Ken Levine (hey Ken) does Sorkin doing baseball. An excerpt:
EXT. KAUFFMAN STADIUM -- NIGHT
THE MANAGER, LEO, TROTS OUT TO THE MOUND TO TALK TO BELEAGURED PITCHER, DANNY (THERE’S ALWAYS A DANNY). THE BASES ARE LOADED. THE CROWD IS GOING NUTS. IT’S GAME SEVEN OF THE WORLD SERIES.
LEO
You can’t get a good lobster in this town.
DANNY
Last I checked we were in Kansas City.
LEO
4.6 billion pork ribs sold every year and 18.9 tons of beef consumed annually since 1997 –
DANNY
They like their beef, what can I tell ya?
LEO
But you’d think just for variety’s sake.
DANNY
I can still throw my curve.
...
You know how, since you're a baseball fan, this sounds insane? This is exactly how Studio 60 sounds to anyone who's ever written comedy for television. (h/t Lee Goldberg)
52 comments:
For this scenario to play out, the Royals would have to make it all the way to the World Series. Now that's what I call comedy!
Oh c´mon...
That's how it sounds to people who haven't written comedy, too.
Here's a secret: doctors don't really act like they do on Grey's Anatomy or House. Cops don't act like they do on CSI or Criminal Minds. All .00000000001% of the Studio 60 audience who are TV comedy writers might just have to live with the fact that it's not a documentary.
You know, until it's cancelled because no one else is watching, either.
You raise an interesting point, actually -- although the writers of said shows toss away the finer details of those settings, the shows themselves are somehow ... consistent with reality (a writer once called it "accretion of detail.") It's something you saw in stand-up, too -- you could tell an audience something that didn't happen, but was true in some intangible way, and they went with you. But if you were dishonest with them, they could sense it.
All kidding aside for the tiny percentage of us who work in TV ...
... and Ken's bit is a very inside joke, but enough TV writers hang here, I thought they'd get a kick out of it ...
... I think one of the reasons Studio 60 doesn't work is that Sorkin's attitudes/style were somehow honest in a White House setting, but feel fundamentally incongruous in a TV setting, in a way even non-professionals can sense. It doesn't have to be a documentary (of course not), but there has to be some alignment of setting and intent. Sorkin writing about a newsroom, for example, would probably work, and be interesting.
I can live with any show that's "not a documentary" -- most aren't. But one that feels fundamentally dishonest (even if earnest), that's a different matter, I think.
What about if Sorkin were to write a behind the scenes show of a Daily Show style comedy news show?
Part of me wants to put an emoticon on this, and the other part says that's stupid.
Sure, fair points for those who aren't loving it, it's just that I'm one of the much fewer than .00000000001% of the population who does, and maybe I drank the Sorkin Kool-Aid, but it feels to me like it says something authentic about how even entertainment is important, and seeing people kick it while it's going down makes me sad. But carry on. Ignore my weeping in the corner.
Do you have any updates on the Fatal Frame movie post/script you mentioned alomst 2 years ago? I have been enticed of this idea ever since I have been aware of the rumors.
I would apprecicate your comment back!
Cryss
And you know what else is funny about that Aaron Sorkin baseball show idea?
The fact that I'd still watch it.
But I agree that Studio 60 is a badly flawed show. It's like after his four years of writing The West Wing, he'd completely forgotten how to write SportsNight, which is what he ought to be aiming for.
I think entertainment is important. But I'm not sure you can do a straight up preaching job about it.
And, hey, I'm a fan too. As I said, it's weird, watching this skilled a guy apply himself to a setting he not only doesn't seem to know anything about, but doesn't seem to care whether he does. The simple fact is that he is passionate, articulate, but just. Not. Funny. And if you're not funny, I don't know how you can convey that comedy is important in ways OTHER than lecture-style speeches.
For what it's worth - and it's likely worth very little - my group of friends and I love it. And we're an unnecessarily highly educated, professional bunch. We gather round the TV weekly to watch - and think the show is both earnest and hilarious.
Earnest yes, hilarious, for me, no. Most comics will tell you, for them, earnest is the enemy of funny. But there you go. An individual's sense of humor is the single, inarguable point of their personality. Something's either funny for you or not. If it is, then glory in it and enjoy it. At least, this time, they've spent so much money on it, you'll probably get your full season.
