Take a break from Christmas shopping by perusing some Friday Questions. (By the way: I wear a size “car”.)
purplejilly gets us started:
This question comes from my husband, a longtime Cheers and Orioles fan. He always felt like the character of Sam Malone might have been based on Jim Palmer (for the ego). He was wondering if you are allowed to say who Sam was based on, and if it was more than one MLB player.
Actually, when first conceived, Sam Malone was a former football player with the Patriots. But when Ted Danson won the part, the Charles Brothers felt he was more believable as a former baseball player than football player. So no, Jim Palmer wasn’t the role model. But if they were looking for one, Jim would have been perfect (except he was addicted to golf instead of alcohol).
From R:
Do actor's managers get any extra coin for scouring the internet comment sections?
No, but that now does seem to be part of their job. I imagine they have interns who do the scouring for them. But they are out there, heroically defending their clients from snarky irresponsible blogs like this one.
From Powerhouse Salter:
Apart from toning down language, how much might a line get changed between when it's filmed and when it's dubbed for clarity by the original actor?
The problem with changing lines is that the mouths have to match. We would rarely substitute dialogue when asking an actor to re-do a line for clarity. Except on MASH in operating room scenes. Since everyone was wearing masks it was a breeze to give actors new lines, which we frequently did.
PolyWogg wonders:
Let's say you get your pilot approved, the champagne flows, everything's rosy, and eight episodes later, they're knocking down your set and tossing the signage due to *gasp* cancellation. Would the writers ever reveal what / where they had planned to take the show if asked later, or do they tend to bury it and/or hope for a revival so keep it to themselves? A lot of shows in the last 10 years had mythology that died with cancellation -- would love to know where they had planned for it to go, but would they be likely to share their original plan, if asked? Taye Digg's Day Break comes to mind.
Depends on the showrunner and how much pre-planning he had. I think I read where the creator of FLASH FORWARD had two years of storylines prepared. Personally, I think it would be a nice courtesy to fans to tell them what was planned.
My partner and I created three series – MARY, BIG WAVE DAVE’S, and ALMOST PERFECT – that were cancelled. If we had been given enough lead time with ALMOST PERFECT to do a final episode we had planned on bringing back all the characters from the other two series and wrap up three series at once. For the eight people who cared.
Finally, from Thomas:
Do you laugh at your own jokes?
Well, someone has to.
But the serious answer is no, not often. Comedy writers are notorious for not laughing. Someone will pitch a great joke in the room and four writers will nod and say, “That’s funny. Yeah. Let’s go with that.”
I’ll laugh more at actors delivering my jokes, but that’s in appreciation of their performance. It’s amazing how much funnier a line gets when David Hyde Pierce delivers it.
What’s your question?
