What with the Roseanne show in the news and all, I was reminded of an especially funny and clever thing they did in the original series.  As I've noted, I didn't watch the show -- I may have seen parts of a few episodes, but that's it.  But when one of the actress, Lecy Goranson, who played the daughter Becky, decided to go to college, they replaced her with Sarah Chalke -- and when Goranson decided to return, they brought her back.  And I wanted to see how they handled that.

It actually was quite funny.  They set it up that it was meal time, and Becky was long-since due home and late.  And when she finally arrived (and Goranson made her re-entrance to the show), the character of Roseanne snapped at her, "Where have you been??!  We've been waiting for you."  And yes, it got a huge laugh from the audience.

But that wasn't the "especially funny and clever thing they did."  That came during the closing credits.  If you never saw it, it's really smart and a total hoot.  The did a parody -- even duplicating the black-and-white -- of the opening credits of the old Patty Duke Show, where Duke played look-alike cousins.  ("They're cousins, identical cousins all the way.  They laugh alike, they walk alike / At times they even talk alike...")  Only here, they wrote news words -- that are pretty funny -- about "Nearly identical Beckys."  There's also a very funny homage near the end that I don't want to give away.  But you have to know the Patty Duke Show to get it.  I don't want to give anything away of what to look for, but I'll explain it at the bottom, after the video.  (Also, since some of the words fly by and are hard to understand, I'll post the lyrics below, as well.)

And indeed, here's the video of that parody.  Also, for those who don't know The Patty Duke Show, the person who made the video edited in first the original opening of that show, so you can see and hear what's being parodied.

Okay, here's what the homage joke is.

I'll skip a few lines, so your eyes don't accidentally drift to it.

Here it is -- at 1:55, you see John Goodman, who played the father on Roseanne, along with another older man.  That is longtime character actor William Schallert -- who played Patty Duke's father on the The Patty Duke Show​!

Interestingly, Schallert himself was involved in a character replacement.  When the actor Ross Martin was playing the sidekick Artemus Gordon on the series The Wild, Wild West, but he sadly passed away.  William Schallert was hired to replace him, albeit with a different character.

And here are the lyrics --

Meet Lecy the one you used to see, from '88 to '93
Then Sarah came and took her place
Because she had a similar face --
Just like on TV.

They're Beckys, nearly identical Beckys all the way
One pair of matching actors but only one part to play

Sarah loved that dopey Mark and wound up in a trailer park
Our Lecy showed some Lecy skills
She wants a house that's not on wheels
What a crazy pair.

They're Beckys, nearly identical Beckys and you'll find
They walk alike, they talk alike,
Abruptly leave the show alike
You could lose your mind
When Beckys ain't two of a kind.

The other day, Sean Hayes was the guest host for Ellen Degeneres on her TV show.  It's a nice monologue, some good jokes, some just okay, but personably done.  But...stick with it.  I shall say no more.

Back in 1990, I read that Roseanne Barr was going to be singing the National Anthem before a San Diego Padres baseball game.  (Forgotten to history:  the producer of her TV show, Tom Werner, was a co-owner of the team.)  Now, I wasn't a fan of her TV series -- I'd hardly ever seen it -- but I was intrigued by this.  And being in Los Angeles, I was able to pick up Padres game on the radio.  The reception was poor, but I could get them, and occasionally would listen, especially when they played the Cubs.  So, I tuned in ahead of time.  And then came the Anthem.  Now, mind you, I couldn't see anything -- I didn't see your spit and crotch-grab until much later.  I only only heard the singing.  And it was ghastly.  Most people know that now, but they're listening after the fact, prepared for what they're about to hear.  Me, had it on live, thought who knows, maybe she'll be okay, after all why else would she be doing this??  It seemed unlikely, but...well, let's give it a listen.  So, knowing nothing what to expect, and getting screeching through the speaker, it was perhaps all the more ghastly.

