By Ken Levine

The WGA strike

I imagine every writer who has a blog is offering his/her thoughts on the pending WGA strike today. Here, in no particular order, are mine.

And yes, I will continue to blog if there is a strike.

***********

Make no mistake about it – industry strikes only occur when management forces the issue. ALWAYS. Every time. No exceptions. Who do you think can hold out longer? The story editor of KIM POSSIBLE with two kids in private school or Sumner Redstone? So who do you think has more to gain by playing hardball?

What’s scary is this: in the old days, one of the unions would strike, it would last for a few months and Lew Wasserman of Universal would say, “Okay, this has gone on long enough.” and it would be over. This year there is no Lew Wasserman. There is not even Universal as we knew it.

*******

Some network officials are saying that since this season is already a bust with no breakout hits (and whose fault is that I ask those same network visionaries who programmed CAVEMEN, VIVA LAUGHLIN, and NASHVILLE?) a strike would be welcomed. They could cut losses from runaway production. That’s fine except that after the last strike in 1988 the combined network share dropped 10% and has continued to fall ever since. The industry suffered a half-billion dollars in lost revenue, and MOONLIGHTING ratings never recovered. Can the AMPTP really afford another big strike?

It’s like if you’re a restaurant that’s struggling is it a good idea to close on weekends?

*****

How’s this for an idiotic remark? In a recent article in the LA TIMES, TV writer Robert Eisele suggested that in light of the strike if writers “can afford a Bentley, get a Mercedes.” Yeah, that helps the WGA’s image. We’re all driving Bentleys. Newsflash: NO writer I know drives a Bentley. And none will until they start putting Prius engines in the damn things! Oh...and we don’t light our cigars with hundred dollar bills either.

******

This acrimony between writers and management has been going on since the 1930s when scribes first rose up and had the audacity to…well, ask for things. Warner Brother czar Jack Warner warned that any writer who joined the union would “find themselves out of work forever”. And he claimed this wasn’t blacklisting because “it would all be done over the telephone”. Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century Fox once said, “Throw that writer off the lot until I need him again!” Critic David Thomson says Hollywood writers are like divorce lawyers or private eyes. When you want them you have to have them, but later you despise them.

Is there any wonder we “Schmucks with Underwoods” have an inferiority complex and assume a defensive posture? We spend our entire careers trying to protect our work against studios, directors, actors, fellow writers, research gurus, networks, and girlfriends of the all of the above.

***********

Networks claim that streaming shows on the internet and making them available for ipods is merely for “promotional purposes only”. If that’s true, why do they CHARGE for them on itunes? And even if they didn’t, by making shows available on the internet they reduce their value for reruns and syndication.

***********

Nice timing of NBC Universal and News Corp to begin testing their joint venture – a video site focused solely on TV and film content – three days before the WGA contract was up.

************

And is it just me, or don’t writers who feverishly try to finish and turn in their drafts right before the deadline undermine the WGA’s cause? If Paul Haggis DIDN’T turn in the latest installment of the James Bond series, the studio might have a tad more incentive to make a deal, don’tcha think??

Meanwhile, other writers turned in multiple variations of scripts so the studios would have flexibility filming them. That to me is unconscionable. These are the screenwriters who stand to benefit from DVD and other delivery system royalties. All the rest of us are giving up work to fight for them and they turn in multiple drafts to accommodate the studios?? No wonder the producers think we’re idiots.

And thank you to actors like Vince Vaughn, who since he isn’t in the WGA, finds nothing morally wrong with agreeing to polish scripts during a strike. The fact that we go out on strike to craft a deal that will be the template for the SAG deal so HE won’t have to go out on strike apparently means nothing to him.

************

Without credit arbitration (won by the union in a hard fought battle) Jeffrey Katzenberg and Brad Grey might each have four Oscars for co-writing screenplays.

************

I will never make another joke about the Teamsters. I love those guys!!! If the Teamsters refuse to cross the picket lines this could be a much shorter strike than management expected.

*************

I know WGA President Patrick Verrone. Worked with him on a project. Being in a writers room with someone on a show with problems is how you can really learn about a person. Pat is talented, reasonable, dedicated, and cool under pressure. He is far from the John Wayne his detractors claim him to be. We need to give him our support and we need to remain unified and strong.

I’ve been through three strikes already. Many of the companies I struck are no longer in business. Two-thirds of the people I struck with are no longer in the guild. And unlike actors and directors, when we go out it doesn’t just shut down the industry. It slows it. Hair restoration crèmes have faster results. But as someone who has prospered and enjoyed the gains writers before me have won, I feel it’s my obligation to fight the good fight for the next generation. And hopefully in twenty years, when the issue is holograms transmitted directly to the back of viewers’ eye lids, WGA members will hang tough for a piece of that pie.

