Dancing with the REAL Stars

Check out this amazing video. Don't know who did the editing but he/she/they did a fantastic job.

The live 30 ROCK

Anytime a show breaks format it’s a big risk. On MASH we did it from time to time. When my writing partner, David and I pitched the “Point of View” concept to producers we told them it would either be the best or worst show of the year.  But we took these chances primarily because we were in a format that was completely locked-in to a time and place. All other sitcoms could naturally evolve. Characters could move into new apartments, get married, divorced, have kids. We asked to audience to believe that eleven years of shows all took place in one calendar year. So to shake things up we broke the format (usually once a season). By the way, credit Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds for coming up with that.

On the other hand, the 30 ROCK live show was a ratings stunt. I can’t imagine Tina Fey feeling the urge to completely re-imagine her successful Emmy-winning show just cause she was creatively curious. A likelier scenario was NBC coming to her begging if she’d do this because they really needed help launching OUTSOURCED.

So it was more of a Mission Impossible assignment. And as such I thought Tina & everyone did an amazing job. Not only did they manage to pull it off live without any real hitch (at least on the West Coast) but the episode they staged was very ambitious. Yes, it was a little uneven, but Jesus, that’s like criticizing Evil Knievel for not landing smoothly when he jumped the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle.

When I saw the first scene with Liz and Jack just talking in an office, not even moving, I thought – what a cheat this is going to be. But then the show really took off.

There were ingenious touches like flashbacks with Julia Louise-Dryefus playing Liz, topical references (I hope Brett Favre was watching), and the Tracy subplot dealing with “breaking” in a live show. Normally I hate when characters know they’re in a comedy but in this case it really worked. Tina took full advantage of the conceit. And had there been a major screw up and everybody broke up it would have made no difference. We still would have loved it at home. It was brilliant insurance.

I actually found myself laughing more at this 30 ROCK episode than in most lately. So do it again next week, Tina! (What I’d really like to see is HAWAII 5-0 done live.)

I’ve seen a number of articles marvel at how Tina made changes and tweaked some jokes for the West Coast live version. Uh… that’s what we DO. On any multi-camera show we have a dress rehearsal in the afternoon, change some things, shoot the show in front of the audience, pause and generally re-shoot scenes with some new jokes, and even after the audience leaves we go back and revise some more jokes or moments.

Also remember, Tina comes from SNL. She’s hardly a stranger to live shows and the format.

Anyway, kudos to Tina Fey and everyone associated with 30 ROCK for an impossible mission well done. If you want tips on doing the POV episode just give me a call. February Sweeps are coming up.

The writing job I regret not accepting

Friday questions comin' at ya.  For new readers, every Friday I answer your questions.  Just leave 'em in the comments section.  

UPDATE:  A lot of you have asked me about last night's live 30 ROCK.  I'll talk about it tomorrow.  Preview:  I liked it.

Michael has two:

1) Any writing jobs do you regret not accepting?

We were offered the job to write the COSBY pilot but had to turn it down because AfterMASH had gotten picked up for a second season and we were still locked in. That was good for ten years therapy.  I still can't see a multi-colored sweater without bursting into tears. 

Otherwise, there were some new shows that offered us a guarantee of 13 episodes and were canceled after 3,  meaning they had to just pay us off for the remaining ten.   We missed some golden opportunities there.

And then of course, walking away from comedy goddess Traci Lords. 

2) When you wrote for The Simpsons, did you approach it like a live-action show or did you try to include things that only could be done in animation?

We did treat it as live-action because the characters had to have real emotions. The animation part allowed us tremendous freedom and we tried to take advantage of that – doing scenes you couldn’t do (or afford) otherwise, but in our heads we were writing live-action.

 If you overheard any of our internal discussions about the characters you would think we were talking about real people -- damaged real people but real just the same.

But that’s just us. I can’t speak for any other SIMPSONS writers (who are all welcome to chime in).  

sophomorecritic wonders:

How do you ensure writers aren't slacking off on weeks where they're not writing the episode? What specifically are they doing on weeks when the show isn't written by them?

We put ankle bracelets on them and monitor their whereabouts at all times.  Those bitches work for us!

Seriously, when you’re on staff of a show your day is spent in the writers room with everybody else – coming up with notions, breaking stories, rewriting this week’s show, re-writing next week’s. Depending on the show and team of the season, sometime if you’ve got a script assignment they let you skip your room responsibilities and just go off and write the draft. But more often than not you have to write the script on your own time.  So the 80 hour week becomes a 100 hour week.  And that's fine if the show goes into syndication and you get residuals forever.  If you killed yourself to write that HANK episode I'm sorry. 

