The writing process on MAD MEN

Time for Friday questions.  The first one is answered with the assistance of Matthew Weiner.

It comes from Ted:

I love Mad Men, and I've always thought that, like The Sopranos, the sharp writing comes from a staff in a room. But Matthew Weiner does a lot of publicity for the show, and he doesn't seem to mind if you think he creates every word, character, and storyline. So what's the truth? Is Mad Men room-written or not?

No. Matt comes up with the general arc and direction of the season. The staff works together with him on breaking stories and then write individual scripts. Matt then takes his pass at every draft. That’s not to say that a lot of the original writer’s draft doesn’t make the final cut but everything passes through Matt first. And that's in addition to the scripts he writes by himself. Hey, he’s the real deal, folks.

To confirm all this I double-checked with Matt, who added this:

I have had a lot of writers come through the show. And the story process in that room is very collaborative and essential. I do not and more importantly can not do it by myself.

Thanks, Matt. Also worth noting, whenever he’s interviewed he always makes a point to mention and thank his staff and crafts people and it’s very often not published.

Jose asks:

How would an actor find out that they're fired from a show for bad behavior? From who and how would they get the news?


Like if it was a young actor on a cable show who didn't take his job seriously and they just had a supporting role that could easily be written out of the show without them appearing again.

Uh..Jose, are you by chance on a cable show and feeling a little insecure??

When actors are fired it should be the showrunner who tells them but often times that thankless task gets pawned off to the agent or manager.

Most times it’s not because of bad behavior per se. Actors are often fired for reasons that are not their fault. They tested poorly. The network has someone they like better. Or the network has a deal with an actor and needs to stick him somewhere.

A few years ago a showrunner was ordered by the network to replace an actress with another of their choosing.  The new actress was terrible.   After several of her episodes aired the showrunner walked into a gym and there was the actress he fired on the treadmill.  She sees him and calls out across the entire gym, "Yeah, BIG improvement!"  

Shows also get rewritten and parts are dropped.

So in most cases, it’s like being the victim of a sniper. You never hear the bullet coming.

But there are also times when the actor knows he’s not cutting it. Getting fired is usually painful but it can also be a relief.

As for bad behavior, we really need to define just what that is. Some actors have a maddening process that drives everyone around them nuts. Is that bad behavior or bad work habits? If the performance is ultimately great it’s just the process; if it’s not you shoot him week four.

The only incident of real bad behavior I encountered was a guest actor who made a totally inappropriate sexual advance on an actress. When I found out about it later in the day I walked right down to the stage and fired him on the spot.

So be careful Jose. Work real hard, take your job seriously, and no hanky-panky with series regulars.

Here’s a question that all America wants answered. It’s from Ian:

How does Phoef Sutton pronounce her first name? I suspect it's something like "fuff," but I'm dying to know for sure.

It’s pronounced “Feef”, just like it’s spelled.

Warren Z. wonders: 

If you were to write for a show like Modern Family, where every episode is based around a theme (sometimes loosely, sometimes not so much), would you start by determining the theme, and then work out each of the storylines from there? Or would you figure out the plots first and tweak them, if you need to, to fit a particular theme?

Theme FIRST. Always. It’s the spine. This also applies when creating a series, movie, play, novel – any dramatic enterprise. The best stories are ABOUT something.

To not have the theme first is like an artist painting something at random and then deciding what it looks like.

And finally, from Armando:

Are you not having a Sitcom Room seminar this year? I missed out last year and have been kicking myself since.

I’m taking a break this year to finish two books I'm writing.  But I will do the Sitcom Room again soon. Stay tuned.

What’s your question???

The truth about product placement, or "things go bitter with Coke"

Sometimes a Friday question warrants an entire post. Like this one:

Stephen asks:

How do feel about product placement in shows? What were your experiences with it in your shows? Were you ever asked to feature something ridiculous (e.g. high-end sports gear in M*A*S*H)?

No one from Nike ever approached us on MASH. Damn!  I could have used the shoes.

