(This is the 14th chapter of the book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” To read at all (so far) in order, click “News and Quick Comments” and scroll to the headline that starts, “The Book.”)
At times, TV people decide that situation comedies are doomed. One such time came seven years before “Seinfeld” (shown here) would start a comedy comeback.
In the 1984-85 season, “Dallas” and “Dynasty” were at the top; two more soaps (“Knots Landing” and “Falcon Crest”) were in the top 10. Viewers watched light action (“A-Team,” “Magnum,” “Riptide”), but not comedies:
— ABC – which has had as many as 18 sitcoms – had only four.
— CBS had six, but some were lame. “AfterMash” was a pale, peacetime “MASH” descendant. “E/R” had George Clooney, but in the wrong ER. “Charles in Charge” was … well, “Charles in Charge.”
— NBC did have 10 sitcoms (including “Cosby Show” and “Family Ties”), but that included “Punky Brewster” and “Gimme a Break” and such.
The outlook was so bleak that NBC’s Brandon Tarikoff said he was, “hedging our bets.” He planned “Michael Nesmith’s Television Parts” – a collection of funny videos — as an alternative to sitcoms.
The result? “Television Parts” was hilarious, but viewers weren’t interested; it ran for five summer episodes.
But sitcoms weren’t dying, after all. A decade later, TV had the second golden age of comedy. That began with a meeting at NBC – but not in the comedy division.
By his own count, Jerry Seinfeld had already done NBC’s Jay Leno and David Letterman shows about 30 time each. But no one had talked about doing more.
He finally had a meeting with Rick Ludwin, the network’s vice-president of latenight and specials. At the end, he got a deal for a pilot script.
“Then they went to that restaurant you see (in exteriors) on the show and wrote the script,” Ludwin recalled later.
The “they” were opposites, Larry David and Seinfeld.
David is a somber sort. One producer recalls him starting a perfectly fine stand-up comedy set … then saying it wasn’t working and walk away.
Seinfeld is a pleasant soul who grew up around humor (“everyone I knew was funny”) and came to it easily. Joel Hodgson (“Mystery Science Theatre 3000”) said he had doubts about doing comedy until he met Seinfeld and saw that a comedian can be happy.
Seinfold and David emerged with a script that was mostly talk between three guys – Seinfeld (as himself), Jason Alexander (as a variation on David) and Michael Richards (as a variation on an odd acquaintance, Kenny Kramer.)
In a book (“Top of the Rock,” Doubleday, 2012) written by NBC’s Warren Littlefield, with comments from others, we see reactions to the script from:
— Alexander: “I thought it was a glorious mess. It wasn’t paying attention to the rules” of sitcoms.
— Littlefield: “The script was very funny, totally unconventional but funny. It didn’t sound like anything else on television.”
— Glenn Padnick, president of Castle Rock Television, which produced “Seinfeld”: “We loved the script, and we loved it for the little stuff. Most shows go for big plots.”
— A report written after showing the pilot to test audiences: “Lukewarm reaction among adults and teens, and very low reactions among kids …. PILOT PERFORMANCE: WEAK.”
— Alexander again, recalling what he told Seinfeld after the screening. “I think it’s really good. The problem is the audience for the show is me, and I don’t watch TV.”
Fortunately, NBC did go ahead … albeit timidly; it approved a four-episode sampling. More fortunately, Littlefield had a change Seinfeld agreed to: “I only had one note for Jerry: ‘Get a girl.’”
Julia Louis-Dreyfuss was added as Elaine, making the show even better. A year after the pilot, NBC aired the four episodes in a cozy summer spot behind “Cheers” reruns.
It held onto the “Cheers” audience, but there was skepticism. “People thought it might be too New York,” Ludwin said. “Or too Jewish.”
That wasn’t an anti-Semitic view. Tartikoff was Jewish and had previously said that, in a way, most TV characters are Jews because they were created by Jewish writers. Still, Littlefield wrote: “Brandon was convinced ‘Seinfeld’ was too Jewish to be widely successful.” Or maybe too Eastern.
Ludwin – who grew up in Cleveland suburbia and went to Miami of Ohio – disagreed. Research backed that up: “Seinfeld” did equally well in all parts of the country.
Outsiders could savor the quirks of big-city life – battling over a single parking spot … pushing to get the one available apartment … getting lost in a parking garage … spending the entire show in line at a Chinese restaurant …
Well, that last one did (at first) seem too much. After the table read for the Chinese-restaurant episode (shown here), Ludwin said in Littlefield’s book: “We debated shutting it down and telling them not to film that week.”
David was angry; Ludwin relented. The episode was shot and, he said, “was one of the landmark episodes of the show. Viewers did embrace it.”
That was crucial, Littlefield wrote. “This is a critical difference between how we ran things at NBC and what some networks are like today. We took a risk, a leap with the creator and the show runner, even when our instincts said, ‘This will not work.’”
It was the same approach that both Weaver and Tinker had brought to NBC … the same one that (as producers) Lear and Tinker had demanded from CBS. Now it was followed by Tartikoff – who left NBC for Paramount in April of 1991, shortly after “Seinfeld” began its regular run – and by Littlefield, who became the new NBC chief.
