The first question comes from DwWashburn (which was a long-forgotten Monkees song):
It seems like Wendie Malick pops up on every show. Always working. And what a voice. How was it working with her?
An absolute dream. Wendie is fun, ultra professional, and super smart. And a director’s dream because if she would nail a line in rehearsal, you could tell her and she’d lock it in.
It also helped that she has extraordinary comic timing. And never ages. I don’t know how she pulls that off.
I worked with her on several shows and she was nice enough to do a couple of play readings of mine. One paired her and Jason Alexander. You can imagine how great they were together.
Mike Bloodworth asks:
Did you and David write practice scripts before you got into the business?
I'd like to know.
You bet. Like all writers trying to break in we wrote spec scripts. We were incredibly lucky. We wrote a spec MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, RHODA, and two pilots before getting our big break. Only four scripts (although we were outlining our fifth).
We gave ourselves two years. The plan was to just keep writing as many specs as we could hoping that someone somewhere would recognize our talent.
JS queries:
I live in Baltimore - I'm used to the Orioles losing, what is the best movie to watch about a losing team (Hoosiers Excluded).
That's an easy one. BAD NEWS BEARS. Most of the others losing-sports-team movies are just pale imitations of BAD NEWS BEARS.
And finally, from Bob Paris:
What is your opinion of openings of shows such as Andy Griffith or Dick Van Dyke where the announcer exclaims, "The Andy Griffith Show, starring Andy Griffith." Did they really think the audience would not know who the star of a self-titled show is?
On YouTube I recently watched a montage of opening titles from 1961 and I was surprised by how many of them had announcers introducing the show and starring cast.
My guess (based on nothing) is that it was a holdover from radio. When radio shows transferred to TV they kept the vocal introductions to provide some continuity.
But of course they weren’t needed. As late as 1969 some shows still had them.
The one that used to drive me nuts was FATHER KNOWS BEST. The announcer started by introducing the stars, so he began by saying “Here areRobert Young…”
from By Ken Levine
Comments
Post a Comment