For reasons known only to the Great God of Irony, I’ve been good – I mean, really good – at two things over the years. Writing TV and playing the drums.
The irony of it being that both of those are skills that every single person in the universe believes he or she also has mastered…or could with, like, 45 minutes of fun masquerading as work.
So I gave up the professional writer’s stone face and laughed out loud at the following:
A fan who wishes to remain anonymous (yeah, that’s mostly the kind of fans I have) recently sent me a web synopsis of the first TV episode I wrote for the first show that ever hired me, HERE COME THE BRIDES. And, whoa, does this bring back memories.
BRIDES was an hour-long dramedy back in the days before we called them dramedies. Set in post-Civil War Seattle, for all practical purposes it was the musical 7 BRIDES FOR 7 BROTHERS on TV. With only three brothers, of course, because TV made everything smaller in those days.
Once upon a time there was a new series called THE NEWSROOM. Its reviews were so terrible that even I had trouble making myself watch it.
All the BigMedia critics panned it.
When I was a student at Northwestern University I took an independent study with my favorite professor, Edward B. Hungerford, AKA Ted (although I could never even think of calling him that until we both were much older).
At our first meeting I told him I was going to write a novel, about a college student who…
For me, television comedy began with Uncle Miltie. Milton Berle, whom I first laughed at/with/from in 1948. In just a few short years he was joined, as my definition of comedy, by Sid Caesar, Martin & Lewis (why did Dean get first billing? No wonder Jerry was mad), Red Skelton, Bob & Ray, and Ernie Kovacs (above), who I still believe was the cleverest comic who ever lived.
Yes, I’ve left out Lucille Ball. Because as a child I couldn’t really laugh at her. All that angst, that desperation to be loved – sorry, but she made me way too tense.