Bill in Toronto is up first.
Ken, I've been watching several short oral history segments, probably from the WGA, featuring Hugh Wilson. Given your background, do you wish you had written for WKRP?
I would have loved to have written for WKRP. And I knew Hugh pretty well. We were on staff of THE TONY RANDALL SHOW together.
But at the time he was producing WKRP I was on MASH and had very little time to sleep, much less write scripts on the side.
Hugh went on to do another show I admired greatly – FRANK’S PLACE.
And he became a pretty hot comedy film director as well. I miss him.
From Brian:
What do you think it is about modern day multicams that make them far less memorable and successful than their decades earlier counterparts? A more plastic look and presentation? Unfunny, lazy scripts? Less charismatic actors? All of the above?
I’ve heard from very good writers who have toiled in multi-cam over the last few years that there is tremendous network pressure to pump these shows with jokes every second. They’re afraid if the audience goes a minute without a joke they’ll immediately tune out.
As a result, a lot of these shows have become very forced and unnatural. Characters talking in one-liners back and forth and it sounds very artificial.
The best multi-cam comedy comes out of character and relatable behavior. When characters aren’t reacting like real people you lose that.
The studio audience is not going to laugh at every line so the laugh machine fills that role. It’s a vicious circle because the phony laughter becomes that much more obtrusive and annoying. s
On CHEERS and FRASIER we would gladly go a whole minute without a joke to set up a big laugh. I’m not sure producers can do that today. They’re certainly not encouraged to.
I also think less attention is paid to the story telling, which is understandable because “story” is the hardest part. And when shows get away with lazy storytelling by assaulting you with a barrage of jokes they don’t feel the need to work harder on story.
So at the end of the day, I don’t know whether our standards were just higher or today’s showrunner is so inundated with interference that it’s all he can do to turn out a product on time.
Janet has a MASH question.
I've just been rewatching "Goodbye Radar," and I've got an FQ for you.
When it came to the mess tent goodbye party, why did you and David choose to interrupt that party with a batch of wounded instead of having the party itself?
In your view, how was payoff for the viewer better?
We purposely took that approach to avoid the show getting sappy and overly sentimental. We didn’t want long sad speeches. We wanted the Radar farewells to be brief and elegant.
A Hawkeye salute was more powerful than a Hawkeye speech.
It also felt more true to the show. The war intruded at inconvenient times.
And finally, from Mark:
Do you think it's easier for one person to write a drama, but comedy is easier and better written by two or more?
I'm sure drama is enhanced by more input but it seems there are a lot of successful drama writers (Sorkin, etc) who write by themselves. And comedy always seems to be done by teams and groups. It's a hard question to formulate clearly, Ken!
When David and I were writing dramatic scenes for MASH it wasn’t much of an adjustment. And there have been some superb dramatic writing teams. To name but a very few:
Robert & Michelle King
Julius & Phiip Epstein
Richard Levinson & William Link
Frank Glicksman & Don Brinkley (Christie’s dad)
And my personal favorites…
Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee (who wrote the play INHERIT THE WIND.
Generally, the advantage of having a partnership in comedy is that you have another voice you trust to run material by. What is “funny” is so subjective that it’s nice to not be in a vacuum.
Stay safe. Wear a mask.
from By Ken Levine
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