Another of our lost episodes

This is a real "Show 'n Tell" weekend.  But these episodes I want to show you are starting to stack up.

So here's another episode of ALMOST PERFECT.  This is one of my most requested, and if you look real closely there's a brief homage to Dave Niehaus, the Mariners' announcer who sadly just passed away. 

Kim (Nancy Travis) gets to direct her first episode of the TV cop show she runs and she allows her boyfriend, Mike (Kevin Kilner) to be an extra.  Hilarity hopefully ensues.  This episode was written by George McGrath and directed by Jeff Melman.  As before, on Monday Comedy Writing 101 will be in session and I will break down the episode and discuss our thought process.  

A quick note:  I still don't know how to edit so fast forward through the first 30 seconds. 

What's on my desk - revised

A question for writers that has been circulating the blogosphere recently is “what’s on your desk?” It's the same question I answered a couple of years ago but a few items have changed, so what the hell?

My iMac desktop computer .

Mouse on a UCLA mouse pad.

Printer.

Froggy Gremlin childhood toy.

Bob Hope in Dodger uniform bobblehead. (next to Koufax he was my favorite Dodger.)

Cup o’ pens.

Fathers Day cards.

Family photos.

A Gary Larson FAR SIDE card showing the BEWITCHED writing staff brainstorming in the fourth season. Brilliant notions like: “What if Endora casts a spell on Darren?”

Allstate accident report I was supposed to fill out in 2003.

Box of Ralphs market Oyster Crackers. There are some things it's okay to buy the generic brand.

Plastic Bob’s Big Boy (I’m a Bob’s Big Boy fanatic and can never figure out why that checkered jumpsuit look didn’t catch on.)

Five old drafts of my musical, with practically every page dog eared.

Lucite encased Real Don Steele KHJ business card.

A hard bound copy of GREAT PRETENDERS: MY STRANGE LOVE AFFAIR WITH ‘50’s POP MUSIC by Karen Schoemer. (Fun reading. I recommend it.)

My SPORTS ILLUSTRATED 2010 swimsuit model desk calendar. This week it's this picture of Julie Henderson!

A spec pilot from my rabbi.

A spindle of CD’s that includes albums from Frank Zappa and Joanie Sommers.

Dodger Stadium and Pauley Pavilion replica paperweights.

Lucite encased picture of me with AfterMASH writing staff (that includes Larry Gelbart).

Vintage typewriter from 1890 with the carriage return arm on the right side. Still easier to write on than using FINAL DRAFT.

93/KHJ Boss Radio mike flag.


Box of brads and paper clips.

My bobblehead collection which includes Harry Caray (pictured), Speedy Alka-Seltzer, and Jesus Christ.

WHO IS HARRY NILSSON? documentary DVD. Run out and get this. It's fucking amazing!

And -- Oh God – I think there’s still a sandwich.

A sitcom story I bet you haven't seen before

Here's another episode of the MARY show my partner, David Isaacs, and I created for Mary Tyler Moore.  We always like to do stories you can't see on other sitcoms.  I'm particularly proud of this one.  I think it's one of the more ingenious stories we've ever come up with.  The teleplay is by Tom Straw and directed by Will MacKenzie.   


And for you John Astin fans, he is heavily featured in this episode.   Thanks again to friend-of-the-blog, Dave Benson, for posting it.  

Why John Cleese never appeared on CHEERS a second time

Time for Friday questions. First though, thanks so much for all the lovely comments and remembrances of Dave Niehaus from yesterday’s post. Like I said, he was the best broadcast partner I ever had. Nice to know that the genuine affection and respect came through on the air between us.

Okay, to your questions. The first will be answered by David Lee, former CHEERS producer (later FRASIER co-creator), who along with his partner, Peter Casey, wrote the classic John Cleese episode of CHEERS.


The query comes from John Trumball.

I've long thought that the episode of Cheers where John Cleese guest stars and provides some pre-marriage counseling to Sam and Diane is one of the all-time great sitcom episodes. Is it true that there was a sequel planned where Cleese's character returned to get the money that Fraiser Crane still owed him from his first appearance? And if so, why was it never produced?

David Lee: This episode was filmed just after I left the show, but I was around for the lead up to it. Though my memory isn't the best, this is the gist of what I remember from being around campus at the time.

