Happy 80th Birthday, Carol Burnett

This spring, I had the immense honor of getting to interview Carol Burnett about her new book Carrie and Me:  A Mother Daughter Love Story (released April 9 by Simon & Schuster), about the box set of The Carol Burnett Show released last fall by Time Inc., about her life and career, and about her love for her daughter Carrie Hamilton, a talent in her own right who passed away far too young at age 38.

This weekend, as the TV legend and comedy icon celebrates her 80th birthday, let's all look back at the times we had together.

A Legend’s Love Story

In a New Memoir, Carol Burnett Pays Tribute to a Talented Daughter

Carol Burnett and daughter Carrie Hamilton

For eleven seasons, Carol Burnett brought the audience for her eponymous variety show some of television’s biggest, longest laughs.  Now, via both her latest autobiographical volume and a deluxe Carol Burnett Show DVD box set, the beloved comedienne is bringing us back to her show’s 1970s heyday, to relive her on-screen highs as well as to reveal her poignant struggles behind-the-scenes.

The Carol Burnett Show debuted in 1967, the almost accidental result of a little-noticed clause in Burnett’s contract for The Garry Moore Show wherein CBS promised the musical comedy actress her own program.  From such inauspicious beginnings, Burnett and her talented ensemble cast of Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner soon became a hit, averaging 30 million viewers per week and ultimately winning 25 Emmy Awards.

Now, even though The Carol Burnett Show has been off the air for more than a generation, as Burnett explains, she still gets mail “from teenagers – even 11-year-olds – who write me because they’ve seen individual sketches on YouTube.  They’re the sweetest letters, saying ‘We heard about this show from our parents’ or ‘our grandparents.  We wish we could have been there at the beginning.’”

The Best of The Carol Burnett Show

That’s why, adds this recipient of twelve People’s Choice awards, eight Golden Globes, six Emmys, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Kennedy Center honors, she’s so happy about her latest prize:  last fall’s release of a Carol Burnett Show DVD box set, titled “Carol’s Favorites” (16-episode set $59.95 or 25-episode set $99.95 in stores; 50-episode deluxe edition, including showcase collector’s box and exclusive memory book $199.95, only at timelife.com).  Now, Burnett explains, fans old and new can experience the show’s laughs in context, within episodes hand-selected by the star and presented in their entirety for the first time since their original broadcast. 

Both box sets sport bonus features, such as a reunion roundtable of the show’s old gang where, Burnett explains, “we all ended up telling stories that even the others had never heard before.”  That’s an achievement, because as the 80-year-old actress notes, “I have a good memory for the show.”  Burnett remembers well the sketches and musical numbers that had America cracking up at home – and, famously, had some of the show’s cast members cracking up on screen.  And so, picking the episodes for DVD from among eleven seasons was easy, she adds.  “But I want you to know, I don’t sit around like Norma Desmond.”

Maybe not, but Burnett did famously portray “Nora” Desmond, a similarly faded and self-obsessed silent-screen star in one of the show’s popular movie parodies.  Then there was Mrs. Wiggins, the blonde bimbo secretary obliviously chomping her gum.  And who could forget Eunice – she’s so starved for attention, she’d never let you get away with it – in the frequently recurring series of “Family” sketches that ultimately was spun off into its own series (although sans Burnett), Mama’s Family.

But it was in the actress’s spoof of another iconic big-screen heroine, this time called “Starlet” O’Hara, where The Carol Burnett Show hit its brilliant peak, and made television history.  As Burnett descended down a grand, Tara-esque staircase, in a gown the show’s costume designer Bob Mackie deliberately made to look clumsily thrown together from fringed velvet curtains, complete with curtain rod across the shoulders, “the audience saw the dress for the first time, and they were screaming,” the actress remembers.   The resulting bout of laughter, reportedly ten-minutes long, is one of the longest ever recorded on television, and the dress that incited it resides in the Smithsonian.  Even Burnett herself nearly broke down.  “To keep from laughing myself, I had to walk down the stairs while biting the inside of my cheek,” she remembers.

Breaking Up Is Hard Not To Do

Carol may have kept it together in “Went With the Wind,” but her entire ensemble was already infamous for not being able to keep a straight face; in one famous sketch, poor Korman was unable to stop shaking with laughter as Conway, as a dentist, improv’d a hilarious slapstick routine with a novocaine needle.  “We never did it on purpose,” Burnett insists about “breaking” on screen.  Instead, trained in live television on shows like Garry Moore and earlier, The Paul Winchell Show, Burnett wanted to preserve a spontaneous feel.  “I wanted people to see that we’re in the sandbox and we’re having fun.  We’re playing,” she explains.  “I didn’t want to stop and re-do the scenes, so I said just let it go.  Let the audience know this is happening, and it’s truthful.  And the audience appreciated that.”

