Watch my insightful commentary about Ashton Kutcher, Charlie Sheen and “Two and a Half Men” on HLN’s “Showbiz Tonight” right here:
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Archive for the ‘TVHowl.com’ Category
TV Howl’s Adam Buckman on ‘Showbiz Tonight’
August 31, 2011Last coconut phone call for Sherwood Schwartz
July 13, 2011
Sherwood Schwartz (right) and the character he created, Gilligan, played by Bob Denver.
By ADAM BUCKMAN
Spend enough years as a journalist on the same beat and it’s inevitable that many of the people you met along the way will die eventually.
And if you’ve been around as long as I have, you run the risk of beginning to sound like that scene in “The Sunshine Boys” where the only subject the elderly former comedy partners Lewis and Clark (George Burns and Walter Matthau in the 1975 movie) seem to talk about is the death of someone they knew. Maybe you remember this pointless conversation — it went something like this: “Where’d he die?” “In Variety.”
So I try and avoid these kinds of blog posts, but when Sherwood Schwartz died the other day at age 94, I somehow retrieved a dim memory of having lunch with him. And since cobwebs were forming here on TV Howl (my last post was a while ago), I decided it was time to make a new contribution.
I’m pretty sure it was in May 2000 or thereabouts — at the Waldorf Astoria, in the ballroom, where many a TV industry event is held in New York. Nick at Nite (or maybe it was TV Land) was putting on some sort of presentation of its then-new lineup of old shows. The only record I possess of this event is a photo taken backstage of Mr. T and me.
One of the only other memories of this event: Tina Yothers, formerly of “Family Ties,” singing in a rock band.
Somehow, I was assigned to the same table as Sherwood Schwartz and his wife. I dimly recall engaging him in conversation by asking him about his various shows — “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Dusty’s Trail.” I was particularly interested in how he arrived at the number of characters for these shows — seven for both “Gilligan” and “Dusty’s Trail” and nine for “Brady Bunch.”
I don’t recall the details, but his answer indicated that those numbers were shrewdly chosen for their versatility and potential for myriad storylines. For that’s one of the problems the producers of TV shows always come up against: Dreaming up enough stories to sustain the scenario they created through an entire season (which, in the days of “Gilligan’s Island,” was 36 episodes) or multiple seasons.
Judging by his age when he died, Schwartz must have been 82 or 83 when I met him that day. He was an energetic guy — a funny little old man. At one point during the presentation that was underway on-stage after lunch had been served and eaten, a “phone” made of coconut halves — like something the Professor would have devised on “Gilligan’s Island” — was delivered to our table.
A single spotlight then cut through the darkened ballroom and shone on Sherwood as the ringing of a phone was suddenly heard. That was apparently Sherwood’s cue to answer this “phone” and speak into it. And since the phone had a hidden microphone, Sherwood’s voice was heard over the ballroom’s speaker system saying something about “The Brady Bunch.”
I was delighted to have witnessed this “performance” from the chair right beside him. All in all, it was a great day, having my photo taken with Mr. T and then sitting beside the creator of “Gilligan’s Island” as he took a call on a coconut telephone. What more could a TV columnist ask for?
May he rest in peace.
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TV Howl bonus sidebar: The day I met Gilligan.
Bob Denver, the titular star of “Gilligan’s Island,” told me in 1993 that he made just $1,200 a week at the height of the show’s popularity on CBS in the mid-’60s.
He claimed he wasn’t disappointed that his contract didn’t call for residual payments in perpetuity, just in case “Gilligan” enjoyed any kind of an afterlife in syndication after its initial network run ended in 1967 after three seasons.
As it happened, reruns of “Gilligan” ran for decades and would have made Denver and his co-stars fabulously wealthy. “There’s not a lot of shows that run 30 years,” Denver, then 58, said when I interviewed him in midtown Manhattan, in a conference room in the offices of the publishing company that had just released his memoir, “Gilligan, Maynard & Me” (the second name in the title referring to his role as the beatnik Maynard G. Krebs in “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”). “If you knew in ’63, when I signed the deal, that things would run 20, 30 years, and didn’t get a deal, then you’d be really upset.”
When he died in 2005, I wrote that he was “the mellowest cat I had ever encountered” in the TV business.
Many actors who became identified with a single, iconic TV character eventually came to loathe the character that made them famous. They would blame the character for their inability to find steady work in the years afterward, when their agents would inform them that producers were taking a pass because the actors were too closely associated with their previous roles and the producers felt audiences wouldn’t accept them in any new ones. If Bob Denver ever felt that way, he never let on when I interviewed him.
He was a good enough sport that he always remembered to wear the one Gilligan sailor hat he still possessed when he made public appearances. “I love to hear people say, ‘Is that really one of the show’s hats?’ They are almost in awe,” he told me.
[Excerpted from "Jerk: My Life as a Columnist on the TV Beat" by Adam Buckman. All rights reserved.]
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Katie in the afternoon: You be the judge
June 11, 2011
Katie Couric's coming to daytime but no one knows how she'll do (Photo: Disney/ABC)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
A lot of people want to know lately: How will Katie Couric do on daytime TV?
My answer? I have no idea. It’s not because I’m at a loss for words or can’t quite generate an opinion. I’ve never had those problems. Just on the face of it, I think that generally speaking, the odds don’t favor her making a big splash with a daytime talk show. There are just too many variables afflicting daytime television these days to state with certainty that she’s a slamdunk to emerge with a hit talk show on her hands.
Not that it’s impossible, but this is a time of day that is seriously in flux nowadays as far as television is concerned. Based on everything that’s going on now in daytime, this new Katie Couric talk show is a huge gamble that could go either way.
Here are the factors at play, in no particular order, as Couric prepares to enter the daytime arena about 15 months from now:
1) What exactly is daytime television? One thing it’s not: A place where any former network news anchor has ever set up shop and succeeded. A personality with Couric’s news background might be expected to attract newsmakers as guests, for conversations about stories or subjects in the news. The problem with that: No one’s ever attempted that in a syndicated afternoon talk show.
2) The cable news channels own that kind of news/talk on weekday afternoons. They’ve owned it ever since the 1990s, when the O.J. Simpson trials, the Clinton impeachment, and stories such as the Elian Gonzalez saga and the 2000 presidential election recount riveted viewers in afternoons. Broadcast networks began to notice: These “real-life” soap operas were stealing their audiences.
3) So maybe there’s an opportunity for Couric, a newsperson, to siphon off some of the audience for news/talk in the afternoon. Maybe, but is that audience really big enough to sustain her show? That’s doubtful. It should be noted that Anderson Cooper is poised to do the same thing — start an afternoon talk show. So it’s clear some people in the TV business think the afternoon is ripe for this kind of thing.
4) But is the afternoon audience ripe for it, whoever they are? Sure, everybody’s focusing on Oprah Winfrey leaving daytime, and then, theoretically, leaving an opportunity for someone like Couric to come in and grab the “serious” afternoon TV viewer. But are there really enough of them? Take a look at daytime TV — Oprah was an exception. Most of the shows on daytime are low-rent judge shows and talk shows like “Maury” and “Jerry Springer” (and yes, Ellen Degeneres holds on somehow, with ratings are that pretty low, but apparently just enough to keep her show profitable). Will the audience for all these other shows suddenly flock to Katie Couric? Probably not.
