre-taped segments and tricky video effects that they don't feel live. I have a feeling one of these days, someone's going to do it right, probably involving some component where America can play right along with the contestants via the Internet, and it'll be a big hit.

Two Questions…

  1. Has any Republican politician ever used the word "rape" in a sentence and not looked like a total idiot?
  2. Has any Democratic politician ever used the term "national debt" in a sentence and not looked like a total idiot?

From the E-Mailbag…

I thought I'd answer this one from John Neumann, especially because of that first sentence…

Mark, I love your stuff as always, and I did follow the link to buy my Mad Mad World Blu-ray.

Great point about talk shows feeling phony and predictable. I wonder if you've noticed that with game shows, too. In that case, they're violently over-edited. Hasn't anyone ever watched Gene Rayburn?

What do you make of Seth Meyers' delivery? It's fine for fake news once a week, but doesn't seem right for a nightly monologue. He barks his jokes, projecting as if doing dinner theatre, with a rat-a-tat pace that doesn't seem to work well in this forum. Many of his jokes cut off sharply, which is what makes them funny but makes it less of a monologue. I like his material and don't dislike Seth, but he just doesn't feel right.

Question on being a writer. (I write advertising.) How do you cope with the feeling that you're the one who takes an empty page and makes something out of it, and have done that over years and reams of empty pages, yet everyone who isn't a writer believes they know how to do it better than you? Well, not everyone, and I suppose it's the way feedback is delivered. "Could you try…" sounds a lot better than "do this." It's part of the job. Of course it is. But is there anything more heartening than that?

You're right about game shows. Most of them now take 2-3 times their length to "tape"; that is, an hour show can take three hours because of all the redos and extra takes. If a contestant's reaction to winning or losing isn't sufficiently interesting, they think nothing of having them do it over several times until they get the right shot. I've heard The Price is Right does more and more of that, and when my friend Len Wein and I went to see a taping of Deal or No Deal some time ago. they spent five hours (!) taping an hour-long episode. Someone should remember that the time in this country when quiz shows were the most popular, they were all done live.

I like Seth Meyers and I like his material. So far though, I haven't heard him say anything — whether it's delivering a joke or chatting with a guest — that didn't sound like a Weekend Update line. The guy's got one mode of delivery for everything that comes out of his mouth because, I assume, he doesn't have much experience doing anything but Weekend Update. Maybe when he calms down and logs more camera time not doing Weekend Update, he'll develop some other modes.

Now, to your big question…

Writers always have a slight-to-large annoyance when people who can't do what we can do tell us how to do what they can't do but we can. More than once in my career, I've had to turn to a producer or editor and ask, "Where were you when the pages were blank?" But that really doesn't help much because — and this is something I try to remember — our work exists to be criticized by others. So what if a producer or editor or co-worker is saying, "I don't like this joke"? Once the work is publisher or produced, every viewer or reader has the right to say, "I don't like this joke." Sometimes, they don't even have to say that to criticize it. All they have to do is not laugh at it.

I actually am very sensitive about people doing that on work I do not consider finished. I fiercely guard it and show it to no one until I decide it's ready to be seen. Once I do, it's fair game for everyone.

One time, I was offered a TV writing job by a producer who gave me a whole list of ground rules for his writers. One which really scared me off the job was that we weren't allowed to throw anything away. If I wrote a scene — this was back in the era of paper, not computers — I could decide not to use it but I had to mark it as such and hand it in anyway. He then had someone — a kind of story editor/advisor — who would go over it and see if he thought I was wrong and that there was something there. Nothing was to go in the waste basket.

I turned the job down. That wasn't the only reason but that alone would have been. I'm sure I could have smuggled out my trash and not passed it under the eyes of the advisor guy but I didn't want to get into that game. I need to write out what I think will work, stare at it on the page or screen, then decide what, if anything, to fix or discard. I think I became a happier/better/faster writer with the move to word processing. It's so much easier to fix and discard.