In another throwback to her days working with Moore, who performed a stand-up routine to warm up his own live audience, Burnett also reluctantly committed to interacting with the crowd – but this time, on camera.  “My executive producer, Bob Banner, also produced Garry’s show.  He pointed out, ‘Carol, you’re going to be in funny outfits, with your teeth blacked out, fat suits, and wigs.  I think it’s important for the audience to get to know you first,’” Burnett remembers.  “And after the first two or three shows, the audience came prepared with some really wonderful questions, so I started to enjoy it.”

Burnett would ultimately pepper many personal touches into these interactive “Let’s Bump Up the Lights” segments throughout the eleven years.  She would perform her trademark Tarzan yell – which she’d developed as a kid, forced to portray Tarzan opposite a beautiful cousin who insisted on being Jane -- on command.  She continued to tug her ear – a on-air gesture she’d originally used in her Garry Moore days to signal the OK to her grandmother at home – and close with her signature song, “I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together,” written by her then-husband, and the show’s executive producer, Joe Hamilton.

A Mother-Daughter Love Story

But as Burnett writes in her new book, Carrie and Me:  A Mother-Daughter Love Story, ($24, in stores April 9), even with this outlet for such personal expression, she decided in 1978 to end her series, in part to spend more time at home with Hamilton and their three young daughters.  The book, Burnett’s third, portrays the actress’ relationship with her eldest, Carrie Hamilton, who in her early teens developed an addiction to drugs.

Carrie’s illness and setbacks on the road to recovery preoccupied Burnett during her early post-variety show career, on the sets of such films as The Four Seasons and the 1982 big-screen Annie.  As Burnett writes, it took a while to accept a tough lesson about forcing your child to deal with her addiction:  “You have to love them enough to let them hate you.”  But by 18, Carrie had successfully completed rehab, and began a career in which it was clear she had inherited many of her mother’s talents.

“When she was 25, Carrie made a movie in Japan, Tokyo Pop, that has become a cult film.  She got sensational reviews – but then she wanted to do other things,” Burnett explains.  Eventually moving to Colorado, Carrie pursued a multi-faceted career as a singer, composer and writer, and began work on a screenplay called “Sunrise in Memphis,” meant to be the story of a bohemian girl’s journey to Graceland.

As Burnett chronicles in Carrie and Me, her daughter took the Graceland trip as research, crossing through Burnett’s own birthplace of San Antonio, Texas, and digging further back into the family’s roots in the town of Belleville, Arkansas.  But unfortunately, Carrie never got to finish that screenplay; she was soon diagnosed with cancer, which would ultimately take her life at just age 38.

The mother and daughter team had first collaborated on the play Hollywood Arms, based on Burnett’s book One More Time; the play ultimately opened in April of 2002, just months after Carrie’s death.  Then, during her last days in the hospital, Carrie asked her mother to fill in the missing middle portion of “Sunrise in Memphis,” but “not having taken that journey myself, I didn’t know where she wanted the characters to go.  They were hers to write,” Burnett explains.

But now, with Carrie and Me, Burnett is fulfilling her promise, finally bringing her daughter’s screenplay to life by publishing it just as it is.  “I felt Carrie on my shoulder the whole time I was writing the book,” Burnett explains.  “I loved doing it because it brought her back to me.”

“The thing about Carrie was, she never met a stranger,” Burnett explains.  “She loved people, and was a great listener.  And where I’m a very conservative dresser, she had hair that was never the same color from week to week, and a collection of boas she’d wear.  She was quite the character, and I hope readers will get the essence of just what a special person she was.”

Flaming Screens Meets GI Joe

Here, a la his old "Out at the Movies" reviews on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, is Frank DeCaro's latest "Flaming Screens" take on the latest potential blockbuster, GI Joe: Retaliation.

Hey, fans of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart!  Believe it or not, it's been 10 years since Frank DeCaro was last "Out at the Movies," reviewing the weekend's hottest films.  Now, Frank is back at the multiplex with his own new web series, "Flaming Screens."

Here is Frank's first foray, his review of this weekend's big box office hit, Oz the Great and Powerful:

For Carrie Bradshaw, Success Is in the Bag

Paint splatters may have been tacky on your friends’ prom tuxedos, but on teenager Carrie Bradshaw’s black leather bag, the effect is totally rad.

To salvage the memento of her late mother after it is accidentally ruined by her bratty little sis, Carrie breaks out the nail polish, and voila:  it’s Jackson Pollock meets Stephen Sprouse.  The effect is so striking that, in the series’ premiere episode tonight (at 8PM Eastern), the bag soon attracts the interest of an editor at Interview, and catapults Connecticut Carrie into her iconic Manhattan milieu.

"I had been thinking about interesting ways to develop Carrie’s character and the loss of her mother," explains The Carrie Diaries' creator Amy B. Harris.  "I started thinking, what would her mother have left her that would have been meaningful to her?  I started thinking a purse would be great -- but what if it were to get ruined?"