We’re just looking for our fair share. MyPiece not MySpace. iShare not iTunes. NetWorth not NetFlix.

Happy Halloween

This has always been one of my favorite holidays, especially when the kids were little. Taking them trick-or-treating and seeing them so excited and happy was one of the true joys of parenthood. And then eating the candy they collected was fun too. Of course there’s always that one eccentric house. We had a dentist who gave out toothbrushes. Thank goodness he wasn’t a proctologist.

And where I live, near UCLA, there was always a second wave of trick-or-treaters. Later, after the kids had turned in for the night, sorority girls in yummy costumes would ring the bell. I’d be holding the candy bowl for them in one hand and my Emmy in the other.

During Matt & Annie’s elementary school years there was also the annual Halloween carnival. This was a public school catering to the local neighborhood but we were hardly a typical neighborhood. One year I volunteered by making snow cones and Hugh Hefner and his six bimbos strolled up to my cart. He had a kid in the school. A noted soft-porn actress whose children attended the school offered this for the silent auction: A two hour nude session where you could photograph or paint her. The principal graciously declined that offer but I bet it would have brought in a lot more money than the autographed WINGS script I donated.

For the school’s “Haunted House” Gene Simmons participated. He would pop up and stick out that four-foot tongue. One mother was so freaked she literally sued the school.

Ah, good times.

One thing I learned though, Halloween is an OUTDOOR holiday.

My son’s birthday is November 2nd. (Happy upcoming birthday, Matt!). When he turned five Halloween night fell on a Saturday. So for his party we invited a bunch of his friends to the house where I would take them all out trick-or-treating and then they’d come back for pizza and cake. 5-7 PM. No muss. No fuss. Great plan.

Except it rained. No, it POURED.

First off, as parents deposited their kids they asked if we’d take siblings since they couldn’t take them trick-or-treating in the rain. Of course we said yes, and so at 5:00 I had forty screaming crazed children running around my house – chasing each other with hatchets, and fairy wands, and Star Wars phasers. After relentlessly trying to wrangle this supercharged mob I finally sat down on the stairs and took a breath. I was so proud of myself. I had gotten through it. It’s almost 7. Then I checked my watch. 5:20.

If you have little kids enjoy these precious Halloweens. Soon enough they’ll outgrow you, want to be with their friends instead, and trade phasers for tequila shooters. At least I still have my memories… and the sorority girls keep coming around.

One last Halloween note: I’ve always found it odd that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in this holiday so they stay home…on the only night of the year when people would actually open their doors to them.

Happy Halloween.

Boo!

The CHEERS script that could have ruined us

With another Writers Guild strike looming, I thought I would add one more day to my Sitcom Room seminar next weekend. I’d give all the participants signs and have them march around the hotel.

One byproduct of a writers strike is that studios may shoot existing scripts but may not change them. So jokes can’t be fixed, lines can’t be tailored to actors, locations can’t be changed (too bad if an exterior gets rained out – you can’t move inside to a new location), and special effects have to be executed just as described (whether they’re possible or not).

In 1985 there was also the possibility of a work stoppage. Back then our contract ran out March 1st, which was idiotic. We’d strike right as the TV season ended. So we’d be out for four months before the producers even knew it. All signs pointed to a peaceful resolution so life went on as planned. NBC asked for a last minute additional episode of CHEERS and David Isaacs and I were asked to write it. There was a big time crunch, the show needed to start filming the following week, so we had three days to write the script. The idea was we’d bang out a draft, turn it in on Friday, we’d all polish it on Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday it went into production.

We turned in the script on Friday afternoon and on Saturday negotiations blew apart. An immediate strike was announced.

So now they had to film our very first draft, as is, no changes. This was the first BAR WARS episode. Needless to say, show night was one of the most terrifying nights of my life. I thought, “this is where we’re discovered as frauds”. Amazingly, the show played well. Not as well as it could have, don’t get me wrong. There were plenty of places where jokes could be improved and turns could be better finessed. But on the whole the show worked and there was no noticeable drop in quality.

I’m sure several writers find themselves in that spot today. The lesson here is that even if you’re only given three days to write a whole script, don’t just knock it out. Give it your best, treat it with the same care and hold it to the same standards you would anything bearing your name. Because you never know.

And the good news is, for maybe the only time in your career, the actors will HAVE TO say your words, as written. It’s almost worth taking the assignment just for that.