But once I decide it's done, I have to accept that it no longer belongs to me in some ways. Others will see it, read it, work with it, etc. Most of them will have opinions, sane or otherwise. At least one person will totally misunderstand it and kick back some reaction that has nothing to do with what I wrote. In television, it's often way more than one. You write a historically-accurate drama set in the old west and someone will come along — maybe even an hour before filming starts when all the sets and costumes are made — and say, "Hey, what if we set this in the stone age?"

One of the main reasons some writers don't write much, get blocked, miss deadlines or never get that great novel finished is that they fear that moment of judgment and, whether they know it or not, seek to delay it by not finishing. So you just have to get used to it…or find another profession.

Today's Video Link

Raffaella Carrà, the woman who brought you the definitive interpretation of the music of The Beatles, does the same for the great Cole Porter. I want whoever designs the costumes for her numbers to clothe my world…

Let's Correct Wikipedia on Something!

Many published news sources said that the prolific veteran comic book artist and cartoonist Al Plastino died from Prostate Cancer so that is what got reported on Wikipedia. I have been in touch today with Mr. Plastino's daughter, MaryAnn Plastino Charles, and she says that's not so. She writes…

…some of the news stories were incorrect about my father's death. He did not die from Prostate Cancer. He was in good health up until receiving a flu shot and developed Guillan Barre Syndrome which paralyzed and killed him very quickly. Please edit out the Prostate Cancer.

I don't know how to correct Wikipedia.  Based on a discussion we had on Facebook, someone who does (thank you, that someone) went there and changed the wording but later today, another someone reworded it further so now it's not right.

I assume the problem is that while anyone can change what it says on a Wikipedia page, the administrators often overrule those changes if they do not come with sourcing that meets their strict rules. I had a small problem with them a few years ago when I answered an e-mail from someone who had questions about The Garfield Show. He tried to change incorrect info on its Wikipedia page and administrators told him that an e-mail — even an e-mail from the Supervising Producer and Show Runner of the program — did not meet their criteria because, I guess, this e-mail was not available for public inspection or no one could prove it came from me or something.

I then posted the same information on this blog and they accepted that as a good source and the changes were made. So here I am posting the message from Ms. Charles on that same blog. It's his daughter, people. You can't get a better source than that and I, of course, am utterly trustworthy in my reporting. So could someone go change Wikipedia so it reflects the true cause of death and link to this item for verification? Al's daughter says he wanted people to know what happened to him so maybe it would prevent the same thing from happening to someone else. A worthy goal.

From the E-Mailbag…

Jeff Stockwell has this to say…

One genuine surprise I remember seeing as a kid was when Johnny Carson, in the middle of a show, walked "across the hall" to where Don Rickles was shooting C.P.O. Sharkey, right in the middle of a taping. It was amazing. Carson was giving Rickles such a hard time, and Don Rickles, of all people, was speechless. He just couldn't stop laughing.

And David Letterman was infamous for bursting onto the set of the New York NBC affiliate right in the middle of their 5:00 newscast. Of course, the Letterman crew planned to do it, but they really didn't have any way of knowing exactly what the reaction would be. Because he did it so often, one night they were going to do another raid only to be greeted by a locked door and a security guard. (I think it was a guard. It might have been a page.) I suppose that could have been a planned bit, but Letterman actually looked surprised at the locked door.

Those things happened thirty years ago. I don't think you would see anything like that today.

The Carson/Rickles thing was quite amazing. If you haven't seen it, here's a link to a video.  Bob Newhart was guest-hosting, despite what Johnny says in the clip.  Rickles was a guest and at one point, he broke the cigarette box Carson kept on his desk. The next night when Johnny was back, he took a camera across the hall and demanded an apology from Don.

carsonrickles01

As you watch it, if you watch it, keep in mind that everyone was in on it except Rickles and the other actors on his show. Johnny did a great job of pretending it was a spontaneous idea but it was planned and certainly cleared in advance with the producers of Rickles's show.  (For one thing, the C.P.O. Sharkey sets were all over the stage and they had to plan things so Don would be on the set closest to the door Carson would come through.)  Johnny was also savvy enough to not have a lot of prepared lines for the occasion, thereby making it seem like he really did have the idea on the spur of the moment. And since Rickles was ad-libbing, Johnny had to, as well.

