Read TALES FROM THE SCRIPT: THE BEHIND-THE-CAMERA ADVENTURES OF A TV COMEDY WRITER Online
Authors: Gene Perret
Besides, it was apparent that Gabe was demanding those changes
just to be disagreeable. if he really felt that strongly about the show
and each individual taping, he should have been available to work with
the writers (or against them, as the case may be) as the original story
was being conceived. His input would have been somewhat welcome
and more tolerable at conception, rather than hours before the taping.
So for several weeks, Kaplan kept complaining about the scripts
and demanding changes well after those changes could reasonably
have been made. When we refused to make most of his changes, he
considered that to be further proof that we hated him, were siding
with Komack, and were being recalcitrant just to get revenge against
him. it wasn’t true. The radical changes he demanded simply couldn’t
be made in such a short time.
That situation caused our creative staff considerable distress.
First of all, we did have to make many of the changes that he wanted.
We were trying to be reasonable, and a certain amount of revisions
were expected. Secondly, it was a constant battle. Everything we did
was unacceptable to Gabe Kaplan.
One morning, our
Carol Burnett Show
nucleus was sitting in Ed
Simmons’s office schmoozing before the work day started. Ed happened to mention that he had an uneasy feeling in his stomach. it was
probably the stress of producing that show each week against Kaplan’s
complaints. Bill said he felt the same way, and so did Rick, Liz, and i.
With that, we all marched into Jimmy Komack’s office and asked
to be let out of our contracts.
Jimmy asked us to hold off until he could call a meeting with David Wolper, who had a financial interest in the show. We agreed.
Before we got into the details of the meeting, though, it was important to note that we had scored some important points as the new
writing-producing staff on the show.
John Travolta, who was on the show from its beginning as one of
the Sweathogs, was probably the biggest movie star in Hollywood at
that time. His films
Saturday Night Fever
and
Grease
were huge successes and John was the current reigning movie idol. He didn’t need
Welcome Back, Kotter
any longer. He didn’t want to do the show with
all the bickering. He had enough money and movie offers to keep
him busy without a weekly series.
Jimmy Komack asked John Travolta to meet with Ed Simmons,
and Bill and i—the new season’s production team. Travolta agreed
and we all piled into a limousine to meet at John’s rented house in
Malibu where he was making a film with Lily Tomlin.
We told him our plans for the show. He asked questions about
how we would handle certain aspects of the show. We talked about
Welcome Back, Kotter
for a couple of hours.
At the end of the meeting, John said he would do seven to ten
shows for us during the coming season. Getting him on board was a
feather in our producing hats.
As for what we were to do about Gabe Kaplan, at a meeting with
Komack and Wolper, we explained why we were unsatisfied with the
working of the show. Gabe was throwing monkey wrenches into the
works weekly. We didn’t feel we could produce the show that way and
we felt that we didn’t have to. We’d just as soon leave as continue the
way things were going.
David Wolper asked what it would take for us to stay.
We said, “Get rid of Gabe Kaplan.”
it was kind of a daring stand, to ask a show to dump the star because we weren’t happy. However, we felt that strongly about the
problems he was causing us and the show.
Wolper and Komack suggested keeping Gabe for maybe seven to
ten shows, just like Travolta. We said no.
They suggested having him in three or four shows. Again, we refused. We wanted him gone.
Finally, we arrived at a compromise. Gabe Kaplan, as Mr. Kotter,
would open and close each show by telling a joke to his wife played
by Marcia Strassman. That would be the opening and the closing of
the show—the teaser and the
tag.
That’s all Kaplan would do on the
show. He would not be involved in the teleplay itself and he would
not be involved in the writing or rewriting of the teleplay. We stayed
under those conditions.
Then we had another problem. David Wolper was not happy with
the script that Bill and i had written for John Travolta’s first appearance on the show. Because John would only be involved in selected
shows, we wanted to separate him from the rest of the Sweathogs in
a positive way. Also, we had to explain his absence from the shows
that he wouldn’t be appearing in. We had Vinnie Barbarino, John’s
character on the show, leave school and get a job.
Wolper hated that idea and he told us so in the most profane language you can imagine. As writers, we had heard most of the bad
words going around at the time, but we had never her words spoken
so fiercely or frequently. He was furious.
David Wolper wanted us to feature John Travolta with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. He wanted to turn the show into a Hollywood extravaganza with girls and glitz and anything else we could
add to get ratings. We felt that was wrong and told him so when we
got a chance to talk. Eventually, we did the show we wanted to do, but
David Wolper was never happy about it.