Here’s one from Jose:

Do tv writers typically get paid weekly, bi-weekly, or?
this is for a small beat in my 30 Rock spec.
i didn't know how to look this up. thanks

They get paid LATE most of the time. That’s the real answer. If you’re on staff you’re generally paid so much per episode. That’s totaled and rationed out every two weeks. But I’m sure different studios have different pay schedules.

The only thing they all do is pay you late. Or not at all.

In going back through contracts my agent recently discovered that David and I were still owed money from a pilot we sold four years ago. “Oops”, the studio said.

And finally, from Anonymous: (please leave a name when asking a question. It won’t go on your police record.)

What I'm curious about now is whether you have had to wade through eccentricity more often than not. In interacting with the actors and directors and producers - and hey maybe writers too - would you say that there are more eccentrics working in the biz or that they are the exception?

Eccentricities are certainly tolerated more in this industry than others. The creative process is nebulous at best. But for the most part everyone is just normally neurotic and crazy.

As for eccentricities: There was a writer who could only work in the valley. He couldn’t go into Los Angeles. So he could never work at 20th or Sony or Paramount or pitch HBO or SHOWTIME or FOX.  Needless to say, his agent was thrilled.

I know actors who don’t like to make eye contact with anyone. Others who have to be the last one to enter the stage before a runthrough (but that’s just diva shit).

My favorite was a certain TV director. She directed multi-camera shows. Directors have a podium to set down their scripts. The podium is always on wheels so you can roll it from scene to scene.

This director had her own. She had a hobby horse built with a music stand for the script. All day long she sat on this hobby horse and rolled around the set.  It's like Annie Oakley rides in to save your show.

What’s your question?

The random shots I've been taking in the blogosphere

Wow! With this Aaron Sorkin thing going viral I’ve been mentioned in any number of other websites. What an honor to see what other people are writing about me and just how well respected I am in the cyber community.

For the past 24 hours the film blog water cooler has been populated with chatter about Aaron Sorkin‘s response to the sexism criticisms against “The Social Network.” But I was very skeptical, for a few reasons. Even after I was told the blog belonged to a fellow TV writer it still didn’t make sense to me… Why would anyone feel the need to defend his work, let alone actually do so, on a relatively random Blogspot blog, to another commenter on that blog?

Random blog! Yes!!!

He finally chimed in on the comments section of Ken Levine's TV blog, of all places,

Of all places! What could make me feel more special than that?

Social Network writer Aaron Sorkin recently responded to criticism in the comments section of a small blog,

This person didn’t identify me but when you think “small blog” you naturally think of me.

When Ken Levine wrote his review of 'The Social Network,' he might not have expected Aaron Sorkin, the writer of the movie, would be one of his commenters. More importantly (and strangely), Sorkin chose this outlet to respond to the complaints about how women were portrayed in 'The Social Network,'

Yeah, when you think of strange occurrences, what could be more bizarre than someone of note contributing to this site?

Okay, to be 1000% honest, I'm not at all mad.  I find this whole experience hilarious.  All part of the viral ride and I'm enjoying every minute of it... even the ignominious ones.  

And hey, I may not have ten million people but you’re reading this. And that’s good enough for me.

Can a sitcom be edgy and sweet at the same time?

The LA TIMES “Calendar” section ran an article Tuesday maintaining that today’s newer comedies like RAISING HOPE and COMMUNITY, even though they’re edgy, also want to feature warm emotional moments. And that’s fine except for one thing – you’ve got to earn it.

Otherwise you’re WILL & GRACE. Every week they would do twenty minutes of sheer burlesque then suddenly switch gears and have this overly schmaltzy moment. The audience (or laugh machine) would go “Awwwwwww”, there’d be a big hug, one more tit joke for luck and “that’s our show for tonight folks!”

Those emotional moments always felt completely bogus. Why? Because the characters were cartoons and suddenly they were asked to be real.

You can’t have both.

Nothing wrong with mounting a very funny show set in an exaggerated world but then be true to that.

Emotional moments land because you care about the characters. You have empathy for their dilemmas. You can relate to them. And to achieve that your show must be grounded in at least some reality.

I love COMMUNITY. I even watch it this year over BIG BANG THEORY. I find it very funny and fresh. But when show creator Dan Harmon says in the article he wants to have those periodic emotional moments along with the laughs I say that's not going to be easy. The tone he’s created goes counter to that. His characters know they’re in a comedy. They’re very self-conscious of everything they say and do. How do they stop and suddenly become genuine?

Thanks to Alison Brie we can see the difference between a real vs. exaggerated character. Compare her “Trudy” in MAD MEN to her “Annie” in COMMUNITY. Both are wonderful characters but don’t expect Trudy to deliver you big laughs and don’t depend on Annie to tear your heart out.

