Writing for I LOVE LUCY and Other Funny Stuff: An Interview with Bob Schiller (Past Times Comedy Writing Series) (5 page)

We all went to the beach together -- and rapped other comedy writers.

You also wrote for Red Skelton on TV. Were you familiar with his radio show?

Yes. I first became acquainted with Red when I was in the army. I was going to officer candidate school, and he came and entertained us. Nobody paid any attention to him. It was awful. Embarrassing. Slapabout, knockabout comic. Very childish, very primitive -- embarrassingly primitive. I never cared much for Skelton’s stuff.

Ball and Skelton in MGM’s
DuBarry Was a Lady
(1943).

Was he difficult to work for?

Skelton always said, “If I weren’t so rich, they’d put me away.” He was right -- he was crazy. We would do a run-through on Monday night, and then do a rewrite; he’d come and do the show on Tuesday night. But Skelton would bring in a whole bunch of his old jokes -- and really ruin it. We had good writers on that show; Bob and I were the head writers. It was disappointing, and heartbreaking, to see a good sketch fucked up with old jokes. Skelton would bring in all his files.

Milton Berle had a habit of doing the same thing.

Weiskopf and I suggested getting Charlie Isaacs when we got fired from the Skelton show, after three years. So Charlie came down. We sent him a script and he read it; he said, “This is funny.” We said, “Wait ‘til you see what he does with it.” By coincidence, that day, Bob and I had given an interview to Hal Humphrey -- who was the TV editor at the
Los Angeles Times
-- complaining about this. Weiskopf’s line was, “Being head writer for Skelton is like going to junior high school. He’s good for three years.” The story was not very flattering to Skelton. So we always watched up in the producer’s office -- Seymour Berns. And then we’d do the rewrite, after the run-through on show day. So Skelton read the column and was pissed off...

You’d already gotten the axe.

Berns comes upstairs after the run-through. He’s giggling; he says, “You guys should give an interview every week -- we were seven minutes over with laughs.” Skelton said, “I’ll show those sons of bitches. I’ll read it the way they wrote it.” It went much better than the stuff he would bring in. It was the first time we ever had an example of our work on the air. Naturally, we cut it down. But that was his way of showing us, we didn’t know what the hell we were talking about.

Notes

Saks was interviewed January 29, 1992, in Los Angeles.

Schwartz was interviewed Sept. 26, 1991, Beverly Hills, Calif.

Kanter was interviewed by Randy Skretvedt and the author December 5, 1990, and by the author April 20, 1995, Encino, Calif.

Weiskopf was interviewed February 4, 1992, in Malibu, Calif.

Schiller was interviewed February 4, 1992, and Feb. 23, 1995, in Pacific Palisades, Calif.

There were never any other writers:
Eliot Daniel, a Disney composer and one-time pianist for Rudy Vallee, wrote the theme song for
I Love Lucy.
Eddie Maxwell, who wrote for Spike Jones’ radio and TV shows
,
also wrote songs for
Lucy.

The Lucy Show:
Milt Josefsberg replaced Schiller and Weiskopf the third season. “He asked us if we’d stay on and teach him the show,” said Schiller. “Lucy wasn’t too happy that we left; Bob and Madelyn had left, and here she was with a newcomer. So we stayed and helped him.”

Cara Williams:
The comedienne had her own sitcom on CBS for one season, 1964-1965.

Danny Thomas:
The comedian supported Fanny Brice on
Maxwell House Coffee Time
before getting his own radio show.

Ed Gardner:
The co-creator and star (1901-1963)
of
Duffy’s Tavern
was a theatrical jack-of-all-trades before he joined J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and directed
The Rudy Vallee Show, Kraft Music Hall,
and
Burns and Allen
. Radio historian John Dunning called him “one of the great maligners of the King’s English.”

Milton Berle: The comedian had several unsuccessful radio shows between 1936 and 1949.
Texaco Star Theatre,
which made him a household name, aired on NBC from 1948 to 1953.

Ed Wynn:
The Ziegfeld
Follies
headliner was first lured to radio in 1922, a decade before his
Texaco Fire Chief
show premiered on NBC. He brought his buffoonery to live TV in 1949.