Gabe wasn’t happy, either, but we didn’t care. Even though he was
no longer involved in the show’s story lines, he still gave us problems
even when he was doing only the opening and closing gag on each show.
We would tape Gabe’s pieces before we got into taping the actual
teleplay each week. That way, we could get him on tape and dismiss
him. it made our lives easier.
At one taping, Gabe wasn’t happy with the gag he had. in front
of the studio audience he screamed out, “Where are the writers? Do
any of you have a better joke?”
We all screamed back in unison, “no.”
Gabe did the joke as written and left.
Of course, we had other problems during the year with the cast.
individual cast members have complaints during the season.
“i’m not getting enough to do on the show”
“How come she has more lines than i have?”
Some of the complaints were common and predictable, but others surprised us. Most, though, were the kind of problems producers
dealt with while producing any show.
The biggest irritant to me was when the actors playing Sweathogs
all wanted a funny line anytime anyone else had a funny line. Each
came into our office.
“You know when Bobby says that line that gets the big laugh?”
We’d say, “Yes.”
“Well, i think i should say something there.”
Then, another actor playing a Sweathog came in.
“if he’s going to say something after Bobby’s big laugh, i think i
should have something funny to say.”
The show started to take on an unnatural feel. no matter who said
what, they were always followed by two or three other people commenting on the same thing. it was unwieldy, and none of them was
satisfied having another get a laugh without them having a topper.
i used to try to tell them about Jack Benny. He was most generous in giving the laugh lines to the supporting performers because it
made the show funnier. At the end of the show, it still read
The Jack
Benny Show
. By letting others get big laughs, he shared in the glory.
The show was funny and that’s what mattered.
not to our cast, though.
We should have known we were in for problems like that when we
met the first cast member. We were all working in pre-production, getting shows ready for taping. The cast had not been called to work yet.
Ron Palillo, who played Horshack on the show, stopped in at the
offices one morning to meet the new production staff. He had been
doing a neil Simon play in San Francisco during the hiatus. He told
us about it. “Yeah, i was doing neil Simon. i changed a lot of the lines
and made them funnier. it was great.”
When an actor starts rewriting America’s greatest comedy playwright, you know the writing staff is in for some headaches.
We had a problem, too, when John Travolta came in to do his
first show. By then, John had an entourage and was assigned a larger
dressing room than the other cast members. Also, because there were
so many youngsters eager to be there to see John, we had to have extra
security around the studio.
One by one, the other actors came in to complain about that.
Their contracts called for equal treatment all around, so they asked
why Travolta was getting a larger dressing room. We tried to explain
that he needed the extra room because he was also working on movies and others were working in his dressing area. i’m not sure they
bought that, but they couldn’t do much about it except complain.
Then, Bobby Hegyes, who played Epstein on the show, complained that John was getting more security than he was. i said,
“Bobby, i’ll walk you home tonight.”
it didn’t make him any happier.
Sometimes we caused ourselves our own headaches, too.
Marcia Strassman requested a meeting with Bill Richmond and
me and complained that she had nothing to do on the shows and that
none of the plays revolved around her. We listened and tried to be
fair. She did have a valid grievance, after all. We searched for and
found one upcoming show that could be retooled and made to feature Mrs. Kotter, Marcia’s character.
We discussed what changes we would make with her. She seemed
satisfied and we got to work redoing some of the scripts. We took Marcia out of one show where she felt she wasn’t being utilized adequately.
Then we rewrote another show making her the central character.
Problem solved. Everyone was happy again.
The following Monday, we were preparing to begin the table
reading for that week’s show.
We waited for the entire cast to show
up. Marcia wasn’t there. We waited some more. Finally, i called her
and told her in no uncertain terms that she’d better be there within
the next half hour.
i came back and told my partner what i had done. Our secretary
overheard my comments, called me aside, and said, “This is the show
that you wrote Marcia out of. She doesn’t have to be here today.”
Oh boy.
i went down to the entrance gate which was just outside our offices at ABC. Marcia drove her convertible through the gate at an
angry speed. i signaled for her. She squealed to a stop next to me.
Very apologetically, i said, “Marcia, i didn’t realize that you were not
in this week’s . . . .”
She hit the gas, did a U-turn like a stunt driver, and burned rubber
right out of the gate again.
i don’t think she accepted my apology, and i don’t think she
talked to me much for the rest of the season.
There have been documentaries discussing who caused the
downfall of
Welcome Back, Kotter.
Gabe Kaplan and some of the other
performers apparently felt that it was the joke-writing squad from
The
Carol Burnett Show,
who couldn’t handle situation comedy writing.
Some feel it was the infighting on the show that hurt it.
