Mr. Special Effects

Hello from Seattle where starting tomorrow I again call the action and pitching changes for the mighty Mariners.  In the meantime, I'm going to dip into the "Best Of" file. 

This is one of my favorite all-time posts so I cart it out every couple of years.  Certainly one of my funniest -- and I didn't even write it.  

I've talked about the need for showrunners to hold down the budget. What I

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A long night's journey into day

I’m heading up to Seattle tomorrow to begin a nine-game stretch of broadcasting for the Mariners. There was a game earlier this week between the Pirates and the Braves that lasted 19 innings and lasted over six hours. That prompted this Friday question by Joe Knucks-all (yes, it’s an ode to Joe Nuxhall):
What's the longest game you've gotten to call, thus far?
Friday, September 25, 1992. The

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Beaver Cleaver is back on the air

My past has caught up with me.  Great Big Radio is playing a two-hour restored broadcast of one of my radio shows back when I was Beaver Cleaver on B100 San Diego in 1976.  So for those of you who gotta have the bump, have a love hangover, or want to win passes to see that great new movie ODE TO BILLIE JOE starring Glynis O'Connor at the Grossmont Cinema, tune in to Great Big Radio. 

I'm on

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Friday questions on Friday

Since I already answered Friday Questions on Wednesday and Thursday I thought I should probably answer some Friday Questions on Friday.   Thanks again to Jeff Greenstein for his fantastic post yesterday.   If you have a Fri Q, I’d love to answer it (or find somebody better). Just post it in the comments section. Thanks.
Brian gets us started.

Ken, you have mentioned several times that you

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The inside story on DREAM ON

Here's another Friday question that deserves a whole post... and a guest to write it. The question is from Chris, who asks:

Do you have any idea how they used to write Dream On? It had these old movie/tv sequences in between characters' lines to make things more funny. Did the writers come up with the jokes based on old tv shows/movies they remembered or did they have people to help them with

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Advice for first-time showrunners...not that anyone asked

Well, actually, someone did. Brian Hennessy. He submitted a Friday question that warrants an entire post. (Note: Whenever I can't think of an appropriate picture I always post Natalie Wood photos.)

Hey Ken - can I ask you what are mistakes that first time showrunners make?
1. Not communicating with your staff. It’s not enough to have your vision for the show; you need to clearly share it

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Camping in Los Angeles

Going off to camp for the summer when I was a kid was a real East Coast thing. Growing up in LA, and living in the city, when I was nine my parents sent me to something called “Day Camp”. The “camp” was essentially a bus.

Every morning it picked me up and the first camp activity was driving around the Fairfax district for an hour picking up other campers.

Once we assembled with the

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Is Jennifer Aniston really a slut?

Saw HORRIBLE BOSSES recently. A lot of funny stuff. But one thing that didn’t work for me at all was Jennifer Aniston. As a foul-mouthed sex crazed slut I didn’t believe her for one second. I know it’s not fair to presume. In real life maybe she’s the whore of whores (so no disrespect), but on the screen that’s just not who she is. And every time she let fly a ration of raunch it was not

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Amy Winehouse 1983-2011

When you first heard the news that Amy Winehouse had died I bet you weren’t remotely surprised. And to me that says it all. Because when anyone dies at the incredibly young age of 27 it should be an utter shock. But Amy’s battle with drugs and alcohol and probably any other substance that comes in a container with a little skull and crossbones on it was so relentless and so public that no one

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Classic Sam Denoff

As a follow-up to my recent post on Sam Denoff, here are two classic DICK VAN DYKE SHOWS written by Sam and his partner, Bill Persky.  The first is "Coast to Coast Big Mouth", the script I first saw in a book.  And the second is "That's My Boy", which contains one of the greatest payoffs in sitcom history.  Enjoy. 

Coast to Coast Big Mouth






That's My Boy

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I'm represented at Comic-Con!

I used to make fun of Comic-Con, especially the elaborate costumes and get-ups some attendees would wear.  But no more.  Not after seeing this.  Finally!  Someone has the good sense and taste to dress as Dancin' Homer.  Whoever you are, sir, I salute you.
Thanks to reader WillieB for the heads-up.

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My favorite weekend

Yes, I'm dipping into the archives but it's one of my favorite all-time posts, so what the hell?  I've picked up a few new readers since it first ran three years ago. 
The Thursday Calendar section of the LA TIMES always has a feature called “My Favorite Weekend”. A celebrity is asked to describe his or her favorite southland weekend. It’s always bullshit, but now it seems they’re running

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Can Emmys cause tension on the set? Does Raggedy Ann have cloth tits?

