Why does anyone go to an NFL game?

Okay, I’m from L.A. and we have no NFL team. So I know I’m not your typical fan. And today I watched games from Maui. But still, I’ve always wondered, as we’re now in Decemeber --

Why does anybody GO to football games when it’s freezing, snowing, raining, hailing, or all of the above? The games are on TV. In HD. You get closer angles, you get replays, you get that yellow line! How can we even follow a football game now if it doesn’t have that yellow line?

There was that Packer-Giants 2007 NFC championship game in Green Bay where it was something like twenty degrees below. Half the players got trench foot. And they were the lucky ones. Meanwhile, 72,740 people sat in the stands, frozen, for almost four hours. Why? Yeah, I understand the camaraderie and the excitement of being there live, but Holy Christ!! This is how Russian armies won wars – by freezing out their opponents, who by the way, wore just as many layers and passed around just as many flasks as loyal Cheeseheads.

I’m sure diehard fans will scoff and say I just don’t understand – and they would be right. A big-screen TV, a hot pizza, a roaring fire, a nearby bathroom (that’s CLEAN), a pause button, and the yellow line vs… frostbite.

And then there’s rain and snow. There’s nothing more fun than watching an NFL game in a blizzard or deluge. They should outlaw domes. With snow the field turns white, there’s zero visibility – it’s a beautiful thing. And in the driving rain the field turns to mud, no one can hold the ball, there’s fumbles every play, and if someone should miraculously catch a pass he then slides for ten yards. Uniforms get black, announcers have no idea who anybody is, hash marks disappear – now THAT’S entertainment!

But if you’re sitting in the stands, peeking out of ponchos or garbage bags and the rain and snow is pelting you too, doesn’t that put a tiny crimp in your enjoyment? Help me here. What am I missing, besides double pneumonia?

It’s not like baseball. People brave brutal weather conditions to attend playoff and World Series games but that’s so they don’t have to listen to Tim McCarver. I get that. But Chris Collingsworth is okay. Troy Aikman and Phil Simms are boring but they don’t send you screaming into the frozen tundra. And newcomer Jon Gruden is quite good.

I could do without the stupid animated transformers on FOX, GARY UNMARRIED promos on CBS, and NBC could cut their half-time roster of announcers by six and stop showing the Philadelphia Eagles (they've been on Sunday Night Football fifteen times already this season) but football is a television sport. And for you hearty souls who say drive four hours in grid-lock traffic to and from Foxboro and sit for four to six hours in torturous conditions, just consider this – the players you are watching are all getting millions of dollars. You paid for your seat. What’s wrong with this High-Definition picture?

The gifts you can't return

One clear sign that it’s Christmas in LA is that you see more TV show jackets. For years that has been the Christmas gift of choice for staffs of television series. Which if fine if you work on THE OFFICE, not so fine if you work on WORLD'S BIGGEST LOSER.

You feel a little bit like a schmuck anyway, wearing a show jacket, like you’re bragging, hoping to impress “the chicks”. Trust me, an AMISH IN THE CITY fleece is not an aphrodisiac.

Other gifts are traditionally baseball caps (when show runners don’t want to pop for jackets for the crew), T-shirts (same deal), and if you ever get a show mug you know you’re about to be cancelled.

One year on CHEERS we received lovely dart boards. At the time everyone had young children. I don’t think anyone even took them out of the box. (I’m sure there’s still one or two floating around ebay). On MASH one year the cast gave us all engraved watches. It was a beautiful gift, one I still have. The next season the new writer on the staff was counting the days until the big gift. It turned out to be a custom 33 rpm album of all the scenes in which the cast sang on the show. He was livid. “You guys get watches and I get a fucking album of Loretta Swit singing?!” (I don’t even think ebay has that one).

Most studios gave out big gift baskets, silver key chains, bottles of nice wine, Walkmen, DVD collections, etc. For many years I worked at a studio where the holiday gifts were always disaster first aid kits, huge honkin’ flashlights, Thomas’ road maps, and earthquake preparedness guides. Everything spelled doom, especially the present that came two years ago…the mug. I’m no longer at that studio.

Oh well, I still have my memories. And my IT’S ALL RELATIVE fleece, BIG WAVE DAVE’S cap, ALMOST PERFECT sweatshirt, LATELINE jacket, KIRSTIN fleece, CONRAD BLOOM bowling shirt, ASK HARRIETT t-shirt, and GEORGE & LEO beltbuckle…which I would all gladly trade for one MODERN FAMILY handkerchief.

YOU supply the headlines

From time to time I like to present audience participation posts. These are actual news stories that just cry out for headlines. Have at 'em, dear readers. Leave them in the comments section. And as always, thanks for playing.

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Among the health-insurance upgrades demanded by Philadelphia-area transit workers and agreed to by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority in November was removal of the 10-tablet-per-month rationing of Viagra and similar medications, to allow as many as 30 per month (according to a Philadelphia Daily News report). (The final contract, reportedly even more beneficial to the union, was being voted on by union members at press time.)

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When police in Brimfield, Ohio, stopped Jaime Aguirre, 42, for a traffic violation in October, they found some conventional photos of nude and near-nude women, but were especially surprised at a stash of x-rays and mammograms, which they supposed came from Aguirre's job as technician at an imaging center in Tiffin, Ohio. The Brimfield police chief said he believed the stash was used by Aguirre for sexual gratification, and since some of the x-rays and mammograms were of girls under the age of 18, Aguirre was charged with possession of child pornography.