The Denver Boot

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox who won the World Championship by beating the Cleveland Indians and then had to fulfill their obligation to Major League Baseball by playing a National League team.

For the Colorado Rockies the fairy tale ended the way INTO THE WOODS did. But kudos for a great year. And they play the Dodgers 19 times next year so they have a good chance of repeating.

At least with a sweep we are no longer subjected to Tim McCarver. Was there even one sentence he didn’t begin with “We talked about this, Joe…”? Thank God for radio and Jon Miller.

With all the cameras Fox had capturing the reactions of every person imaginable, I’m only sorry they didn’t have a camera in Johnny Damon’s house.

I did enjoy the close-up of Red Sox co-owner Tom Werner yawning with two outs in the ninth – thus expressing the sentiments of most of the nation. It was the best owner shot since Jane Fonda was caught sleeping during a Braves playoff game.

Will World Series MVP Mike Lowell be replaced next season by A-Rod?

Nice classless touch of his uber agent Scott Boras to announce that he was opting out of his contract with the Yankees during the game. Reason given: Rodriguez was concerned over all the instability of the Yankees’ situation. REAL reason: Boras has another team already lined up – not that that’s kosher – not that he cares.

Alex Rodriguez will play for any manager and with any teammates if they pay him the most money. He’ll grow a beard and join the House of David if they come up with $240 million.

By the time catcher Jason Varitek leaped into pitcher Jonathan Papelbon’s arms the MLB.COM website was already offering Red Sox World Series championship merchandise. Get yer Manny do-rags in four decorative colors!

For the Red Sox it must be tough playing on the road to only 20,000 of their fans instead of the 37,000 who sell out Fenway every home game. And not being allowed to use a Designated Hitter in Colorado, Boston got a two RBI single from a pitcher and a pinch-hit home run from a utility fielder.

A year ago Jon Lester was undergoing chemotherapy. On Sunday night he won the clinching game of the World Series. How many producers do you think are standing in line to get the rights to his story?

Will Jonathan Papelbon show up this February sweeps on DANCING WITH THE STARS?

For the $103 million it cost Boston for Dice-K, it was Hideki Okajima who really shined.

Only seven of the players from the 2004 championship team were on this squad. Notably missing during the on-field celebration were Johnny Damon, Derek Lowe, Bronson Arroyo, Drew Barrymore.

Remember when the World Series was exciting? Remember when both teams were tough and equally matched and not just a juggernaut vs. schmuck bait? The last Game 7 in a World Series: 2002. And at the time THAT was the lowest rated WS. God knows what the numbers will be for this year’s fall classic. It may become the VIVA LAUGHLIN of premium sporting events.

Again, congratulations to the Boston Red Sox. The best team swept.

For more Red Sox observations and gloating please visit my son's highly entertaining Sox blog, Dirty Watah.

When do pitchers and catchers report? I already miss baseball.

Never think you're great

Glowing reviews are lovely but you have to take them in stride. The minute you start BELIEVING them you're cooked. Because as someone once said, "There are always Romanian judges".

David Isaacs and I wrote the screenplay for VOLUNTEERS (probably playing right now on Spike or the Food Network) and got our first taste of high profile movie reviews. To give you an example of why you can't take them too seriously, here are two reviews from presumably the same movie.

*******
From the New York Times

By WALTER GOODMAN
Published: August 16, 1985

Take a healthy helping of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' a dollop of ''The Bridge on the River Kwai,'' a dash of any Tarzan movie, a soupcon of ''Casablanca,'' a whiff of ''The Wizard of Oz'' and a stunt or two from a favorite Saturday serial, stir frenetically, and if you're lucky enough to have snappy dialogue by Ken Levine and David Isaacs, you may end up with as funny a movie as ''Volunteers.''

….There are lots of snappy exchanges. ''I thought you wanted to be my friend,'' Beth admonishes when Lawrence makes a pass. He replies, ''This is what I do with my friends.'' In refusing to pay his son's debts, Lawrence's father (George Plimpton) assures him that some day he will thank Dad for the gift of self-reliance and for the opportunity to learn to use a walker. It is a particular pleasure to report that although Lawrence naturally falls in love with Beth and goes through plenty of trouble to save her from being turned into a drug fiend, she does not make a better man of him.

Although the movie, which opens today at the United Artists Twin and other theaters, begins with film clips of icons of the early 1960's - John F. Kennedy, Pope John XXIII, Marilyn Monroe, Ed Sullivan - the spirit is very much of the 80's. But a little melancholy may blend with the laughter ''Volunteers'' draws at the expense of those earnest days when a President was urging people to ask what they could do for their country.