More Friday questions for your mid-summer pleasure. What’s yours???

Wendy M. Grossman gets us started with an Emmy question:

I note that one of my favorite shows, The Good Wife, has multiple nominees in a couple of categories. Do the actors manage to be genuinely happy for each other and regard it as a joint reward for a team effort, or does it cause strain when this happens? I imagine a lot

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Jeff Katzenberg says today's movies suck

If you think the current crop of summer releases are bad….

You’re not alone. No less than Jeffrey Katzenberg agrees with you. Katzenberg, former head of Touchstone, Dreamworks, and currently grand poo-bah of Dreamworks Animation in a recent interview for Fortune magazine in front of a Brainstorm Tech audience bitched about all the subpar 3-D entries and blamed it on "a singular and unique

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Sam Denoff & Sherwood Schwartz

Sam Denoff
I always wanted to be Sam Denoff. And Sherwood Schwartz (for different reasons). We lost them both last week.  This is the first chance I've had to write about them but I couldn't let their passings go without comment.   And deep appreciation. 

1975 was when I quit my radio job (okay, I was fired, but I was offered another radio job and didn’t take it) and moved back to Los

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All that was missing was Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn

Back home from my son, Matt’s wedding to Kim in Palo Alto. I’m left with precious memories and bills. Thanks so much to all of you who have offered best wishes and mazal tovs.

Here’s a brief recap of the festivities:

We arranged for guests to stay at the Palo Alto Westin and their sister hotel, the next door Sheraton. Everyone who booked at the Westin got great rooms. Large, spacious,

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Minor league announcer quits on the air

Life in the minors isn't as idyllic as BULL DURHAM would have you believe.  Recently, the Lake County Fielders, from the North American Baseball League, experienced a mutiny.  On July 9, Lake County manager Tim Johnson resigned before a game and eleven of his players refused to play in protest.  Apparently they were not getting paid.  (No, Frank McCourt had nothing to do with this.  Actually, a

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Let's go shopping at the Sky Mall

Summer is officially here, which means summer travel. After you’ve had a relaxing morning removing all your clothes in front of a thousand strangers who are also shedding their garments, getting a full-body X-Ray, finding no room in the overhead compartments for your carry-on, being squeezed into a center seat between a fat person and a screaming baby, and sitting out on the tarmac for an hour

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The Levine/Shultz wedding

This is a very special day.  My son Matt managed to find "the one" and today he and Kim are getting married.  (She found "the one" too.)  I couldn't be more thrilled.  Talk about two people made for each other.  They both watch Red Zone every Sunday during football season.  They both are crazed Red Sox fans.  They both can provide tech help when I need it.  

We're so delighted to welcome Kim

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Carmageddon

In honor of Carmageddon here's a very funny video.  They have been alternate versions but this is one devoted to LA's current situation -- the 405 Freeway, which connects the Valley to the Westside is closed all weekend for repairs.  Look, when you're talking comedy gold, you can't beat Hitler.   For the folks in Los Angeles, you might as well watch.  You're not going anywhere.

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From the 405 to the 4077

The main corridor between the San Fernando Valley and the Westside of Los Angeles will be closed starting tonight all through the weekend. The traffic should be so bad that even though I’m currently in Palo Alto, we should still have grid lock. Anyway, here are some Friday questions to ponder while LA people frantically try to get out of town, and non-LA people laugh hysterically.
Gazzoo

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My thoughts on the Emmy nominations

The Emmy nominations were announced today. I slept through them. I hope I don’t do that through the ceremony too. The first thing I did was scan down to make sure Margo Martindale was nominated for her work on JUSTIFIED. She was. I’m happy. Glad that a few of the JUSTIFIED cast members got noms – Timothy Oliphant and Walton Goggins – but sorry the series didn’t get a Best Drama nomination

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The new Harry Potter movie

I hate to be out of touch! I always feel so inadequate when there’s a national phenomenon and I’m out of the loop. As a blogger of popular culture (not that anybody is paying me… or even asking me to be a blogger of popular culture) I do sort of feel it’s my responsibility to stay up with current trends. That’s why I watched AMERICAN IDOL (until it became too mind numbing even for me). That

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Meeting Prince Charles

Thank God I’m getting out of town. My son Matt is getting married on Sunday in the Bay Area so I’m outta here. But he could not have picked a more perfect weekend (or girl for that matter) than this one because starting late Friday night it is CARMEGEDDON in Los Angeles. You’ve probably heard about it… even in the outer reaches of Bhutan. The freeway that is the major artery between the

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SPOILER ALERT: A post about spoiler alerts

Mary McNamara wrote a great article yesterday in the LA Times on SPOILER ALERTS. In this age of Twitter and instant communication it’s more difficult to keep endings secret.