Greg Garcia, creator of RAISING HOPE, also wants to integrate emotion with edgy comedy and I believe he can pull it off. A low life family having to raise a baby is a very real predicament. And depending on just how extreme the characters are it seems entirely plausible that they are capable of genuine sentiment.

One key is never sacrificing the integrity of your characters just for the sake of a joke. Yeah, it might get a big laugh but if it damages the audience’s perception of the character it’s not worth it.

Another new show that gives lip service to wanting to include emotion is RUNNING WILDE but that show is so stylized it’s ridiculous to even discuss it.

The only sitcom of the new crop that does pull off it off consistently is MODERN FAMILY. But it’s also the most grounded. I get the sense that these other shows wanted to establish themselves comedically first where as MODERN FAMILY placed a high value on emotion right from the get-go. But that’s just my speculation.

And by emotional moments I mean just “moments”. None of these shows are looking to become LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE for the last five minutes. No one is seeing if they can get clearance on Celine Dion songs.  I’m a huge believer that less is more. When David Isaacs and I wrote the “Goodbye Radar” episode of MASH, having Hawkeye and B.J. just find Radar’s teddy bear on Hawkeye’s bunk seemed so preferable to a long tear-filled farewell pathos-fest.

Quick side note: When George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart wrote plays and musicals together Kaufman hated any sentimentality whatsoever but recognized it was necessary. So whenever there was an emotional moment or scene he just walked out of the room and let Hart write it.

The bottom line is I applaud any show runner who wants to add depth and dimension to his show. As Greg Garcia said in the article, “I don’t want to do a show that’s just outrageous and funny things and shocking things and at the end of the day it’s like, ‘OK, that was funny, but do I want to watch that again?’ It’s important to me to have some heart and emotion to it.”

I read that and thought, now I’m really rooting for the show. But you know me, I’m just an old softy… when I’m not ripping Bristol Palin, Katherine Heigl, award shows, movie previews, cheesy reality shows, Paula Abdul, Hugh Hefner, Traci Lords, Jeff Zucker, Fox News, Claudine Longet, satellite radio, parades, Las Vegas, Ann Coulter, National Anthem singers, museums, myself, Scientology, Tim McCarver, Jay Leno, Celine Dion, Time-Warner, or WILL & GRACE.

The response to Aaron Sorkin's response

A million thanks again to Aaron Sorkin for responding to a commenter and causing my blog to go viral for the first time ever. And yes, it really was Aaron Sorkin. THE WRAP confirmed it with his publicist.

This is all very unexpected – this viral thing. Like I said, it never happens to me – even when I give insightful writing advice or review Pornstar Karaoke. I guess I could address the misogyny charges on VOLUNTEERS but a) there weren’t any and b) no one gives a crap about VOLUNTEERS.

Meanwhile, quite a few websites and blogs alerted their readers to Aaron’s Sunday essay.  My thanks to all of them.  One couldn’t believe that Sorkin would respond on “some little guy’s blog”.  Oh be still my heart!

Most sites graciously linked back to me but a few like MSN just cheerfully reprinted the entire post with no link, which is a real breach of cyber etiquette. At first I was quite angry but then I saw that their film critic hated the new Katherine Heigl movie so I’m cool.

This experience has illustrated the power of Twitter. I’ve been re-tweeted numerous times. And some have been very complimentary. Here’s my favorite:

But anyway, my traffic has skyrocketed and I just hope of the many thousands of new readers that six of you will come back maybe once.

Seriously though, I’m thrilled to provide the forum for this provocative discussion on the treatment of women in SOCIAL NETWORK. I must admit that when I saw the film I was not bothered by this issue. Hey, it’s not like the guys come off as saints either. For the most part they’re misogynistic, conniving, insensitive, disloyal, narcissistic assholes. They’re the LORD OF THE FLIES with hoodies or the CAA mailroom. And as for the infamous “Fuck Bus”, I saw that as merely reason 4,573,572 to hate those preppy scumbag bastards.

Also, in none of Aaron Sorkin’s other projects have I felt he had an axe to grind against women. To the contrary, characters on WEST WING like C.J. Cregg, Donna Moss, Amy Gardner, Ainsley Hayes, and Abigail Bartlett were depicted as smart, even gifted, and worthy of enormous respect. Compare Sorkin’s treatment of women to say Judd Apatow’s.  It's the difference between N.O.W. and the "He-Man Woman Hater's Club".

That said, I found a lot of the comments in response to Sorkin’s explanation quite illuminating and as compelling to read as the original piece. (of course I also had to weed through all the anonymous asshole idiots.) It’s a thorny issue. And you’ve come at it from all directions.

