More FRASIER

Why didn’t anybody warn me it’s cold in New York in December?

This is part two of Peter Casey’s three part account of how he and his partners created one of television’s classic sitcoms, FRASIER

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Niles wasn’t in the initial concept for the show. He came about through one of the greatest strokes of luck in tv history. Our assistant casting director at the time, Sheila Guthrie, came into our office one day with and 8x10 headshot of David Hyde Pierce and said, “Have you guys thought of Frasier having a brother because this actor really looks like he could be related to Kelsey.” We said we hadn’t thought of that (because we had just done a show, WINGS, about brothers), but was David any good as an actor? She said he was wonderful and left us some tapes of a failed series DHP had been a regular on called THE POWERS THAT BE. We watched the tapes and were blown away so we began creating the character who became Niles. After we had a good outline of the character we arranged to meet David at our offices. We pitched him the character and the series concept (what we had at the time) and asked if he was interested. He said he was so we had the studio set about making a deal with him.

Shortly thereafter, we felt we had a good enough concept to pitch to NBC so a meeting was set up with Warren Littlefield who was president of the network at that time. We went to his office in Burbank. In the meeting were the three of us and John Pike and John Symes representing Paramount Studios, and Warren, Perry Simon, and Jamie Tarses representing NBC. This was immediately encouraging to us because quite often the network will populate these pitch meetings with lots of lower level executives who tend to clog up the room and they frankly never laugh at anything unless the boss does. This was actually a small, influential group for us to pitch to. For years we had told NBC we would never do a family comedy situated in a living room. It wasn’t our style. We were more into the “gang” workplace comedy style of a CHEERS, or TAXI, so when David Lee started the meeting by saying, “You’re not going to believe this, but from the guys who said they’d never do a family comedy…” Perry Simon literally fell off the couch onto the floor. Funny reaction, the ice was broken. We proceeded with our pitch and something amazing happened. The network people never interrupted us. Usually they are constantly butting in with questions or their own suggestions to make it better, but they just listened to us. It was the best pitch I’ve ever been a part of. Each time we’d introduce a new character, we’d reference it with an actor we used as a template. So when we pitched Niles, we said think of David Hyde Pierce. That’s when something else amazing happened. At the mention of DHP’s name, Warren said, “We love him. If you can get him, he’s pre-approved.” This was huge. It meant we didn’t have to go through the tedious process of reading dozens of actors for the part, then bring a couple of them to the network to read for their approval. If the network rejected them, we would read dozens more. With this, if a deal could be struck with DHP, he was in. When we pitched the character of Martin, we said to picture John Mahoney. Warren said if we could get John, he was also pre-approved. Awesome. Martin’s home care worker was based on the therapist from our other idea for Kelsey, so we said to picture Rosie Perez. Warren asked if we ever pictured her as English because NBC loved Jane Leeves. If we went that way, Jane would be pre-approved. Whoa. That’s darn near the whole cast without having to jump through the network casting hoops. The only character we were vague about was Roz because quite frankly we didn’t have a handle on her yet.

When we finished the pitch, there was silence in the room for about a minute as Warren, Perry and Jamie let it sink in. Then they looked at each other and nodded and Warren said, “Go do it”. Incredible. Not a single network note. No changes. They loved it.