So, with that, and all her offenses in the years that followed, it didn't come as a shock to me to read her racist tweet.  The only shock was that ABC -- a major corporation, owned by Disney, a Fortune 500 company, actually cancelled a highly-rated TV series because of the latest racist comment made by its star.  And did so within hours, not because of public pressure or a group-organized protest, but because the corporation said that this is "abhorrent, repulsive and inconsistent with our values."

That is huge, by the way.  TV networks do not cancel top-rated shows because the star said something bad.  Actually, TV networks pretty much do not cancel top-rated shows, period.  A TV network would put on a series that was just a giraffe grazing for an hour if they thought it would get good ratings.  They put on Pink Lady, a variety comedy show starring two Japanese singers who literally couldn't speak English,  And Manimal.  And My Mother, the Car.  It takes A LOT for a network to cancel a top-rated series.  (As in...A LOT!!!)  So, any discussion on whether ABC was right to do this has to acknowledge that that is the starting point.

Indeed, there has been a lot of commentary about whether it was the right thing, or a network caving, or the only thing to do, or against her freedom of speech, or all manner of opinions in between.  For me, there's one simple way to describe why it was absolutely proper.  All the other explanations why so -- while spot-on and insightful -- leave open the door for debate and disagreement.  The simple answer doesn't.  And I'll get to that in a moment.

First though, the most insightful comment I heard was from an analyst who said that anyone who was outraged that the Roseanne show was cancelled because such an action was against her freedom of speech had to then explain why they were okay with criticism of NFL athletes kneeling to express their freedom of speech and Trump saying that the players maybe shouldn't have jobs.

For that matter, if someone was upset with Roseanne being fired for expressing her freedom of speech, no matter how virulently racist, then they have no right to have been upset at Michelle Wolf for telling some mean jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

I also heard some excellent analysis from a social and societal perspective about what was so terrible culturally about Roseanne's racist tweet.  And her history of racism and hate, under the umbrella of "they were just jokes."  And so they probably were.  The problem is that they were racist and hate-filled jokes.

And indeed that's the thing about her "apology."  When she wrote, "I should have known better," my first reaction was, yes, she should have.  But the problem is that she's done this so often before that it was clear she doesn't know better. It's who she is.  And "I'm sorry" doesn't change that.  There was nothing said in her "apology" about why she was sorry, and what she planned to do to change what she should have known better.  She absolutely should have known better.  But she never does.  And we have no expectation that she will.

I heard a very good comment about this by a fellow named Chuck Nice (yes, that's his name, and how fitting for this conversation...).  He said that you can apologize for stepping on someone foot, because it was a mistake and you can then get out of the way.  But you can't apologize for being a racist.  That requires repenting.

Somewhat similarly, I heard someone -- I believe Jason Johnson, politics editor of TheRoot.com -- mention that the only thing Roseanne had to do to not get in trouble was not compare a black woman to an ape.  Hardly a high standard to attain, you'd think.  Which made me try to ponder why in the world she'd do such a thing, knowing how much she had at stake for herself -- losing a minimum of $30 million with next season being cancelled, but potentially a couple hundred million dollars depending on how long the series ran and with syndication -- but also knowing what the cast and crew had at stake.  She apparently created difficult working conditions the first time her series was on, but there were no public racist jokes then.  So, why now, why these days?  My guess is that the racism was always there, but one knew you kept it private and didn't spew it in society.  But when you see the president getting away with it, and see president saying that some neo-Nazis were "very fine people," and have the president calling you personally and praising you publicly -- you probably feel entitled.  That you can say whatever you want now, and it's all okay, you can get away with it now.  Alas, for her sake, though happily for ours, we've seen that that isn't true...

(By the way, as a bit of a side note, I must say that I find it bizarre, to the point of amusing how so much of the media coverage yesterday was how Trump would respond to this -- if he did at all.  But my reaction to this curiosity about Trump's reaction, much as I understood the interest, is an odd bewilderment because -- when did we EVER care what in the world the president of the United States thought about a TV show being cancelled???!!)