Harris says her show partnered with the leather goods company Mark Cross, whose purses provided the perfect classic backdrop for Carrie’s avant garde artwork.  "We went to them and asked, 'Would you ever consider giving us two purses we could splatter with paint?'  They just relaunched in the last couple of years, and they were the bags that Grace Kelly used.  So we really felt it was a completely appropriate match of brand and story."

"We asked them to build leather copies of the bag on cardboard, and we created about 50 versions, to make sure we got it perfect,” Harris remembers.  “We ended up putting so much energy and emphasis on it, the purse felt like the last character in the show.”

More "Lies" to Come

As PR executive Marty Kaan on Showtime’s House of Lies, which returns tonight at 10 PM for its second season, Don Cheadle is a sublime slime. (Make that an Emmy-nominated sublime slime!)

But in the current Iron Man film series, Cheadle’s James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes uses the powers from his War Machine suit only for good.  And the versatile actor was nominated for an Oscar for his 2004 role as Paul Rusesabagina, a noble African innkeeper rescuing Tutsi refugees from genocide in Hotel Rwanda.

In the fall of ‘92, the now 48-year-old Kansas City native had checked guests into a much cheerier establishment in Miami, making his series regular debut as put-upon desk clerk Roland Wilson on CBS’ Golden Girls much maligned sequel sitcom, Golden Palace.  Today, Palace producer Tony Thomas looks back on the casting which helped launch the lauded actor's career.  “Don Cheadle is a brilliant actor whom I’ve often seen since, and said, ‘I’m so sorry we gave you that material.’”

At the time, Thomas worried he might have ruined Cheadle’s career.

Hardly.

Kathy Griffin Talks About Cher Turning Back Time

Kathy Griffin at
NBC Universal's
TCA cocktail party
in Pasadena, CA
January 6, 2013

Over the weekend at the Television Critics Association (TCA) convention in Pasadena, Logo made a big announcement.  You remember Logo -- the once specifically gay network no one watched, that then took a step back into the closet to become that network that everyone knows is gay yet won't just come out and say it?  Logo, you're fooling no one -- especially when your admittedly very exciting big announcement is that you're working with the most fabulous of gay icons in existence, Cher.

The network's development exec Brent Zacky announced a new series to be produced by Cher and her onetime boyfriend, writer Ron Zimmerman, set in '60s Hollywood.  That's right, Cher is indeed Turning Back Time, to the era when "I've Got You, Babe" topped the charts -- and I can't wait to see the result.

Another gay icon with high hopes for Cher's project is her gal pal Kathy Griffin, who showed up at last night's NBC Universal TCA party to promote the January 10 return of her talk show Kathy on Bravo (you know, the even more gay network.)  Kathy's the one who alerted the world to a true problem:  celebrities like her and Cher do not know how to order their own pizza.

I asked Kathy if she thought Cher might fare better at the computer keyboard.  "First of all, can you imagine, -- Cher, being on Logo?  What a shock!" Kathy joked.  But seriously, she noted, Cher lived through those '60s days, and will definitely have interesting things to say about them.

"That's the great thing about Cher.  She really owns who she is, and she speaks freely about her life, and we love her candor," Kathy added.  "You can ask her questions about her life, and I think the first time I hung out with her, she was talking to me about Sonny and Bob Mackie.  I like people like that.  She's very genuine, and that's why we love her."

Have Yourself Another Very Brady Christmas

On this date in 1988, TV's original Brady Bunch reunited for what would turn out to be one of their highest-rated endeavors, and certainly, after the original series (1969-74) one of their most beloved.

Sure, there had been the campy variety show The Brady Bunch Hour in 1976, and the short-lived sequel series which launched with the double wedding of Marcia and Jan, The Brady Brides, in 1981.  But it was A Very Brady Christmas that delivered huge ratings (inspiring CBS to bring back the bunch one more time in 1990, for a woefully conceived hourlong drama, The Bradys.)  I remember gathering around the TV with my college hallmates for Christmas, all of us eager to see the Bradys step so far into the '80s.

Some Very Worried Bradys

Recently, I interviewed some of the Bradys for a retrospective story, below, and had fun dissecting why their Christmas ended up being so popular.  Christopher Knight, who played middle brother Peter and from 2005-08 parlayed that fame on his own reality show My Fair Brady, had a hilarious perspective on the telefilm.  You may remember A Very Brady Christmas' hilariously cheesy ending, where a building collapses on paterfamilias Mike (Robert Reed), and yet he somehow survives thanks to his wife Carol's (Florence Henderson) miraculous singing.  "Bob Reed is resurrected in it, if you think about it.  There's even the removal of the rock!  It's a Christmas movie that ends at Easter, with a resurrection."