5) Katie’s no Oprah. And that’s the crux of the matter. Even Oprah’s audience was in decline, and she’s Oprah. That’s probably why she decided to leave daytime syndication and stake her future on cable TV. Judge Judy was beating her in the ratings and she knew it. The question is: Do people like Katie Couric? Once upon a time she was America’s sweetheart at “The Today Show.” Then, something happened — I don’t know what it was, but nowadays she doesn’t seem as beloved as she once was. In fact, that’s an understatement. In some quarters, Couric is so polarizing a personality that she’s on par with Sarah Palin in the kinds of reactions she draws from readers of blog posts like this one.
6) Daytime is so unpredictable these days that even the traditional soap operas — the long-time backbone of daytime TV — are on life-support. Under the circumstances, it’s just too chaotic to figure out whether Katie Couric can come along and plant her flag on this shaky ground. Fact is, she’s a very capable broadcaster, but the savior of daytime TV? Who came up with that idea?
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Business as usual at CBS News as Pelley era begins
June 11, 2011
THE NEW GUY: Scott Pelley takes over as anchorman on "The CBS Evening News" (Photo: CBS News).
By ADAM BUCKMAN
Scott Pelley didn’t mark his debut as the new anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in any special way Monday evening. Instead, he chose to anchor the broadcast as if his first day was nothing special.
He made no self-referential remarks, made no speeches about what he’ll do or how the newscast might change in the Pelley era or how honored he is to be installed as only the fifth CBS evening-news anchor since 1948.
The approach was refreshing actually. It was also unexpected since we’re not accustomed to TV personalities refraining from talking about themselves, especially on days that are very special to them personally. Certainly, Monday must have been such a day in the life of Scott Pelley, a 53-year-old CBS newsman who had reached the pinnacle of his field, which happens to be one of the most competitive in the world.
And yet, Pelley didn’t mention it. Instead, he anchored the news – introducing stories (10 of them) and, on occasion, exchanging a few remarks with CBS correspondents. Perhaps the approach was deliberate. Maybe it was meant to convey the idea, without Pelley having to spell it out, that he didn’t intend to rock the boat as the broadcast’s new anchor.
Or maybe he’s saving the boat-rocking for some future newscasts. Whatever he was thinking, he didn’t let us in on it. Instead, he read his copy flawlessly and, when it was time to end the show, he said simply, “For all of us at CBS News all around the world, good night.”
The Pelley era was under way, and as the week wore on, Pelley continued to underplay his own role in the broadcast.
Personally, I happen to love the old-fashioned CBS approach to news — the attention to detail, the flawless reading of the copy, the care and professionalism with which the stories are presented. It’s all so fastidious, but in today’s world, do news viewers look for fastidiousness and attention to detail in their TV newscasts? Other than me, does anyone really care about these qualities anymore?
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Oprah’s farewell: Long good-bye takes three days
May 26, 2011
HASTA LA VISTA, BABY: Oprah Winfrey waves good-bye. (Photo: (c) 2011 Harpo, Inc./George Burns)
By ADAM BUCKMAN
OPRAH Winfrey said good-bye — finally! Though it seemed as if this long good-bye would never end, it finally did end Wednesday. Here’s what happened:
The final “Oprah Winfrey Show” Wednesday consisted of little more than Oprah standing on her stage and talking.
For her millions of loyal fans, this must have been heavenly. For the rest of us, who tuned in to her final show (the 4,561st, as Oprah herself pointed out) expecting a bit more excitement – perhaps some fireworks, a big cake, a brass band – the show was a bit of a letdown.
On the other hand, as Oprah said repeatedly, this particular show wasn’t really for those of us who didn’t regularly ride the Oprah train to inspiration, validation and self-fulfillment over the last 25 years. This show was for those who did ride along with Oprah on this “journey” (her word) that began back in 1986.
With the Paul Simon song “10 Years” (the one he converted to “25 Years” in her honor earlier this season) playing as a theme in and out of the show’s commercial breaks, Oprah took her stage at Harpo Studios in Chicago for the last time. Dressed in a simple pink dress, she stood for the whole hour (though a white chair was there in case she needed it) and spoke to the audience.
“This last hour is really about me saying thank you,” she said when she took the stage. “It is my love letter to you.”
“I wanted to spend this last hour telling you what you’ve meant to me,” she said, one of many times she would thank her viewers in the course of this hour-long speech (some might call it a sermon), in which she shared details from her life story (as she’s done many times before), imparted various life lessons, and even preached about the meaning of God. “God is love and God is life!” she exclaimed. “And your life is always speaking to you, first in whispers . . .”
And so it went. There were no celebrity guests, though Tyler Perry was recognized from his seat in the audience because of his participation in a show earlier this season about men who had been sexually abused in boyhood. Oprah’s fourth-grade teacher was in the audience too – the one who Oprah still calls “Mrs. Duncan” – and who apparently had a profound impact on the young Oprah.
If there was any central theme to this show, it was nothing less than the meaning of life, which is a lot for any one person to take on. And yet, Oprah doesn’t shy away from such challenges. She advised her viewers to “use your life to serve the world.” She talked about the Golden Rule and the importance of “validation.”
“There is a common thread that runs through all our pain and suffering and that is unworthiness,” she preached, advising viewers to “validate” the ones they love. Tell them: “What you say matters to me!” Oprah beseeched.
Toward the end of the hour, the commercial breaks came more frequently. After all, television is a business and the breaks near the end of this particular show were valuable indeed. Finally, after one last break, the end was near and Oprah said her final words.
“I thank you for sharing this yellow brick road of blessings,” she said. “I thank you for tuning in everyday . . . I thank you for being as much of a sweet inspiration for me as I’ve tried to be for you. I won’t say good-bye. I’ll just say, Until we meet again. To God be the glory.”
She then strolled out of the studio, stopping briefly for a few hugs and greetings, then continued walking down a narrow corridor lined with members of her staff. At the end of this gauntlet, she encountered her small dog Sadie. Lifting the dog into the air, Oprah declared: “Sadie, we did it! We did it, Sade! We did it!”
And then Oprah, with Sadie under her right arm, disappeared behind a pillar and was gone. Until we meet again.
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Read my list: The greatest sitcom lineups ever
January 31, 2011
WHICH LINEUP WAS NO. 1? Here's a hint: "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" -- with Moore and Ted Knight -- was a big part of it.
By ADAM BUCKMAN
What were the greatest comedy lineups ever assembled for TV? I did the research and came up with this incredible list:
What makes a sitcom lineup great? It’s a question I’ve set out to answer now that NBC has taken the unusual step of cramming six comedies on to the air in a single night on Thursdays – starting with “Community” at 8/7c, followed by the new “Perfect Couples,” “The Office,” “Parks & Recreation,” “30 Rock” (at 10/9c) and “Outsourced.”
