My favorite new iPad app!

This vital application teaches you how to roll a joint. Where was this far out app in the '60s when I was fumbling around with those Zig Zag papers?

"My boyfriend looks just like a movie star!"

One of the staples of romcom is mistaken identity. Comedy comes from the confusion of someone either posing as someone else or someone believing somebody is somebody else. When you watch and hopefully enjoy these farces do you ever think to yourself, “Oh, this could never happen in real life”?

Well here’s one that really did happen -- a few years ago in that always crazy kooky town of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A guy and his girlfriend were watching a porno movie at 10:30 in the morning in their house. (A far better alternative than THE VIEW). The girl, 20 year old Amanda Moya (pictured above) suddenly thought a certain porn actor who had just entered the scene was in fact her boyfriend. (Wouldn’t he have to resemble the actor in two ways? But I digress.)

She went bat-shit. This is the kind of "previous experience" she must have felt he was obliged to reveal before they moved in together...and had a kid.

Amanda grabbed a large kitchen knife and started chasing him around the house. The terrified look-alike called 911 on his cell as he dodged his knife-wielding beloved.

Wearing only shorts he bolted out of the house and ran down the street for his life, still on line with 911. Meanwhile Amanda followed, hell bent to go all Benihana on him.

He breathlessly told the dispatcher that Amanda had already stabbed him and bitten him on his chest. And then he offered, “She already has battery charges against her. She’s not even supposed to be around me.” (Quick reminder: they live together. And have a child.)

The 911 operator told him to get to a store while she called authorities. (How come you never see this high-speed chase on COPS?) Amanda, with thoughts I'm sure of becoming the next Lorena Bobbitt, remained in hot pursuit.

The victim tells the dispatcher that he sees the arriving cops. But he’s worried they'll just keep heading to his house. The dispatcher says, “Do they see your girlfriend?” He says, “Yes!” She says be sure to point her out. (A crazed woman waving the O.J.-weapon-of-choice isn’t enough to catch a policeman’s attention?)

Amanda was arrested and charged with aggravated assault & battery. Sometimes a happier ending than guy-gets-the-girl is cops-get-the girl.

Watch your local listings. Scheduled for next summer release: SLICE OF LOVE starring Lindsay Lohan, and introducing Rock Hard.

My bad hair day (decade).

Top 40 stations in the 50s-mid 70s distributed survey sheets every week to local record stores (you remember record stores). These listed the top hits the station was playing and usually featured a photo of one of the disc jockeys. Here is a rare survey from KYA, San Francisco in 1974 that featured a young, skinny me with waaaay too much hair. They took this shot on a windy day, which also didn't help. I was hoping they'd take it during thick early morning fog. 

You'll notice that Cleaver is spelled with two e's. That was the station's brilliant idea to protect themselves against a lawsuit. I didn't give a shit. Half my listeners couldn't spell anyway.

Thanks to Classic Top 40 Radio and California Airchecks for the surveys.

My partner and I discuss our ersatz careers and try to look cool on television

Recently, David Isaacs and I guested on an internet interview show called "the Writers Room" hosted by writer Mark Reisman. Here's the show. It's an hour long. In that time we tell everything we know. Twice.

This is what I sounded like in 1977

Great Big Radio, despite my restraining order and seventeen injunctions, is playing one of my radio shows tonight from 8-9 PST, 11-12 EST.  It's from 1977 when I was Beaver Cleaver on KTNQ (The New TenQ), Los Angeles. Not sure what I was on besides speed and helium, but I was completely out of my mind in those days. And the music! I hope somebody at the station was getting well paid to play this stuff.

There will also be an encore from 11-12 PST, 2-3 am EST. 

You can hear it on Great Big Radio here. If you dare.

The art of doing Warm-Up

Sometimes I’ll get a Friday question that can fill up a post by itself. Today is one of those.

It’s from unkystan:

Years ago I attended tapings of shows like "Chico and the Man" and "The Jeffersons". While sets were being moved in and out we were entertained by Freddie Prinz standup, Scatman Crothers & Della Reese singing, etc. How did you keep your audiences entertained between scenes?

At MTM and Paramount, they employed both a small band and a warm-up guy. As you mentioned, with a multi-camera show, the audience (of about 200 people) is there for several hours, and there are down periods while writers confer, actors change wardrobe, sets fly in and out, and technical glitches get resolved. So he’s not just a warm-up man, he’s also a keep-‘em-warm man.

Each warm-up guy has his own style. Some are stand-up comics and have a set routine. Others do schtick like magic tricks. playing guitars, or staging little competitions.

For the first year of CHEERS I did the warm-up. We originally had a comic and week four he called in sick. Since I had done radio, Les Charles volunteered me for the job. After that taping the cast went to the Charles Brothers and asked if I’d do it every week. I was quite touched. That comic still won't talk to me.

I had no time to develop a style. I was thrown in an hour before the show. So I just decided to be conversational. The warm-up guy has two functions: keep the audience’s energy high, and even more important -- keep them involved with the story. Most comics don’t do the second part. They feel it’s sufficient to do their act. It’s not.