All of which at last brings me around to the aforementioned, simple explanation why ABC cancelling the Roseanne show was proper and has absolutely nothing to do with "free speech."

Let's be clear:  "free speech" is generally misinterpreted.  The First Amendment is about how the government cannot make a law that abridges your right of speech.  That's it.  Period.  It deals solely and specifically with the government.  Roseanne was not thrown in jail for her words.  She wasn't arrested.  She said her words, she can say them again, she is free to say them all she wants.  She has her freedom of speech.

And that's the point -- one has the Constitutional right to say whatever you want.  One does not have the Constitutional right to have a job.  

Imagine if this wasn't Roseanne and someone who was the star of a popular TV show.  Imagine instead if this was someone who worked at a corporation who went around the office telling a racist joke about black people and apes.  How many think that that person would not have been fired on the spot?  And that it would have been considered the right thing to do?  (And especially if that person who had a history of this, and at the office party had dressed up as Hitler carrying around a toy oven with baked cookies.)

Or imagine if an employee stood out front of their place of business and spent the lunch hour yelling about how terrible the company was and that people should shop at their competitors.  Think that person wouldn't have been fired?  And that "Free speech" and "the First Amendment" wouldn't have save the job?

Those people would have had the right to say what they did.  And they could keep saying it.  But they wouldn't have had the right to have their job.

Roseanne is -- sorry, was -- one of the leading public faces of the ABC television network and its entire schedule.  Having that person be seen as a virulent racist is not a good look for a network.  Or any business.  Every actor on any ABC series who went on a talk show or did an interview would likely be asked about Roseanne's racism and what it was like to be on ABC where that was accepted.  Roseanne had the right to say whatever she wanted.  And she can keep saying it.  But she doesn't have a right to have a TV series.

​And now she doesn't.

I absolutely love Michael Palin.  Love, love, love his work.  Everyhing Python, of course, but also Ripping Yarns, his many travel documentaries (most especially the joyous Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole), and his movies, from A Fish Called Wanda to A Private Function (an odd film, but he's a joy) to Brazil to the recent The Death of Stalin, and folderol in between.  The good news is that he's done so much work that's there still a great deal left to see.

And here's a wonderfully-enjoyable hour-long BBC documentary on the good fellow, A Life on Screen, done just this year.

Back in my dark days of doing movie PR, I was working at Universal Pictures when we released Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.  And one of my assignments was to moderate a Q&A with the Python gang after a screening of that film -- alas, it has ever been a disappointment that he was the one Python who couldn't make it.  (Side note: I was bowled over by how nice his writing partner Terry Jones was.  And surprised by how nice Eric Idle was.)

But I know that Michael Palin would have been even nicer.  I say that because my good friend, the writer-director Rob Hedden made a documentary early in his career about the making of Brazil, and raved about how amazingly nice Palin was.  He's shown me outtakes of the day he went to Palin's home to interview him which has just heartwarming and hilarious.  But then, what's in the movie is aces enough.  Most actors hate doing behind-the-scene interviews during a production, you have to maneuver around their schedules and back them into a corner until they can't back out.  But when Rob and his small crew (which included his wife, Jan) showed up at Palin's home on an off-day (P.S. as much as actors hate doing behind-the-scenes interviews during a production...they ABSOLUTELY HATE doing them on their off-days.  The phrase you hear is -- "No.  It's my OFF-DAY") -- he not only graciously gave them as much time as they needed...but suggested that rather than just a simple sit-down interview, how about if he did a number of sketches as different characters, playing various staff members of Michael Palin protecting him from the film crew.  Oh, and since the filming took a long time, he invited the crew in and made them lunch.

That's why I feel comfortable saying he would have been nicer.