About halfway through writing the pilot script, Kerry McCluggage, the new President of Paramount Television, told us that he had spoken with John Mahoney regarding playing Frasier’s father. Kerry had a relationship with John dating back to Kerry’s days at Universal Studios where John had done a dramatic series called “The Human Factor.” John said he would like to meet with us and discuss FRASIER. We said that was great and could Kerry set up a meeting. He told us he had, but there was a catch. John wasn’t coming to meet us. We were going to meet John and that meant the three of us were flying to Chicago because that’s where John lived. The plan was we’d fly in the morning, arrive in the afternoon, have dinner with John, then return to LA the next morning. We were on a roll with the script so we weren’t thrilled about having to break our momentum. On the other hand, dinner in Chicago with John Mahoney sounded pretty cool so we went. It was late January or early February, cold, with snow on the ground, but what did we care? Paramount put us up at The Four Seasons and had provided us with a car and driver. We met John and Kerry at a restaurant called Shaw’s Crab House. Being a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, John was quite a local celebrity, so restaurant patrons were constantly stopping by the table or waving across the room. John was absolutely charming with everyone. Over dinner we pitched John the series concept, went into the character of Martin and his relationship with Frasier, and outlined the plot of the pilot episode. John was definitely interested, but he wouldn’t commit until he had read the pilot. Fair enough. We returned to LA the next morning and resumed writing with renewed enthusiasm picturing John Mahoney as Martin Crane.

It took us another week to finish the script, so two weeks total. I have to say it was one of the easiest scripts I’ve ever written. Everything seemed to flow naturally. This gave us a very good feeling about the project, but of course you never know how others are going to react to it. We sent it over to the Paramount executive offices and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Kerry McCluggage immediately FedEx’d it to John Mahoney. The next day we received an enthusiastic “yes” from John. Months later in LA, John told me he’d read through a two foot stack of pilots before the FRASIER script arrived and our script was so superior that it was the only project he wanted to do. So we had the main male roles cast and we felt great about them. Now it was time to cast our female leads.

As I said earlier, Warren Littlefield had endorsed Jane Leeves for the part of the home care worker. While we were writing the script we still hadn’t made up our minds whether she should be Hispanic or English. We didn’t make that decision until we literally reached the point in the script where Frasier hears the doorbell ring and goes to answer it. At that point there was no more stalling. Our first instinct was to try English so that’s what we did. Daphne turned out to be quite a quirky fun character and we really enjoyed writing her in the pilot. When Kelsey read the script he wasn’t as enthused and was evasive about his reasons. We had Jane come in and read for us and she was fantastic. We loved her immediately and called Kelsey to see if he could come over and read with her. He was kind of grumpy about the whole idea and he arrived at our offices in a bit of a dark mood. We pulled him aside and asked what the problem was and after some hemming and hawing he said that he worried that having an English housekeeper with Frasier would look like the old sitcom “Nanny and the Professor” which he was not a fan of. We felt the Frasier/Daphne relationship was nothing like that and pleaded with him to read with Jane. Finally, he begrudgingly agreed, but said it would be just the two of them in the room. David, David and I would have to wait outside. He went in, closed the door, and we were left in the outer office sweating. About one minute later the door flew open, Kelsey strode past us saying, “She’s in,” and left. We talked to him later and he told us his worries about “Nanny and the Professor” dissolved immediately when they started reading together and that Jane was really funny. Yahoo! We had almost our whole cast and hadn’t been required to take a single network casting meeting. That was going to end in a big way when we tried to cast the character of Roz.

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Tomorrow, the concluding chapter of Peter Casey’s look back at the creation of FRASIER.

How FRASIER came to be

While I’m in New York, I have a guest blogger. Be nice to the substitute teacher, kids.

A number of readers have asked about the creation of FRASIER. Instead of giving my version, which has ME responsible for the whole thing, I asked Peter Casey, one of the show’s creators if he wouldn’t mind telling you the real story. Not only was he gracious enough to say yes but he filed a wonderfully detailed and comprehensive account. There’s even stuff that I didn’t know… and I was there. Enjoy!

Ken

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Hello, everybody from beautiful Los Angeles, California. Peter Casey here, co-creator of FRASIER. I want to thank Ken Levine for offering me this space on his blog and I especially want to thank those of you who showed such interest in the creation of FRASIER.