So what are the best comedy blocks ever assembled? I established my own subjective criteria: For my informal study, a lineup had to have at least four comedies in a row to qualify (before 1962, comedies were not strung together in any number greater than three); preferably, the lineup would remain more or less consistent for at least two seasons; and the shows had to be either high-rated or at least well-remembered, if not beloved. Here’s what we came up with:
Runners-up: Before I get to my Top 10, some honorable mentions – Fall 1964, Thursdays on ABC: “The Flintstones,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “My Three Sons,” “Bewitched”; Fall 1965, Wednesdays on CBS: “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Green Acres,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show”; and Thursdays on CBS: “The Munsters,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “My Three Sons”; Fall 1987, Mondays on CBS: “Frank’s Place,” “Kate & Allie,” “Newhart,” “Designing Women.” Incredible, isn’t it? “The Munsters” and “Gilligan” back-to-back on a single night? Who wouldn’t love that?
And now, my Top 10:
No. 10: Fall 1986, Saturdays on NBC: “The Facts of Life,” “227,” “Golden Girls,” “Amen.” Marla Gibbs, Sherman Hemsley, the “Golden” gals, plus “Mrs. Garrett” all in one night? That’s TV heaven.
No. 9: Fall 1985, Fridays on ABC: Speaking of incredible TV pairings, how about Emmanuel Lewis and Gary Coleman on the same network on the same night: “Webster,” “Mr. Belvedere,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” “Benson.”
No. 8: Fall 1978, Thursdays on ABC: Another great lineup – future comedy greats Robin Williams (“Mork & Mindy”) and Billy Crystal (“Soap”), plus the beloved characters of “What’s Happening” and the legendary ensemble of “Barney Miller.”
No. 7: Fall 2007, Sundays on Fox: Talk about staying power – it had never been done, or even tried, before Fox strung together these animated powerhouses: “The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill,” “Family Guy,” “American Dad.”
No. 6: Fall 1975, Monday on CBS: Of these four sitcoms, three were spinoffs: “Rhoda” and “Phyllis” (from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”), and “Maude” (from “All in the Family,” which preceded “Maude” at 9 p.m.).
No. 5: Fall 1978, Tuesdays on ABC: “Happy Days,” “Laverne & Shirley,” “Three’s Company,” “Taxi.” ABC definitely had a comedy winning streak going on in fall 1978 (see No. 8, above). What can you say about a Tuesday lineup that included Richie Cunningham (future director Ron Howard) and The Fonz; Laverne, Shirley, Lenny and Squiggy; John Ritter and Suzanne Somers (plus Norman Fell and Don Knotts); and the whole gang from “Taxi”? It seems impossible, but all that talent was available on free network TV in a single evening way back when.
No. 4: Fall 1991, Tuesdays on ABC: Many seasons later, ABC struck gold again on Tuesday nights with one of the highest-rated comedy lineups of all time – “Full House,” “Home Improvement,” “Roseanne,” “Coach.”
No. 3: Fall 1984, Thursdays on NBC: This is the comedy lineup that ushered in an era of comedy dominance for NBC that lasted into the early 2000s. Behold: “The Cosby Show,” “Family Ties,” “Cheers,” “Night Court.”
No. 2: Fall 1993, Thursdays on NBC: Some might quibble with this lineup’s inclusion of “Wings,” but that series emerges as the best of all the sitcoms NBC tried at 8:30/7:30c on Thursdays. And what can you say about a lineup that also boasts “Mad About You,” “Seinfeld” and “Frasier”?
And the No. 1 TV comedy lineup of all time is: Fall 1973, Saturdays on CBS: Few will argue with our choice for No. 1, particularly those old enough to have watched this incredible, never-to-be-duplicated collection of legendary megahits, four of the most critically acclaimed comedies of all time, followed by the most uproarious variety show ever made – “All in the Family,” “M*A*S*H,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show.” All I can say is, Wow.
And don’t miss my interview about the list on WGN-AM, Chicago:
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Howling wolves: Max Weinberg, HBO’s ‘Chalky’
October 10, 2010FASCINATING INTERVIEWS!
CONAN’S LONG-TIME BANDLEADER;
TOUGH-GUY ACTOR MICHAEL KENNETH WILLIAMS
Conan O’Brien’s bandleader for 17 years reveals why he isn’t following Conan to TBS:
By ADAM BUCKMAN
Why did bandleader Max Weinberg decide not to follow Conan O’Brien to TBS?
Blame it on the irresistible lure of the Garden State. In the final analysis, this lifelong Jersey boy says he just couldn’t pull up stakes in his home state at age 59 for a new life in La La Land, though he did follow Conan there for his short-lived stint as host of ‘The Tonight Show’ on NBC – a gig which abruptly came to an end last January.
The famed drummer – a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band since 1974 (since Springsteen’s third album, “Born to Run”) and a fixture in late-night TV as Conan’s musical director (and sometime comic foil) for 17 years – talked about his decision to withdraw from late-night, revealing for the first time that he underwent life-saving open-heart surgery just two weeks after the demise of Conan’s ‘Tonight Show’ last winter and how this “life-changing” experience influenced his decision to stay put on the East Coast.
The occasion for the interview was the pending premiere Thursday of a new documentary about Springsteen on HBO – ‘The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town’ (9/8c). Weinberg, who appears often in the 90-minute film, shared his own memories of the lengthy process from which the ‘Darkness’ album was born – three years after ‘Born to Run’ turned Springsteen and his bandmates into international rock stars.
It was finally confirmed a week or so ago that you’re not joining Conan on his new TBS late-night show. What happened there? Will we ever see you on TV again, other than documentaries about Bruce Springsteen?
[Laughs] I’m sure you’ll see me on television again. You won’t see me on an episodic show, that’s for sure. I did my time. I loved it. It was great. Frankly, I do prefer living in New Jersey and that was one of the problems I had. I love playing in L.A., but my kids and my wife are back east, and we live part of the time in Italy, so it was hard to structure my life [and have a job in Los Angeles]. I can tell you – I can make a little news here, which I haven’t talked about to anybody, but on Feb. 8, I came to the end of a 26-year watchful, waiting odyssey that culminated in 12 hours of massively invasive open-heart surgery.
Was it a bypass?
[No] I had valve repair. I found out about this 26 years ago and I knew about it and I monitored it. At the time, there was not much they could do and it wasn’t as serious as it became. As I got older, it got worse. Fortunately, the protocols for dealing with it became much more advanced and I found a wonderful doctor in New York who specializes in repairing valves. Two years ago, it became life-threatening and I had to do something about it sooner or later. I did it two weeks after [Conan’s ‘Tonight Show’] went off the air.
I’ll tell you it was a life-changing experience emotionally and spiritually. I owe my life to these doctors. If you can remember back to how moved David Letterman was when he got back on the air [in February 2000] – he had quintuple bypass surgery. [In valve-repair surgery] they stop your heart. I was on the heart-lung bypass machine for close to seven hours. Did it play into my decision to remain where I am? Maybe. I mean I had three months of very difficult recovery. When I say it was life-changing – I’ve always been a person who smelled the roses, but everything looks a little brighter. Everything looks a little bit more manageable. Nothing is really that big a deal to me anymore. I’ve never felt better. I thought I had energy before [but] I’m a thousand percent better. I’m playing better than I ever did. I’m not looking backward. I feel wonderful about where I’m at – physically, personally, professionally.
