David P starts us off.
Of all the comic actors you've worked with, who do you think would be best as a President rallying their nation under attack?
That’s easy. Alan Alda.
When Alan was running for president on THE WEST WING I would’ve voted for him. And his character was a Republican. (Of course that was when the Republican Party believed in Democracy and not destroying the country.)
Jeff wonders:
How uncomfortable is it to have to hire an actor to play a person the script describes as homely, unattractive, etc. I am thinking of Coach's daughter for one.
It is a little awkward, but you try in the casting breakdown to be somewhat delicate in your description. “Large” not “Obese,” etc.
Also, there is the understanding that hair, make-up, and wardrobe can make you less attractive than you are. (In features that’s how beautiful actors get their Oscar nominations.)
So the actress knows that she’s not unattractive but the character she is playing is.
And then there are actors who don’t care. Jackie Gleason encouraged fat jokes. He knew he was fat and he knew he could get laughs out of that.
Of course, nowadays everyone is so sensitive that in casting breakdowns you also can’t say someone IS attractive.
From Rhonda Aghamalian:
What do you think would have happened to Sam and Diane if Shelley had stayed on the show?
I think they would have killed each other.
But seriously, I don’t know. We pretty much exhausted the Sam-Diane relationship by the end of season 5.
During that fifth season, when David and I wrote episodes of CHEERS we asked for Carla stories. We had done numerous Sam & Diane episodes by that point and were happy to explore the other characters.
And finally, a longer question than an answer from Frank Adkisson:
I took a long weekend and had time to binge "Inventing Anna" on Netflix.
The main character is in the midst of a pregnancy at the beginning so there is a bit of a timeline for the 9 episodes. Early portion is probably second trimester. Then comes the birth. And later episodes, it is revealed the baby is now 3+ months old.
The series is set in NYC.
I'm no meteorologist but I'm fairly certain NYC has an actual SUMMER! And a pretty hideous one at that Jun/Jul/Aug.
Yet people are wearing lengthy overcoats and gloves in pretty much every scene. Even in episode 9 where two characters are on a park bench and the grass surrounding them is lush ballpark-groundskeeper-aided-green and there is no snow on the ground whatsoever. Overcoats.
Is it for continuity reasons like where Hoss and Little Joe always wore the same clothes? Is it because everyone expects a lawyer or Wall Street businessman to always be wearing a heavy overcoat?
As the months progressed, from episode to episode, I was (mentally) screaming, is it NYC or is it the North Pole? (Which coincidentally now is also having summer temps due to climate change.)
The short answer is that certain productions are lazy and others are cheap.
Good wardrobe people at the production meeting are always asking what time of year and what time of day and how dressy should they be? They take great pride in having the right clothes. If the director says the scene is in the fall they’ll ask when in the fall? In September the weather is much different than November.
Shooting New York in the winter doesn’t require snow — just winter wear. And maybe the Naked Cowboy stays out of the shot.
As for characters always wearing the same thing that’s so they could use the same stock shots over and over. DRAGNET did that. Webb & Morgan wore the same suits in every episode so whenever they got out of the car, or they entered the precinct their wardrobe always matched. Producer Jack Webb was just flat out cheap.
Maybe that was the case too with BONANZA. To be honest, I haven’t seen an episode of BONANZA since it left NBC. And at the time I didn’t notice the wardrobe. I was too busy wondering whether Lorne Greene wore a toupee.
What’s your Friday Question?
from By Ken Levine
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