As best I can recall, and these days that’s a real iffy proposition, we (David Lee, David Angell, and myself) were approached by Kelsey Grammer in the spring or summer of 1993. He wanted to know if we would be interested in creating a new tv series in which he would star. He felt that CHEERS was coming to an end and it was time for him to have his own show. At the time, the three of us were working on our first creation, WINGS. The previous season on WINGS, Kelsey and Bebe Neuwirth had been guest stars on a very funny episode written by Ken Levine and David Isaacs. We had worked for a number of years with Kels on CHEERS, and he apparently enjoyed the WINGS experience and hoped that we could re-unite.

David, David, and I had always felt that the Frasier character was the most interesting and complex on CHEERS. However, we were skittish about doing a spin off of one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. When we had created WINGS, most of the reviews were favorable, but the phrase, “CHEERS in an airport” was mentioned a few times and not in a favorable fashion. We frankly feared that anything we created for Frasier would pale in comparison to CHEERS. Kelsey wasn’t particularly interested in continuing the character of Frasier either, so we came up with a new concept. Kelsey would play this very high-brow, eccentric multi-millionaire publisher (think Malcom Forbes) in New York who was paralyzed from the waist down in a motorcycle accident. He would run his publishing empire from his bed in his fabulous Manhattan penthouse. His live-in nurse would be a very street smart, dedicated Hispanic woman (we pictured Rosie Perez) who would be a thorn in his side, but bring out the humanity in him.

Kelsey liked it, Paramount hated it. They said we were crazy if we didn’t capitalize on the popularity of CHEERS and the huge audience that would tune in to the finale. They ultimately persuaded Kelsey they were right and when he told us he was willing to do the CHEERS spin-off, we reluctantly agreed.

Okay, we’d do a CHEERS spin-off, but there was no way it was going to stay in Boston. NBC was enamored of this scheduling stunt called the crossover. A crossover is when a character from one series “crosses over” and appears as that character on another series. We did it on WINGS with Norm and Cliff and also with Frasier and Lillith. It was logical because Nantucket is not that far from Boston and we were struggling some in the ratings. It gives the show a temporary bump in the numbers, but you frankly don’t feel good about yourself. You’d like your show to succeed on its own merits and not need a boost from another show. We only did those two on WINGS, but we felt if Frasier stayed in Boston, NBC would be demanding guest appearances from all the CHEERS cast throughout the first season. How could we form our own identity and make people forget we were offspring of CHEERS if those characters were constantly visiting Frasier? So, we decided to move Frasier out west.

Our original city was Denver, but soon after that decision the state of Colorado voted in a law, with which we disagreed, that was very unfavorable toward gays. So we decided to move Frasier even farther west. Kids, it doesn’t get much farther west than Seattle. Ultimately, it was a much better choice. Seattle was pretty cutting edge at that time. It was the center of the grunge scene, the coffee revolution was taking off, it had a great arts community, and their restaurants were exploring new and exciting cuisines. All in all, it was fertile ground for Frasier and an inconvenient schlep across the country for the CHEERS gang. We didn’t have a problem having Lilith visit because she was his ex-wife and they shared a son. It was organic. The other characters would take some fancy footwork, but after the show established itself that first season, we didn’t have a problem doing one CHEERS character a season.

The original concept was for Frasier to work in the radio station surrounded by a group of wacky, yet loveable characters. (The term “wacky, yet loveable” is music to the ears of the network execs. “Stern, yet despicable” gets you shown the door) This idea came from a story idea at CHEERS which we were never able to make work where Frasier sat in for a local Boston radio host. We didn’t want to have Frasier in a private practice because we felt like it would look too much like the BOB NEWHART SHOW. Yet, the more we worked on the radio station concept, it sounded like WKRP IN CINCINNATI. What to do? Well, like a lot of writers we went to our own lives for material. David Lee’s father had recently had a stroke and David, being an only child, was helping his mother by taking on a lot of the responsibility of arranging the care for his disabled dad.