*****
On the other hand….from VARIETY

By VARIETY STAFF

Volunteers is a very broad and mostly flat comedy [from a story by Keith Critchlow] about hijinx in the Peace Corps, circa 1962. Toplined Tom Hanks gets in a few good zingers as an upperclass snob doing time in Thailand, but promising premise and opening shortly descend into unduly protracted tedium.

Hanks plays Lawrence Bourne 3d, an arrogant, snide rich boy from Yale who trades places with an earnest Peace Corps designate when his gambling debts land him in danger at home. Once ensconced in a remote village, contentious couple Hanks and cohort Rita Wilson and ultra do-gooder John Candy set out to build a bridge across a river. Kidnapped and brainwashed by the commies, the gung-ho Candy disappears for a long stretch.

With Candy absent most of the time, Hanks' one-note, if sometimes clever, attitudinizing wears out its welcome after a while. He also is deprived of anyone effective to play off.

Lensed in Mexico, pic features a muddy, truly ugly look. Also present is the most offensively blatant plug for Coca-Cola yet seen in the new era of Coke-owned entertainment companies.

Mary Tyler Moore Show spoof

Here's a great parody of the MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW from SNL in the 80's. The guy doing Lou Grant is not as good as the others but the rest of the cast is dead on.

The greatest 4 second hits

Everyone listens to the radio. Do you ever pay attention to the station jingles? Probably not. But in many cases they're the signature of the station and hearing them again jogs distant memories. For fun I've put together a montage of radio station jingles from the 60s-today (but mostly it's the older stuff). So hop in the Way Back Machine and relive some of your favorite 5 second songs.

Click To Play

No more hour episodes of THE OFFICE! Please!

Half hour shows are supposed to be… a half hour. Twice as long does not make it twice as good. It makes it a quarter more bad. THE OFFICE has been airing hour episodes and if you ask me it’s killing the show. THE OFFICE is normally a snappy show with a lot going on. These hour stanzas have been bloated and uneven. I’m sure it was the network’s idea to do it. Rarely do producers plead to do double the work.

I’ve written hour episodes (or two-parters) for MASH, CHEERS, and FRASIER. And here’s what I’ve learned: They turn out to be 45 minutes worth of story and fifteen minutes of filler. The stories are generally too long to tell in a half hour, not long enough to sustain a full hour.

The “Goodbye Radar” episode could have easily been a half hour. But CBS wanted to make a big “Sweeps” event out of it so we had to concoct this whole generator-going-out business, which did nothing to improve the show.

Often times episodes don’t start out as hours (or two-parters) but the first drafts come in so overloaded with story that you decide to expand them. And then you find it doesn’t expand enough. So you toss in a B-story and just keep going.

Sitcoms have their own rhythm and method of storytelling. Again, to use MASH as an example, we would normally tell two or three stories and pack each scene with as many jokes and quips as we could – to the point where we would often think it’s silly. Radar would enter the Swamp and Hawkeye would have to have a smart remark. I used to say, “What if, just once, and I know this is daring, he just said HELLO?! Y’know, like a normal human being?!” We got away with it in the half hour format but when we stretched the show to an hour the stylistic seams really started showing, and it felt like overkill.

But at the end of the day, these are writing issues and if you expressed them to the network they would laugh. Longer episodes mean more commercial time to sell, something special to promote, and one less half hour of a show that isn’t as popular. And for your series finale they want two hours. They just never realize that by forcing you to do hours along the way they hasten that finale by two or three years.

The LA wildfires

Hello from the giant ashtray that currently is Los Angeles. Our house is okay and thanks to you who have inquired. We live in Westwood, near UCLA, where the only major threat to us is earthquakes so we have great peace of mind.

But the entire region looks like nuclear winter. The sky is an eerie gold. A layer of fine ash is everywhere. The air tastes like stale mesquite. It’s odd to pick up the LA TIMES and for the weather prediction, where it usually says sunny or partly-cloudy or rainy is says “smoky” today.

NBC’s Brian Williams has said the mass evacuation as a result of the fires is the “Largest Peacetime Movement of Americans since the Civil War.” On the other hand, surfers who have been able to get to Malibu have reported that the waves are currently fabulous. Cowabunga, dudes!

Wildfires are a game of Russian Roulette hundreds of thousands play here in Southern California. Especially with real estate prices so high, younger families must move farther and farther away from the city. New communities pop up in remote canyons. Where brush fires once charred empty acreage now they’re threatening countless homes… and lives.