COL POTTER:  Klinger, you horse's patoot!  Of course your dogs are gonna blisters in those high heels.  Son, what you need is Nike Air Pegasus+ 27 shoes, especially if you're going on guard duty!

But seriously, in today’s marketplace product placement is here to stay. Since so many viewers fast forward through commercials the only way an advertiser can get his product seen is by integrating it into the show.  And that’s fine until it overrides creative decisions. If you have a scene in a restaurant that works great but you’re told you have to move it to a Home Depot because they paid a load of cash then you’re crossing a line. 

And I fear that’s coming.

But if Dexter wants to cut up his bodies with an Earthquake-43cc 2 Cycle Auger Powerhead, whatever. 

There’s an even more insidious use of product placement – after the fact. They can now digitally insert products into already filmed scenes. This is especially troublesome for the actors.

Let’s say it's an episode of FRIENDS and we’re in Rachel’s bedroom. Revlon products are strategically placed throughout the room. Now Clairol is just about to make Jennifer Aniston their spokesperson for a gazillion dollars. But suddenly they pull out of the deal because of Jennifer’s association with Revlon. See where that might get sticky?

The only time my partner David Isaacs and I were involved in product placement we got crucified for it. It was on the movie we wrote, VOLUNTEERS.

Tom Hanks plays Lawrence Bourne, a rich preppy asshole who ducks a gambling debt by joining the Peace Corps in 1962. There he encounters earnest Beth Wexler (Rita Wilson).  They're stationed in a tiny village in Thailand.  Lawrence & Beth get off to a horrible start (natch) but as the movie unfolds they begin to thaw (also natch) and we needed a device to break the ice. This is the scene and then I’ll explain the fallout.

******


INT. LAWRENCE’S CLUB – NIGHT


Beth enters to find that Lawrence has transformed the hut into an exotic, albeit small, nightclub. There are bamboo chairs and tables, plants, and a makeshift bar, fully stocked with liquor. Lawrence, wearing his dinner jacket, sits at the corner table smoking a cigarette. An old villager sits off to the side, trying his best to play, “As Time Goes By” on his primitive Thai sitar.


LAWRENCE
Welcome. I call it “Lawrence’s”.


BETH
I don’t believe it… even from you.


LAWRENCE
It was easier than you think.


BETH
How did you…?


Lawrence waves at the villager to stop playing.


LAWRENCE
A little elbow grease, a few connections and voila: Loong Ta’s first public service. Are you as proud of me as I am? Can I get you a drink?


BETH
What’s this for?


LAWRENCE
For a job well done. I’ve got Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, Jim Beam… the whole gang.


BETH
You’ve got liquor?


LAWRENCE
And wine. The house special is a delightfully articulate Chablis.


BETH
I haven’t seen a tube of toothpaste in two weeks and you have a bar?


LAWRENCE
Don’t fight it, Beth.


BETH
Goodnight, Lawrence.


LAWRENCE
You’re taking the narrow view again.


She starts for the door, then stops and turns back.


BETH
Do you have a Coke?


LAWRENCE
Plain, cherry, lemon or vanilla?


BETH
Plain. A plain Coke.


Lawrence reaches beneath the bar, grabs a bottle of Coke, and with much panache, removes the cap.


LAWRENCE
(handing it to her) You more than earned it.


Beth takes the Coke, looks at it, then takes a long swig.


BETH
Oh, that is fantastic… I miss these so much. Lawrence, damn you, you’re a life saver.


LAWRENCE
(toasting her with another Coke) To friends. Would you care to dance?


Beth thinks it over, takes one more good chug of Coke, and steps into Lawrence’s arms.


LAWRENCE
(to the villager) Try it again, Sam.


The sitar player strikes up “As Time Goes By” in the same monotonous way. Lawrence snaps his fingers, ordering him to pick up the pace. THE CAMERA SLOWLY PULLS BACK, and THROUGH THE WINDOW we watch Lawrence and Beth dancing slowly around the room, Beth shyly looking into Lawrence’s eyes. Electricity flickers.