One day David came into the office and pitched the idea of Frasier having to care for an ailing, aging parent, something many people Frasier’s age were facing. We could keep the radio station, but now add a home life. David Angell and I both liked this idea immediately. We had seen very little of Frasier’s home life in CHEERS so this seemed to open up the possibility for lots of stories. Frasier didn’t have much of a family history so we pretty much had free rein to create what we wanted. (It was only after we were in rehearsals for the pilot that Kelsey mentioned that he had said his father was a research scientist in a episode of CHEERS which was produced after the three of us had left the show. At that point we pretty much said, “Screw it. We’re not changing our concept . We’re moving on”)

To create Frasier’s father we wanted to have someone very different than Frasier. Those differences create conflict; conflict creates humor, so we came up with Martin, a down-to-earth, no-nonsense ex-policeman. (We took Martin’s career out of my life. Both my father and grandfather were San Francisco policemen) Initially, some people said how do two such sophisticates as Frasier and Niles come from a guy like Martin? We told them the truth…David Lee is every bit as different from his father as the Cranes.

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Tomorrow, the story behind Niles.

Random musings

I’m still on a major high over UCLA’s stunning upset over USC on Saturday. To put it in perspective, imagine VERONICA MARS beating AMERICAN IDOL. Or a rapper without a felony conviction having the number one CD in the country. And my favorite Bruin victory story comes from commenter Great Big Radio Guy. A furniture store in Culver City, H. D. Buttercup, took out an ad in Friday’s L.A. TIMES saying if you bought $2000 worth of furniture anytime before the game, it would be free if UCLA won. I wonder if this Friday they're having a "Going out of business" sale.

They’re still celebrating in Westwood. It’s a wild crazy scene! People are going into Coffee Bean and ordering ice blended mochas WITH whipped cream. Extra police have been called to restore order.

Saw LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA at the Ahmanson. I guess we LA folks are the barefoot hayseed cornpones New York theater people think we are because the audience I saw it with reacted with a collective, “Huh???” THIS won all those Tonys??? Not since little Nell was tied to the railroad tracks has there been a more melodramatic production. In fairness, I’m told in New York it was done in a much more intimate venue (the Ahmanson is the Skydome with chandeliers) with performers who didn’t go to the “Ron Liebman School of Acting”.

How many days till 24 premieres???

I read where clown Emmet Kelly Jr. passed away, a sad event, and my heart goes out to his family and friends. But I just can’t help imaging the funeral procession – one hearse filled with two hundred mourners.

Great quote by David Mamet: “Features are a marathon and TV is running until you’re dead.”

I read where some guy in New Jersey, Gary Broslma, did a little home video and now gets 15,000,000 hits. So I checked my stats and gee, I’m waaaaay behind. Even with my Chicago travelogue. But I figure, if each one of you tells one person about my blog, in another 37,537,952 years I will be at that number. So I’m encouraged.

Are Major League Baseball owners out of their fucking minds?? When Juan Pierre makes more money than Julia Roberts there’s something wrong. There is no way a small market team with no deep pockets like the Pittsburgh Pirates can even compete anymore. They should change their name to the Washington Generals – that’s the team that has lost 4,000 straight games to the Harlem Globetrotters.

I’ve been involved in a couple of interesting discussions lately on other blogs. Jane Espenson and I have been discussing the tone of your spec comedy script on her site, and Lance Mannion and I have been debating Gary Burghoff not wearing his hat in Goodbye, Radar. I know. I do have too much time on my hands.

NBC is trying to tout their new Thursday night comedy line up as the new “Must See TV”. It’s hard to take seriously when Univision is kicking their ass.

I'm always intrigued by what people Googled to get here. My most recent favorites: "Claudine Longet nude", "Bonnie Bernstein nude","Parade deaths", and "Nancy Travis tits".

Eliminate the possession arrows in college basketball.

An idea I had last year worth repeating: For you budding comedy scribes looking to write a spec that will stand out. How about doing a Christmas episode? In the ten million specs I’ve read over the years I can’t recall a single one that’s holiday themed.