Do you have anything to add to the story of what happened to Conan? Were you as shocked as anybody else that his ‘Tonight Show’ went south that way?
It was very dramatic. At my age, just being in this business for as long as I’ve been, nothing really surprises me, particularly in the landscape of television. [But] any abrupt ending to anything is shocking. It was very weird and awkward and, of course, I felt really bad for some of the people who moved out there – over a hundred people from New York who really took the hit, people who had purchased homes. I know of one case where the day this news broke, which I think was Jan. 5 or 6, this individual had just closed on a house and that’s a real shame.
Let’s talk about the HBO documentary about ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town.’ Why are we singling out this album for documentary treatment? What’s so special about this one?
Of course, I have a somewhat prejudiced opinion – that all of Bruce’s albums are special. This record, as the next project that was done after ‘Born to Run,’ to me, is extremely reflective of what was going on in music at the time in the late ’70s. If you contrast ‘Darkness’ and its sound with the sound of ‘Born to Run,’ it’s quite different. And I knew at the time that Bruce had begun to crystallize what it was he wanted to write about. I always viewed my role and the rest of the musicians as: We’re colors in Bruce’s palette and I can recall on that record they wanted the drums to be very austere. I think the best example of that is probably the title track, ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town.’ Why ‘Darkness’ now? Well, why not? It’s 33 years later and it’s sort of like the old Orson Welles line: ‘No wine before its time.’ There was footage that was filmed, it’s steeped in history and [so many years later], there’s a deeper resonance.
The movie traces the creation of the album and it goes into detail about the painstaking length of time that it took. How do you remember it? Was it satisfying, frustrating, tedious?
I remember it as a full range of emotion – definitely not tedium. Now, I’m not the guy sitting in a room writing the songs. Prior to actually going into the studio in, I believe, June of 1977, we rehearsed everyday at Bruce’s house – from like 2 o’clock to 7 o’clock almost everyday and we’d rehearse four or five songs and get them playable. Then he’d come back the next day with four, five or six new songs. That went on for two years! Bruce had to do everything. He had to write the songs. He had to sing the songs. He had to think about what he was trying to say as he was writing it. Really, to be the boss you do have to pay the cost. And that was the cost that he did pay.
Will you watch Conan’s new show when it premieres Nov. 8 on TBS?
Absolutely. I hope they do wonderfully well. I’m sure they will. I put a lot of time and effort into creating our little world over there, you know, with the band and the musical direction and what the band contributed, and I trust and I hope that the band retains the profile they had. [Conan] is a brilliant, hard worker. I’ve been fortunate to have people like Bruce and Conan – you don’t run into guys like that very often.
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You know him as “Omar,” the toughest thug in Baltimore on “The Wire,” and now, he’s a crime figure of a different sort in “Boardwalk Empire,” HBO’s new series about Atlantic City gangsters at the dawn of the Roaring ’20s. Meet Michael Kenneth Williams, HBO’s Chalky White.
CHALK UP ANOTHER ONE: Michael Kenneth Williams as Chalky White in "Boardwalk Empire." Photo: Craig Blankenhorn
Chalk up another one for Michael Kenneth Williams.
He’s the Brooklyn-born actor who riveted audiences for five seasons on ‘The Wire’ in the role of Omar Little, the most-feared of all the thugs, gangsters and street toughs on that hallowed Baltimore-based HBO series.
And now, Williams is back on HBO in a series that’s shaping up to be an even bigger hit than ‘The Wire.’ It’s ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ the sprawling series from executive producers Terence Winter and Martin Scorsese about Prohibition Era gangsters in Atlantic City, N.J, at the dawn of the Roaring ’20s. The series stars Steve Buscemi as the town’s all-powerful political boss and Williams plays dapper Chalky White, also a key local figure whose power stems from his ability to marshal the African-American vote for the city’s white political machine.
In this Sunday’s episode (9 p.m.8c on HBO), Chalky has his most important scene yet, and Williams gets to deliver an unusually long monologue that reveals a harrowing and tragic episode from Chalky’s past.
Williams, 43, talked about the scene, about Chalky, about Omar Little, and how the actor came to receive the facial scar that, for better or worse, has helped define the characters he plays.
That’s a long speech they gave you in this Sunday’s episode of ‘Boardwalk’. How many pages of material is that?
Williams: That was actually three pages. That was the longest speech I’ve had in my career thus far. There was someone I’d seen do a speech [and] I always admired her performance and it was Epatha Merkerson and she did this speech in this film we did together called “Lackawanna Blues.” And I always remember saying, God, if I had the chance to rock a speech [like that] – just the way she embodied that spirit and the character in that scene, it just blew my mind.
What was the effect you were trying to achieve in the scene, particularly as it pertains to the other participant in the scene, a Ku Klux Klan leader tied to a chair and at the mercy of your character?
It’s 1920. It’s a whole different era. You know, for a black man to be in a white man’s face with that type of confidence, it was a rarity. It wasn’t like a cockiness. It was from pain, ancestral pain, if you will. I wanted that hardcore pain to come across in that scene.
Tell us more about the character of Chalky. Is he a stone-cold gangster?
He’s not a stone-cold gangster. He’s a businessman first. But he had to learn how to have a tough skin in order to [obtain] the finer things in life. He wanted the American dream and he had to learn how to deal in the water filled with sharks and he had to kind of become like that to achieve it. He’s like Omar, in a sense. He has a sense of code, he’s loyal, he’s not a backstabber – you’ll see that come out.
You pointed out how Chalky and Omar are similar. How are they different?
You know, Omar was in it for the thrill of the hunt. He didn’t care about the money or the fortune or the fancy house and the jewelry and the cars. He just did it for the love of the hunt. Chalky ain’t in it for the hunt, as long as you bring good business by his way, you ain’t got no problems outta him. But you gonna cut him in whether you like it or not. He’d rather just do business and keep the peace, where Omar just liked to stir the pot.
How did you come to get cast on ‘Boardwalk’?
I had worked with Martin [Scorsese] – Marty, as good friends call him [he laughs] – back in ’98 on a film called “Bring Out the Dead” with Nic Cage and Marc Anthony. So there was a familiarity there. I’m quite sure that everybody and their father was going up for this role so [there was] a lot of competition – but I think that [producer/director] Tim Van Patten was my ace in the hole.
When all was said and done, the seemingly invincible Omar Little was fatally shot by a child while Omar was purchasing a pack of cigarettes in a convenience store. What did you think of the ending they wrote for the character?
I mourned Omar like I lost a best friend. He was a part of me. It was definitely a surprise that no one expected, and it spoke to [the one weakness of] Omar, his Achilles heel. Everybody who was trying to kill him couldn’t get to him and it took a little kid to catch him completely off guard.