Are your arguments enough to make me change my mind? No. But they are enough for me to want to go back and see the movie a second time. So if nothing else, Mr. Sorkin, your responding on “a little guy’s blog” will add another $12 to your boxoffice gross (okay… $10. I go to matinees). And maybe after seeing SOCIAL NETWORK again in this new light I will feel differently. I’ll let you all know. But you’ll have to check back here. Nothing I say is ever going to go viral. If Pornstar Karaoke didn’t do it I’ve got zero chance.

My take on DANCING WITH THE STARS

This is going to be a rather bizarre recap of DANCING WITH THE STARS because it’s only the first time I’ve managed to sit through the whole two hours. But I know the show is insanely popular so felt it was time I saw for myself what all the hoopla was about.

First of all, I didn’t know half the “stars”. My first impulse was to feel really old and out of it but then I checked the bios. Kyle Massey? He’s on some Disney Channel show. Audrina Patridge? She’s appeared on THE HILLS and is listed as a “TV personality”. Okay. So it’s not like Angelina Jolie is on the show and I’ve never heard of her. Audrina Patridge. I’m sorry, change the name to DANCING WITH THE QUASI CELEBRITIES.

I am familiar with the host, Tom Bergeron. How could I not be? He emcees every show that Ryan Seacrest doesn’t. But Ryan at least knows he’s not funny. Tom has this look on his face like “I’m so clever I even amaze myself” then delivers one clam after another.

Not being a dance aficionado, I don’t know the judges. Carrie Ann Whoever offered balanced constructive critiques. Although, to superstar Audrina Patridge she did say, “you lack energy at your ankle”. Huh??? Len Whoever was the token Brit (one is mandatory for all shows) who portrayed the proper English gentleman sprinkled with pixie dust. Bruno Whoever was just a sketch. Jerry Colonna meets Jerry Lewis. I don’t know what their credentials are but his must be entertainment director for Carnival cruise lines.

Once the contestants finished their dance they were interviewed backstage by Brooke Burke who is so stunningly gorgeous she even looked fabulous on the 11 PM news trying to explain that she and her live-in boyfriend didn’t knowingly buy stolen goods to swindle a high-end design store. Her mug shot will be more beautiful than any picture Bristol Palin will ever take.

Bristol Palin (Sarah’s daughter) was just a Clydesdale. On the show they billed her as “Teen Activist”. What the fuck is that? Why not just “Teen Excuse for Getting Her Mother Even More Publicity”? (Sarah was in the audience as was Jamie Lee Curtis who must be taking a break from grieving.)

I wouldn’t mind so much Bristol being a contestant if only she could dance. But clearly she can’t.

This was Tango/Rumba night or something. (One team did their routine to a Tango version of Jefferson Airplanes' "Somebody to Love".  Even on LSD that was wrong.)  Bristol’s dance began with her lying on the floor while her partner spun around and danced. When he finally pulled her up and they began dancing together it looked like a fireman pulling someone out of a burning building. Even Bruno LePew thought she was terrible. To distract the audience, her partner whipped off his shirt during the number. Len was ready to crown him the champion right there.

Almost as bad was the Situation. I guess they never taught dance in any of those tanning salons he frequents.

God bless Florence Henderson. She’s a good sport. But please, Flo, let us just remember you fondly as Mom Brady. You should be spending your time suing your plastic surgeon. But trying to do a sexy seductive dance? You’re 76. That was creepier than when Betty Draper found Glen in the backyard playhouse.

Former Laker Rick Fox was worried that the stage was too small and that he would throw his partner into the audience. That didn’t happen. I’m especially glad she didn’t wind up in Jamie Lee Curtis’ lap. When someone is sitting Shiva it’s best not to disturb them.

By far the best dancer of the night was Jennifer Grey. She was amazing! “Baby’s” still got it, even at 50.

There were nine dances in two hours so that meant a lottttt of paddddddding. We saw snippets of rehearsal filled with angst designed to build up the suspense. “Oh, I’ll never get it!” “Oh, my foot hurts.” “What’s a Rumba?”

And then there were those backstage interviews with Brooke Burke. The question I wish she asked all of them was, “Who are you again?” Or maybe, “Let’s say you bought a lot of designer furniture for $70,000 when it was normally much higher and paid the sales girl directly. You wouldn’t think there was anything shady about that, would you?” Instead it was the usual, “so how do you feel?” softballs. Zzzzz.

But it was fun watching these people clomp around trying to salvage their careers.  And the dresses for all the women under 75 (except Bristol Palin's) were very hot. 

Tonight someone gets voted off. I say vote them all off and just give Jennifer Grey her own show.

Next week is Rock Week.  Big deal.  But the week after is Pyrotechnics Week.   That I gotta see.  Bristol Palin shooting red, white, and blue sparklers out of her breasts.  I'm voting for her that week.