Season 7, episode 22. "The Visiting Lecher" . The script was written by David Lloyd and was originally intended as a vehicle for the John Cleese character, Dr.Simon Finch Royce. Mr. Cleese had expressed an interest in returning to the show, and everyone was thrilled that he was interested in coming back to revisit the character. A story was broken specifically for him, and David went enthusiastically to work. A great script resulted and was put into the production schedule. Shortly before they were scheduled to go into rehearsal, Mr. Cleese's people called up to inform us that he was, as I remember, "too tired" or something and would not be doing the episode. It was quickly rewritten (if you knew Mr Lloyd you can imagine what he had to say about that!) and John McMartin was hired to play Dr. Lawrence Crandall, who, if you look closely, is very very similar to Dr. Finch-Royce. It turned out to be a fine episode, but the once fondly remembered name of Mr. Cleese was- how shall we put this? -- Not.

Thanks, David. I must owe you eight lunches by now.

Max Clarke asked:

I just looked at SFgate and their coverage of the documentary about Glenn Burke.


The article mentions your interview for the doc, and how you did an episode of Cheers based upon Burke's experience.


That was a good episode, it was a test for Sam Malone as well. He picked the wrong day not to read a book, but he stood by his baseball teammate.


Would be good to hear your background on this, I always thought it was a gutsy episode to run way back then.

The documentary you referred to is called Out. The Glenn Burke Story, shown on Comcast in the Bay Area and Direct TV. It’s terrific and I highly recommend it.

The episode of CHEERS was called “Boys in the Bar” and a couple of years ago I posted this background piece on it.

From Carol:

It could just be due to the nature of my favourite British shows, but it seems to me that British television writers get more credit than American ones do. Many times the writers are as least as important to the fans as the actors are. Stephen Moffatt being a good case in point. Do you think that's the case?

I only wish that were the case in America. TV writers are held in much higher regard in the U.K. Writers are even listed in British TV Guide loglines. Jessica Alba and Katherine Heigl will both sleep with me before that happens in the U.S.

For an American TV writer to achieve any notoriety (without having to shamelessly start his own blog) he has to create a huge hit. Or six. Matt Weiner, David Chase, Chuck Lorre. Otherwise, watch for screen credits but don’t blink because they go by faster than subliminal messages.

Stephen asks:

Did you see Michael J. Fox's guest appearance on The Good Wife this week? He played a character who had a similar disease to the one Michael has in real life. He clearly relished the freedom he had in not needing to restrict his symptoms.

I did see that. THE GOOD WIFE is fast becoming my favorite show. I thought he was amazing. The scene where he’s trying to pour a glass of water to distract the jury during a cross-examination was brilliant, hilarious, and something I had never seen in a courtroom show.

What do you think of actors who continue to work despite illness (a recent example is Jill Clayburgh who died after working consistently through 21 years of chronic leukemia)

I find them enormously courageous. Unfortunately, I observed this first-hand with Nick Colasanto during his final season with CHEERS, and with Mary Tyler Moore, who is in a constant battle with diabetes. There are quite a few other examples including: Teri Garr, (multiple sclerosis), Richard Burton (epilepsy), Ingrid Bergman (no one knew she was in the later stages of cancer while filming GOLDA), and who could possibly be more inspiring than Christopher Reeve?

And finally, from Bob Gassel:

Did Gene Reynolds contribute much as 'Creative Consultant' when he left MASH?

He contributed much more than most creative consultants. I’ve never worked with a writer who had a better sense of story than Gene Reynolds. We would meet with him once a week and run our outlines by him. He would then fix them, solve them, find more inventive ways to tell them. He could zero in on problems and almost instantaneously formulate solutions. I’d walk out of his house every week shaking my head and saying, “We’re not worthy”.

In over thirty years I’ve never encountered another writer who can do what he does. We’re NOT worthy.

What’s your question?

Dave Niehaus 1935-2010

The best way for a baseball announcer to endear himself to a new audience is to be with a winning team. You report good news every night and the fans will love you. Piece of cake. On the other hand...

When I first became a broadcaster for the Seattle Mariners in 1992, I joined Dave Niehaus, who had been their voice since day one back in 1977. He said to me, “I figured it out, Kenny. For me to get to a .500 record, the team would have to go 2042-0.”

And yet, he became the second most treasured icon in Seattle, right behind Mt. Rainier. 

Can you imagine how many truly bad, ugly games he called over the years? Not a lot of good news to impart there. The Mariners for the first twenty years were just God awful.

Still, people in the Pacific Northwest clung to his every word. The attraction was not the team; it was listening to Dave. His passion for the game, vivid descriptions, and magnificent voice made any baseball game sound exciting, even a Mariners’.