How important is ‘The Wire’ to you?
‘The Wire’ changed my life, personally and professionally. It opened me up [to a greater awareness of society’s problems]. It made me more aware of the social issues. You know, me comin’ from East Flatbush, Brooklyn, I was exposed to just my ’hood, but there’s a “wire” in every city in this country, it opened my eyes up to that.
Would you tell us the story behind your scar?
I was 25 – my 25th birthday. I was in Queens, N.Y. I had been drinking. I had that liquid courage in me and so some words got exchanged with some other guys and, you know, normally something I would have ignored, and I got jumped and one of the guys had a razor in his mouth, a straight razor in his mouth like they do in jail, and he pulled it out and he started slicin’ me.
Well, it doesn’t seem to have stopped you in the pursuit of your career. You just did a fashion spread in the October issue of GQ (posing on the Atlantic City boardwalk in a series of designer suits http://www.gq.com/style/suit-guide/201010/michael-kenneth-williams-three-piece-suit#slide=1)
I don’t take too much credit for anything. I’m just pretty fortunate. There’s tons of talent walking around here on the streets of New York. It wasn’t like I did anything great. I’m just truly fortunate and grateful for my opportunities.
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‘Mad Men’ 9/26/10: The high price of secrecy
September 27, 2010
PAJAMA GAME: Sanctimonious Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) ruminates on the consequences of deception in this past Sunday's episode of "Mad Men." Photo: AMC
By ADAM BUCKMAN
Lane Pryce gets smitten, then clobbered, Don has a panic attack, Joanie gets pregnant and Roger nearly has another heart attack.
Talk about your mid-life crises! The men of ‘Mad Men’ were mired in the muck of their own self-made messes on Sunday night’s episode of the AMC drama series.
The episode – titled “Hands and Knees” – was the 10th installment of the ongoing fourth season. It began and ended with the Beatles. At the outset, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) phoned daughter Sally (Kienan Shipka) some time during the work week to tell her he’d scored two tickets to the Beatles’ concert at Shea Stadium the following weekend. Sally’s reaction? She screamed, and probably continued screaming all the way to Sunday (Aug. 15, 1965), when the real-life Beatles concert drew 55,000 fans to the home of the New York Mets in Flushing, Queens.
At the episode’s conclusion, we heard an instrumental, ’60s-style, lounge-music version of the Beatles’ hit, “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” a very appropriate choice of music given the many secrets both revealed and concealed on the show.
Over-riding the entire episode: The possibility that Don’s big secret would finally come out as the result of a government background check set in motion by his application for a security clearance. It had to do with an agency client, North American Aviation, a defense contractor involved in the sensitive business of providing aircraft and missile systems to the Department of Defense.
Don’s secret, of course, is that he was once Dick Whitman and adopted the identity of a dead lieutenant named Donald Draper during the Korean War as a way of getting out of the war. As a result, “Dick Whitman” is still considered a U.S. Army deserter. Few people know Don’s secret – among them, wife Betty (January Jones), ad agency colleague Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), agency senior partner Burt Cooper (Robert Morse) and, as of Sunday night, Don’s current squeeze, demographer Faye Miller (Cara Buono).
Incredibly, nobody squealed – not even Pete, who could have used the information to ruin Don and elevate himself in the agency hierarchy. And even though Pete railed to wife Trudy (Alison Brie) about people who keep secrets, we all know Pete has one himself – that he had an illegitimate child with Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss) in Season One. Pete kept Don’s secret, even though it cost the agency this crucial client.
If Don was facing the possibility that a lifelong secret was about to upend his middle-aged life, then two of his partners faced mid-life crises of their own. Roger Sterling (John Slattery), apparently already bored with his much-younger wife, has once again set his sights on Joan Harris (nee Holloway – Christina Hendricks), with whom he formerly carried on an affair. She informed him Sunday night that she’s pregnant with his baby, stemming from their sidestreet tryst in the previous episode. She went to Morristown, N.J. (a quiet suburb about 30 miles west of New York City), to have the pregnancy terminated. Roger paid for it.
Meanwhile, upright Britisher Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) was forced to deal with his strict, assertive father, Robert (guest-star W. Morgan Sheppard), who came all the way to New York from the U.K. to order Lane to return to his family and patch up his relations with his wife. In response, Lane took dad to the Playboy Club (with Don in tow) and introduced his father to his new love, a Playboy bunny who also happened to be black. In one of the most shocking scenes yet seen on ‘Mad Men,’ Robert Pryce slugged his grown son in the head with his cane, then stepped brutally on one of his hands as his son writhed on the floor in semiconscious agony.
By the episode’s end, it was apparent that Lane’s father had won the confrontation as Lane announced at the partners’ meeting that he was headed home to England for a few weeks.
Incredibly, none of these secrets were the biggest of the evening. The secret with the most far-reaching consequences for everyone at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was the loss of its biggest client – the one the agency depends on most for its financial health – Lucky Strike. Roger was the recipient of this bad news and he kept it under wraps, nearly having another heart attack when he got the news.
And now, there are only three episodes left in the season for the agency to pull itself back from the brink of ruin – again! – which was also the situation in Season Three.
OK, ‘Mad Men’ fans: How did you like Sunday’s episode? And with just three episodes left, where do you think we go from here?
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‘Idol’ redo kills the very show it was meant to fix
September 23, 2010
Judge not lest ye be judged: New "American Idol" judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez, with judge emeritus Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest.
By ADAM BUCKMAN
This is just comical.
A TV show loses a couple of cast members and suddenly, the powers-that-be decide the entire show needs a redo. And not just any show, but the most popular show on TV for the better part of a decade.
It’s “American Idol,” and it just underwent a change that is so significant that you can’t honestly call the show “American Idol” anymore. That’s how different the show is going to feel when it returns on Fox this winter with Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler sitting in the chairs where you once saw Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.
So now the judges are J Lo, Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson. What happened here? Network executives saw their panel of judges breaking up — first Paula a few years back, and then Simon last season, followed by the temporary, “pretend” judges Kara DioGuardi and Ellen Degeneres quitting or getting fired (probably the latter). And instead of attempting to re-create the lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry of the original three judges, they went out to find two celebrities — one a rock star and the other, well, who knows what she is — singer, entrepreneur, dancer, whatever.
Think of the contrast with the original panel of judges — Randy Jackson, who apparently played bass for Journey but who no one knew; Paula Abdul, the closest thing to a celebrity that the original group had, although she was a has-been; and Simon Cowell, some Brit with a buzzcut who by some miracle turned into the biggest star on American TV.
It was the chemistry between these three that put “American Idol” on the pop-culture map and kept it there right up until the time when the act started to break up, starting with Paula’s exit. The key thing was: The original three judges were not superstars. And we had no way of knowing beforehand whether we liked them or not.
Now they’re bringing in J Lo, who, truth be told, is not well-liked (though this gig will give her an opportunity to become better liked). As for Tyler, he’s an unknown quantity in this role. The thing you have to ask is: Will any of these judges give it to the contestants straight? Or are they there to give all of them blind encouragement, whether they deserve it or not?