The truth is that it was never a very strong show; it was never a real
show. it was a farce. Those Sweathogs were from a poor neighborhood
and poor families, yet when they wanted to do a hospital sketch, they
got gurneys, doctor’s outfits, stethoscopes, and whatever they needed.
We were as guilty as the other staffs. in one show, we had Ron
Palillo take his first alcoholic drink, become a raging alcoholic, see
the error of his ways, and cure himself of his addiction, all in the space
of about twenty-three minutes of airtime. it was silly.
in an effort to replace John Travolta, we brought in Stephen
Shortridge, a male model. His character never caught on.
To boost sagging ratings, we even had Ron Palillo get engaged
and married. We thought an on-screen wedding would pull ratings.
it didn’t help. nothing helped.
The show was in its fourth year when we inherited it. The ratings
were declining and it was very difficult to reverse a downward trend in
television. We couldn’t do it. At the end of our administration,
Welcome Back, Kotter
was cancelled. The writing-producing staff, though,
fared better than the performers. We all moved on to another show
the following season. it took some of them a little longer.
Three’s Company
was the only show i ever signed on with while at sea.
Despite being out of work after the cancellation of
Welcome Back, Kotter,
my wife and i went on a cruise to Mexico. We relaxed and enjoyed
the cruise, while my agent was busy trying to get me employed for the
upcoming season.
He was successful at finding work for our writing team. He called
me while we were floating somewhere in the Pacific and said, “i’ve got
an offer for you guys to produce
Three’s Company.
i said, “i hate that show.”
He said, “Make it better.”
i really did dislike
Three’s Company.
it was a popular show, sometimes finishing as the #1 show in the ratings. To me, though, it was
cheap, immature humor that was badly written.
i wanted to think about it. My agent emphasized that we didn’t
have much time to decide. The show needed an answer soon, or
they’d look elsewhere.
i tried to call Bill Richmond—not a fast or easy process from sea.
When i reached him, he was as unsure as i was. He didn’t care much
for the show, either.
He impressed on me, though, that it was a top-rated show, and more
importantly, it was employment and a nice salary. Finally, i agreed to
go along with whatever Bill Richmond wanted to do. Since he was
more available than i was for back and forth negotiations, i let him
make the decisions for the team.
Later, my agent left word that Bill and i were indeed the new producers of
Three’s Company.
Three’s Company
was run by the team of Don nicholl, Mickey
Ross, and Bernie West – nRW. They’d spent several years before producing
All in the Family.
i had gone to a pitch session with them when
they were producing that show and apparently neither my story ideas
nor i impressed them. i didn’t get a sale then, but now i was working
as a producer under them as executive producers.
When Bill and i first reported to work, only Don nicholl and Bernie West were on the job. Mickey had been vacationing in Europe
when his wife took seriously ill. He stayed on with her until she was
well enough to journey back to California.
We started off well. The writing staff was already in place when we
were hired to produce, so we had no input on who would be writing
the show. nevertheless, we got on well with the writers. Don and Bernie welcomed us onto the show and all seemed to be going pleasantly.
Sometime during the first week or so while we were producers,
nRW’s secretary came over to give us some of the ground rules of the
show. Apparently, nRW had strict regulations and we were to know
them and abide by them.
First, there was to be no green clothing worn on tape day. i supposed this was some sort of British show business tradition that they
subscribed to. That was no real problem, but when things started to turn
sour, i snuck into tape day wearing green underwear . . . strictly for spite.
Second, when the Holy Trinity was in their office playing darts,
which they did often, they were not to be disturbed by anyone for any
reason. i thought that with the pressures of running a show, that was
childish and unreasonable, but it was their show. We tried to abide by
it for as long as we could. However, i felt, if a serious problem came
up that needed their attention, i’d interrupt no matter who was winning the dart game.
Third, we were not to attend the note session following the
Wednesday rehearsal. That was a sacred time for the Triumvirate,
nRW, and the cast. They wanted no outside interference. We producers, it seemed, were considered “outsiders.” However, it was their
show, so we’d adhere to that restriction, too. That instruction proved
to be an important factor later in the season.
As i mentioned earlier, i always thought the show was badly written. it was slapstick, sophomoric, cheap, and bent any rules of structure for an easy laugh. Here are a few examples:
in one show, for whatever reason, Jack, played by John Ritter,
was hiding from the authorities. When the police came to the apartment, Chrissy, played by Suzanne Somers, pretended she was taking
a shower, and Jack hid behind the curtains with her. The police came
into the bathroom, but quickly retreated when they thought Chrissy
was naked behind the curtains. They left. However, one of the policemen had left his hat in the bathroom. He went back and simply
opened the door to retrieve his hat, of course, forcing Jack and Chrissy
into some laughable shenanigans to try to cover up again. To me, no
policeman would barge back into a bathroom like that without either
announcing it or knocking. it bent reality to get the easy laughs.