The Bradys are no stranger to resurrection, and who knows when will be the next time we see them all come together -- after all, apart from Reed, who died in 1992 at just age 59, the other eight original cast members, including Ann B. Davis as Alice, are still around and popping up in fun places.  (Did you catch Henderson's hilarious cameo on 30 Rock a few weeks back?  Priceless!)  Here's what Knight, Henderson, Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Susan Olsen (Cindy) and even Geri Reischl ("Fake Jan" from the variety Hour) had to say about their groovy years growing up Brady.

Marcia Marcia Marcia!

The Brady Bunch Has Captivated Generation After Generation

It was the story, as The Brady Bunch’s theme song famously explained, of a lovely lady, a man named Brady, and the six kids who came together to form a blended family in groovy 1970s California.  And it’s also the story of how, even though the original Brady Bunch was cancelled in 1974 after only five seasons, the show continued to spawn spinoffs, merchandise, and movie and stage adaptations for decades.  And that’s how they all became a true pop culture phenomenon.

Created by Gilligan’s Island impresario Sherwood Schwartz, The Brady Bunch was one of the first shows to depict a blended family.  In the sitcom’s pilot, divorcee Carol, along with her three daughters, moves in with her new husband, the former widower Mike Brady, and his three boys.  Schwartz seriously considered some famous names for these leads, including Gene Hackman and The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s Joyce Bulifant.  And for the ninth member of the Brady family, matronly housekeeper Alice, Schwartz initially favored actress Kathleen Freeman.

In casting the Brady kids, producers narrowed their choices to 3 blonde girls and 3 brunet boys -- and then vice versa, so that each set of kids would share the same coloring as their TV parents yet to be cast. In the end, it was brunet Robert Reed, formerly of the landmark early '60s legal series The Defenders, and blonde singer/actress Florence Henderson who landed spots in the Bradys' famous opening credits grid. In the center was Ann B Davis -- already a tv icon for her role as the man-hungry Schultzie on ‘50s sitcom Love that Bob -- as ever-faithful Alice.

“I was a huge fan of Robert Reed’s from The Defenders, and oh my gosh, he’s now my father!” recalls Maureen McCormick, aka eldest Brady daughter Marcia.  Susan Olsen, who played the famously curly-haired young Cindy, adds, “And I was so thrilled that I was going to be working with Schultzie.”

Henderson, too, credits the Bradys’ casting.  “There was a chemistry we all had.  We all felt very close to each other – and we still do.  That was a big part of the show’s success.” 

Groovy and Squeaky Clean

Premiering in September of 1969, The Brady Bunch spanned from the Summer of Love through Watergate and Vietnam, and yet its characters remained unabashedly square.  The worst thing a Brady kid ever kid was get caught with a pack of cigarettes in his varsity jacket; and even then, it turned out they truly did belong to Greg’s friend.  The show’s storylines revolved around sanitized preteen traumas like first dates, invitations to school dances, and general acts of sibling rivalry.  In its later seasons, to promote the cast’s own Partridge Family-like touring musical act, the Bradys even competed in wholesome local talent competitions.

“The show was a throwback,” remembers Christopher Knight, who played middle Brady boy Peter.  “We were right in the middle of the disaster of Vietnam, and the country was coming apart.  In three years, I was going to get drafted.  And in the middle of all this tumult, we were doing The Brady Bunch.”

But as Henderson recalls, in its troubled times, the show’s gentle nature was a big key to its appeal.  “I always felt that The Brady Bunch was like a wonderful children’s story, that you could read over and over, because it was so loving.”

A Little Variety

In 1974, after five seasons, ABC called it quits on the original Bunch – and some teenage members of its cast, wary of going through more puberty on camera, were secretly relieved.  But two years later, NBC reunited the family with a special, then a series, called The Brady Bunch Hour.  This trippy sequel of sorts – in which patriarch Mike Brady has ditched his architecture practice and moved his clan to the beach, to put on feathers-and-sequins variety numbers around a pool stocked with synchronized dancers – capitalized on the Brady kids’ earlier musical popularity, and Henderson’s rich career on TV variety shows and on Broadway.

But for the first of what would be several times in later revivals, a Brady opted out.  Producers searched worldwide, auditioning over 3,000 girls – including Paris Hilton’s mother Kathy Richards – to replace Eve Plumb as Jan.  They chose the appropriately teenage blonde singer and actress Geri Reischl -- who to this day is lovingly referred to by Brady-ologists as “Fake Jan.”

“I loved doing the disco numbers,” Reischl remembers, “and working with the famous Brady family was like going to Disneyland every day.  I never saw it as going to work.”  Even someone more jaded about the short-lived variety Hour, like the admittedly disco-hating Olsen, had to admit it was enjoyable – to perform.  “I was begging my friends at school not to watch it,” Olsen admits. “Because the outcome was embarrassing,.  But actually making the show was loads of fun.”