In what may well be a contradiction, I loved Sportsnight, because the intriguing idea behind it, for me, was that an apparently content-free subject -- sports news -- was shown to have cultural freight, and the people were not who you'd (I'd) expect to work for a sports network. S60 is populated with precisely the people I expect, saying precisely the things they're supposed to about the subject at hand. At great length. Really, really great length.
One thing I think gets lost in the Sorkin-can't-write-comedy argument is that Mark McKinney, of Kids in the Hall and SNL, was hired to write the sketches on Studio 60. That won't make them any funnier for people who aren't laughing, but a lot of people are bordering on Sorkin-bashing and missing that fairly important point. The argument then becomes he can't recognize that the sketches aren't funny, not that he can't write funny sketches ... but not all of us agree that they're not. And I think there's a lot of humour throughout the episodes, too. But it is a drama about comedy writers, not a comedy.
Earnest is the enemy of funny? Doesn't that exclude Bill Hicks et al (and Oscar Wilde bdumtish)?
I may check it out if it ever filters down to DVD - the climbing ratio of squalid ads to quality shows has killed commercial TV for me.
(TDS excepted, of course)
I think what really bugs me about it is that his characters have no sense of professional respect for any comic that's not them. All of the pros I know may have varied opinions on other comics' talent/routines, but having gone through the gauntlet of reaching headliner status (or whatever) themselves, they're far less critical of other people's acts and writing. It may not be their thing, but that's why they don't pay to see it.
These people are supposed to be at the pinnacle of their profession, but they treat others in the business with an open-mikeresque, "I can do better than that" attitude. Which might be carried off if the writing brought the goods.
As for McKinney, he may be helping with some parts of it, but I'm guessing that for the most part the concepts are coming from Sorkin, and when you're told to write a Gilbert & Sullivan parody, no matter how clever the end result, you can never make it funnier than a Gilbert & Sullivan parody. Pure guess, though.
Here's my take on the lack-of-comedy problem: it isn't that the sketches aren't funny, it's that the people are so earnest and, frankly, dour that it's hard to imagine them ever being funny.
I may chuckle a couple times in an episode, but for the most part it is hard to imagine that these people (the characters, not the actors) get paid a bunch of money to make people laugh. That's why it rings false to me.
I get that it's a drama and not a comedy. Even so, I think it is necessary that the audience believes that these characters are funny people.
Perhaps that's not fair. Perhaps that's a symptom of the way comedians are often treated in daily life. If you'll excuse the cliche, no one walks up to doctors and demands that they save a life, but people demand that comedians be funny. Only the rudest will bark "Say something funny!" But most of us, when we meet someone who professes to make people laugh for a living, will immediately look to see some evidence of this.
Sorkin not funny? West Wing was one of the funniest shows on television before he left. CJ was a perfect comedic creation. The interplay between Josh and Donna was hilarious. Even the President was funny!
I live in New Zealand so I haven't seen Studio 60.
First in reply to rogers, “earnest is the enemy of funny”
If you watch older comedies like All in the Family or Mash, I think you’ll see that honest and earnest can be funny and touching.
In reply to nona, “it made *sense* for the characters to be insane workaholics who took their jobs incredibly seriously and never, ever went off the clock”… it may not make sense but have you ever worked in the TV production industry? People really do act like lives depend on it. It’s sad but it’s true – many people in film and television production act like the world will fall apart if things aren’t done and done right, especially in live television.
diane kristine is right, “it is a drama about comedy writers, not a comedy”. Some of the moments are disingenuous but generally it’s interesting and most of the time well written.
No matter how well a show is written, if actors were badly cast, if the audience doesn't "believe" the characters' personalities/actions and takes a visceral dislike to them, the audience will tune out. And characters who are too contrived (a supposedly hilarious and hip gal who's also a conservative Christian?) ring false and heavy-handed.
None of The West Wing's actors was out of synch with his/her character. Lucky casting. S60 isn't the only new series to suffer from bad casting...Brothers & Sisters is another, but it is redeemed by the divine Rachel Griffiths.
But does that make Studio 60 bad? I would watch a Sorokin series about garbage collecters if they were interesting to listen to. And something tells me it would be. But that's just me.
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