********

In doing research for the screenplay we learned that one of the things volunteers missed most from back home was Coca Cola.

We wrote that Coke scene in the first draft, 1980. It stayed in every draft and wound up on the screen. Originally the movie was set up at MGM. After a couple of years it went into turnaround, finally landing at HBO Silver Screen in partnership with Tri-Star. This was 1984. Tri-Star was a division of Sony, as was the Coca Cola company. No one from the studio ever asked that that scene be in. No one from the studio ever mentioned that scene period.

A year later the film was released and we walked into a major shitstorm.  We were accused of shamelessly plugging Coca Cola.  We were called whores.  We were called cowards.  Pretty much everything but child molesters.  Today we'd be called visionaries. 

I look back and think, all of this could so easily been avoided if he just offered her a joint.

Tom Bosley, Bristol Palin, Jenny McCarthy, and Cliff Lee

Miscellaneous thoughts or “Attention-deficit blogging”:

Bristol Palin finally got raves from the DWTHS judges this week…for performing in a gorilla suit.

What an awful week for sitcom parents. First Barbara Billingsley (June Cleaver) passes away and now Mr. C., Tom Bosley of HAPPY DAYS. He was a lovely man.

Explain to me why ABC says COUGAR TOWN is a hit when last week MODERN FAMILY finished 18th and COUGAR TOWN finished 46th.  

JACKASS 3D unseated SOCIAL NETWORK as the top box office film this weekend. Now that Aaron Sorkin has graciously contributed to this blog, maybe Johnny Knoxville will write a piece for me responding to concerns about his treatment of “midgets”.

Best-written show on network television is THE GOOD WIFE. And it’s getting better. But it’s like Christine Baranski is in a different show. Everyone else is so nuanced and subtle and she’s Norma Desmond on Mountain Dew.

With the Giants now up on the Phillies two games to one in the NLCS, they’re going baseball crazy in San Francisco. Ticket scalpers are getting top dollar for kayak space.

Is it just me or is DEXTER not clicking this year? I used to love his internal narration. He was always wrestling with his inability to fit into society. Now he’s giving you a laundry list of things to do today. Dump the body, buy baby oil, get over to the deserted shack before the girl he drugged wakes up. I might as well be watching JERSEY SHORE.

Plus I miss Julie Benz.  Why couldn't the Trinity Killer have offed Angel & Maria instead?   Their subplot is so unengaging I'd rather just watch Dexter cut up the bodies and stuff them into bags. 

ABC just cut V’s order to X.

Self-proclaimed sex and romance expert Jenny McCarthy has a new book out. Love, Lust & Faking It: The Naked Truth About Sex, Lies and True Romance. In what is maybe the most informative advice book since Teri Hatcher’s, Ms. McCarthy strongly advocates honesty in a relationship, even if it sometimes is very difficult to do. She gave a personal example (re he and her new boyfriend Jason Toohey) in a recent interview to PEOPLE magazine. "If he wants Chinese [food] and I don't, I say it." Wow! Say what you will, the woman has courage.

Has BIG BANG THEORY gotten really silly this year?  I fear that show has "Jumped the Superorder Selachimorpha".

Remember when the President of the United States coming to your town was a big honor?  Now it's a fucking nightmare if you live in Los Angeles.  Last time President Obama was here it resulted in massive gridlock.   Well, this Friday he's baaaack!!  If he even dreams of winning California again he best be tooling around in a Kia. 

Hey TBS, if you’re going to replace Chip Caray with someone who’s not a real baseball announcer, why not just let Conan do it?

Isn’t this an incredible photo? Taken during last week’s spectacular thunderstorm.

On CASTLE Monday night Nathan Fillion had to say this line after seeing a murder victim with a syringe puncture: “Looks like someone gave her 20 C.C.’s of death.”   As my daughter Annie said: "David Caruso is angry he didn't get to deliver it."

Cliff Lee just cost the Yankees game three of the ALCS and probably another $20 million in the contract they’re going to have pony up to get him.

