Never say "break a leg" to Kaley Cuoco

It’s Friday question day. Poor Kaley inspires the first one.

From Rockgolf:

I just saw that Kaley Cuoco broke her leg in a horseback riding accident and that The Big Bang Theory show is planning to rewrite the script they are filming tonight without her.

That sounds like a Herculean task to take a significant character out of an episode in two or three days. Has this ever happened on a show you were on? If so, how did you do it and what (belated) advise would you give the BBT writers.

First off, best wishes, Kaley. I imagine in time she'll return and they'll explain away the cast. And this is just the kind of thing that wins people Best Supporting Actress Emmys. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, to the topic. Yes, once. In the first year of CHEERS we got a call in the writers room at about 7 that Nick Colasanto had just been admitted to the hospital with Pleurisy. We had to rewrite him out that night.

The hard part was reconstructing the story. But it was doable. Had we lost Ted or Shelley or had BBT lost Jim Parsons they might have had to shut down. This is why it's fortunate for TWO AND A HALF MEN that Charlie Sheen is not in prison.

You have to go into every season with the mindset that along the way there will be a few episodes that are snake-bitten. An actress will break her leg, a script will bomb at runthrough, there will be a flood on the stage on show night. You just have to expect it and roll with it.

The good news is that those late nights can also really bond a staff. There’s a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. As long as it doesn’t happen every week. Then you just want to fucking kill someone.

I really don’t have any advice for the BBT writers. I can offer my support though and say to them – good luck you sorry bastards.

From Brian:

Hi Ken, here's a question for you. Do you know any writers/producers/directors/actors involved in the soap opera industry? How can the possibly keep up with writing and filming for a one hour daily show?

Surprisingly, I don’t know any soap opera writers. Maybe because they’re locked up writing all the time. The hard part has to be plotting out the overall storylines that will stretch out over weeks and months. I imagine with practice these skilled writers can bang out the actual scripts in fairly short order. On the other hand, it’s not like they have to write a blog post every day. Now THAT’S pressure.

I do know a number of soap opera actors like Eric Braeden and Carolyn Hennessey and I’m always in awe of their ability to memorize hour scripts every day. They both say the same thing. You develop a technique that allows you to memorize very quickly. And once the show is filmed you almost instantly forget it.

Soap opera talent (on and off camera) doesn’t get the recognition they deserve. They work in a very specialized and rigorous field. So you have to excuse them for the occasional twin brother marries a girl who turns out to be his sister who was thought to be eaten by cannibals but escaped by sleeping with the tour guide who she later learned was her father.

Matthias wonders:

"Networks now pretty much control the stories." Does that mean that when we like or don't like the direction a show goes in, we should be crediting or blaming the networks as much as the showrunners?

Yes. But if the show tanks guess who gets blamed? Not once have I ever heard a network say, “You know we led the showrunner in the wrong direction. It’s really our fault.”

And finally, a rather unusual question from Steve:

As a writer, do you ever develop crushes on your characters? For instance, did you have a crush on Dharma or Diane Chambers? (I would have.) If so, did that affect your writing?

To be honest, I’ve never even thought about it. Since I work with the actual actresses, I dunno, it would be weird. Really weird. So... no. I confine my crushes to SI swimsuit models and Rachel Maddow.

Monday I’ll answer another question, but it’s a long one, worthy of an entire post. I’ll give you tips on how to pitch a movie or pilot to agents, networks, or studios. This is called "a tease". It's also called a "stall tactic" because I haven't written it yet.

*!##*& my father said... on the air

Today is my dad's 83rd birthday. He remains my hero. You of course recognize him as the host of the restaurant Nancy Travis entered in ALMOST PERFECT. Today's post is another excerpt from the book I'm writing on growing up in Los Angeles in the 60s. I selected it because it features my father. In 1967 he was an account executive at KABC radio (yes, the same KABC that I do Dodger Talk on).

NABET, the ABC engineers’ union went on strike that spring. And AFTRA, the talent union, went out in support – at least on the radio side. That meant that KABC executives manned the control boards and became the air talent. My dad got tapped to do the morning sports and then host a talk show from 6-9 P.M. So for about three months, until the strike was settled, he worked from 5 A.M. until 9 P.M. every day. And only half those hours on the weekend.

This is the infamous strike that cost me my trip to Paris when I got unceremoniously booted off THE DATING GAME without so much as a tube of GLEEM toothpaste.

Dad’s first morning on the air I rounded up all my friends in the parking lot and had them gather around the car radio to hear his broadcast debut. I was beaming with pride. He then signed on by saying, “Filling in for Cliff Levine Sports, I’m Allin Slate.” Like I said, I was so proud.

At first he just read the scores. But within a couple of weeks he was demanding the Lakers trade Rudy LaRusso and the Dodgers man up and admit they were horseshit that year.

He began feeling more comfortable hosting the talk show too. It shocked him (and me as well) that callers were asking his opinion of Viet Nam and the issues of the day. Why the hell did they care what he thought about anything? He was just some Joe Schmoe. But because he was on the radio, they did. And then our neighbor would call constantly to badger him about trimming our hedge.

I must say it was kind of cool having my father be a minor celebrity. That was certainly new. Friends asked if it was weird hearing my dad on the radio? I’d so no, but every so often he’d voice an opinion or share some personal anecdote that I didn’t know. That was bizarre. And then I wondered, what is he revealing that I didn’t know on nights I wasn’t listening? Does Ruth in Downey and Lester from Alhambra know things about my father that I don’t? I found this disconcerting but not so disconcerting that I’d listen to him over Vin Scully when the Dodgers were playing.

When the strike finally ended he said he was relieved. But deep down inside I think he missed it. Damn the company and unions for negotiating in good faith from that point on.

Happy birthday, Dad. Love you.