Another example was when Jack, for some reason, was masquerading as a woman—again, to escape the law. You can see from those
plots why i felt the way i did about the show’s writing. Throughout
the half-hour, Jack disguised himself as a female. At the show’s end,
he dramatically tore off his wig and revealed that he was really a man.
The problem was that John Ritter’s hair at that time was as long as
most females. He looked as much like a woman with the wig off as he
did with it on.
Bad writing.
nevertheless, the show was as well-run and as well-organized as
any on television at that time. nRW ran a tight ship.
First, they totally ignored the network executives, their demands,
and their requests. As far as nicholl, Ross, and West were concerned,
they handled the show. The network simply gave them money and
airtime. it wasn’t a bad way to produce a show.
On
Welcome Back, Kotter,
for example, we had to submit every
story idea to the network executive in charge. He either approved
or rejected that particular story idea before we began writing it. That
not only limited creativity, but it was also time-consuming. Time
was paramount in producing a weekly half-hour sitcom. On
Three’s
Company
, we told the network nothing. The executives weren’t even
permitted at the readings or the rehearsals. According to nRW, they
didn’t exist. That was fine with Bill and me.
Second, nRW controlled the cast and the performers. Richard
Klein played Larry, a neighbor, on the show. The character, Larry,
had no last name. Richard always asked for a last name. As an actor,
he felt it gave his character more depth. The Triumvirate never gave
him one. it was their way of keeping actors subservient to them. it
was petty, i suppose, but it was their way.
Once, Bill Richmond complimented one of the actors on the performance or on some piece of business he added to the script. Don
nicholl talked to both Bill and i afterwards and admonished us never
to compliment the actors. if we built up their egos or their self-esteem,
he felt, we made them harder to handle and harder to manipulate.
Third, nRW controlled the scripts. They rewrote, refined, and
polished every script right before it went for printing and distribution
to the cast. Every plot point, every joke, every line of dialogue had to
meet with their approval. if it didn’t, they changed it.
Again, i felt the show was poorly written and they were the reason
for that, but the show was badly written consistently. That was a good
thing. Good or bad, the show had an imprint. it was nRW.
The Triumvirate was totally in charge of all aspects of the show,
and that was beneficial. Most of the good shows throughout television history have been those which had strong leadership. With one
person, or one entity in charge, the show was more organized.
nRW’s leadership was commendable.
We survived well under nW, but the troubles began when R came
back onto the show. R, of course, being Mickey Ross – the R in nRW.
Almost immediately Mickey began to sabotage Bill and me.
When he first arrived back in the states and into the offices, he
came over to introduce himself and to welcome us as the new producers of
Three’s Company.
He sat in our office and chatted with us quite
amiably, telling us how good a writer he was and that he was a genius.
He told us that when he thought about plot points in a script, he
could literally stop his watch. He was serious. i wasn’t.
i said, “it’s a pity to waste that talent on a show like
Three’s Company.
” i told him, “You should either get a better show or a better watch.”
Come to think of it, maybe Mickey did have a good reason to
dislike us.
i could only guess why Mickey was so disruptive to our producing and head writing efforts. Perhaps he just didn’t like us. it could be
that he didn’t like our writing. He might have been upset that we had
been hired without his input. Possibly we were doing such a good job
that he felt threatened by us. Who knows?
Mickey was strange even within a strange triumvirate. Don was
the most rational of the three and the dominant one. He was the boss.
Mickey was the congenital egotist. He not only thought he knew everything about comedy, but that he was the only one who knew anything about comedy. As far as i was concerned, he was way off base
on both counts. Bernie was the whipping boy of the three. He was
the one that the other two bullies ridiculed.
At one meeting, several writers were trying to solve a script problem along with Bernie West and Mickey Ross. Bernie suddenly stood
up and claimed to have the solution. He walked around the room
adlibbing plot points and jokes. After about five minutes of his dissertation, he ended, turned to Mickey and said, “What do you think?”
Mickey said, “i’m sorry, Bernie, i wasn’t listening.”
Mickey apparently was absorbed trying to stop his watch and
couldn’t pay any attention to his partner.
The incident left a foul taste in my mouth.
After Mickey had been back in the office for a couple of weeks,
nRW called a meeting, probably at Mickey’s prompting because he
did most of the talking at the session.
nicholl, Ross, and West were at the meeting, along with Bill and
i, and all of the writing staff. Mickey began with, “We have a serious
problem with upcoming scripts.”