I will be heading to New York for the rest of the week. Tried to get reservations at Peter Lugar’s Steakhouse for Friday night. All they had was 10:45 AM… and that’s only because they had a cancellation. I took it but money talks. I’m on the wait list for 11:15.

While I’m away, I’ve got a neat-o surprise for you FRASIER fans. Stay tuned.

Gotta go. Michael Richards is on the phone. Something about wanting to apologize to me personally. How the hell did he get my number??

The great quotes TV LAND missed

In TV LAND’S 100 great quotes and catchphrases (see the last post) they missed a few of my favorites.

“Ooooh Oooh Ooooh.” (Joe E. Ross as Tooty, “Car 54 Where Are You?)

“Gggggggggggggggggg!” (Gale Storm as Margie, “My Little Margie”)

“Hummina, Hummina, Hummina.” (Ralph Kramden, “The Honeymooners”)

“Fuck!” (everyone from “Deadwood”)

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA!” (the one armed man falling from the roller coaster in “the Fugitive”.)

“Boing boing” (Gerald McBoing Boing from his own show)

“Don’t take the car, you’ll kill yourse – “ (line from old Anacin commercial. In the interest of time they cut off the “elf”.)

“Hiyaaaaaah!” (Phil Silvers as Ernie Bilko, “The Phil Silvers Show”.)

“Hey-ohhhh!” (“The Tonight Show)

“Eeep eep!” (Flipper from “Flipper”)

“Uh-ruh-uh-ruh” (White Fang from “the Soupy Sales Show)

“Ooooba-oooba-oooba” (Black Tooth from “the Soupy Sales Show)

“Woof” (Rin Tin Tin from “Rin Tin Tin”)

“Woof…which means Timmy, Grandpa is caught in a bear trap by the stream near that old oak tree – no, not that old oak tree, the other one – and you have to come quick and bring the first aid kit, but put on some pants first.” (Lassie in “Lassie”)

“Waaaaaaa!” (Lucy Ricardo on “I Love Lucy”)

“ “ (Kathy Lee Gifford on “Regis & Kathy)

“Hey, some guy’s scoring from third!” (Harry Carey during a Cubs-Dodger broadcast, WGN)

“And now the boys will play a medley of songs from World War Eye” (Lawrence Welk reading off a cue card from “The Lawrence Welk Show”)

“Okay” (Matt Albie on “Studio 60”)

"Okay" (Danny Tripp on "Studio 60")

"Okay" (Harriett on "Studio 60")

“I don’t think it’s a secret to you that I want Wilson White’s job. I’m gonna be CEO of Atlantic Media and to do that I’ve gotta show White I can delegate when it comes to NBS and particularly the entertainment division. But you saw how fast I fired Wes Mendell? Screw this up and I’ll fire you faster. I’m not like every other heterosexual man in show business, Jordan. I don’t find you charming. And you’ve earned the loyalty of absolutely no one. So you go ahead and take your first steps toward making us all classy again. We’ve been waiting for you.” (Jack Rudolph to Jordan McDeere, the catchphrase of Studio 60”)

TV Land's 100 Greatest Quotes & Catchphrases

I mentioned last week that TV Land has come out with their 100 Greatest Quotes & Catchphrases. Here is the complete list, in alphabetical order. And to answer your next question: No, I did not coin any of these 100 classic lines but have highlighted in red the ones I wish I had written. Tomorrow I present the great ones they missed.