(By the way, Rickles was taping on Stage 3 at NBC Burbank. That's the same stage where we did The Half-Hour Comedy Hour and had Jayne Kennedy surprise Arsenio Hall.)

The point, of course, is that professionals do not disrupt each other's shows. The folks who did the Live at 5 newscast at NBC must have known that Dave was going to come in and interrupt them. They might not have known exactly when but I'll bet the producers of both shows coordinated to make certain Dave didn't barge in on coverage of a funeral or tragedy. And how good a sport do we think Dave would have been if Al Roker or someone suddenly marched onto his show without it being cleared in advance?

There have been actual surprises on TV shows but not lately. I didn't see it so I can't verify it's true but one of Carson's writers told me the following; that one time, Danny Thomas did an actual no-one-knew-about-it-in-advance walk-on on The Tonight Show. He was doing some show down the hall and on a whim, and since he was already in makeup, he went down to Carson's studio where no one backstage stopped him. They all knew he was Danny Thomas and figured something had been arranged.

So Johnny's talking with a guest and suddenly, out comes Mr. Thomas to plug a TV show he was doing or maybe a book or a St. Jude Telethon and also something his daughter Marlo was doing…then he told a joke and departed. The writer said Carson was royally pissed because it harmed the interview he had going and because it was just a blatant plug and not much else. If it is true, I'll bet it never happened again and that the stage crew knew enough to body-tackle anyone who looked like they might do it.

When I talk about a lack of spontaneity on talk shows, I'm not talking so much about surprise walk-ons. Mostly, I'm talking about having the conversation carefully planned and when the host has to do something physical, like cook or interact with animals, having it all rehearsed and the host's seeming ad-libs scripted and maybe even on cue cards. I'll betcha Letterman, Leno, O'Brien and a few others could do an entertaining show without all that prep. They just don't.

Several people, by the way, wrote me that Graham Norton, who does a "chat show" in Great Britain, is everything the American talk show hosts these days are not. They're right. He's very good.  You can catch Mr. Norton's program on BBC America.

Also: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are quite unscripted in their interviews…and one interesting thing about Stewart: Last week, Ronan Farrow came on to plug his new MSNBC show and was not asked a word about the Woody Allen controversy, nor did Stewart ask him the "Who's your daddy?" question. I assumed it was a condition of the appearance that he not be asked about those two things…but now Farrow is insisting that he never demands anyone not ask him anything.

So what do we think about this? Did he show up on the Daily Show set with the assurance Stewart would not ask him about the rape controversy? Was he promised he wouldn't be asked if he knows who his biological father is. (Why would you not want to know that, especially if you hate the presumed name?)

And if Stewart could have asked him about that and chose not to for reasons of decorum…well, how many other interviewers are there on television who would miss that opportunity?

Thursday Morning

To the amazement of a large part of the industry, Arsenio Hall's talk show has been picked up for a second season. On last night's show, Jay Leno made a "surprise" walk-on to deliver the news to the host. If you want to watch it, it's here…

It's really a good example of why late night TV has lost its appeal to me because it's so phony. Arsenio didn't know Jay was about to enter but you can see him pausing as he speaks, waiting to be interrupted. I'm guessing the audience was told before Mr. Hall came out that someone would be walking out during the monologue and not to applaud him, because Leno's little "shhh!" gesture to them could not have been enough to silence an audience reaction that would have started the instant he stepped onto the stage.

The whole dialogue is way too planned, including the part at the end where Arsenio sets Jay up for this exit punch line. Remember the old days when the host of a talk show occasionally did not know what his guests were going to say or do?

By the way: I worked with Arsenio many years ago, when he was just starting out. He was the co-host of a short-lived variety show on which I was one of the writers. He was a very good, talented guy and I wasn't the least surprised that he easily recovered from the cancellation of that show and went on to do pretty well for himself.