I’ve given up on BOARDWALK EMPIRE.

Scott Caan steals HAWAII 5-0. The watchword all over town will soon be “Book Dano!”.

Bob Uecker – get well soon.

Mel Gibson will appear in HANGOVER 2. Unless he’s eaten by a tiger (for real) I have no interest in seeing it. And even then, it better be graphic.

My MAD MEN season review

SPOILER ALERT, but Jesus, watch the damn show already.  Enough people are talking about it.

Can Don Draper find happiness now that he plans to marry his Laura Petrie with bad teeth? Well, first of all, no one is ever really going to be happy because without conflict you’re left with TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL.  But I do feel Don at least has a shot now.  As do some  of the other always-in-crisis characters.  Season four wrapped up Sunday night and for my money it was the best year since the first.

Not that the last two weren’t good but I got a little tired of Don just trying to be comfortable in his own skin. By the time he was hanging out in Palm Springs with the Andy Warhol kibbutz I was screaming, “Figure it out already!”

But this year we really got to watch Don grapple with substantial obstacles – losing his touch, striking out with trollops, becoming Nick Cage in LEAVING LOST VEGAS or Lindsay Lohan in real life.

We saw him trying to live alone and it wasn’t pretty. He rented an apartment in Ratzo Rizzo’s building. For gratification he resorted to hookers and even Focus Group moderators.

His relationship with his children became even more strained, although it’s understandable that he didn’t really know his son, Bobby since six different actors have played him. And he was really conflicted. On the one hand he loved them. On the other he’d pay Jeffrey Dahmer to babysit if the alternative was spending ten minutes alone with them.

And Don was still the good parent considering Betty was their mother. Once a layered sympathetic character, she has now morphed into Joan Crawford. And Henry, the guy who married her after Don – if there were a land of the schmucks he would be their king. Watch, by episode two next season he’s going to be throwing himself in front of a moving train.

Betty is extraordinarily beautiful and yet whenever she comes on the screen I go "Shit!  Her!"  Even my libido hates her.

So what might happen in season five?

Sally will one day kidnap Patty Hearst. Third time will be a charm for Creepy Glenn as he will finally sleep with a Draper – Bobby.

Joan will have Roger’s baby and try to convince her husband, Greg that it’s really his. As my daughter Annie says, “He’ll figure something’s up when the baby comes out and has white hair”.

I expect the episode next season with the SCDP family picnic where the partners can meet all the children who think other men are their fathers.

SCDP will prosper.  Don's anti-smoking ad in the NY Times will result in a $50,000,000 account from Nicorette.    The ad proves so successful that Roger takes a similar one out that's anti-Japanese and the agency will be out of business in a month. 

Poor Peggy is facing the career’s woman existential question: devote your life to your profession or start hanging out more with a Lesbian? The show where she and Don spent a night together was maybe the single greatest episode of the series. Both deserve Emmys... and Clios.

Pete and Trudy will live happily ever after unless she decides to go back to college.

Poor jilted Dr. Faye will tell her friends that’s what happens when you date a shaygets.

Harry will eventually move out to the coast and become the Director of Comedy Development for ABC and then get fired when he exposes himself to Patty Duke at an affiliates convention.

But getting back to Don and his new bride, Megan – I like their chances. She’s good with children (although it doesn’t take much to improve upon Himmler). She’s smart, she’s sweet – her only real conflict will be what name to use? Her maiden name, Draper, or Whitman?  Seriously though, let's see how it goes when she's an equal and not subservient to Don.  

Still, I’m rooting for them – mostly for Sally, whoever is Bobby this week, and baby Gene. Don and everyone else can screw up their own lives. They’re grown ups. But MAD MEN is a drama. MAD KIDS is a tragedy.

Thanks to Matt Weiner and everybody associated with the show for giving us a sensational year.

What did you guys think of this year?

Beaver Cleaver

Barbara Billingsley, who played June Cleaver on the classic 50s sitcom LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, passed away over the weekend.  She was 94.  As a kid I marveled at how she cooked and cleaned and always wore a party dress and pearls.  My mom never did.   But for years it was an honor to be mistaken for Barbara's TV son.