Graham McNamee
: The one-time singer, who became a pioneer in sportscasting, was the most influential radio announcer of the 1920s.

Dick Mack
: Directed
The Rudy Vallee Show, The Danny Kaye Show
and
The Martin and Lewis Show
for radio. His TV credits include
The Red Buttons Show.

The Red Buttons Show:
The comedy-variety series premiered Oct. 14, 1952 on CBS, changing time slots three times the first season.

According to Steve Allen: The Funny Men
(Simon & Schuster, 1956).

Red Skelton:
The comedian’s radio show (
The Raleigh Cigarette Program
) aired from 1941-1953, introducing many of his familiar characterizations; his TV show enjoyed a 20-year run from 1951-1971.

Seymour Berns:
Directed
Art Linkletter’s House Party
on radio and television. Other TV credits include
The Jack Benny Show
and
Gunsmoke.

While it relates much that can’t be found elsewhere (outside of my book
The Laugh Crafters
), I don’t pretend this modest ebook tells the whole story behind
I Love Lucy
. Nor does any other. While this is no way intended to be a complete list (which would probably require a book in itself), you might want to check out:

Laughs, Luck and Lucy: How I Came to Create the Most Popular Sitcom of All Time
by Jess Oppenheimer with Gregg Oppenheimer. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999.

Laughing with Lucy: My Life with American's Leading Lady of Comedy
by Madelyn Pugh Davis with Bob Carroll Jr. Covington, KY: Clerisy Press, 2007.

Love, Lucy
by
Lucille Ball.
New York: Berkley, 1997.

A Book
by Desi Arnaz. New York: Warner Books, 1977.

The ‘I Love Lucy’ Book
by Bart Andrews
.
New York: Doubleday, 1985. Interviews with Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Davis & Bob Carroll Jr., Bob Weiskopf & Bob Schiller, directors Marc Daniels, Bill Asher, Ralph Levy, and many others; recollections by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz
by Coyne Steven Sanders and Tom Gilbert. New York: It Books, 2011.

The Golden Age of Television: Notes From the Survivors
by Max Wilk. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1976. Recollections by Lucille Ball.

The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961
by Jeff Kisseloff. New York: Viking Penguin, 1995. Interviews with Madelyn Davis, director Ralph Levy and others.

Storytellers to the Nation: A History of American Television Writing
by Tom Stempel. New York: Continuum, 1992. Interview with Madelyn Davis.

Funny You Should Ask: Oral Histories of Classic Sitcom Storytellers
by Scott Lewellen Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2013. Interviews with Madelyn Davis & Bob Carroll Jr. and Bob Schiller.

Allen, Steve.
The Funny Men.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956.

Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh.
The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946-Present.
New York: Ballantine, 1985.

Buxton, Frank, and Bill Owen.
The Big Broadcast 1920-1950.
New York: Viking Press, 1972.

Carroll, Carroll.
None of Your Business.
New York: Cowles, 1970.

DeLong, Thomas A.
Radio Stars.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1996.

Dunning, John.
On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Maltin, Leonard.
The Great American Broadcast: A Celebration of Radio’s Golden Age.
New York: Dutton, 1997.

Oppenheimer, Jess, with Gregg Oppenheimer.
Laughs, Luck and Lucy: How I Came to Create the Most Popular Sitcom of All Time.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999.

Wertheim, Arthur Frank.
Radio Comedy.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Wilde, Larry.
How the Great Comedy Writers Create Laughter.
Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1976.

Wilk, Max.
The Golden Age of Television: Notes from the Survivors.
New York: Delta, 1977.

Jordan R. Young is a show business historian, theatre critic and playwright whose work has appeared in
The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post,
and other publications. His books include
Reel Characters: Great Movie Character Actors; Acting Solo: The Art and Craft of Solo Performance
;
The Beckett Actor; Spike Jones Off the Record;
and
The Laugh Crafters: Comedy Writing in Radio and TV's Golden Age.
He has written special material for the Grammy Awards and has served as a consultant for BBC Radio. His plays have been produced in Hollywood and Off Off Broadway.