That was the first Bill and i knew of any crisis, so we asked what
it was.
Mickey said, “We don’t have enough stories lined up.”
That came as a shock to us because we had turned in several stories for nRW’s approval. i told them that. “We have several ideas in
your office, but we can’t get an answer from you on them.”
Mickey ignored that statement. He continued to berate the staff
for not being industrious enough. Again, i mentioned that if we got
approval on the script ideas we’d already submitted, we could get to
work on the scripts.
Again, he ignored the statement.
We didn’t necessarily want approval of the ideas, but if they
weren’t satisfactory, let us know so that the writing team could come
up with alternatives.
nRW insisted on treating those ideas as if they didn’t exist at all.
The entire session was an affront to Bill and i as producers, first because nRW didn’t initially discuss it with us. We were responsible for
the scripts. if they weren’t happy with the ideas or with the number of
ideas, they should have come to us so that we could correct the situation.
They didn’t. That meeting was the first we knew of any dissatisfaction.
Second, they discussed the problem in front of the entire writing
staff. That undercut our credibility tremendously. We were not only
reduced to just being a part of the writing staff, but we were the ones
being held up as responsible for the problem. in other words, they
took away our authority, yet used that same authority to blame us for
the problem.
We weren’t happy with that meeting.
Third, the meeting was a sham. There was no problem. We had
submitted plenty of stories. We had enough scripts on paper to keep
us in production for several weeks, and we had enough story lines
suggested to keep the writers working to get those scripts completed
in plenty of time. The entire agenda of that meeting was manufactured by Mickey to humiliate us.
it did that. it also infuriated Bill and me.
The pleasant part of
Three’s Company
was the cast. They respected
the writing and were very gracious to Bill and me, the new producers,
and they were fun to work with.
John Ritter made it a point to keep everyone enthused and positive, even when there were problems. He and Suzanne Somers were
the Martin and Lewis of rehearsals and meetings. They paid attention
and did whatever was asked of them, but they also clowned around
just enough to keep all the activities light-hearted. Any minor crisis
with the script or the rehearsal was solved amidst a good bit of laughter generated by the antics of John and Suzanne.
Joyce DeWitt and Don Knotts were cooperative, pleasant, and
quite talented in their roles.
One crisis stands out in my memory, though. it was during the
week when Don Knotts was featured as the central character in the
script. it was his show.
normally, we read the new script on Monday morning, took
notes, and made changes. Then, we let the cast rehearse it without
interference from the writers until Wednesday. On that day, we had a
run-through of the entire show with the crew, the writers, the producers, and the executive producers. After that, we had a note session
(the one we were told never to attend) and changes were made in the
script before the taping on Friday.
Bill and i got a call on Monday to go to the rehearsal hall to settle
a problem. When we arrived, Don Knotts greeted us with his complaints. He said, “This is one show that features me and no one is
working on it. if things don’t get straightened out soon, i’m packing
my things and going home.”
Bill Richmond tried to lighten things up by saying, “Hey, i’ll get
my hat and go with you.”
That really sent Don Knotts through the roof. “i’m serious,” he
screamed. “This show is important to me, but nothing’s getting done.
Everyone’s on the phone, or off doing something or other. i want it
settled now, or i’m leaving.”
He was serious. He was angry. The funny part was that the angrier Don got, the higher pitched his normally high-pitched voice got.
it was hard for us to settle down to learning the situation while trying
not to laugh at Don’s runaway voice.
The problem was that it was Suzanne Somers’s birthday. Her husband called to offer congratulations. Her manager had flowers delivered every hour on the hour, which meant messengers with gifts were
constantly interrupting the rehearsal. The manager also called every
hour so that Suzanne was always being called to the phone. The others didn’t want to be playing second fiddle to Suzanne, so they had to
manufacture reasons why they were to be called away from the studio.
Don had a valid point.
We called the cast together and reasoned with them. Their intent
was not to disrupt the rehearsals for Don’s teleplay, so once they were
aware of the problem, they resolved it themselves.
Most of the incidents with the cast were settled quickly and amiably. Our problems with nRW couldn’t.
One time, we were permitted to enter the inner sanctum. Ross and
West were both absent from the Wednesday rehearsal and Bill and i were
asked to fill in at the note session after the rehearsal (the one we were
told never to attend). We did. We gave our opinion on the show we had
just seen. We offered solutions for any script problems. Actually, we
enjoyed it. Participation like that was what producers should be doing.
After the meeting, most of the cast thanked us for our ideas.
Don nicholl went out of his way to thank us for being there and
for taking such an active role in the proceedings.