Clarkstown Summer Theatre 

Alumni Interview

        TV Q&A: CBS' Monday Night Comedy Block

                                         By HOLLYWOOD.COM

The executive producers of the funniest two hours on television. Dave Hackel from Becker, Phil Rosenthal from Everybody Loves Raymond, Alan Kirschenbaum and Greg Garcia from Yes, Dear and Michael Weithorn from The King of Queens, answer the media's questions. 

For any of you guys up there, this is a philosophical question. This has been a real tough last couple of years for people in your genre. New sitcoms have been not only not successful but not funny in most cases, and some people said, 'What's wrong? Why could people write sitcoms a few years ago and can't now?' What do you see? I mean, you obviously got some that work, particularly in the ratings. What's going wrong right now? Why are people having so much trouble making comedies work? 

Dave Hackel: None of us would know anything about that. [Laughter.] 

Phil Rosenthal: Haven't they always not worked, mostly? Think of all the great shows. They weren't on all at the same time. I think it's very hard to make a good show, and I don't think this time that we're living in is any different. 

Hackel: And don't you think you have to get really lucky? You have to have the right people and the right actors and the right time and the right politics and the right--you know, there's no magic answer to this or we'd all have 20 shows on the air. 

Alan Kirschenbaum: I think also when some of us started, there were a few less networks and there were less shows--I know the first writing staff I was on was on Dear John, and I worked with Ed Weinberger and David Lloyd and Bob Ellison and David Hackel and Peter Noah and Bob Stevens, and it was a really compact group of terrific writers. And whether sometimes the show pans out or not isn't always as important as what you learn when you're there. And I know for some of us, Phil and I have worked together a lot and Greg and I have worked together a lot, we've worked with people who really knew what they were doing and were able to pass a lot of that knowledge around, and I think sometimes people aren't as lucky as that. 

Rosenthal: And we're not willing to pass on anything. [Laughter.] 

Could you talk about how the development process helps in some cases and hinders in others of--gets in the way of a great idea that you have and you want to put up there on the screen? 

Kirschenbaum: I think that sometimes the development process is unfairly portrayed as evil. I know in the case of Greg and my show, we basically wrote a script that the studio and network said, "Great, let's do it." We cast people that we wanted and the studio network said, "Great, let's do it." We produced a
pilot and the network said, "Let's put it on." Not every experience is like that, but I think that it's
oftentimes a fairly easy way out for writers and producers to blame the process. I think if you're
strong and you know what your show should be at the end of the day, then you stick to that. The process
for me has always been a fairly respectful one. 

Who up there didn't have that great experience? 

Hackel: We're all here. I mean, I've had good and bad development experiences, but we're all here because, you know, we're having a good one. It worked. I had the exact same situation with CBS this time around as Alan did. What we did was endorsed and blessed and we were told to go off and follow that vision, and you don't hear that very often. Sometimes you get a lot of
micromanagement. That didn't happen with us. And I think maybe that has to do with why we're all here
today. 

Rosenthal: The only note I got from CBS was, "Could it not be Raymond?" Other than that, smooth sailing. [Laughter.] 

It seems like you guys have all been successful with the standard format, three cameras, but it seems like most of the newer sitcoms or the comedies that are working are very different, whether it's Malcom or what Fox is doing, including some of what's coming. Are we as the public getting more--is it more difficult to get to the public with the standard sitcom? Is it harder because they're more worn out? Does it take different ideas? Or is the reverse possibly true, too, that the writers for the standard sitcoms have sort of done everything that's possible and so it needs a different kind of an idea? 

Michael Weithorn: I think it's--there's really no rule that applies to anything in this area. There's so
much--it's so much a function of whether a given show in a given little universe that is created within a
show makes sense and has a pulse on its own terms. Clearly, you know, the multicamera form has been done, you know, in such great quantity, and the vast majority don't work because the vast majority of
creative endeavors where you throw together a hundred different elements just don't work, because when they do work, it's that "lightning in a bottle" phenomenon. But I think the multicamera form still is a very
viable one, but you do have to overcome the fact that people almost are conditioned at this point to assume that they see a multicamera with those rhythms, that
it's going to be bad. Whereas the one-camera form, in particular the modern version of it with the quick
cuts and the "zooms" and the sound effects is still--you know, we're still kind of learning what
that's all about, I guess. But... 