Forever Brady

The Hour lasted only a dozen or so weeks, as did NBC’s 1981 The Brady Brides, which saw Marcia and middle sibling Jan both marry, with the couples now cohabitating.  In 1988, the Bradys reunited for a Christmas TV movie (this time, sans Olsen), the ratings success of which inspired the development of The Bradys, a 1990 hour-long dramatic reincarnation, this time on CBS.  This time, for drama’s sake, the Bradys had uncharacteristic problems.  Bobby was in a wheelchair.  Marcia drank – although as Olsen jokingly points out, “of course that was solved in an hour.”  Only Paramount Studios’ two 1990s big-screen Brady adaptations, albeit with a new cast, proved to be a hit with Brady-craving fans.

Such fans still come up today, Knight says, and hope he’ll utter Peter’s inadvertent catchphrase, “Pork chops and applesauce.”  McCormick, too, is often reminded of Marcia’s lines “Oh, my nose!” and “Something suddenly came up.”

The messages fans relay to her, McCormick says, "have always been so good and so positive.”  And Olsen has a theory as to why new generations of fans continue to approach.  “The Brady Bunch is something you could grow up with.  A girl could start out identifying with Cindy, and end up identifying with Carol.”

Fans, Henderson says, like the show because “it was so honest and so sincere.  We really believed in it, and worked so hard.”  She continues to receive fan letters from as far away as Russia, India and China, and says the most common request she gets in person is simple:  just a hug.  “It’s wonderful to have been a part of something that people love,” she enthuses.  “And so I have hugged people around the world, and it’s a lovely feeling.”

TV's Top 10 Snowbound Moments

Stuck at home during these wintry months, it’s easy to come down with a case of cabin fever.  But when the weather outside is frightful, at least we have our televisions’ glow to keep us warm.  And when the snow starts falling on the screen as well, those are the situations which often precipitate TV’s biggest laughs.  Below, my Top Ten episodes where chilly situations have made for some warm memories.

1.  I Love Lucy, "Lucy in the Swiss Alps," aired March 26, 1956

Snowy setting:  Swiss chalet

The Wintry Scene:  After a mountaintop picnic in snow-laden Lucerne, TV’s favorite foursome takes shelter in a cabin whose door is soon blocked by a drift.

Cracking Up:  When Lucy tries to sneak a snack of a sandwich left over from lunch, her three hungry cabin-mates pounce, expecting their fair quarter-shares.

Breaking the Ice:  After a round of true confessions – Fred has been overcharging the Ricardos $10 a month in rent; Ethel has been secretly returning it – Lucy and friends are rescued by a local oom-pah-pah band, which Ricky then books on his show to play the world’s unlikeliest rumba.

2.  The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "The Snow Must Go On," aired November 7, 1970

Snowy Setting:  Minneapolis newsroom

The Wintry Scene:  Mary is already nervous that Mr. Grant has put her in charge of the station’s live election night newscast.  And that’s before a blizzard knocks out the station’s phones and teletype.

Cracking Up:  Lacking election results and forced to ad-lib for hours, anchorman Ted Baxter resorts to his Jimmy Cagney impression and reading the numbers on his driver’s license. 

Breaking the Ice:  Mary discovers inner strength as a boss when an overtired Ted responds to her threat of termination and agrees not to deliver unsubstantiated returns announcing Minneapolis’ new mayor.

3.  The Bob Newhart Show, "I'm Dreaming of a Slight Christmas," aired December 22, 1973

Snowy Setting:  Chicago medical office

The Wintry Scene:  When his longtime patient Mr. Peterson is too scared to go home on Christmas Eve, psychiatrist Bob returns to the office just in time for a blackout during Chicago’s worst-ever storm.

Cracking Up:  Eager to return to wife Emily, Bob is dismayed to find that the building’s elevators have shut down – and even more forlorn about remaining at his office’s party late enough to witness a performance by dentist Jerry’s drunken barbershop trio. 

Breaking the Ice:  After abandoning his car in a snowbank, Bob trudges four miles in the cold to make it home to celebrate.  Too bad he didn’t think to load up first on the warming Irish coffee his secretary Carol was serving at the party -- where she’d also spiked the water cooler. 

4.  Laverne & Shirley, "Ski Show," aired February 23, 1982

Snowy Setting:  California ski lift

The Wintry Scene:  The relocated Milwaukee bottlecappers take to the slopes in order to meet men.  But when their chairlift gets stuck in midair, all they may end up with is frostbite.

Cracking Up:   Panicking, Laverne tricks Shirley into surrendering the peanuts she’s kept for her afternoon snack.  Then, trying to cheer themselves up, the two sing “Let It Snow” – and unfortunately it does.

Breaking the Ice:  The gals think they’ve “died and gone to Sweden” when two hunky blond mountain rescuers work to warm their frozen bodies and – thanks to quick thinking by Laverne – their lips.