There usually is a break between scenes of ten to fifteen minutes. The band will play a few songs and the warm-up guy will take it back. Some of the cheaper production companies dispense with the band and to me that’s a big mistake. The band keeps the audience rocking and you don’t burn out the warm-up guy by making him fill fifteen minutes six or seven times a show.

But just before each new scene would start I would recap. “Remember, Sam and the gang went over to Gary’s bar to retaliate. Now it’s later that night and they’re coming back to the bar.”

To fill time between takes I would answer audience questions. They were often the same questions from week to week so I was ready with witty answers.

I also acted like a golf commentator, describing the behind-the-scenes activities on the floor. “Uh oh,” I’d say in a hushed tone,”It looks like we have a director, two producer confab. Wait. Ohmygod! This is unheard of. I think we’re going to have…yes, yes we are… a director, three producer confab. You were here to see it, ladies and gentlemen.” Crap like that. I would also introduce the folks on the floor – writers, crew members, etc. No one works harder on a production than the crew. These prop and sound and wardrobe people do a superb job in relative obscurity, so it’s nice to give them a chance to take a bow.

Every so often there would be technical delays that could be quite lengthy. One night at CHEERS the air conditioning went out. That was brutal. On BECKER (I was directing that episode, not doing warm-up) the power went out. The studio audience sat in the dark for a half hour. Talk about a momentum killer.

The toughest warm-up I ever did was on the very last CHEERS. The Charles Brothers asked if I would do it, and I was honored, but oh man! First of all, it was an hour and half show. Secondly, the audience was all invited guests and former staff members. Industry audiences are the worst for warm-up guys. They never ask questions. They know everything that’s going on down on the stage. I think I wound up introducing every person in the audience three times.

I always liked doing the warm-up because I felt I was really contributing to the show. A good audience can spark a better cast performance. If I wasn’t the show runner, I’d just be standing around during the taping. At least this way I was really involved.

There is an art to doing warm-up. I was well-received, but there are a few who are so good they actually make a living at it. A top notch warm-up guy can work six or seven shows a week, between sitcoms, talk shows, and game shows.

If you have hopes of becoming a warm-up person yourself someday let me get you started. When

someone in the audience asks, “Do they get the show in Boston?” you say, “They see it, but they don’t get it.” You’re halfway home.

If you have a question, please leave it in the comments section.  Most week I answer more than one.  Thanks. 

Will 3-D save Hollywood?

In the late ‘50s movie studios faced stiff competition from television. John Wayne and Elizabeth Taylor were getting their asses kicked by George Gobel and Gale Storm. And color TV was hitting the market (albeit slowly… almost one color at a time). In an attempt to make the theater experience more special, Hollywood unveiled a new way to see movies – Cinerama. Talk about a widescreen -- three projectors simultaneously showing a movie on a huge, deeply-curved screen. Even Lucy & Ethel couldn’t compete with that.

Wow! This was a revelation. I remember running to the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood to see THIS IS CINERAMA. It was really cool. You were riding on a giant rollercoaster, going through the canals of Venice, hanging out at Niagara Falls. I didn’t even care that there was no story and I was nauseous halfway through the picture.

Movies started being made in Cinerama, and after a while the novelty wore off. I recall sitting through this ponderous James Garner movie, GRAND PRIX. Endless scenes of point-of-view driving in race cars. Please make a pit stop!  Anything to break up the monotony!  Crash! 

Pretty soon the craze died down. Yeah, visually I’m sure it was eye-popping, but no one wanted to see CIRCUS WORLD or THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL. By the 70s, Cinerama was effectively over.

Another innovation Hollywood unveiled that was destined to revolutionize the movie industry was Smell-O-Vision. As absurd as this sounds, odors were pumped into theaters. A character on screen would hold up a bouquet of roses and you’d smell roses. She’d walk into a seafood store and you’d smell fish.

So when a movie stunk, it stunk!  And they did.

There were technical problems galore.  Smells weren't timed correctly, some parts of the theater got more of a blast than others, some scents were slow to dissipate.  You were left with the delightful aroma of fishy roses (which would probably still sell better than Jennifer Aniston's current perfume line is).  

This gimmick didn’t take off at all.  (Can you imagine if they tried Smell-O-Vision with a "certain scene" in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE?)

And here we are today. Studios face competition not only from TV but now from Netflix, streaming video, DVRs, ON DEMAND, Wii, my blog, and even smart phones. Ticket prices are high, commercials are shown, and inconsiderate assholes are texting and reading email during showings. To counter this, Hollywood has unveiled its latest stunt– 3-D. Better even than IMAX, their savior that didn’t save them last decade. Do we really need to see a close-up of Mick Jagger’s face six stories tall?

As with Cinerama, there has been an initial flush of success. But I caution the studios, 3-D alone won’t do it. Ultimately, what brings people into the Cineplex is good movies. You could make THE CLASH OF THE TITANS or THE LAST AIRBENDER in 4-D, 5-D, Smell-O-Vision, holograms, or images projected directly into your brain – no one is going to come see them.

Again, it all comes down to quality. We can ride our own rollercoasters, smell our own roses, or see the world in three-dimension. What we can’t get everyday are compelling stories that move us, make us laugh, cry, scream, and marvel.

Please don’t overlook the one innovation that has been attracting people to theaters for a hundred years – writers.