How to drive your actors completely insane

Aloha. Here is some last minute Friday Q & A’s before Christmas. If you have a question, send it my way via the comments section. Mahalo.

LD wonders:

Often syndicated programming will shoot promos with the cast where they mention the name of the local station. Can you shed some light on how this goes down? How many of these are typically done in a year? At what point does everyone start to go crazy from the repetition? How often would writers be asked to prepare something unique instead of just saying "Watch Frasier on WXYZ!"

The shows’ writers never got involved in that. That would cost the syndicators money so you know that'll never happen. Usually once a year the promo department would assemble the cast and at one time, over a couple of hours, record all of these local promos. After about a half hour the actors were going nuts. Because it wasn’t just parroting back call-letters, each station had its own slogan and each station had its own news anchor they wanted plugged. On MASH one year they did it on a Friday night after filming for twelve hours. I swear, by the end, they looked like Confederate soldiers hobbling home dazed from the Civil War.

willieb gets in the spirit of joy with an AfterMASH question:

A number of reviews of the new "Scrubs" this week said something along the lines of: "It's a bad sequel, but not as bad as AFTER M*A*S*H*." Really, what made AFTER M*A*S*H* the last word in failed sequels?

Well, it premiered with a 51 share and sunk to a 19 by the end of the season. That’s usually a bad sign (although the show was still renewed if you can believe it).

I think the combination of assembling three second-bananas and setting them in the comedy-rich world of a Veteran’s Hospital in 1953 combined for a less-than-stellar show. Even with Larry Gelbart at the helm we couldn’t overcome that obstacle.

Hey, as funny as they are, I’d like to see the BIG BANG THEORY writers try to squeeze laughs out of that leaden premise.

From Abie'sIrishRose:

Back in the day, my family watched Bing Crosby movies (Going My Way, Holiday Inn, etc. etc) The Bishop's Wife, etc. And we looked forward to The Grinch and other animated specials. I know many non Christians go out to movies on Christmas (and have Chinese food). But are there any holiday themed movies you would watch as part of the festive season? I could only think tangentially of "For Your Consideration" which features the making of a movie about Purim. And that's kind of new.

If you’re looking for Jewish-themed Christmas movies I can’t think of many. EIGHT MEN OUT is not about Hanukah. But my favorite holiday movie is A CHRISTMAS STORY.

TBS or TNT or one of those cable networks that begin with a “T” traditionally has a 24 hour marathon of A CHRISTMAS STORY and I watch it (or parts of it) every year.

rickatnite asks:

It seems there's some kind of unwritten law of sitcoms that once the youngest kid of the show's family reaches the age of the oldest kid at the start of the series (give or take a year), it's time to cancel the show...or add another set of twins. Am I imagining this or is it real?

I’ve never heard this. If it’s true, the next family sitcom I create will have a middle-aged dad with a young trophy wife so his children will be six months old and 35.