Prior to joining Seattle, Dave worked alongside Dick Enberg calling games for the then-California Angels. Team owner Gene Autry once said to Dave, “You call a hell of a game. It’s not the one I’m watching but it’s a hell of a game.” Actually that’s only half true. It was the game you were watching, only better. Because Dave had something that so few announcers have today – SHOWMANSHIP. You were not just getting play-by-play, you were being told a tale by a master storyteller. Name me a better way of spending a warm summer night sitting out on the front porch.

Dave Niehaus passed away yesterday at age 75. Like all of Seattle, I’m devastated. We didn’t lose an announcer; we all lost a member of the family. Personally, Dave was the greatest broadcast partner I ever had. I’ve been very lucky to work with some of the best, including four Hall-of-Famers. I greatly respect them all and am eternally grateful for their friendship.

But I loved Dave Niehaus.

Summer will never be the same. And neither will Christmas, at least for me. My yearly tradition was to call Dave on Christmas morning. That’s what the holidays are all about, right? Reaching out to the people who mean the most to you, and bitching about the Mariners’ pitching.

There are many tributes to Dave today, along with replays of his classic calls and glowing testimonials. Nice to see that some ballplayers, like Ken Griffey Jr. and Jay Buhner, have already weighed in.

But I’d like to share some off the air memories. No one was more enthusiastic, laughed harder or as often, and looked better in white shoes than Dave Niehaus.

On the 4th of July he always wore this ridiculous red, white, and blue jacket. I tried to get him to wear it all year.

He still would go to movies with me even after I made him sit through Woody Allen’s SHADOWS AND FOG. To this day I still feel guilty about that.

It could be twelve degrees in Cleveland in April and he’d keep the window open in the booth because he felt it was cheating the audience to not be “in the game”. I told him in 1992 this was not good for his health! I was right!

I don’t remember just how it started but whenever the Mariners were down by ten runs or more, Dave and I would sing the “Wabash Cannonball” on the air. Unfortunately, we sang it so often we no longer had to consult the lyric sheet.

He referred to himself as “the Veteran Spieler”.

Three years ago, when I filled in for him, (and that was like Steven Seagall filling in for Brando), he called me after the first inning to say how great it was to hear me again. What made that even more touching was that I was rusty as hell. He called me anyway.

He was a great joke teller. His telling was far better than most of the jokes.

He knew every advance scout, coach, owner, reporter, umpire, official scorer, PR person, PA announcer, organist, clubhouse attendant, pressbox attendant, and commissioner in baseball.

I was forever in awe of the descriptive images he would just routinely toss off. A high pop fly one random night in Baltimore was “a white dot against a black sky”. A ground ball down the line would “rooster tail into the corner”. How did he think of these things?

He knew great restaurants in every town. Some of them have since burned down.

If you worked for the Mariners, he knew your name and your kids' names.

Dave's broadcast booth led the league in laughter every season.

He had several offers to go to other teams in larger markets but always turned them down. He loved Seattle.

On the road he never took the team bus to the ballpark. We always caught an early cab. It could be September, three weeks after the team had been mathematically eliminated, a thousand degrees in Texas with hail and locusts in the forecast, and Dave was at the park four hours before game time doing his prep. Every day. Every game. No exceptions. Ever.

He personally welcomed every new player to the team. In the years I was there, that was probably close to a hundred.

He never refused an autograph, a handshake, picture request, or invitation to emcee a program for a local charity.  

He's still remembered fondly in Los Angeles and he hasn't broadcast there for 45 years.  

No one loved the game or knew the game better than “the Veteran Spieler”.

I was so glad he was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year. And I am so sorry he never got to call a World Series game.

Dave will always be remembered in Seattle. If Yankee Stadium was “the House that Ruth Built”, then Safeco Field is the “House that Haus Built”.

He was a loving husband, father, grandfather, broadcaster, mentor, ambassador, Hoosier, military veteran, citizen, and proud to say – Hall of Famer. I will miss him terribly.

Dave Niehaus enjoyed life and made everyone else’s life more enjoyable.

But Dave, your calculations were a little off.  According to me, your record as a Mariner broadcaster was 5,284-0.  That's well above .500.

Movies with great beginnings and disappointing middle and endings

The new movie, HEREAFTER, opens with an extraordinary sequence. You’ve probably seen the trailer. A giant tsunami rips through a Southeast Asian resort. SPOILER ALERT: You don’t want to be on the beach that day.

The giant wave advances past a luxury hotel and roars through the town, destroying everything in its wake. It’s awesome and terrifying. Sensational filmmaking. Fortunately for the actors, Clint Eastwood was directing. He usually gets it in two or three takes. Imagine poor Ms Cecile de France, who gets swept along like a rag doll, hearing: “Okay. From the top, everybody. Take 46. Cue the water!”