Rosenthal: And those are entitled to be just as crappy as the other kind. 

Krischenbaum: Yeah, I would also say that Malcom is a--with a lot of bells and whistles--a fairly
conventional if terrifically well-done family show. And I think that one of the other things we're lucky
about, to speak to that same question, is we work at a network where classic, well-made forms, whether it's an hour or a half hour, are respected and they're not--different for different's sake is not sought out,
but good versions of either, you know, conventional shows or unconventional shows are appreciated. 

Rosenthal: And I would say that in that regard, those values are what makes CBS, I think, their development people better. 

You were talking earlier about passing the wisdom on, passing stuff on. How is the trend toward younger and younger writers and producers affecting the quality of comedies and the fact that they--there isn't a lot of older and wiser--or the people who are older and wiser aren't that old or, perhaps, not that wise, either? 

Hackel: Again, it's case-by-case. If you came to my writers' room today--we just had a reading of next
week's script before I came here--you would see people from age 28 to age 65, spread equally between men and women. 

Rosenthal: Us to. We don't listen to the old guy a lot, but...[Laughter.] 

Hackel: I do. I really try to be the old guy. 

You're watching what's happening with other productions and it seems that there is a trend towards younger and younger writers. How does that affect the quality of things if there's no-one-- 

Rosenthal: You see. You see how it affects it, right? I think you're writing for the general audience and
the life experiences that are made up from young people's point of view and older people's point of
view. Why would you want to cut one of them off? You want all the experiences, so its that simple. 

The other day, Scott Sassa at NBC was talking about how there are pretty much no children on his entire network. And he said that they tried to do family comedies and they didn't work. For Raymond and Yes, Dear you've got kind of like a compromise. The kids aren't on the air that often, but the subject of parenting is important quite often. Could you kind of talk about that? What do you think its important to having a family show? Why do you want to have a show with families? And why do you think that TV has kind of fallen out of that? 

Greg Garcia: When Alan and I decided to create Yes, Dear, it was because we were having similar
experiences with our wives and children. And we wanted to do a show that was relatable about raising kids. We didn't want to have scenes with just the kids off talking and having their own story, but we wanted to do those stories about the insecurities of parenting and I think that's what has really helped us succeed, is people watch it and they see their lives. 

Kirschenbaum: We don't have kids in the show because we're hoping kids out in the world will want to watch these kids on TV. We are using the kids to dramatize the things that parents go through. I think our kids are in the show maybe a little more than your show. I know that most of the day when Greg and I aren't at work we're dealing with issues at home about our children, and that's clearly what we wanted the show to be about. 

Phil, let me ask you the same thing, because your kids are hardly ever on the show and yet they're referred to a lot. And being parents is a key part of the show. Kind of talk about why you like to do it that way and what's important about it. 

Rosenthal: I think our values were that we wanted to do a show about people that have kids, but not
necessarily about the kids. It was never about the kids. We even went so far to say that in the opening credits. "It's not about the kids." We didn't want to--the show, on the surface, could look like a Full
House type of show, and we wanted to avoid that. We wanted to do an adult sitcom, a nine o'clock show. And it was something we hadn't even seen a lot of. That's just what our values were. The other thing you get is--I think child actors, in general, can wear out their welcome in a short amount of time. [Laughter.] If you show them a little bit, then when you do see them, "Oh, look at those cute kids." But if they're there all the time, you don't have that chance to say, "Oh, look at those cute kids." I wasn't interested in doing a show with cute kids. I wanted to do a show about real people who happened to have children. 

A few months ago we did a lot of writing about "When can you be funny after the terrorist attacks?" "When is America ready to laugh?" Obviously, we're kind of past that, but I'm wondering-- 

Rosenthal: He was funny right away with the-- 

Kirschenbaum: Right away. Terrible. I can't stop. 