5.   Taxi, "Scenskees from a Marriage," aired October 21, 1982

Snowy Setting:  New York City cab

The Wintry Scene:  Selfless cabbie Latka himself gets stuck when he’s sent to save a female coworker from a snowdrift.   Stranded and shivering, cabbie Cindy comes up with a convenient idea:  to avoid freezing, she and her married rescuer must make love.

Cracking Up:  Following the advice of their priest, Reverend Gorky, Simka vows to make similar “nik nik” with one of Latka’s male coworkers.

Breaking the Ice:  Unable to agree who should be Simka’s conquest, the couple decides to choose the way their indeterminate Eastern European home country selects its president:  by throwing a dinner party, with the last man through the door the winner.  But Alex refuses to do the deed, forcing Latka and Simka to divorce – and then immediately remarry.

6.  Newhart, "No Room at the Inn," aired December 20, 1982

Snowy Setting:  Vermont bed-and-breakfast

The Wintry Scene:  Former New Yorkers Dick and Joanna are excited to spend their first Christmas in New England, and even more thrilled that their inn will be packed with customers from the Silverbird Ski Club.  But soon the Silverbirds, and all flights in and out of Stratford, are grounded.

Cracking Up:   The cooped-up Silverbirds squawk about a ruined vacation, and heiress housekeeper Leslie pines for the family she can’t celebrate with.  But things get really dire when a prophetically named traveler named Joseph enters with his pregnant wife, who proceeds to go into premature labor.

Breaking the Ice:  Providing excitement at last for the 24 Silverbirds – all of whom turn out to be physicians -- Joseph and his wife welcome their Christmas Eve delivery.  As Dick notes, Christmases don’t get much more authentic than this – particularly when more stranded motorists show up seeing shelter:  Alan Wiseman and his two brothers.

7.  Family Ties, "Birth of a Keaton," aired January 31, 1985

Snowy Setting:  Columbus, OH public television station

The Wintry Scene:  The Keatons have airtime to fill during the annual on-air pledge drive at Steven’s workplace WKS – without Steven, who is trapped at home in the snow.

Cracking Up:  That’s not a high note that pregnant Elyse hits while singing an otherwise mellow Irish folk tune – it’s a labor pain.

Breaking the Ice:  With the roads impassable, Elyse faces the prospect of giving birth right there at the station.  But her doctor arrives just in time, and the Keatons welcome  baby Andy.  And the bonus:  with all the on-air drama at WKS, $70 grand in pledges has come rolling in.

8.  Designing Women, "Stranded," aired December 7, 1987

Snowy Setting:  Tennessee motel room

The Wintry Scene:  When their co-workers get the flu on a business trip to St. Louis, it’s up to Atlantans Anthony and Suzanne to drive in and save the day.  But in an ever-worsening blizzard, they’re forced to spend the night together in a motel’s sole available room.

Cracking Up:  After initially spending hours in the Sugarbaker delivery van, shivering despite wearing extra layers of Suzanne’s pink marabou robe and pantyhose, emasculated Anthony barges in and begs the designing diva for a share of the bed.

Breaking the Ice:  In their cozy refuge, the unlikely duo becomes fast friends, their sudden mutual interest in Suzanne’s wigs and manicure making the rest of the gang  realize later that something strange indeed has happened amid the snow.

9.  The Nanny, "Schlepped Away," aired March 9, 1994

Snowy Setting:  Queens, NY apartment

The Wintry Scene:   The Nanny named Fran succeeds in convincing Mr.  Sheffield to take the entire clan on a Caribbean holiday.  But, after getting lost in the white stuff en route to the airport, they’re soon marooned at her parents’ much less exotic abode.

Cracking Up:  The adults in the group jump at the chance for some wine – but then learn to their chagrin that the Jewish Fine household has only super-sweet wines flavored “red” or “purple.”

Breaking the Ice:  Ultimately won over by the Fines’ warm ethnic ways, the whole Sheffield mespuchah engages in a time-honored tradition, noshing on tongue and stuffed derma in front of Wheel of Fortune, before departing for the tropics.

10.  Everybody Loves Raymond, "Snow Day," aired January 14, 2002

Snowy Setting:  Long Island, NY house

The Wintry Scene:  Ray and Debra’s golf getaway is scuttled by snow.  But even worse, a power outage forces them to gather around the hearth with Ray’s meddling parents, brooding brother Robert, and their intended airport ride, Robert’s ex-girlfriend Amy.

Cracking Up:  Papa Frank is atypically charming as he teaches the youngins his old-timey dance moves.  But relations soon sour when Debra blurts out her surprise about enjoying an evening with her in-laws.