(I wrote about Rob's documentary, What is Brazil? and embedded the 30-minute documentary, which you can see here.  It's one of the best "making of" documentaries I've ever seen.  Yes, he's my friend, but I'm not alone -- it won two awards and even showed at the Smithsonian Institution.  And by the way, when this BBC documentary deals with Palin's appearance in Brazil...they actually use several sequences from Rob's documentary!  If you look in the lower left corner, you can see the credit to What is Brazil? and Rob as director.  But I digress.)

For all the joking they make about his travel documentaries for the BBC, they're absolutely wonderful.  The two I mentioned above are particularly great, but most especially Around the World in 80 Days.  They don't explain what about it makes it so great -- probably because most of the British audience knows -- but it's unique.  It's one of the rare travel documentaries with a plot.  Palin tries to recreate Phileas Fogg's journey in Jules Verne's classic, and so there are deadlines to make connections through the multi-part series, so there's conflict throughout, and it actually builds to an exciting conclusion.  Pole to Pole -- which makes a trip between poles -- does sort of the same thing (trying to make the trip before weather closes travel off), and it's very good, though the first remains the best.

A few notes.  At one point, he refers to getting a letter of praise from "Spike."  That's Spike Milligan, one of the creators of The Goon Show, which Palin earlier references as his comic inspiration.  Also, there are several interview with Connie Booth, who later appeared with Palin in a movie he co-wrote -- but she's also John Cleese's ex-wife, and one of the co-creators and stars (as the maid, 'Polly') of Fawlty Towers.  And finally, at about the 44-minute mark something goes bizarre with the sound for about three minutes.  The picture continues, but it's like we get the opening three minutes of sound instead.  But then it reverts to normal at around 47-minutes.  I have no idea what happened, but clearly that isn't the way it went out over the BBC.

All that said, here's the BBC documentary

Over the weekend, I was scrolling through the channels when I came across a guide listing for the McCloud series with Dennis Weaver than ran in the 1970s.  It had an interesting guest-cast -- Lee J. Cobb, Bradford Dillman and Jaclyn Smith in her pre-Charlie's Angels days.  (This particular episode was 1973.  That series didn't go on the air until three years later.)  So, I checked some of it out, jumping back and forth between shows.

At one point, they did something unexpected.  It was a montage sequence where McCloud and the girl (played by Smith) begin to romance one another.  Now, usually when a TV series does that, there's a lush music score played over but this had a full, original song.  That's common for movies, but rare for TV -- most especially in 1973.  Indeed, it's probably one of the first "music videos."  And the thing is, the song was quite nice.  It's very sweet and more of the era, but good enough that, when checking the song out, it turns out a popular singer of the time, Matt Munro, actually recorded a version of the song and released it.

I was able to track down the TV sequence.  For those who don't know the McCloud ​series, the title of the song comes from one of the character's catch-phrases, "There ya go."

Bonus Note: at the 1:02 mark, you'll see a guy in a suit sitting around, seemingly keeping an eye on the couple.  The actor is Eddie Egan.  The name might be familiar to you. There's a reason for that.  For those of you who have seen The French Connection, this is the real Eddie Egan who Gene Hackman's character is based on.  (After leaving the police force, he took a flier on acting, and made a number of appearances.)

Back in September, 2016, I raved here about a new show on NBC called The Good Place.  I didn't expect it to last, since it was so wildly clever and unique.  But it did catch on, and has made it through two limited-episode seasons, 

Last year, they had a huge and hilarious twist.  And to deal with it they did an episode in which the world had to be "rebooted" countless times, somewhat like Groundhog Day, but on steroids.  The world of the show had to be different each time, and that meant (now famously) they needed different names for the restaurants there, all of which were food puns.  It turned out that all the puns -- which were all a hoot -- came from the writer of that episode, Megan Amram.  Like "The Pesto's Yet to Come," "Lasanga Come Out Tomorrow," "Cake Canaveral," "Beignet and the Jets" and MUCH more.  The series' creator Michael Schur talked about that in an interview --

"I actually think, no joke, her brain is like the computer in Lost where if you didn’t enter the code and press enter every like 100 minutes or whatever else, the world would end. That’s Megan’s brain with puns. If Megan doesn’t make a pun every 37 minutes, her brain will overheat and her head will explode and she’ll die. That’s the only possible explanation for how many puns Megan makes out loud and on Twitter every day."