I guess that requires an explanation, huh?

Okay, that means a look back at my checkered radio career...

After being fired from KMEN San Bernardino in late ‘73 I sat out of work for six months. Apparently no one wanted a wise-ass disc jockey with a light voice. I couldn’t even land a gig doing all-nights in Fresno. Ironically, when I did get an offer it was to do evenings at WDRQ, Detroit. So I wasn’t good enough for market #100 but I was fine for market #4.

More on my actual adventures in Detroit in future posts but today I want to concentrate on my name. No rock station would let me use my actual name (Levine sounded too… uh, “Red Sea Pedestrian”). And in general disc jockeys had very generic names. Johnny Mitchell. Steve Clark. Bob Shannon. Take any two simple first names and slam them together.

Needless to say, to audiences these disc jockeys were interchangeable. In some cases stations changed personnel but just kept the name. So Bill Bailey could be the afternoon man but over the course of three years that could be four different guys.

In Bakersfield and San Bernardino I was Ken Stevens. When I got the job in Detroit I decided to make a change. I took the moniker Beaver Cleaver.

Why?

I wanted something distinctive. I wanted something memorable. The first time the listener heard, “Hi, this is Beaver Cleaver” I wanted him to say "What the fuck?!"   Any major program director will tell you -- if you can get the audience to say "What the fuck?!" you've won. 

It was a name everybody knew from the TV show. I figured a lot of people would wonder if I was Jerry Mathers (who played the Beav). This might even prompt some discussion in various Detroit high schools. How often did you discuss disc jockeys in your high school?

I also liked that the name was easy to say. As opposed to Illya Kuryakin, my second choice (although it would have been fun to hear jingle singers trying to sing Illya Kuryakin).

I’d like to take credit for being the first disc jockey to do something like this, but the truth is I wasn’t. Art Ferguson debuted on KHJ in 1967 as Charlie Tuna. At the time Charlie the Tuna was the cartoon mascot of the Starkist Tuna ad campaign. Whether it was Art’s idea or a program director I thought it was genius.

One other side benefit to “Beaver Cleaver” was that I could use it for double entendres. Remember this was for a teenage audience. I came on the first night and said, “This is the grand opening of the Beaver.” Yes, it was juvenile but my goal was to make noise. I'm sure I got some more "What the fucks?!" with that one. 

Anyway, it worked. People did take notice and remember. A few years ago I was having lunch with Tom Hanks. He was saying he grew up in the Bay Area and I mentioned I was a disc jockey in San Francisco at that time. “Who were you?” he asked. When I told him his eyes lit up and immediately he said, “Beaver Cleaver! KYA! Boss of the Bay!” I don’t think he would have remembered the name I used in Bakersfield.  (I bet you can't either and you just read it fifteen seconds ago.)  

So I used that handle at WDRQ and future stops as a DJ. Later that year I was hired by K100 in Los Angeles. (A year before I couldn’t get arrested in Fresno.) The station was owned by Bill Drake & Gene Chenault, the architects of the KHJ Boss Radio format that was the rage of the 60s. I was brought in to do evenings, following the Real Don Steele. It was a dream job except I hated the program director. When I say he was clueless, here’s how clueless:

The day I was slated to debut the station had all of the other jocks hyping my arrival. The PD stopped in the booth and midday guy, Eric Chase jokingly asked if I was going to have Wally and Lumpy join me my first night. The PD said, “What are you talking about?” Eric said, “Wally and Lumpy – the Beav's brother and his dufus friend.” The PD was completely confused. Eric said, “Y’know, from the TV show. From LEAVE IT TO BEAVER.” The PD’s eyes widened in horror. “There’s a TV show?!”

How the fuck could this moron not have heard of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER?