-"Aaay" (Fonzie, "Happy Days")
-"And that's the way it is" (Walter Cronkite, "CBS Evening News")
-"Ask not what your country can do for you ..." (John F. Kennedy)
-"Baby, you're the greatest" (Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden, "The Honeymooners")
-"Bam!" (Emeril Lagasse, "Emeril Live")
-"Book 'em, Danno" (Steve McGarrett, "Hawaii Five-O")
-"Come on down!" (Johnny Olson, "The Price is Right")
-"Danger, Will Robinson" (Robot, "Lost in Space")
-"De plane! De plane!" (Tattoo, "Fantasy Island")
-"Denny Crane" (Denny Crane, "Boston Legal")
-"Do you believe in miracles?" (Al Michaels, 1980 Winter Olympics)
-"D'oh!" (Homer Simpson, "The Simpsons")
-"Don't make me angry ..." (David Banner, "The Incredible Hulk")
-"Dyn-o-mite" (J.J., "Good Times")
-"Elizabeth, I'm coming!" (Fred Sanford, "Sanford and Son")
-"Gee, Mrs. Cleaver ..." (Eddie Haskell, "Leave it to Beaver")
-"God'll get you for that" (Maude, "Maude")
-"Good grief" (Charlie Brown, "Peanuts" specials)
-"Good night, and good luck" (Edward R. Murrow, "See It Now")
-"Good night, John Boy" ("The Waltons")
-"Have you no sense of decency?" (Joseph Welch to Sen. McCarthy)
-"Heh heh" (Beavis and Butt-head, "Beavis and Butthead")
-"Here it is, your moment of Zen" (Jon Stewart, "The Daily Show")
-"Here's Johnny!" (Ed McMahon, "The Tonight Show")
-"Hey now!" (Hank Kingsley, "The Larry Sanders Show")
-"Hey hey hey!" (Dwayne Nelson, "What's Happening!!")
-"Hey hey hey!" (Fat Albert, "Fat Albert")
-"Holy (whatever), Batman!" (Robin, "Batman")
-"Holy crap!" (Frank Barone, "Everybody Loves Raymond")
-"Homey don't play that!" (Homey the Clown, "In Living Color")
-"How sweet it is!" (Jackie Gleason, "The Jackie Gleason Show")
-"How you doin'?" (Joey Tribbiani, "Friends")
-"I can't believe I ate the whole thing" (Alka Seltzer ad)
-"I know nothing!" (Sgt. Schultz, "Hogan's Heroes")
-"I love it when a plan comes together" (Hannibal, "The A-Team")
-"I want my MTV!" (MTV ad)
-"I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl ..." (Larry, "Newhart")
-"I'm not a crook ..." (Richard Nixon)
-"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV" (Vicks Formula 44 ad)
-"I'm Rick James, b****!" (Dave Chappelle as Rick James, "Chappelle's Show")
-"If it weren't for you meddling kids!" (Various villains, "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?")
-"Is that your final answer?" (Regis Philbin, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire")
-"It keeps going and going and going ..." (Energizer Batteries ad)
-"It takes a licking ..." (Timex ad)
-"Jane, you ignorant slut" (Dan Aykroyd to Jane Curtin, "Saturday Night Live")
-"Just one more thing ..." (Columbo, "Columbo")
-"Let's be careful out there" (Sgt. Esterhaus, "Hill Street Blues")
-"Let's get ready to rumble!" (Michael Buffer, various sports events)
-"Live long and prosper" (Spock, "Star Trek")
-"Makin' whoopie" (Bob Eubanks, "The Newlywed Game")
-"Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! (Jan Brady, "The Brady Bunch")
