The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild by Miranda J. Banks

Author:Miranda J. Banks [Banks, Miranda J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2015-01-14T08:00:00+00:00

IMAGE 21 Opening page of the show bible for Allan Burns and James L. Brooks’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show, c. 1970.

Allan Burns Collection, Writers Guild Foundation Archive, Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles

Great production houses made a programmer’s job easier: they had already vetted writers and series—and paid for them. They knew the character of the networks and could assess whether a series might find an audience. Fred Silverman appreciated the simpler corporate structure of the networks at the time, which made the process of greenlighting a series easier and faster. There might be challenges bringing a series to air, but once he had a hit and was working with known hyphenates or established independent production companies, he could make decisions quickly. For example, he told the story of asking Garry Marshall to pull together a test pilot (in fact, just a few scenes) for a possible Laverne and Shirley spin-off from Happy Days. “It makes a big difference to be able to do something quickly, but also to be able to recognize something that’s good. . . . That was probably the best program development.”66

Easily the most exciting independent players in television production, especially for writers, were Grant Tinker at Mary Tyler Moore’s MTM and Norman Lear at Bud Yorkin’s Tandem/TAT Productions. John Caldwell argues that many series created under the leadership of Lear and Tinker challenged audiences’ opinions on contemporary social issues and intellectual problems but were conservative in terms of their visual aesthetic. “Although the old aesthetic standbys—liveness, character acting, and sensitive writing—increased in programming value and stature during this period, many of television’s stylistic capabilities were essentially ignored. . . . For both Tandem and MTM, then, company style was defined entirely as an issue of content, not form.”67 In part, the rationale behind high-content, low-style series was to allow the production companies to create television on a limited budget. If they saved on the aesthetic side, Tandem and MTM could reinvest their profits in more series that they loved and believed would succeed. If the series failed, they were stuck with the bills. Lear described his sense of personal and social responsibility for the programming he created and for the series that his company produced with little to no financial help from the networks. When asked about deficit financing, Lear replied, “Nobody would make Mary Hartman so I made Mary Hartman. We paid for that. I don’t think of it as deficit financing, we just fucking paid for it.”68

These two independent companies put their money into making intelligent, content-rich, topical programming using extraordinary acting, directing, and writing talent. Pretty much every writer during the era wanted to work on an MTM or Tandem series. Susan Harris, who scripted the abortion episode of Maude and later went on to create Benson and The Golden Girls, expressed her gratitude for working with producers and executives who let her push social and cultural boundaries. “Comedy is a less threatening way to deliver messages to audiences. . . . The

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.