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In Ogden, Utah, in October, Adam Manning, 30, accompanied his pregnant girlfriend to the McKay-Dee Hospital emergency room as she was going into labor. According to witnesses, as a nurse attended to the woman, Manning began flirting with her, complimenting the nurse's looks and giving her neck rubs. When Manning then allegedly groped the nurse's breast, she called for security, and Manning was eventually arrested and taken to jail, thus missing the birth of his child.

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Thousands of airline passengers continue to attempt to bring prohibited carry-on items on board. The New York Post reported in September that the Transportation Security Administration had confiscated 123,000 items so far this year from just the three main airports serving New York City. Included were 43 explosives, 1,600 knives, a 10-point deer antler, several fire extinguishers, a tree branch, nunchucks, a grill, a baby alligator, "unwashed adult toys," a gassed-up chain saw and a kitchen sink.

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Andrew Burwitz, 20, was arrested in Appleton, Wis., in November and charged with two drive-by shootings. No one was hit, and the major damage was done to Burwitz's car, in that Burwitz fired the first shot before he remembered to roll down the window.

Happy headline writing, comedy scribes.

A jaw dropping CBS ad. Not a joke. They really aired this

CBS Cares. This aired on How I Met Your Mother.


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Banpresto - Ranka Lee

More figures featuring of Ranka Lee, I am sure readers had noticed that the last few posts I had been featuring lots of figures and items from Banpresto. LOL. Oh well, they just make good figures at affordable prices!

Hanukkah in Santa Monica

Hanukkah (however the hell you spell it) begins tonight. What better way to celebrate than with a traditional Hanukkah song? Here's HANUKKAH IN SANTA MONICA by the brilliant Tom Lehrer.

Am I related to Chuck Lorre?

Aloha from Hawaii. It’s Friday Question Day, even observed here on the islands.

Sacul wonders:

I always like to read the credits on my fave shows. Are any of the Levines (or Lorre) related to you or each other?

Nope. Not related to Chuck Lorre (Levine is his real last name), Laura Levine, Emily Levine, or actor Kenny Levine. I wish I was related to Chuck’s money though.

Scott Siegel is looking for dish:

Did you and David ever have a no-holds-bar disagreement about the direction of a script?

We’ve argued but it never got personal. Usually if one of us can’t convince the other we’ll just back away from the issue and try something else entirely. You can’t make somebody write in a direction they don’t believe in. Try it. It’s torture and the results are never productive.

As with jokes, we’ve found that it’s easier and faster to just come up with a completely new one rather than to argue for a half hour and ultimately one of the partners is pissed.

Three keys to a good partnership: You respect and value the other’s opinion. You don’t take arguments personally. You both have cars so you can give the other rides when his car is in the shop. The first two you might be able to live without.

From Terry Collier:

In Frasier, I love David Hyde Pierce and his choice of reactions to comments. So often, it's his reaction that makes the joke. The same with watching him do more physical comedy, such as falling. How much of that is written in the script, and how much is his choice?

Sometimes a reaction is written in because it’s key to his motivation to do something or another. But most of the time we just left David to his own devices. I can’t tell you how many times he saved our bacon by making lines and moments work that really shouldn’t have. As I’ve said before, of all the comic actors I’ve had the privilege of working with, David Hyde Pierce is the best. And here’s the thing, I’m sure there’s a lot of technique and craft going on in there but he makes it all seem absolutely effortless. I just marvel.

Richard Y asks:

Of all your pitches you and you and your partner prepared were there any that were not accepted that were more serious in nature or at least partially? Such as doctor (besides M*A*S*H and Becker), lawyer firefighters, police type shows?

We never pitched an hour series so no in that regard. There were some MASH pitches that we all decided in the room might be a little too dramatic. “Hawkeye killing everybody” and stuff like that. We tended to table that for Hawkeye throws a party.

And then there’s the spec screenplay I wrote about nine years ago that was strictly a drama. We were represented by one of the major tenpercenteries (I love that expression) and I called my agents to tell them about my new project. They were very excited. I then mentioned it was a drama, not a comedy.

Silence on the phone. For thirty seconds. You could hear crickets.

Their lack of enthusiasm was palpable. One said, “Well, why’d you go and do THAT?” I suggested that maybe I’m more than just a comedy writer and the other agent said, “Yeah, but that’s what you SELL.” A month later we left the agency.

And finally, from Rory L. Aronsky:

When you directed "Becker," how many scene transitions were available to use? Obviously you had to hew to daytime or nighttime scenes, but did you have free reign to choose what you wanted, or did they have a set list so that, say, one that appeared in an episode before yours wasn't used again in your episode?

If you mean those stylized transitions between scenes I never concerned myself with them once. That was all post-production magic. I assume show runner Dave Hackel, line producer Tim Berry, and editor Darryl Bates made those decisions. I never even knew how many transitions there were or exactly what they were. I’m sure there’s some BECKER fanatic out there somewhere who has kept track of what transition was used when and he’ll sell his Guide to BECKER Transitions book before I’ll sell one of mine.

Leave your question in the comments section. Mahalo.