But I was wondering are there still some things you can't talk about? Is this anything that affects you even now? some storylines you won't pursue or gags that you won't go near? 

Kirschenbaum: For us, it just means altering a couple of little things. We had a couple--one story where it was going to be a gigantic pain in the ass flying through the airport and-- 

Garcia: And one of our characters was getting very upset that the flight was delayed and stuff, and we
kind of changed that around the tiniest bit because of what had happened, but-- 

Kirschenbaum: But I mean, as far as how long do you wait, I grew up in a house where my dad was and is a stand-up comic. And he, you know, for 40 years, has been--you know, tragedies have happened in the world, and he's put on his tuxedo and gone to work. People want to laugh. And I think sometimes it takes a little bit longer for people to feel ready to make somebody laugh than takes for the audience to be ready to laugh so. When we're ready, they're ready. 

Rosenthal: Our first week back, we were very nervous. "Will the audience laugh?" And it turned out to be one of our best audiences because they really wanted to. 

Hackel: We had the same experience. 

There was a while where everybody thought a comedy had to start with a specific person. They'd find a stand-up comedian, then build it around him. And it seems like it doesn't always have to work that way now. The extremes might be Raymond, which is built around Raymond, and Yes, Dear, which was probably written-- 

Kirschenbaum: Not at all. 

And I was wondering, for the ones in between, was Becker partly written with Ted Danson in mind, and was King of Queens partly written with Kevin James in mind? Or how did that work out? 

Hackel: Becker was not written with Ted in mind. I sat down and wrote the script because I had an idea for a character like this, and I started sending the script around once we decided to pursue it. And it found its way to Ted, and I've told this story in front of Ted. The first time his name was mentioned, I went, "Gee, I don't know. Ted Danson, Becker?" And he called me on the phone one day and said, "I know you don't think so I'm right for this part, but would you talk to me about it?" And I went to his house, and we talked for, like, six hours one Sunday afternoon. And it was so clear to me that he got this and could do this, and it's absolutely the luckiest phone call of my life. 

Weithorn: I hear he's a nice guy, but six hours, that's-- [Laughter.] 

Hackel: He's an actor. 

Weithorn: That's too long with any actor. I said it out loud. [Laughter.] 

Did you have Kevin James in mind... 

Weithorn: In a loose sense, King of Queens was--it was in development, and Tom Nunan, who was head of NBC Studios, sent me a tape of the comics they had deals with. Kevin was the one I responded to. And I called him and said, "You know, what do you have in mind for Kevin?" And he said, "Well, we want to do kind of a modern-day Honeymooners." And I thought, "That sounds right" and worked on this show. But they had several other projects that they were developing for him simultaneously, which is a fairly common network practice now. And actually, Warren Littlefield didn't like the King of Queens script at all and was not interested in doing it. But fortunately, Kevin James liked it very much and held out and refused to do the other projects they were trying to sort of funnel him into. And his deal was expiring at that time at NBC, so we were able to just take the whole package over to CBS. But, yes, it was essentially developed for Kevin, although not in a strict contractual sense. 

How much importance is a good sense of place to a situation comedy? I mean, there obviously have been plenty that have sort of been generic, but do you think that -- most of you, you know, have specific places in your comedy. Does it make a difference? Does it become a character? Does it color or give some extra credibility to the show, do you think? 

Rosenthal: The more specificity you can add in any area, the better the script, the better the show.
We--even though you're writing for many people, we all deal in specifics. So even if, you know, this town in Long Island isn't your specific, you at least recognize it, and it means more to the people in that
world because it is specific. We all deal in specifics. That's what I've learned the most in my journey. 

Hackel: In our show, I think the place is sort of a character because of--it's a more downtrodden area,
and it sort of speaks to Becker's character. Why would he go there? Why is he there giving of himself? It is the other side of his character. So we draw from this mythical neighborhood in New York. What we did was just say, "It's probably been all of these things. We'll keep a little bit of every one." So it becomes
important to us

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