Kendall Rivers gets us started.
What are your top five favorite comedies that you find grossly underrated but better than most of the shows that hogged all their glory?
In no particular order:
BECKER
THE MIDDLE
WINGS
FLYING BLIND
PARTY DOWN
Honorable mention:
THE MARSHALL CHRONICLES
THE ODD COUPLE
THE PRACTICE (Danny Thomas version)
NIGHT COURT
ALF
Kyle Burress wonders:
Unfortunately, the death of an actor/actress or someone at any level of a series or movie happens. Of the many productions that you've been involved in, what person's death has had the greatest impact altogether on what you were working on and how was it dealt with?
That’s an easy one, I’m sorry to say. Nick Colasanto, who played Coach on CHEERS. He died the end of the third season. Woody Harrelson was great as his replacement, but a certain amount of the “heart and soul” of the show left without Coach and what Nick brought to that character.
He was also such a dear sweet man that on a personal level it was a devastating loss.
Mark queries:
We’ve been watching our way through The Big Bang Theory for the first time, and we’re near the end of its run. The season nine finale ends on a bit of a cliffhanger involving some guest stars (Christine Baranski, Laurie Metcalf, and Judd Hirsch) that gets resolved in the first episode of season ten.
My question is this, since all three of those guest actors are known enough to have other projects in motion when they agree to the guest spot, or to be offered other work between seasons, how would they go about ‘guaranteeing’ that those actors would be available? A contract that would preclude them from agreeing to take other work that week?
Any chance they would just film the entire season ten premiere at the same time as the season nine finale? Or at least the portions involving the guest stars? By that point in its run TBBT was popular enough that they probably didn’t have any doubts about whether it would be back the next season, so it’s not like they’d be filming an episode for a season that wasn’t going to happen.
This is another case where it depends on the situation. Yes, the safe thing to do is film the continuation of the cliffhanger so you have it in the can because you’re right, producers can’t know what a busy actor’s schedule is going to be like in five months.
Sometimes though, the producers are burned out by the end of the season and have no solution for the cliffhanger. They’d rather figure something out when they return for the next season. And perhaps an actor isn’t available so they have to work that into the story.
When Aaron Sorkin left THE WEST WING, his last episode was a season-ending cliffhanger. New show runner, John Wells called him and said, “how were you going to resolve this?” to which Aaron said, “I had no idea.” His plan was to solve the problem upon his return.
And trust me, I can understand that. You get VERY burned out by the end of a full season. Most long running shows end every season on fumes.
And finally, from Phil Rosenthal (no, not that one):
Ever get a network note that helped?
You bet. Tim Flack, the VP of Comedy Development at CBS gave us great notes on BIG WAVE DAVE’S. It was Tim who said one of the guys needed a wife. We totally embraced that idea, rewrote the pilot, and it sold BECAUSE of the wife. Jane Kaczmarek tested through the roof.
Sadly, Tim has passed on, but I will take any opportunity I can to sing his praises.
What’s your Friday Question?
from By Ken Levine
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