cd1515 leads off.
Friday question: as a writer, if you have a well-established character with a well-known trait—-ie, Charlie Harper drinks a lot, his brother is cheap, Monica on Friends is neat, Norm likes beer, etc—-where is the line between giving the viewers what they want and beating the horse to death?
After a show is on for a long time, they always seem to go back to jokes regarding the same things over and over again. Did you battle that as well?
It’s something we battle all the time, especially on a long-running show. The best way to deal with it is to find more dimension for the character.
Sometimes that means backing off whatever that trait was. For example: early on in FRASIER, Daphne had psychic abilities. But soon enough the producers realized that was not a bottomless pit of material and gently moved away from it.
For the most part, it’s a tricky dance. Again, in FRASIER — we got a lot of mileage out of his Niles’ crush on Daphne. But at some point we had to take the storyline to another level.
In their case, I thought the timing was right. But in a lot of others producers milk familiar laughs way past their sell-by date. The Fonz and J.J. from GOOD TIMES are just two examples.
Darwin's Ghost wonders:
As well as you and David, other Hollywood comedy screenwriting partnerships have been duos like Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel and Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski. Is there a sense of comradeship among comedy writing duos and do you guys all know each other?
There is indeed. In the examples you cited, we don’t really know Lowell & Babaloo that well, but back in the mid ‘80s David and I were rewriting a movie for 20th and had an office next to a young team writing the screenplay for PROBLEM CHILD. It was Scott & Larry, and we’ve been friends ever since. They’re both great guys and terrific writers and even though it's not true, we take credit for discovering them.
Among the teams we were friends with (some are no longer teams but they were then) are Patchett & Tarses, Marshall & Belson, Rosenstock & Teicher, the Charles Brothers, Pollock & Davis, Mumford & Wilcox, O’Shannon & Anderson, Staley & Long, Pollack & Rich, the Steinkellners, Saltzman & Diamond, Bugliari & McLaughlin, Vaupen & Baker, Casey & Lee, Kimmell & Gibbs, Donzig & Peterman, Flett-Giardano & Ramberg, Balmagia & Koenig, Byron & Kapstrom, Richman & Gittlin, and I’m sure I’m leaving a few people out (with my apologies). Oh yeah… Levine & Emerson.
Bob Paris queries:
Your daughter Annie is a comedy writer, as is Gary David Goldberg's daughter Shana. While writing structure can be taught, funny can't. When Annie was growing up did you have any inkling that she inherited your sense of humor or ability to write comedy?
Absolutely. From day one. My son, Matt is also very funny but chose to go into technology and now is at that Apple company that hopefully will stick around for a couple more years.
But Annie was always funny. She was selected for the “Writing for the Media” program at Northwestern and really established her comic voice. It was very easy for me to be encouraging since I saw she had the chops. But lest you think it was easy, she and her partner Jonathan Emerson wrote a bunch of spec scripts and needed several years before they could finally break in.
And finally from Unknown (please leave a name):
Late to the party this week; MLB.com is running a clip of Wilson Alvarez's second start in the majors, White Sox v Orioles. You're very mellifluous talent is part of the calls -- altho there's a lot of horrible Hawk too -- and I was wondering do you remember that game? Where does calling a no-hitter, for your team or the other team, fit among all your play-by-play highlights?
August 11, 1991. What I remember most is that once we got into the late innings and there was the distinct possibility of a no-hitter, the Baltimore crowd (the game was in Baltimore) was rooting for Cal Ripken Jr. to make an out. That might have been the only time that ever happened.
No-hitters rank very high among my broadcasting highlights. But my greatest highlight was calling a spring training game in 2009. That’s because it was a Dodger game and the two announcers that day were Vin Scully and ME. As a Dodger fan growing up you can imagine what an unbelievable thrill that was.
What’s your Friday Question?
from By Ken Levine
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