So he calls me into his office panicked. There were already promos on the air. What if we got sued? I tried to calm him down. “If we get sued,” I said, “it’s the best thing that could ever happen to us.” Now he was really perplexed. I reasoned that in the highly unlikely event we were sued this would become a big story. The local TV stations would probably cover it. K100 would get more free publicity than it could ever imagine. I would stop using Beaver Cleaver and the station could invite listeners to come up with my new name. Fortunately, owner Bill Drake thought that was brilliant and I was allowed to keep calling myself Mrs. Cleaver’s Beaver.

For the record, I was never sued. And continued to use the name until 1980. By the way, Frank Bank, who played “Lumpy”, is now Jerry Mathers’s investment adviser.

Aaron Sorkin on CNN

Among other topics, he talks about responding to a reader on this blog.

Adventures in pitching pilots

This is the time of the year when writers are pitching pilot ideas to networks.  Sometimes we sell; sometimes we don't.  But we all have stories.  Here are a few of ours:

We had to pitch a pilot the day after 9-11. The VP cried. (We sold it)

We pitched ABC (years and many executives ago) and started with a joke. We said we had an idea that was tailor made for their network. We called in “Tuesday Night Football”. The girl with the pad was writing it down as if we were serious. (We didn’t sell the idea.. or TNF that day.)

Our PA on CHEERS who used to get us lunch became the VP of comedy at a major network. We had to pitch our PA. (No sale. But we were offered drinks.)


We hooked up once with a non-writing producer (big mistake) who had an idea that somehow involved food.  This was three years ago and already I've forgotten it.  Anyway, we go into Fox and he gets the bright idea to bring snacks.   You know the producer really trusts the idea when he feels the need to provide buckets of chicken, pies, a couple gallons of cole slaw, and candy.  Overkill by a thousand.  The Fox execs were horrified.  The producer starts opening the buckets and offering plates and the execs stopped him.  They had eleven more meetings, there was no time for a fucking picnic at 10 in the morning.  Not only did we not sell this one, the next time we went in (sans this producer) to pitch something else they informed us that they had ants as a result of the stunt.  No sale that day either.

A few years ago, in the Jeff Zucker era, NBC announced in the trades that they were discontinuing all scripted shows for the 8:00 hour.   That afternoon we pitched NBC an 8:00 family comedy.  We finished the pitch, they said they really liked it, and I said, "Thank you.  We've got no shot with this thing do we?"  The V.P.  shook her head sadly and said, "No.  Not really.  But it really is good."  


The comedy VP (who later became the president of that network) once asked us “What is the opening episode of the seventh season?” Huh??? How the fuck do you answer that? We said “the clip show, featuring all the highlights of the many Emmy winning episodes.” (No sale)

This happened several times: The VP hears our pitch then says they bought something just like it only yesterday. But if it’s any consolation ours is better. Oh yeah. Tremendous consolation. That’s like “if I hadn’t met your brother first I would have slept with you.”

We were overseeing two young writers. The studio rep began the meeting by introducing all of us to the network people by saying, “So with Ken & David we have the old with the new.” Jesus! Why not just say, “we went over to the broadcast museum and dug up the guys who wrote MR. PEEPERS”?

We had a great pitch once. The VP called to say it’s not final but we were on “the one yard line”. Turns out we hit a tough goal line stance. And the clock ran out.

We pitched a show that took place between midnight and six. The network said, “We LOVE it. We’ll buy it. Only one small alternation. Can it not take place between midnight and six?” Uh, then what are you buying? They weren’t sure but they liked the area. (No sale there but we did sell it elsewhere.)

Easiest pitch we ever had -- David Isaacs, Robin Schiff, and I went into CBS to pitch ALMOST PERFECT. We said, “a young woman – on the day she gets the job of her life meets the guy of her life. How does she juggle the two?” SOLD. Just like that.

And finally, how original do the ideas have to be? In 1976 we sold our first pilot to NBC. It was called BAY CITY AMUSEMENT COMPANY. The premise was a behind-the-scenes look at SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Considering they had two shows on the air a few years ago with that exact same premise I’d say just pick up our show instead. Unfortunately, 30 ROCK is better than our show, and half of our cast is now dead.