Breaking the Ice:  Frank admits to having taken umbrage only because he always thought it was he and Debra against the rest of the family, who are, after all, “looneys.”  Then, as if to prove his point, the four members of the younger generation break into a fevered dance to their own favorite tune, “Jungle Love.”

Happy Holidays, and to all, a White Christmas!

I Swear, As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly!

Les Nessman reports from the horrifying
and hilarious scene. "O, the humanity!"

Last year at Thanksgiving, CBS' Watch! magazine ran my interview with WKRP in Cincinnati creator Hugh Wilson about that show's most beloved, and Thanksgiving-themed, episode, "Turkeys Away!", which first aired on October 30, 1978.

I've always been a big fan of Wilson's work, including his critically acclaimed but short-lived 1987 series, Frank's Place.  Now 69, this writer who got his start on The Bob Newhart Show is semi-retired and teaching a course in screenwriting and television writing at the University of Virginia.  Below, his reminiscences on perhaps THE classic Thanksgiving-themed sitcom moment.

October 30, 1978

WKRP in Cincinnati Creates a Classic out of a True Thanksgiving Tale

I had been in advertising in Atlanta, and so when I had the idea to do the pilot for WKRP, I went to observe friends there in the radio business.  At the time, the #1 rock station in Atlanta, WQXI, was run by a wonderful guy named Jerry Blum, a longtime “station doctor” who had bounced from one station to the next.  When I was just hanging around there, he told me about how he’d gotten fired from a Dallas station for throwing live turkeys out of a helicopter.  And I said, “Jerry, tell me more.  I think I just won an Emmy.”

Then, in five minutes, the story we used in our episode, “Turkeys Away!” pretty much all came from this fellow’s lips.  It’s been my experience that the real stories are the ones that lead you in great directions.  Jerry was from New York City originally, and didn’t know that turkeys can’t fly very well.  I’m sure most people don’t know that.  So when they started their promotional stunt, the turkeys just went down like bombs.  What’s worse is, when they saw their error, they landed the helicopter to release the rest of the turkeys – and the turkeys fought back, chasing people and running into traffic.  It was the perfect nightmare a comedy writer would want to hear about.

Hugh Wilson in 2008

In our episode, our reporter Les Nessman reports that one turkey went through the windshield of a car – well, I took a liberty with that.  Bill Dial wrote the first draft of the episode, and I did the rewrite.  We had the idea to make Les’ whole report sound like the famous radio broadcast of the Hindenburg tragedy, with the line “O, the humanity!”  But the rest of it had all come from Jerry.

Even now, it’s amazing.  When people find out who I am, they come right up to me, and the first thing out of their mouths is, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”  I have to take credit as the author of that line, because I’m really proud of it.

--Hugh Wilson, creator of WKRP in Cincinnati 

Chuck Lorre's Vanity on Display

Chuck Lorre

For the past decade and a half, Chuck Lorre’s sitcoms have brought viewers a little something extra – whether they noticed it or not.

“When I was growing up, record albums had liner notes, where they added stuff that made the whole thing cooler,” Lorre remembers.  And so, rather than finishing off each of his episodes with a static production company logo, Lorre decided that “each show would have something to read at the end – if you cared to.”

Now, after a full generation of Lorre’s fans has squinted to spy his words on their sometimes wobbly screens – remember VCRs? – the prolific writer/producer of Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory and Mike & Molly has compiled his nearly 400 mini-essays into a new coffee table book, What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Bitter (Simon & Schuster, $100)

In his vanity card following the November 2 episode of Big Bang Theory, Lorre referred viewers to his web site, where he could blast Mitt Romney without having to have his message approved -- or more likely rejected -- by his network's censors.  The contents of that card, #397, earned lots of press, showing that like me, people really care what Lorre has to say on these things.  That's why this past summer, during the semi-annual Television Critics Association convention in Beverly Hills, I caught up with Lorre for the following exclusive interview, to find out how it feels to see his Bitter experience turning out so sweet.

Must-Hear TV:  What has it meant to have that small amount of network airtime each week, to express what’s on your mind?

Lorre:  My vanity cards are on the air at the end of the show for maybe a second.  But it’s been a nice opportunity to experiment with writing something other than a script, these little essays about things that would never have found their way onto the page.

MHTV:   Is it therapeutic to have a way to get things off your chest?

Lorre:  The only way to call it “therapy” would be if one might say I was getting better.  It’s just a chance to write in a way that hopefully is amusing to somebody.

MHTV:   Obviously they have been.  When did you notice they were catching on?

Lorre:  About 14 or 15 years ago, when I was doing Dharma & Greg, I noticed that there started to be web sites with my name on them.  The late ‘90s on the Internet were the wild wild west.  I realized I could possibly lose control over my own writing.  So, defensively, I had to create a web site of my own in order to maintain some kind of control.

MHTV:  Proceeds from the book benefit your charity, the Dharma-Grace Foundation.  What is its focus?