All of us are affected, even those in safe terrains. Eric Pierpoint, one of the actors from my play on Monday night, came to the theater after evacuating his home. My partner’s living room is filled with possessions from a friend who had to evacuate. Many Angelinos have taken in emergency houseguests. Your heart goes out to the over 500,000 whose lives have been disrupted and especially to those who’ve lost their homes and memories.

And there’s nothing you can really do to avoid such natural disasters.

It’s the old story – where you gonna go? After the big ’94 quake many residents considered relocating to a safer part of the world. But just where is that? Who doesn’t have floods, giant snowstorms, hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts, earthquakes, avalanches, pollution, terrorists, monsoons, wildfires, tulie fog, bees?

Needless to say, television and radio news crews have been all over this “National Disaster”. For my money, the best coverage has come from KNX radio’s Dave Williams (pictured left) and KFWB radio’s Jack Popejoy. For all the helicopter views, field reporters, update crawls, and graphics on local TV, there’s still nothing like the immediacy and intimacy of radio. KABC’s coverage has also been excellent. And their promos should win awards.

As for TV, when not stepping aside for ACCESS HOLLYWOOD and WHEEL OF FORTUNE the local stations have provided extensive coverage that ranges from outstanding to idiotic. The usual bobbleheads are filing on-scene reports. This is where you can really separate the reporters from the swimsuit models. Being able to talk on your feet, offer clear concise reports, and answer the often stupid questions from the anchors while on live TV is a talent few possess. Best in LA: Mary Beth McDade from Channel 2.

And then there’s Clete Roberts. No one is or has ever been in his league.

Roberts was the reporter in the famous MASH episode, “The Interview”. But in the 50s he was a local TV news reporter. I remember vividly watching him file a live report from the Benedict Canyon fire. He was composed. He was informative. In the background was a house burning to the ground. His house.

The winds seem to be dying down and the heroic, tireless firefighters are starting to get a handle on things. And always looking for good news, the LA TIMES had this article Wednesday: “The fires could end up being a boon for construction.”

My best wishes and prayers to all affected.

The barbeque of DEATH!!!

As another World Series begins it’s always fun to look back at the season and salute the idiotic injuries players and coaches suffer. My thanks to ESPN’s Jayson Stark for uncovering these.

Bizarre injuries are a baseball tradition as much as the seventh inning stretch. My all-time favorite belongs to Dodger outfielder, Pedro Guerrero. This is a man who was up on a drug charge and the defense pleaded he was too stupid to know what was going on and he won! In 1987 during the Whittier earthquake Pedro decided to evacuate his house. Most people, when caught in that unfortunate situation, retrieve precious family photos, insurance policies, passports, etc. Pedro wrenched his back hauling his priceless big screen TV out to the lawn. The defense rests.

Now for this year’s bonehead casualties:

Raul Ibanez of the Mariners was out for a week in May with a back injury sustained when he tried to get some sleep on the team plane.

This is why I never run: Milwaukee manager, Ned Yost was jogging in Wrigley Field and tripped over a patch of loose concrete. He broke his collarbone.

Somehow in June Washington reliever, Jesus Colome suffered an “abscess on his right buttock”. The team’s General Manager, Jim Bowden is quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “We pray for his buttocks and his family.”

Tampa Bay pitching coach, Jim Hickey hit a golf shot that missed the fairway, caromed off a curb and hit him the eyebrow, requiring surgery for a detached retina. No “Fore-eyes” jokes please.

Forget weapons. There should be an organization dedicated to the prevention of barbeques. They seem to account for a shocking number of baseball mishaps. Phillies centerfielder, Aaron Rowland missed a few games in the summer after “tweaking” his back while playing tag at a BBQ. Cub’s pitcher, Bobby Howry twisted his back carrying a gas grill across his patio. A dry run I’m sure in case he ever has to evacuate.

Meanwhile, Pirates pitcher, Ian Snell burned the tip of his index finger grilling chicken. “Let me just see if it’s done…AAAAAA!!!!”

Red Sox centerfielder, Coco Crisp (for you non-baseball fans, yes, that’s his real name) was struck in the knee by the Mariner Moose mobile. Apparently, the Mariner Moose was not looking where he was going. My guess is he was on a cellphone like every other driver.

And finally, there’s the Milton Bradley saga (again, for you non-baseball fans, I’m not making up these names). He got into an argument with an umpire and when his manager tried to break things up by flinging him to the ground he tore up his ACL. “Yer out!!…for a YEAR.”

Enjoy the World Series. And you might want to boil those hot dogs instead of grilling them.