More of your Friday questions and my attempt at answers.
Phillip B asks:
I noticed that the opening on CHEERS was often entirely unrelated to the rest of the episode. Was it just a chance for a good joke, was it made detachable knowing it was going to get cut in syndication, or was this a chance to give a chance for an actor to more fully develop their role?
Doing a self-contained bit as a teaser was an artistic decision the Charles Brothers made at the outset of the series. Personally, I thought it was a pain in the ass. It’s so much easier to do jokes that tie into the story.
We were always scrambling for teasers. Usually the lowest ranked staff writers would be sent off to come up with them. This was the CHEERS equivalent to being assigned to KP.
The only advantage to this practice was that sometimes we would film a show and it would end up too long. We could lift a goofy bar discussion and use it some later week as the teaser.
What is your favorite teaser? This is mine. Director Jim Burrows deserved an Emmy just for this.
From Michael:
If MASH had never existed and AfterMASH was pitched as an original series, do you think it would have gotten on the air?
A period comedy set in a Veteran’s Hospital with no real star, and a patient population made up exclusively of elderly men? Not a chance in hell. Chuck Lorre couldn’t sell that series.
People always wonder why I wrote for AfterMASH. Because it was a chance to work with Larry Gelbart. I established a life-long friendship, and got to learn at the feet of the absolute master. Tell me you wouldn’t jump at that chance, too.
Michael in Singapore has a question in several parts:
Why are the Golden Globes held in such high esteem in Hollywood when everyone knows what a crock they are? Who IS the "foreign press" (movie critics from Belgium and Lithuania?), and why are their accolades so much more important in Hollywood than awards given by the LOCAL or AMERICAN press? The Golden Globes, by all accounts, should be insignificant. How did it become the second-most important award next to the Oscars? Why does anybody care?
First of all, they’re not held in high esteem. But the Foreign Press did something very smart. They didn’t just stage an awards ceremony, they put together a giant bash. It’s a really fun night. Lots of good food, LOTS of booze, and by the time the ceremony starts, everyone is pretty looped.
So to paraphrase the famous line in FIELD OF DREAMS, “If you throw it, they will come”.
And because a lot of feature and television stars attend, they’re able to televise it nationally. And that exposure is what gives the Golden Globes whatever stature it may have. Remember during the Writers Strike when actors refused to cross the picket lines at the Golden Globes? The show was canceled. No one cared who won.
The common industry belief is that the Foreign Press can be bought, so the awards have a certain lack of credibility.
Feature studios hope winning Golden Globes builds momentum for the Oscars. This is award season. The Golden Globes, WGA, DGA, PGA, various critics associations, SAG. But don’t kid yourself. The only one that really counts to Hollywood is the Academy Awards.
The Foreign Press is an organization that does have members who are freelance and part-time, and many do have other jobs. People joke that they’re waiters but in some cases they really are.
What’s your question? And favorite CHEERS teaser?
21 comments:
Coach is asked to check on a reservation at Melville's, from One for the Book, the episode which features, Lafayette We Are Here!
Heard someone say: The Hollywood Foreign Press, it's like getting an award from the critic of The Milan Pennysaver. Well, it made me laugh.
My personal favorite was the one where the keg ran dry, and the regulars lined up at the door and hummed "Hail to the Chief" as Sam rolled the new one in.
I remember a similar and also very good musical moment from Wings...
My favorite is when Harry Anderson comes in and runs the bar-change short con. Was that a teaser or am I remembering it wrong?
Maybe this is one of those "comedy tests" but the "We Will Rock You" teaser was one of my least favorites. The singing felt gratuitous. We already got the joke, now you're just being obvious. (It also had no big finish, like everybody suddenly stopping once Rebecca comes out of the office. Instead the teaser sort of faded out, like a badly-written rock song...)