But it was more bizarre than just that.  Because it wasn't that she came up with the 20-30 food puns needed for all the restaurants in the episode.  Oh, no, that would have been much too easy.  Especially if your brain is like the computer in Lost with puns.  Schur explained what happened --

"This is not an exaggeration: Megan, in that section of the script, included a giant paragraph full of puns for different kind of names of different kinds of ethnic restaurants. I think it went on for six or seven pages. It just went on and on and on. Partially she was doing it to lean into her stereotype as a person who loves puns. But also, it was just straight-up impressive."

​As proof, here's a mere partial list that Megan Amram posted on her Twitter feed.  I can't help but mention two at the very top, "Penne for Your Thoughts" and "Pasta Expiration Date".  This is a bizarre and incredibly clever writer, folks.  I mean, who comes up with "We Ciabatta Zoo"??  And this is just the freaking abbreviated list!!!! --

All of which is just a very long lead-in to a six-episode webseries that the inveterate Chris Dunn told me about.  It's titled, An Emmy for Megan, that Megan Amram wrote, directed and stars in.  The point behind it is that Ms. Amram learned that there is an Emmy Award presented for Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy and Drama Series -- and she wants to win one.  And the rules to qualify are really easy -- basically there have to be six episodes, and it has to be submitted by April 27.  And so, we have six, short episodes of An Emmy for Megan -- in which she shamelessly does everything possible that she can to win over Emmy voters.

It's short, about 28 minutes in all, very low budget (though well-done), with some Emmy winners and recognizable actors (including a couple from The Good Place) along for the ride.

To get you started, here's the first episode, that largely sets up the whole thing.

And if you're interested in watching the remaining five episodes, about another whopping 22 minutes, you can catch them all here, at An Emmy for Megan.

On this week's edition of 3rd & Fairfax, the podcast of the Writers ​Guild of America, the guest is writer and showrunner Jason Katims, who talks about his career as showrunner for such series as Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, Roswell and About a Boy, among others, as well as his new show, Rise, ​which he developed.

There was something odd about watching the live production of Jesus Christ Superstar on NBC last night.  It fits under the "Oh, my, how times have changed" heading.  When the original concept album by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber was released in 1970 and then had its Broadway production in 1973, the material was considered profoundly controversial and met with protests by religious groups.  And not just religious groups -- the BBC banned the album for being "sacrilegious."  But now, 45 years later, there it is, given a national platform to help celebrate Easter.  And with a black man as Jesus.  For a bit of perspective, it was only less than two years ago when Megyn Kelly on "Fox News" felt compelled to tell all the kiddies watching not to worry because Santa Claus was actually white.

(What's interesting too, for all the religious fervor that seemingly attached itself to the production -- both in the network promotion and the live-audience reaction -- is a comment that Andrew Lloyd Webber made on the NBC special to promote the show a few days before.  He was talking about how when they wrote the work, Tim Rice worked very hard to make sure his words didn't favor one side or the other, in making clear that their point-of-view was not that Jesus was the Son of God or just a man.)