-"Mom always liked you best" (Tommy Smothers, "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour")
-"Never assume ..." (Felix Unger, "The Odd Couple")
-"Nip it!" (Barney Fife, "The Andy Griffith Show")
-"No soup for you!" (The Soup Nazi, "Seinfeld")
-"Norm!" ("Cheers")
-"Now cut that out!" (Jack Benny, "The Jack Benny Program")
-"Oh, my God! They killed Kenny!" (Stan and Kyle, "South Park")
-"Oh, my nose!" (Marcia Brady, "The Brady Bunch")
-"One small step for man ..." (Neil Armstrong)
-"Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?" (Grey Poupon ad)
-"Read my lips: No new taxes!" (George H.W. Bush)
-"Resistance is futile" (Picard as Borg, "Star Trek: The Next Generation")
-"Say good night, Gracie" (George Burns, "The Burns & Allen Show")
-"Schwing!" (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as Wayne and Garth, "Saturday Night Live")
-"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" (Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle)
-"Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids" (Trix cereal ad)
-"Smile, you're on `Candid Camera"' ("Candid Camera")
-"Sock it to me" ("Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In")
-"Space, the final frontier ..." (Capt. Kirk, "Star Trek")
-"Stifle!" (Archie Bunker, "All in the Family")
-"Suit up!" (Barney Stinson, "How I Met Your Mother")
-"Tastes great! Less filling!" (Miller Lite beer ad)
-"Tell me what you don't like about yourself" (Dr. McNamara and Dr. Troy, "Nip/Tuck")
-"That's hot" (Paris Hilton, "The Simple Life")
-"The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat" (Jim McKay, "ABC's Wide World of Sports")
-"The tribe has spoken" (Jeff Probst, "Survivor")
-"The truth is out there" (Fox Mulder, "The X-Files")
-"This is the city ..." (Sgt. Joe Friday, "Dragnet")
-"Time to make the donuts" ("Dunkin' Donuts" ad)
-"Two thumbs up" (Siskel & Ebert, "Siskel & Ebert")
-"Up your nose with a rubber hose" (Vinnie Barbarino, "Welcome Back, Kotter")
-"We are two wild and crazy guys!" (Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd as Czech playboys, "Saturday Night Live")
-"Welcome to the O.C., bitch" (Luke, "The O.C.")
-"Well, isn't that special?" (Dana Carvey as the Church Lady, "Saturday Night Live")
-"We've got a really big show!" (Ed Sullivan, "The Ed Sullivan Show")
-"Whassup?" (Budweiser ad)
-"What you see is what you get!" (Geraldine, "The Flip Wilson Show")
-"Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?" (Arnold Drummond, "Diff'rent Strokes")
-"Where's the beef?" (Wendy's ad)
-"Who loves you, baby?" (Kojak, "Kojak")
-"Would you believe?" (Maxwell Smart, "Get Smart")
-"Yabba dabba do!" (Fred Flintstone, "The Flintstones")
-"Yada, yada, yada" ("Seinfeld")
-"Yeah, that's the ticket" (Jon Lovitz as the pathological liar, "Saturday Night Live")
-"You eeeediot!" (Ren, "Ren & Stimpy")
-"You look mahvelous!" (Billy Crystal as Fernando, "Saturday Night Live")
-"You rang?" (Lurch, "The Addams Family")
-"You're fired!" (Donald Trump, "The Apprentice")
-"You've got spunk ..." (Lou Grant, "The Mary Taylor Moore Show")