This post, with its reference to teasers being made from bits cut out of other episodes, stirs me to ask a question:
When you are writing a script for a TV show, how closely do you try to match the show's running time? If the show is going to run 22 minutes without commercials, do you try to produce something that will take exactly 22 minutes? Or is it better to leave a little cushioning, in case the actors run through the lines more quickly than you expect, or a bit bombs so badly it has to be cut? And if you do overwrite in that sense, do you make a point of including material that can be cut without affecting the story--say, a couple of minutes of Cliff and Norm chatting at the bar, or Frasier taking calls on his radio show--or do you just leave it to the editor to make everything fit?
My apologies if you have covered this before.
Apparently Paramount worked out some sort of deal with major league and minor league baseball, since I've seen that teaser show up several times on the outfield video screen during the game at a couple of different ballparks (usually during a visiting team's pitching change or mound discussion). You might try seeing if the Mariners have bought that sound/video cut package for one of the slower games during the upcoming season.
Carla dancing to the Isely Brothers' version of "Shout" is probably my No. 1 opening teaser.
And, since you brought Chuck Lorre up in this thread, here's a hypothetical -- you're a show runner and your star is Charlie Sheen. Do you cut back on any planned high-dollar payments in the near future out of fear everyone on your show is about to be out of a job? Or do you think to yourself "Well, they replaced Michael J. Fox with Charlie. Why can't we..." or other similar Dick York-Dick Sargent thoughts?
I don't remember if it was a teaser, but when The Coach answers the phone, puts the caller "on hold", then sings background music into the phone. Freaking brilliant.
Found my favorite on YouTube, and it is an ultimate Cliff moment - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcFTsQC_Dw8
For CHEERS, the randomness of some the humor around the bar did give it a sense of reality. I've actually met guys like Cliff and Norm, and been places where everyone suddenly decided to sing the same song.
Made me feel part of the group, even if everyone didn't know my name...
Hey Dan Serafini...is that the one where two couple have the same name and Coach checks back and says" the Bubblebutts..." or something close to that?
The Blubberbutts teaser and the one where patrons and staff pass along a song -- some old chestnut, which I don't recall at the moment -- and coach ends up singing "I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle."
Too late to be first, but I heartily recommend Coach's "Table for the Blubberbutts!" It was early on in the run, and it crystallized the lovability as well as the cognitive deficiencies of the character.
@Ger Apeldoorn i remember that Wings teaser too, and was actually about to ask Ken if he was involved in that one!
J Lee, i agree with you. Rhea Perlman deserved an emmy just for this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSh6AObCizE
Thanks for the "We Will Rock You" clip. Watching it, it occurred to me to wonder if I should be looking closely at the many extras in the room. Did anybody we now know get their start populating the bar?
Hallelujah! People think I'm being unusually harsh when I refer to the HFPA as the waiters and the florists so I'm glad that someone actually in the industry says it out loud. (The only other time I heard that reference was by Robin Williams when he was accepting an award from them.) When I used to go on junkets and saw some of them the ones working, they could be real embarrassments. At the Casino news conference, all of their questions were for Sharon Stone and were variations of "What's it like to be a beautiful, hot and sexy Hollywood movie star?"
A period comedy set in a Hospital with no real star, and a patient population made up almost exclusively of elderly men? Not a chance in hell.
That would be British sitcom Only When I Laugh, ran for 4 series. Mind, it was written by the former Gas Board clerk that is Eric Chappell.
Here's the pilot (and all the other episodes).
if justin is really just tweeting shit his dad says, why didn't cbs sign up the dad instead or in addition to justin?
Either when Harry the Hat comes in for change or, and I think it was the same season, when Sam comes in late to work due to some extraordinary events and Rebecca doesn;t believe him and then in comes thru the door everything Sam had just mentioned.
Got a question, when you're developing a series how many scripts do you have ready to go when you begin putting together the cast? Watched some auditions on DVDs and it seemed like quite a bit of the dialogue was from deep into the first season.
Follow-up Friday Question: When you were working on AfterMash was there some point where you started thinking "This isn't going to work" or did you think it was executed as intended but just couldn't find an audience? Was Larry Gelbart happy with the final product or frustrated that he couldn't "fix it"?
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