The only trouble with that sequence is… the rest of the movie is dull and lifeless by comparison. And it got me thinking about other movies that had amazing beginnings but fell flat after that. You go into a theater, it starts, you’re blown away, you think you’re in for a really great ride, and then the movie just fizzles.

Probably the greatest example of this is SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Spielberg’s depiction of the Normandy Invasion is maybe the most gripping twenty minutes on film. You watch it and say, “Y’know, I think I’d prefer the tsunami.” But once the doughboys land the movie turns into this trumped up story.

That first sequence was so effective that Spielberg could have come on the screen himself and said, “Well, folks. That’s what war is really like. Pretty fucking incomprehensibly horrific, wouldn’t you say? I don’t know what else there really is to add. I mean, every soldier had his own story and many are compelling and heartbreaking, but let’s face it – after that invasion – the scope and devastation – how am I gonna follow one or two guys and still have the same impact? I’m good but I’m no David Lean. So instead of making you sit for another hour and a half of “more of the same but not as good”, I’m gonna just let you go. I’m guessing these images I just showed you are going to stay with you for awhile. That’s good. Go have coffee and talk about the brutality of war. Maybe head home and go to that new internet thingy all the kids are raving about and search for information on D-Day. Anyway, thanks for coming. Sorry it was so short, but I’ll make it up to you. MUNICH will be twice as long as it should be.”

What other movies can you think of that had great beginnings but never lived up to its promise? Here are a few that I can think of:

BODY HEAT – Steamy and sexy for the first twenty minutes. My glasses fogged up. If only they didn’t then get into the story.

Most of the last 20 Bond movies (the last two excluded). Wow zowie action sequences that had nothing to do with the plot, followed by Tim Dalton or Pierce Brosnan thwarting supervillains and rescuing Denise Richards (who, we’re supposed to believe in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, is a noted nuclear physicist).

I loved the first half-hour of INDIANA JONES 4 (the real title is too long and doesn’t mean anything anyway). I wish Spielberg had broken in and made a speech in that one too.

FULL METAL JACKET – Stanley Kubrick’s first act in basic training was riveting. Then they go to Viet Nam and since they couldn’t take the Drill Sergeant (the great R. Lee Ermey) along with them the movie goes flying off in fifteen different directions. Their “shit was definitely flaky” as the DI might say.

And finally, TOUCH OF EVIL – Disappointing movie and Charlton Heston playing a Mexican is laughable, but this opening tracking shot is nothing short of phenomenal. Especially when you consider it was made in 1958, well before Industrial Light & Magic. Directed by Orson Welles before he succumbed to ego and Pinks’ hot dogs.



Okay, so help me add to the list.

I can't believe ESPN let Jon Miller go

ESPN’s decision to replace Jon Miller as the TV voice of Sunday Night Baseball is a colossal mistake. Other than Vin Scully (who’s in a class by himself), Jon Miller is easily the best baseball announcer in the game. No one else comes close. Having been his partner in Baltimore and having had the privilege to watch him work on a daily basis I was continually in awe of his knowledge of the game, respect for its history, preparation, use of the English language, and showmanship.

His highlights alone can give you chills. And it’s not because he has any bullshit signature home run calls, it’s because he communicates a genuine excitement and joy. Add to that an exquisite voice (although I must admit I hate him for that). And something else very rare to the field – a real sense of humor. In this age of generic, safe, plastic sounding play-by-play guys, Jon truly entertains. And let’s face it – Sunday night baseball in the middle of the season. The Indians at Oakland. Who other than fans of those teams or diehard baseball freaks is going to watch? You’ve got to offer them something more. K-Zones ain’t gonna cut it. Jon Miller gives you a reason to tune in even if you don’t give a crap about the game. His humor, flair for the dramatic, and unique style makes him frankly, not just the perfect choice for that job; the only choice for that job.

I know Dan Shulman and like Dan Shulman. He’s a terrific broadcaster. He’s good on baseball and sensational on basketball. But he’s not Jon Miller.

I don’t understand making a change just for change sake. That’s like NBC booting Johnny Carson because they wanted to try something else. You’ve got the best. Leave it alone.

Jon’s been offered Sunday night baseball on ESPN radio. I don’t know if he’ll accept it. He remains the voice of the World Champion San Francisco Giants, so it’s not like he has to go on Craig’s List to see if there’s anything he can do to make ends meet.

Sooner or later Jon will be back on the national stage. Another network will hire him, and I’m sure when the sports director is applauded for his foresight he’ll just shrug his shoulders and say, “Are you kidding? It was a no-brainer.”