As a blogger I try to be sensitive to this issue (I’m also a screenwriter and would hate to have my surprise ending revealed before I have your money or Neilson has recorded that you’ve watched my show), but at some point

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Has the sitcom bar been lowered?

In a hotel room not long ago I found myself channel surfing. First I checked the pay channels. None of the recently released Hollywood features were any good. God, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston have made some bad movies. And their one together is biblical in its badness. I bet hotels are really starting to take a bath on this feature. Now that everyone has a laptop we can Netflix and

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Another typical Hollywood story

I was doing ALMOST PERFECT, the CBS mid 90’s sitcom that starred Nancy Travis. In the show, Nancy’s character had a cat, “Charlie”. We used him in about five episodes. Then I get a call from the cat’s owner/trainer/agent. He tells me that Charlie has been offered the lead in the remake of THAT DARN CAT but I was not to fret. Charlie really liked working on the show and with us. So he’ll stay with

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The real American Idol is from Britain

Talkin’ ‘bout Adele. Currently the number one singer in the country, with the biggest album of the year so far.

And she didn’t have to wear a green merkin or fly in on wires or appear in Maxim’s Hot 100 or subject herself to ten weeks of being critiqued on national television by idiots like Randy Jackson.

She’s not hot, she’s not flashy, she’s not theatrical, she’s not even from here.

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My favorite Kirstie Alley scene

Taking time out today from preparing for tonight’s Mariners-Angel game (to be broadcast on 710 ESPN Seattle, and MLB.COM) and celebrating my wedding anniversary (love you, Deb) to answer your Friday questions… and provide a visual aid. 
Steve has a CHEERS question. I may have answered it already but it’s one I get a lot so for the sake of clarity, here it is again.

My Friday question,

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A Day in the Life Of...

Hello from Anaheim where I'll be calling this weekend's grudge match between the host Angels and the Mariners for 710 ESPN Seattle, the Mariners' Radio Network, and MLB.COM.   Recently I contributed an article for the Mariners' monthly magazine.  It was about "what I learned writing a Broadway musical".  It was rejected.   Then I wrote this.  Maybe they'll use it.  Even if you're not a baseball

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50 ways to get a script assignments

Opportunities don’t come along very often. You've gotta take advantage.

When David and I were starting out, our first sale was to THE JEFFERSONS. The story editors had liked our spec MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and invited us to pitch stories. If the producers responded to one of them we would get an assignment.

The ground rules: Each story had to be no longer than one paragraph. Basically

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"Hello, I have a collect call from Wesley Snipes..."

Here are some holiday leftovers...

Hope you had a great 4th of July. I did. Went down to Redondo Beach at Great Big Radio Guy’s place to watch the fireworks. And unlike a couple of years ago, there was no thick fog. That was bizarre. They shot off the fireworks anyway. Here's an example.  This was either a one big starburst or series of clusters, but it/they were awesome!
Not surprised that

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Fireworks

I hope you enjoy fireworks tonight without blowing your hand off. I never quite got the attraction of holding lit sticks with small explosives made in unknown countries by craftsmen who earn nineteen cents a month.

Being a baseball announcer I see firework shows at least five times a year. They’re usually on when I’m doing the postgame show, trying to read out-of-town scores while the raid on

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If GPS Systems could really talk

A lot of folks are on the road this holiday weekend, giving their GPS systems a real workout.  My GPS guide is so nice. She’s incredibly patient with me. Whenever I disobey her instructions she just assumes I have a good reason and re-calibrates. What a gal! And she’s always cheerful. Never any PMS from my GPS. But sometimes I wonder, what is she really thinking? What would she be saying if she

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For anyone who hates assholes that text in theaters...

You're going to LOVE this!  This is going to make your holiday weekend.

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THE OFFICE recut as a traditional sitcom

Okay,this is brilliant! THE OFFICE recut as a typical cheesy 80s or 90s sitcom. It was made by benny2700, whoever that is. So put your Walkman down, stop playing Pong for a few moments and enjoy this video.

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How much do writers really make on DVD sales?

Happy July! Let’s kick off the month with some Friday Questions.

Drew gets us started:

You mentioned the props for Cheers a few weeks back. I was thinking that being in charge of props and wardrobe has to be a nightmare. If there is a scene with a birthday cake, are their multiple copies in case an actor drops it? Are their multiples of the actor's shirt in case the cake is dropped on

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