We did actually set up a genuine surprise walk-on on that show — a surprise for Arsenio, that is. Everyone else involved with the show knew about it in advance. (The show, by the way, was called The Half-Hour Comedy Hour and it was on ABC for about eight seconds in 1983. There was another show with that name later on, I believe, Comedy Central. No relation.) It occurred on our last episode.

On every earlier one, Arsenio had been making jokes about lusting after Jayne Kennedy, who was then the most prominent TV sex symbol of color. Unbeknownst to Mr. Hall, the producers arranged for Ms. Kennedy to walk on during the show's closing and confront him about all these remarks. They planted her just off-stage so she would not be seen by him until she stepped out there. In fact, they planted her behind me. The way the stage was designed, there was no place for her to stand and not be seen so they had two large folks — me and the Associate Producer — stand there and she hid behind us.

At the right moment, she walked out…and Arsenio really didn't know what to say or what to do. It was very funny but I'm afraid it didn't make him look very good. I'll bet you today, on his own show and with much more experience, he could have handled it if he didn't know that Leno would be coming out. But talk shows don't think like that these days. The Big Stars they want to book generally do not want to risk looking silly or inept at talking…and even if they would take that risk, the producers of their new series or movie don't want them to. So this kind of thing is always planned and sometimes even rehearsed. (I don't think the Arsenio/Jay bit was rehearsed. It's too awkwardly staged for that. But I'll bet they both knew when it would occur and what each was going to say.)

It's all a shame because the thing that made Late Night different from Prime Time was that sense of "something unexpected might happen" and the occasional rough, unpolished moments. I still think that if you could put on the air a series as unplanned as the old Steve Allen Show or even Johnny's early years, it would crush all the current practitioners of the genre known as The Late Night Talk Show. Of course, that would mean finding a host who could improvise and tolerate looking foolish at times…and it would mean finding guests who were willing to take a teensy gamble with their reputations. So maybe we'll never see it again.

Foto File

475madison01a
Click above to enlarge.

I was sorting through some images I had scanned of old slides and I noticed this one. Viewed from afar, I wondered, "Why did I take a photo of the directory of an office building?" Then I looked closer…and now, as it did then, it made me laugh to see who they had listed in the column under "N." This is from the mid-seventies.

Recommended Reading

We're hearing a lot about religious liberty being threatened in this country. How can you tell if yours is being infringed? The Reverend Emily C. Heath has a simple test.

Recommended Reading

As Jonathan Chait notes, the Republicans keep saying they're soon to unveil a better health plan than Obamacare…but they never seem to actually do it. Sometimes, they say it's almost ready to announce. Other times, they say they're about to start drafting it. The problem, of course, is that there is no possible plan that will cover poor folks and people with pre-existing conditions without resorting to many aspects of the Affordable Care Plan that Republicans have denounced as unworkable, evil, immoral, etc.

Today's Video Link

This bird really likes Ray Charles music. Well, who doesn't like Ray Charles music? But watch this video and thank Shelly Goldstein for sending it my way…

Wednesday Morning

The Criterion folks seem to have run out of copies of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World before they ran out of buyers for it during their 50% off sale. Sorry…though I am of course happy to hear it's been a good seller for them. I hear their previous Best Seller is The Seven Samurai and it wouldn't surprise me to see Mad World usurp that honor. They are, after all, practically the same movie.

Ratings were good for the debut of Late Night with Seth Meyers and they continue to be impressive for the hour with Jimmy Fallon that precedes it. I'm going to guess we're looking at at least a month before things settle down and folks in the industry get serious about gauging the winners and losers of all this. Several of the shows that challenged Mr. Carson did fine for a few weeks before the novelty of a "new show" wore off and viewers ambled back to Johnny. Regardless of where the numbers land, I don't think Fallon or Meyers are going anywhere else for a long time.

Once again, I remind you that I only post obits here when I either knew the person, felt a special connection to them, feel I have some anecdote or observation that no one else can offer, or fear that their passing will otherwise go unnoticed and I can rectify that a little. None of this applies to the late Harold Ramis, a very well-respected and liked-by-his-colleagues filmmaker, nor to the late Bhob Stewart, a longtime comic book creative person who worked a lot with Wally Wood.