Love him or hate him, Simon was the voice of show business reality — when contestants had no chance of advancing, he told them. He was just being honest.
And what about these superstar judges? Will they have the enthusiasm to keep coming back season after season? Or are we entering a new era of revolving superstars whose faces will change with each new year?
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Revisiting the good old days of racism and sexism
September 23, 2010
Women were good for jumping out of cakes, but not much else in the 1920s depicted on "Boardwalk Empire" (Photo: Abbot Genser).
By ADAM BUCKMAN
Something tells me we might be flocking to TV’s nostalgic dramas a little too enthusiastically.
At first glance, it’s easy to see why “Mad Men” and “Boardwalk Empire” have caught on. They’re both great-looking shows. “Mad Men” is made by a lot of people who worked on “The Sopranos,” so there’s a noticeable high quality in the way the show is filmed and lit.
“Boardwalk Empire,” depicting the luxury of the 1920s resort town of Atlantic City, has a sumptuous look that’s also easy on the eyes. The show was apparently expensive to produce — $20 million alone, reportedly, for that premiere episode directed by Martin Scorsese — and it looks it. Like “Mad Men” (seen on AMC), no expense seems to have been spared on “Boardwalk Empire” (seen on HBO) to reproduce the best and most authentic period clothing and furnishings.
They’re the elements that make these shows fun to watch (particularly “Mad Men,” since it’s a show about the 1960s, which plenty of people still living can still remember. The 1920s? Not so much).
Secretarial pool: The office gals of "Mad Men." (AMC)
Of course, for everyone who likes “Mad Men” and “Boardwalk Empire,” there are detractors. Some people old enough to remember the world of New York’s Madison Avenue in the 1960s have been nitpicking about some of the details on “Mad Men” — from the use of certain electric-typewriter models to aspects of the English language.
While “Mad Men” is now well into its fourth season, “Boardwalk Empire” just began, though we critics have seen the first six episodes. For me, “Boardwalk Empire” hardly stands up to the pantheon of latter-day gangster classics that includes the first two “Godfather” movies, Scorsese’s “GoodFellas” and “Casino,” and “The Sopranos.” But it has many of the elements most people hope for in these things — mainly, warring factions and the violence that results, in this case, between figures whose names are familiar to gangland devotees — Johnny Torrio, Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano, Al Capone.
But here’s something else to consider about “Mad Men” and “Boardwalk Empire”: They both traffic casually in the racist and sexist attitudes of their times. And it’s true that it would be difficult to depict these eras honestly if you didn’t account somehow for the second-class citizenship of groups such as women and African-Americans.
Now, the 1920s are pretty far off and relatively few people are still around who can remember them vividly. In “Boardwalk Empire,” women have not yet won the right to vote. And most of the women in the series are ditzy showgirls and prostitutes.
In “Mad Men,” whose era is much closer to our day, the women are housewives, executive secretaries or lower-rung executives who feel acutely that they’ll lose promotional opportunities to male competitors. As for blacks, the only ones seen in this show are domestics and after-hours maintenance men.
And yet, “Mad Men” is celebrated for its style, with whole industries cropping up to market its dark mens’ suits, skinny ties and short, parted haircuts. People who watch the show say they find it refreshing to see so much cigarette smoking and martini swilling. Sure, those pursuits were fun — also unhealthy.
But something tells me that some people are nostalgic for more than just cigarettes and midday cocktails. Sometimes it seems that the way some people have latched on to “Mad Men” — and will likely latch on to “Boardwalk Empire” — indicates a nostalgia for something else, perhaps a longing few people would admit out loud for a time when equality was not the norm and certain groups knew their place.
This element gets lost in the shuffle of acclaim that has been showered on both of these shows. I happen to know people who can’t watch “Mad Men” because it serves as a reminder of a time when some groups lorded it over other groups. They can’t stand the fact that people celebrate a show that seems to depict the days of racism and sexism in so favorable a light. For these people, “Mad Men” makes them sick.
And I don’t blame them. It’s a point of view worth thinking about.
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1964: When ‘Mad Men’ collides with ‘Bewitched’
July 23, 2010
TV'S ORIGINAL MAD MEN: Darrin Stephens (Dick York, left) with boss Larry Tate (David White) on "Bewitched."
By ADAM BUCKMAN
Sterling Cooper Draper & Pryce? Meet McMann & Tate.
As “Mad Men” opens its fourth season this weekend (Sunday, July 28, at 10 p.m./9c on AMC), the year is 1964 — Thanksgiving to be exact.
It’s a year after the assassination of President Kennedy and much has happened in the lives of the Sterling Cooper Mad men. Their newly constituted agency — encompassing the names of partners Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) — is up and running in new offices in the then-ultramodern Time & Life building on Sixth Avenue, in the heart of midtown Manhattan.
In the real world of fall 1964, TV audiences were being introduced to another fictional ad agency, McMann & Tate, whose own Mad men were forever trying to lure and retain clients, while partaking in prodigious quantities of booze.
It was “Bewitched,” the ABC sitcom about one man’s effort to strike a balance between his home life in the New York City suburbs and his career in the pressure-cooker of the advertising business.
Don Draper (Jon Hamm, left) and Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) discuss the future of Sterling Cooper with Roger Sterling (John Slattery, seated). Photo credit: AMC-TV
He was Darrin Stephens (first played by Dick York), account executive at McMann & Tate. Like Don Draper, Darrin was involved in a continuous struggle with clients. Also like Don, Darrin reported to a white-haired boss, senior partner Larry Tate (David White). Draper reported to white-haired Roger Sterling (John Slattery) until he, Draper, was elevated to partner.
The big difference between Don and Darrin is, of course, witchcraft. Darrin’s wife, Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery), was a real witch capable of casting spells on neighbors and clients (or, more frequently, undoing the spells cast by her mother, Endora — played by Agnes Moorehead).
Don’s estranged wife Betty (January Jones) might seem like a witch sometimes to Don, but she isn’t one. He gets no help from witchcraft in performing his responsibilities as creative director at Sterling Cooper.
Sure, “Bewitched” was a silly comedy (a popular one, though, that lasted eight seasons) in which Darrin would suddenly grow donkey ears, compliments of his mischievous mother-in-law. But in its depiction of the life of a Manhattan ad man in the mid-’60s, it bears striking similarities to “Mad Men.”
The one thing most people cite when they recall “Bewitched” is the consumption of alcohol depicted on the show — something that would be considered politically incorrect to feature so prominently and casually in a prime-time sitcom today. Back then, though, you probably couldn’t produce a TV show about businessmen in midtown Manhattan without acknowledging the role liquor played in their everyday lives — at lunch, in the afternoons and after office hours.
Liquor, as a plot device, first turns up in the fourth episode of “Bewitched” — in October 1964 — when a prospective client comes to dinner at the Stephenses and Samantha turns him into a dog after he drunkenly makes unwanted advances on her.
