James starts us off this week.
What's your opinion or analysis of The Andy Griffith Show? I don't remember you mentioning it before.
I’ve always liked THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW but never really loved it. The only character that made me genuinely laugh was Don Knotts the first few seasons. I appreciated the quirkiness and Americana, and the characters were very likeable. Andy, Aunt Bea, Floyd the Barber, Opie (whatever happened to little Opie???). And during its first run, if I was looking for something to watch and it was an option I always chose it. But it never was appointment TV.
Ironically, now it’s on ME-TV so I’ve been watching some episodes. And it’s better than I thought it was.
From Rick Wiedmayer:
What was the feeling like when Alan Alda first came up to the Show runner and said that he would like to write an episode and when he wanted to direct an episode?
We were thrilled.
First of all, Alan began writing scripts during the Larry Gelbart era. So he was groomed by the best.
I think we had pre-arranged with Alan that he would write three or four episodes a year. And he always turned in terrific scripts. Our only complaint was that his scripts generally came in long. We would take a pass, making trims, and adding some jokes. Alan would keep the new jokes but put back a lot of what he had taken out. So sometimes the script even got longer.
And as good a writer as Alan is, he’s an even better director. But again, the problem was he was shooting a script that was too long. And he always added lovely visual touches, especially to beginnings of scenes (interesting push-in shots, etc.).
But we’d get it into editing and it was seven minutes too long. So we had to chop all the lovely visuals and lots of jokes, just to get the show down to time with all the story points in tact.
I will say this, Alan directed one of our episodes, THE BILLFOLD SYNDROME and it’s one of my top favorite episodes as a result of his getting sensational performances out of everybody.
Vincent Saia wonders:
Since you invited us to give you questions to pass the time during what my friend Pat calls Coronafest 2020: Is there any particular reason that in sitcoms babies are NEVER born in a hospital?
They sometimes are. Phoebe giving birth to triplets on FRIENDS. And wasn’t Daphne’s baby on FRASIER born in a hospital? Certainly the Petries had their baby born in a hospital, which led to one of the great single episodes of television.
But having babies in cabs, elevators, etc. tend to be more dramatic or comedic (depending on the approach – and as long as mother and baby are ultimately doing fine).
And finally, from Ted:
Is it true Seinfeld piggybacked on 'Cheers'to become a hit?
It helped a lot, yes. Time slots are crucial. SEINFELD on Wednesday night got tepid ratings during one of its best years. Following CHEERS gave them a huge audience to sample.
But I will say this -- just having a great lead-in does not guarantee success. We had a number of shows follow CHEERS that went nowhere. When people checked out SEINFELD they found it really delivered. So we may have brought them the audience but they sure kept it.
What’s your Friday Question?
from By Ken Levine
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