Still, there were doubters. In Time magazine, Richard Zoglin wrote that NBC “has seen its fortunes turn sour almost overnight …. Highly regarded younger shows like ‘Seinfeld’ have not lived up to ratings expectations.”
Littlefield disagreed. “We bet on the network’s comedy future with ‘Seinfeld,’” he wrote. “We used every weapon we had to promote it.”
For that season, “Seinfeld” crawled up to No. 25 in the ratings. The next year it was No. 3 and the show that aired after it, “Frasier,” was No. 7.
Frasier Crane had been just one piece of “Cheers,” but on the new show he became much more.
“There was still the vestige of the original character,” director James Burrows wrote in “Directed By James Burrows” (Ballantine, 2022), “always insecure and angry, but with the foundation of warmth and decency …. He loved fully, wholly, deeply. He fell hard.”
And he was part of the new NBC, filled with sharp, verbal wit.
“Mad About You,” with Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt, debuted in 1992, “Frasier” in ‘93 and the next big one in ‘94.
What TV needed, Littlefield felt, was a show about young people’s city adventures.
These were “the twentysomethings, just beginning to make their way. I imagined young adults starting out in (cities), all facing the difficulty. It was very expensive to live in those places as well as a tough emotional journey. It would be a lot easier if you did it with a friend.”
Then Marta Kaufman and David Crane came in with just such a pitch, focusing on six friends and, at times, a New York coffee shop.
Burrows had already committed to directing four pilots that spring, he wrote. “(I) knew two things immediately. One, I didn’t have time to direct it. And two, I had to direct it.”
Then the casting fell into place remarkably. Consider:
— Matt LeBlanc had done three series, two of them awful. Both had a dim-witted character he’d played on three “Married With Children” episodes.
— Courteney Cox had done “Misfits of Science” (as a telekinetic teen) and “The Trouble With Larry” (a show so troubled that it was canceled before the main TV season began). She’d worked with Michael J. Fox (in “Family Ties”), Bruce Springsteen (in a music video), He-Man (in “Masters of the Universe”) and more.
— Matthew Perry had done three series and was committed to a pilot about a futuristic baggage-handler,. Burrows gambled that it would never be picked up as a series; it wasn’t.
They joined David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow (playing the twin of a waitress she’d played in “Mad About You”) and Jennifer Aniston. This was a rare blend, Burrows wrote – “six really good-looking people who were funny.”
Most shows have one or two central characters, he wrote. “We had six centers …. It had never happened before or since with a cast that large.”
It soared quickly, in a good spot (between “Mad About You” and “Seinfeld”) and then – at mid-season — in a great one, between “Seinfeld” and “ER.” It was No. 8 its first season and No. 3 (behind “ER” and “Seinfeld”) its second.
In the next few years, the top 10 had other NBC comedies – “Caroline in the City,” “The Single Guy,” “Suddenly Susan,” “The Naked Truth, ,” Jesse,” “Union Square” “Veronica’s Closet” – that shared a few things:
— None had the fresh wit of “Friends,” “Frasier,” “Seinfeld” and “Mad About You.”
— But many had pilots that were directed by Burrows. They were smartly crafted and balanced verbal and visual wit.
Then Burrows had one show to dig into.
The idea started with David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, who had been friends since Beverly Hills High. While running “The Single Guy,” they tried another project.
“They wrote a pilot about four couples,” Burrows wrote. “Warren Littlefield … said, ‘I don’t like the pilot, but I like one of the couples, Will and Grace.’”
He asked them to build a show around them – two best friends, one gay and one straight. It “captured a genre and a group of characters that no one had ever seen on television.
And these two writers knew the subject well. One (Mutchnick) is gay; one is not. “I think they probably are Will and Grace, more than they even know,” Eric McCormack, who starred with Debra Messing, told David Wild in “The Showrunners” (HarperCollins, 1999).
By then, NBC had two chiefs, Littlefield and Don Ohlmeyer. “Don had been fighting me on the idea from the beginning,” Littlefield wrote. “He didn’t think the country was ready for this relationship on broadcast TV.”
But Littlefield sent Burrows to meet with the writers. It was, Wild wrote, “a move that led them to a powerful friend and collaborator and did wonders to earn them a pilot order.”
And he stuck with it. For most shows, Burrows would move on. He directed only 32 episodes of “Friends,” 15 of “Frasier.” But this one – like “Taxi” and “Cheers” – were his projects. He did all 246 episodes, including the original eight seasons and the three-season revival.
And it turned out that the country was ready for the show. “Will & Grace” had four seasons in the top-15, peaking at No. 9.
When asked about same-sex marriage in 2012, Vice-President Joe Biden said, “I think ‘Will & Grace’ probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody’s ever done.” Burrows called that “one of the proudest moments of my career.”
NBC’s shows propelled the comedy surge. “Seinfeld” arrived in 1991, “Mad About You” in ‘92, “Frasier” in ‘93, “Friends” in ‘94, “Will & Grace” in ‘98.
But they weren’t alone. ABC’s “Roseanne” and CBS’ “Murphy Brown” had both arrived in 1988; CBS’ “Everybody Loves Raymond” came in ‘96.
Add them in, mix in lots of other shows that were quite good, and you had the second golden age of comedy.