In an episode that premiered a few weeks later, in November, Darrin is suspected of making advances of his own — on a teen-aged girl who comes to his office to interview him for her school newspaper. The enterprising reporter starts pouring drinks in his office and when Darrin tries to take a drink away from her it splashes all over his suit, leading to rumors that he was carrying on a drunken affair with her. “Bewitched”? That sounds like “Mad Men”!
The real question for “Mad Men”: Will this show acknowledge the existence of “Bewitched” as part of the AMC show’s 1964 time frame? “Mad Men” is a show whose producers, writers and set designers are meticulous about the details they apply to establishing the show’s place and time. They simply must have a scene that acknowledges “Bewitched” and the tribulations of McMann & Tate. Perhaps Don will go visit his kids on a Thursday evening at around 9 o’clock and find them watching the show.
Or maybe the ABC sitcom will come to the attention of Sterling Cooper’s head of TV, Harry Crane (Rich Sommer), who might make a comment about the show during a meeting about a tough client. “You know what would help us now?” Harry might ask. “Witchcraft!”
Don Draper would likely reply dismissively, in a manner similar to Tony Soprano when he informed his crew that he was undergoing psychotherapy and one of them asked if it was like “Analyze This.”
“That’s a comedy!” said Tony, in an annoyed tone. “This is serious!”
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Icons for your iPod: The greatest TV playlist ever
July 21, 2010
From "The Sopranos": R.L. Burnside -- "It's Bad You Know."
YOU CAN’T GO WRONG WITH THESE SONGS FEATURED IN THE BEST SHOWS AND SCENES EVER PRODUCED FOR TELEVISION
By ADAM BUCKMAN
These 12 songs represent some of the greatest moments, shows and individual scenes in the history of television — a compelling playlist for anyone’s iPod.
(1) “Johnny Appleseed” (Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros): A great song that stands on its own, but became the theme song for the coolest TV series ever made about southern California, “John from Cincinnati” (HBO, 2007).
(2) “Sun/Rise/Light/Flies” (Kasabian): Also from “John from Cincinnati,” this incredible ’60s-infused rock song accompanied the final surfing sequence in the series’ pilot. Unforgettable.
(3) “Return to Me” (Bob Dylan): This song, Dylan’s acoustic-guitar version of a love song popularized by Dean Martin, was overlaid on one of the best sequences in the entire run of “The Sopranos” — a series of scenes near the conclusion of “Amour Fou,” the penultimate episode of the series’ third season. It’s the sequence in which Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) is seen telling Rosalie Aprile (Sharon Angela) that her son Jackie Jr. (Jason Cerbone) is in trouble with the mob.
(4) “It’s Bad You Know” (R.L. Burnside): This haunting (and downright frightening) recording by the Mississippi bluesman R.L. Burnside was played ever-so-briefly, but oh-so-ominously in the final episode of Season 1 of “The Sopranos,” just after Tony Soprano pulled a revolver out of a fish’s mouth and gunned down Chucky Signore on Chucky’s boat.
(5) “Moonglow” (Artie Shaw & his Orchestra): No one who watched Ken Burns’ epic 2007 documentary about World War II, “The War,” will ever forget the series’ opening scene of a sleepy Alabama town before the war, as this tender classic of the Big Band era played over the voice of Keith David narrating the story of Glenn Frazier, then 16, who would go on to provide the series with some of the most stunning personal stories of war ever told on TV.
(6) “Waiting for the Train to Come In” (Harry James & his Orchestra, with Kitty Kallen): From the same Ken Burns series, this sentimental track with James’ long trombone intro was used for a sequence near the documentary’s conclusion that showed Americans welcoming their boys home after four years of war. If you watched this and didn’t cry, then you need to call a cardiologist to treat you for your heart of stone.
(7) “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” (Stevie Wonder): It was one of the sweetest moments ever produced on any show in the history of TV — the moment on “Taxi” in 1982, in the episode titled “Jim’s Inheritance,” when Rev. Jim (Christopher Lloyd) explores his father’s belongings following his father’s death and finds a cassette in a jacket pocket that seems to have been put there just for him. It turns out to be “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” a sweet revelation made even better when Jim blurts out: “Dad — I didn’t know you liked Stevie Wonder!”
(8) “With a Little Help from My Friends” (Joe Cocker): Cocker’s gravel-voiced cover of the Beatles’ song from “Sgt. Pepper’s” will forever be remembered as the theme song for “The Wonder Years,” the great, well-loved show about childhood in suburbia, circa 1970. This series was so uncannily accurate that people of a certain age could have sworn the show was produced specifically about their lives.
(9) “Desperado” (Linda Ronstadt): In season five of “The Wonder Years,” in the episode titled “Stormy Weather” in 1992, this tune was used oh-so appropriately when Kevin’s sister Karen (Olivia d’Abo) was reunited with her boyfriend Michael (David Schwimmer) and they slow-danced on the front lawn in the pouring rain.
(10) “Eli’s Coming” (Three Dog Night): This 1969 song came up suddenly and poignantly at the conclusion of an episode of “Sports Night” titled “Eli’s Coming” in 1999. It came right at the moment that the “Sports Night” staff heard the stunning news that their executive producer, Isaac (Robert Guillaume) had suffered a stroke.
(11) “Worry About You” (Ivy): This song, with its lyrics, “Bye bye baby, don’t be long. I’ll worry about you while you’re gone,” was used to unforgettable effect in the final sequence of the pilot episode of “The 4400″ in 2004. The sequence was one of the most beautiful ever produced for any show, and the song helped underscore the alienation felt by the 4,400 people who had been abducted by alien spacecraft — some decades before — and were suddenly returned to earth in the present day, having not aged at all.
(12) “Breathe Me” (Sia): Like “Worry About You,” this song became one of those go-to tunes for a number of TV shows and movies, but the best use of “Breathe Me” came in the final sequence of the final episode of “Six Feet Under” in August 2005, when Claire Fisher (Lauren Ambrose) left home for New York and the sequence advanced forward, far into the future, to show the deaths/fates of this HBO series’ principal characters. It was one of the most affecting sequences ever filmed for television.
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Gathering of late-night TV scribes wows audience
March 31, 2010
FUNNY BUSINESS: Five late-night comedy writers came together Tuesday night (March 30) in New York for a panel discussion on the art of comedy writing for television. The writers (front row, l-r): Erik Kenward, “Saturday Night Live”; Bashir Salahuddin, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”; Jason Ross, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"; J.R. Havlan, "The Daily Show"; and Diallo Riddle, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” Back row (l-r): Alaina Bendi, Center for Communication; Adam Buckman, moderator, TVHowl.com; and Dr. William Baker, Fordham University. Photo: Center for Communication
By ADAM BUCKMAN
NEW YORK — Many thanks to our panel of five late-night comedy writers who all participated in a live panel discussion before an audience of several hundred college students and others Tuesday night (March 30) in Manhattan.
The event, sponsored jointly by the Center for Communication and Fordham University and held at Fordham’s Pope Auditorium on West 60th Street, brought together representatives of three New York-based late-night shows: “Saturday Night Live” (writer: Erik Kenward), “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”(writers: Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle) and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (writers: Jason Ross and J.R. Havlan). The moderator was yours truly, Adam Buckman.