Los Angeles is on Stormwatch, prepping for a one-two punch that will drop lots of water, create widespread flooding in the mountains and burn areas…and still not put much of a dent in our drought numbers. I know, I know: The weather where you live has been so horrendous this year, you don't want to hear about us lucky L.A. duckies. Just thought I'd mention it is all.

I'm planning out my panels and such for WonderCon and will be telling you about them shortly. Several folks have written to ask if I'll be repeating my little 45-minute lecture/class on How To Write For Animation. Yes, it'll be on Sunday. Yes, it should be a lot longer to properly cover the subject. No, I have no interest in teaching an actual class anywhere about it.

Today on Stu's Show!

lonnieburr01

Today (Wednesday), the guest on Stu's Show is Lonnie Burr, who was a Mouseketeer on the original Mickey Mouse Club.  Like not all of them, Lonnie went on to have quite a career as a performer and writer and director for the screen and stage.  He's an outspoken, fascinating guy and I'll bet Stu will have no trouble filling the time slot today with Lonnie talking about all he's done and all he's been through.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go to three or beyond.

Shortly after a show ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a paltry 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three.

Such a Deal

Nothing I've done in many months has made me as happy as being part of the commentary track of the new Blu-ray/DVD set of the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It's a wonderful presentation of one of my favorite movies…wonderful for reasons that have nothing to do with my meager contribution, I might add. The little documentary on the film's special effects is alone worth the price of the set.

Speaking of the price of the set: Amazon has hiked it up from $29.99 to $39.20. I have no idea when or if it'll revert to the cheaper price but for a limited time, its maker — the Criterion Collection — is having a sale, not just on this DVD but on lots of others you'll want. Until Noon tomorrow Eastern Standard Time (which means 9 AM here on the west coast), everything is half-off if you enter coupon code MADFOX when you check out. So Mad World, which retails for $49.95 and which they routinely sell for $39.96, oughta be under twenty bucks. If I were you, I'd browse their site and order enough to get my order over $50 to qualify for free shipping. But you don't have a lot of time to do this.

Pop Star

skinnypop01

Every time I go to Costco, along with the crate of transparent tongue depressors and the barbecued peacock I always purchase, I make at least one impulse buy. I see something I hadn't expected to want/need and before you know it, it's in my shopping cart along with the crate of ball peen hammers and the new yogurt sorter. A few times ago, what I had coming out that I didn't expect to buy going in was a big box of SkinnyPop popcorn.

It was actually a box of 36 single-serving bags of the stuff, each containing 100 calories. The basic SkinnyPop is pure popcorn — no additives, no cholesterol, no trans fats, no gluten, no preservatives, no dairy, no tree nuts, no peanuts…and they've even managed to find corn which has not been genetically-modified. There isn't a lot of that around these days. The stuff is even Kosher.

The bag boasts "No Artificial Anything" but there's an even better reason to buy it. It's good…maybe not as good as the fresh popcorn I can make at home using, as I always seem to, more oil than you'll find in Egypt and/or Bill Maher's hair. But when I make popcorn in my kitchen, I don't make it in nice little 100-calorie portions. I wind up eating more than I want or should eat, plus it takes a while. Trading a bit of taste for health, convenience and portion control, I've decided to stop popping my own and just keep bags on SkinnyPop in my cupboard.

As I got through my first crate of the stuff, I had occasion to stop into the same Costco again and I made a mental note to get another carton. They didn't have 'em. I'm not sure if they were just out until they got more or if they'd decided to stop carrying them but since I'm (kinda) hooked, I went home and ordered a case through Amazon. It's a bit pricier that way but when you have the monkey on your back, you do whatever it takes to get your fix. (When the package came, I noted that it did not contain any packing material. Then I realized: Popcorn is packing material.)

I'm sure there's other popcorn out there without additives or trans fat but for the time being, I'm sticking with SkinnyPop. Just thought you might be interested to know that.  You may be able to find it at a market near you.