The battle for Los Angeles

With the big UCLA-USC football game taking place this weekend much was written about the bitter rivalry between these two great institutions (well, UCLA is) and how rare it is to see this city divided. Huh??? For those of us who live here, Los Angeles is teeming with rivalries. Here are just a few examples.

The Eastside vs. the Westside (better known as 310 vs. 323) -- Eastsiders feel the west is snobby, arrogant, privileged. And worse, they can’t afford to live there themselves. Westsiders are, well…just afraid of the Eastsiders. And other than to venture to the Staples Center there’s no reason to go there. This year however, 310 was split into two area codes – 310 and 424. And now things have gotten really ugly. Neighbor at war with neighbor. Bel Air Security will have to hire additional drunk LAPD academy washouts to keep order.

Flood risk homeowners vs. Fire risk homeowners -- Personally, I’m on the side of the fire risk folk. I love every couple of years seeing Barbra Streisand and Barry Diller filling sandbags to save their Malibu Colony homes.

The Lakers vs. the Clippers -- Not very heated because Clipper fans are really Laker fans who can only afford Clipper prices.

The Dodgers vs. the Angels – The Dodgers have Vin Scully. The Angels can actually win playoff games.

SUV’s vs. every other car on the road – Especially when Westside women drive them. As my friend Dave Hackel observed, unless they put a Gelsons at the top of a mountain there’s no reason these women need four-wheel drive. A subset of this rivalry is all cars, (including SUV’s) vs. Hummers. I think we could shoot the several thousand Hummer owners and have room to bury them all in one Hummer.

KFWB vs KNX -- The two all-news stations. What makes this rivalry somewhat absurd is that the same company owns them both. Some newswriters are even asked to contribute to both stations. But to create that division that drives competition they only hire bi-polar newswriters.

Hollywood vs. West Hollywood – It’s a constant tug-of-war to see who is tackier, trashier, and has the most transsexuals.

Pilates vs. “Crunch” – Great animosity exists between women exercisers . On the one hand “Crunch” requires only a half hour, but pilate places provide easier parking for SUV’s.

KLAC vs KSPN – the two All-sports stations fight hard over the fifteen listeners who bother to tune in either one.

The Channel 5 Morning News vs. the Channel 11 Morning News – the limbo bar of local journalism (or is it bimbo bar?). Channel 11 gets the edge because their anchor, Jillian Barberie, also appeared on Fox’s “Skating with the Stars”.

Democrats vs. Republicans – Los Angeles politics that will determine the course of this city now and for our children – Nah, no one gives a shit.

No more agent phone tag

I’m sure agents long for the good old days. Those halcyon days before cellphones and email. Back when it was easy to duck calls from their writer clients and avoid them entirely. They had the drill down pat.

You, the writer/client would call. Step one: the assistant says he’s in a meeting and will call you back. Step two: He calls back at 1 PM, knowing you’re at lunch. Step three: You call back after lunch, and what do you know? He’s out of the office. But he’ll call you back. Step four: The assistant calls you back at 6 to say the agent has been in meetings all afternoon but will call you back first thing in the morning. Step five: He calls at 8:30 the next morning knowing you’re not in the office yet. A variation of Step four is he calls you back at 7:30 at night knowing you’ve left for the day. Repeat this process until the writer just gives up.

But now, with cellphones, there is no “out of the office”. He can reach you at lunch, at 7:30 at night, even 7:30 in the morning. And you can pepper him with email. Agents would give up their citizenship before they give up their Blackberrys. For us "schmucks with an Underwood" (or now an iMac) it’s a beautiful thing.

I must say, I’m one of the few writers who actually likes his agent. But he returned my calls b.c. (before cellphones).

How important you are in the business can be directly correlated to when (if ever) your agent gets back to you. If you call him and he actually gets on the phone, you’ve just won an Oscar. If he calls you back within the hour, your movie just opened big or you have three series on the air. A lunch callback signals that you’re still marketable. Same with an early afternoon callback. But if the fortunes haven’t been smiling lately, if he’s not fielding offers for you, expect the 7 PM call. Always from his car on his way home. Priority level right behind making an appointment to have his golf shoes polished.

Those are great conversations because you can’t hear him on the speaker phone, if he needs to refer to something he left it at the office, and if he’s going over a canyon you get cut off. And they ALL seem to have homes in the canyon. Hey, wait a minute. That could just be Step Six.

When you meet with your agent is also an indication of your place on the Hollywood Food Chain. Dinner -- you’re the flavor of the month. Lunch – it’s okay to be seen with you. Breakfast – charity.

And of course none of this applies when the agent is trying to recruit you. Then he’s calling you six times a day – asking how your weekend was, wondering if you wanted Laker tickets, telling you you should be having Paul Haggis’ career.

But now with email you can tell him every Monday how your weekend was, whether he asks or not. And when you read in Variety that Haggis signs a multi-million dollar deal to write the next James Bond movie you can find out why you didn’t get that assignment. Make sure your cellphone is on at 7:00, or in this case, more like 9:00.

And while you’ve got him, the Lakers are home against the Spurs on Sunday the 10th.