Sharon Alford is up first with a FQ about a CHEERS episode David Isaacs and I wrote.
Just watched "Hot Rocks." Now the questions are: how did you manage to get Admiral Crowe to do his part? Did you think of the idea first and say "gee wouldn't it be great if we actually could get the Admiral to do this?" or did you think you might have to get a replacement actor in his stead and just wrote the script without a commitment? I was just wondering how it all got started - a chicken or the egg kind of question! Because without his cooperation, the episode would not have worked as well, if at all! Great episode!
Thanks. Actually, we wrote that episode for Larry Bird in the role (which made a tad more sense that he would know Sam Malone). After we finished Bird bailed. Yet another reason why I’m not a fan.
To replace him we wanted someone prominent. The absurdity of the situation is that someone like Larry Bird would steal Rebecca’s diamond earrings. Anyway, our casting director somehow had a connection to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We said, great. How bizarre is that?
So David and I went back and took another pass at the script. I’m quite happy with the way the show turned out. Admiral Crowe proved to be a good sport. And it was weird to see the guy hovering nearby with a case handcuffed to his wrist. Every 90 minutes the Admiral had to call in. These guys weren’t playing around. But this was back when he had a government.
Another CHEERS FQ, this one from msdemos.
I had written this in a previous blog post:
In the first year of CHEERS, three days into rehearsal for an episode Nick Colasanto went into the hospital with pleurisy. So we worked all night writing him out of the episode. Then came the weekend and on Monday (day four) he was back. So we had to write him back in. That was a fun week.
Wait.......why would you have to write Mr. Colasanto "back in" to the episode?? Wouldn't you just automatically have gone back to the original script he was planning on being in, in the first place ??
No, because by then we had drastically changed the story and the actors had memorized the new script and all of the camera assignments had been set. The best course of action was find a couple of places to add the Coach, which is what we did.
Gary has a FRASIER FQ.
I read online today that for the final episode of Frasier, the writers wanted to have Tony Randall appear as Niles and Frasier's "Uncle Felix." But apparently Randall was in ill health by then and couldn't appear. Ken, do you know if there is any truth to this? Seems like it would have been a great idea.
I had never heard of this so I consulted one of the creators of FRASIER who said the rumor was completely false and Randall was never approached.
And finally, from WB Jax:
For me, neither MASH nor Hogan's Heroes (both, for a time, benefitting from the writing talents of Larry Marks, Richard Powell) have any bad segments. What sitcoms do you consider not to contain any truly bad (or at least embarrassing) episodes?
FRASIER, TAXI, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, and THE HONEYMOONERS. I'm sure there are others. And there's a "worst episode" of even those shows. But their worst is way better than other shows' best.
What’s your Friday Question?
from By Ken Levine
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