Among other things, the audience learned, from Erik Kenward, that “SNL” writers observe the results of their sketch-writing work in the company of the show’s uber-boss Lorne Michaels during the show’s traditional dress rehearsal, the dry run just before the live broadcast when the evening’s sketches are audience-tested. It’s during that dry run that Michaels will sometimes yank a sketch altogether or order changes.
All the panelists urged audience members to start working on their comedy writing if they ever hope to break into the big time and become staff writers on some of TV’s biggest shows. The panelists advised prospective comedy scribes to produce visual content for the Web as a way of practicing this comedy art form and also as a way of assembling a body of work to show prospective employers.
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Hard-boiled hicks: ‘Justified’ and ‘Breaking Bad’
March 31, 2010
Timothy Olyphant plays an old-fashioned marshall in a new-fangled world on "Justified." Photo: FX
By ADAM BUCKMAN
It grows tiresome to watch all the cops, robbers, lawyers and doctors conducting their fictionalized business in the TV shows based in the big cities — L.A., New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, even Philadelphia (“Cold Case”).
So it comes as a relief when TV’s fictional crime wave spreads outward from the nation’s densest population centers to other areas that have long been under-represented in the cops-and-crime canon.
Two examples: “Justified,” which just started its first season on FX, and “Breaking Bad,” AMC’s homely series, now in its third season, about TV’s most unlikely hero, a low-paid schoolteacher with cancer who takes up a new trade as a methamphetamine manufacturer.
The two shows are exploring seamy underworlds rarely visited by TV show-runners and their production crews. “Justified” (Tuesday nights at 10 eastern time on FX) brings the ethos of old movie westerns to the backwoods of rural Kentucky, where the bad guys are white supremacists involved in the drug trade. And “Breaking Bad” (Sunday nights at 10 and 11 eastern on AMC) takes place in New Mexico, around Albuquerque, in suburban housing tracts where the primary color is brown — from the houses to the packed dry earth.
Bryan Cranston in "Breaking Bad."
In fact, this season, the environs of “Breaking Bad” seem even browner than usual as if a decision was made to affix brown filters to every camera. If the visuals seem darker, it might be because the show is exploring some dark dramatic territory — setting up the season’s storyline against the backdrop of a horrific airline accident that spread a grotesque debris field of airplane pieces and human flesh over the community where this show’s cancer-ridden anti-hero, Walter White (Bryan Cranston), lives and teaches high school chemistry.
As the season began, Walt’s meth business is on hold and he is estranged from his wife. In addition, he is in the crosshairs of a pair of tough twin hitmen from Mexico who are apparently on a mission of revenge having to do with the killing last season of their cousin, the drug dealer Tuco.
Who needs big cities? As they crossed the border into the U.S., the twins murdered an entire truckload of migrants and burned their bodies on a stretch of road in the middle of nowhere — demonstrating that the emptiest geography in the whole world, even baking in the glare of the daytime sun, can be a lot more menacing than a dark alley between city buildings at night.
Meanwhile, the rural Kentucky of “Justified” resembles the semi-lawless towns of movie westerns — the ones that always represented the borderline between unchecked savagery and civilization and were patrolled by a lone soul sworn to establish order.
While the U.S. marshall of “Justified” is not exactly on the job by himself (he’s a member of a well-staffed regional office of U.S. marshalls), he goes about his business as if he’s Gary Cooper in “High Noon.” In the show, U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens gets reassigned, following a fatal shooting in Miami, to the rural region of Kentucky where he grew up. Timothy Olyphant plays this guy in pretty much the same way he played a marshall on HBO’s “Deadwood” — as a man of few words, who engages his quarries with a piercing stare, and who has a tendency toward maneuvering bad guys into confrontations that usually end with him shooting them.
This kind of show lives or dies on the quality of those confrontations. And so far, some of the confrontation scenes seem better choreographed than others, which is to say that these key scenes are not always providing maximum satisfaction. Still, for reasons having to do with this show’s unusual locale and the hard-to-peg magnetism of its star, I have somehow become hooked enough to watch every episode that FX has provided so far.
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‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’: The funniest show on TV
March 31, 2010
Peek-a-boo! Debbie Reynolds guest-judging a drag-queen beauty pageant? Only RuPaul (left, with Reynolds) could make THAT happen! Photo credit: Rolling Blackouts/Logo TV
By ADAM BUCKMAN
The funniest show on TV is not a sitcom or a sketch show or a late-night comedy show.
It’s a reality show whose reality, paradoxically, is the art of illusion. It’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” now nearing the conclusion of a triumphant second season on the gay-themed cable network called Logo. (Original episodes air at 9 p.m. Mondays; the season finale is April 26.*)
The idea of watching (very) effeminate gay men who are passionate in their adoption of female alter egos might not appeal to everyone, but for those with open or even semi-open minds, watching this show is one of the most rewarding and eye-opening experiences you can have these days in front of the tube.
It’s an elimination/competition show patterned loosely on the “Project Runway” model, with RuPaul — perhaps the world’s most famous drag queen — presiding as host, chief judge and Tim Gunn-like mentor for a group of contestants all hoping to be crowned the next drag superstar.
Fierce femme: Jujubee competes on "Drag Race." Photo credit: Logo
Few episodes of any show airing this year will likely equal the hilarity and camp quality of this past Monday’s show (March 29), in which the remaining four contestants — sweet and sour Tyra Sanchez, devious Raven, clueless Tatianna, audience favorite Jujubee and tender-hearted Pandora Boxx — were challenged to dress five aging gay men in drag and then cavort with them before a panel of judges that included special guests Debbie Reynolds and Cloris Leachman (one-time “Project Runway” contestant Santino Rice is also a judge on “Drag Race”).
At the center of it all is RuPaul, a drag impresario without equal, who handles the proceedings with drop-dead seriousness as if the stakes couldn’t be higher, all the while giving just the right faint impression that he knows deep down this whole pretend pageant is just one big lark.
Among other titles, RuPaul is the queen of the reality-show catchphrase, as when he — dressed in over-the-top drag himself — orders each week’s booted contestant to “Sashay away!”
But before he renders his final verdict, the contestants in the bottom two must compete in a lip-synch face off, a talent for mimickry that is apparently a hallmark of drag performance. Each episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” achieves a kind of comedy nirvana at the moment when RuPaul adopts the most serious tone of voice he can muster to direct the bottom two to “lip-synch for your life!” That’s when you know you’ve crossed over to a place TV has never gone before.
*The next original episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is scheduled for Monday, April 12, on Logo (following a repeat April 5) with guest judges Tatum O’Neill and Marisa Jaret Winokur. April 19 will be a clip-retrospective looking back at the season. On the one-hour April 26 finale, the finalists will be challenged to act with RuPaul in filming the video for his song, “Jealous of My Boogie,” which is the unofficial theme song of “Drag Race.” The finale will be followed by a one-hour reunion show. You can catch up on all the past episodes of “Drag Race” on Logo’s Web site, http://www.logotv.com/.)
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