Speaking of that audience, I thought it was very smart of NBC to have a theater audience there, which helped lend a sense of enthusiasm and vitality to a live undertaking, given it more the aura of a rock concert.  I also thought that, for all its positives, it was also the biggest drawback of the show, with maniacal cheering and screaming throughout, often for no apparent reason, other than people seemed to feel it was a point where they should scream in joy -- though why finishing singing a verse and turning to walk three feet away to continue singing was something that should register a scream I haven't quite figured out.  It was 20% religious frenzy, 30% rock heaven, and the remainder an obligation to react because they got in free and probably thought they were supposed to.  I thought it reached its bizarre peak when John Legend as Jesus was convicted and carried off overhead by the guards with his arms outstretched...and the audience began roaring and applauding.  All I could think was, "Wait, you're cheering that Jesus Christ is about to get crucified???"

I also thought it was completely disingenuous for NBC to promote this as "Jesus Christ Superstar in Concert."  In no way, shape or form was this a "concert production."  This was a fully-staged, fully-choreographed musical.  The staging was no different at all from Hamilton -- if you haven't seen it, that show takes place on a single set, with tables and chairs occasionally brought in to change the setting.  Exactly the same as was done here.  Exactly.  The only difference is that the band was on stage last night -- but that's no different from how they did it in Jersey Boys.  Or the recent Steve Martin musical, Bright Star.  Or as far back as The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  Or many other musicals.  A "concert version" is generally considered one where the chorus sits in chairs on stage, and often the main cast does, as well, out front.  And they all may have a book with the score, which they hold in plain sight throughout.  Then, when it's their turn to perform, they stand up and sing.  This last night was a staged musical.  Period.  Maybe it was a little more bare bones than a show with lots of scene changes and props, but it's a musical, regardless.  (Or a "rock opera," as it's long-called itself.)  And no, this is not a big deal at all, and it's no aspersion on the production.  Just a matter of marketing.

As for the production, I thought they did quite a nice job.  I'm not a big fan of the show -- I've never seen it staged, only heard the original album quite a few times (and seen various videos).  And I generally enjoy it.  Not everything, I think a lot of the lyrics are simplistic, too spot-on direct, and a bit cloying at times.  (It's important to remember that, rather than being written by two learned biblical scholars and accomplished men of the theater, Rice and Lloyd Webber were both in their early 20s, writing their first, full-fledged show).  I'm also not a big fan of "sung-through" shows in general, with a few exceptions, and find this score in particular is a bit surface, without the depth of dramatic interaction that dialogue can bring.  But overall they tell the story in an entertaining way, that's often effective, done from an interesting perspective, and there are quite a few very good songs.

And by and large, I thought the performance were pretty good.  I'd have liked to have seen a touch more edge in a few places, but that's just personal choice.  My only real quibble was with Sara Bareiles -- not that she wasn't good, in fact she did a very nice job.  However I thought she was miscast.  She was so sweet, so beatific that you could have mistakenly thought the character was the Virgin Mary, not Mary Magdalene.  Bareilles just happens to have a warm personality about her that exudes through whatever she does, and I think the character requires at least some sort of edge, which allows us to see the conflict of Jesus with a prostitute, and Mary's growth.  On the other end, although he just had one song, I thought Alice Cooper did a terrific job as King Herod.  Often that number is performed as a comic piece, by an almost fey king.  But you certainly weren't going to get that from Alice Cooper, and his performance was solidly grounded and menacing.

​So, overall well-done, good staging and an effective piece for live television, even if more slight than is my personal preference.  If only they could have told the audience during commercial breaks to take a Valium.

Following up in a way on the video I posted the other day from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which had references to The West Wing, I received the following from Shelly Goldstein.  It was all the more pointed since the Lady Shellington and I used to have a fine tradition where we'd call one another after episodes of The West Wing and analyze the bejeepers out of it.

So, it was fun to see most of the cast reunited for this, though if you're going to reunite the cast of The West Wing -- or any show for that matter -- it would be nice if you actually showed them all together (which you would think would be the point) for more than about three seconds.

That said, nice too is the appearance at the end of the video by Jason Kander, the nephew of my longtime Camp Nebagamon friend, John.  (Who, in turn. is the nephew of the other "John," better known for writing the musicals Cabaret and Chicago.)
​