Lorre:  I started the Dharma-Grace Foundation in 1999, to funnel funds into the Venice [Calif.] Family Clinic, which provides free healthcare to anyone who walks in the door.  It’s a meaningful organization to me, having been without healthcare earlier times in my life.  I know what that feels like – it’s a frightening thing.  Now the Foundation also distributes money to other organizations that seem like they are doing good work, in education as well as healthcare.

MHTV:  Some of the cards are appearing in the book for the first time, having been originally censored.  Why weren’t they originally allowed to air?

Lorre:  There are about a dozen of them, and there were different reasons each time.  Sometimes they were considered risqué, and sometimes the politics were not acceptable.  But I very rarely get political.  I try to honor the fact that CBS is not in the business of broadcasting my political opinions.  So I’ve been very careful, and I try to see the big picture and avoid any controversy.  Lots of different people like to watch Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory and Mike and Molly.  They’re coming to my house as guests, and it would be rude to use that access to offend them.

MHTV:  You started presenting the cards on Dharma & Greg and Grace Under Fire, both of which aired on ABC.  Has there been any difference in doing the vanity cards on ABC versus now on CBS?

Lorre:  No, both networks are very nervous about [the cards] in general, and they scrutinize them.  I imagine both networks would prefer that they didn’t exist at all.  But CBS has been patient and reluctantly trudged forward with these things.  There’s no upside to them.  They’re in the business of selling ad time, and making money, and vanity cards are not a profit source.  But my whole argument has always been, if they bring in just one more viewer who might be curious, that’s got to be good for CBS.

MHTV:  It is a smart investment – a random production company logo isn’t going to bring in anybody.  So why not write something funny that might grab viewers?

Lorre:  With DVRs, every second of television time is now available to you.  Literally, every second can be frozen forever.  So it’s changed the way time works in television.  It’s made every second more valuable or more problematic – your choice.

MHTV:  You have three shows on the air on CBS, bearing your name each week.  Do you still get that thrill of authorship, seeing your name on this book?

Lorre:  It’s really gratifying any time you make something up and it becomes a reality.  On Big Bang Theory, Wolowitz went into space.  To walk onto the stage, and see the Soyuz space capsule!  Made of balsa wood, but it was still there.  It was startling and immensely gratifying.  There was a guy with hammers and nails making it real.

MHTV:  And now there’s someone with a printing press making it real.  Is it the same feeling?

Lorre:  Very much so.  It’s very gratifying.  And the best news is, that it’s already written.  The best part of writing is having written.

MHTV:  Some of your more famous vanity cards over the years have mentioned conflicts with coworkers and costars.  Are those in the book?

Lorre:  They’re all there.

MHTV:  So we can relive all kinds of sitcom history by this book, whether for good or for bad?

Lorre:  That’s very wisely put.  I wrote the cards at times in my life when that was the only way I knew how to articulate my feelings, my frustrations and my fears.   My attempts at being funny sometimes fail.   But there they are.

Fall Preview: CBS' Made in Jersey

Made in Jersey stars British import Janet Montgomery

Last season, her second working on the Los Angeles writing staff of Franklin & Bash, the cable drama about two wisecracking men, Dana Calvo realized she had something a little softer to say.

A lifelong fan of female-focused shows like Sex and the City, Calvo says she enjoyed watching that show’s fabulous foursome frolic around Manhattan, “and yet I always felt, ‘Wait, where’s the family?’  So I decided to write a show about a young woman and her life in full – friends, family and work.  I know it’s not really cool to say, but I wanted to write about a family that is warm and loving and wholesome.”

Drawing on memories of Christmases spent with her Italian-American extended family, the Moorestown, NJ native created the comedic drama Made in Jersey and its heroine Martina Garretti, whose life and career straddle both sides of the Hudson River.  A lawyer like Calvo’s own sister, Martina crosses between her homespun life in the Garden State and her new job as a first-year associate at a prestigious New York law firm.  Right away, just as in Working Girl – one of Calvo’s inspirations – Martina catches the attention of the firm’s founder, Donovan Stark (Kyle MacLachlan) with her unique body of knowledge.

Calvo knew that making Made in Jersey work would depend on finding just the right leading lady to convey Martina’s combination of street and book smarts.  “I had a dream that we were going to cast a Jersey girl right off a turnip truck, and her real story would mirror Martina Garretti’s,” Calvo remembers with a laugh.  Instead, after considering more than 100 candidates, producers consulted with their casting director in the UK.  There, in a video audition, was 26-year-old British actress Janet Montgomery.  As Calvo explains, “I saw the tape, and knew right away ‘That’s her!’”

New Jersey has been heating up for more than a decade, from the time of The Sopranos to today’s current spate of reality shows featuring big hair and even bigger drama.  And that’s lucky for an English girl who needs to learn how to tawk.  Montgomery says she’d never previously spent any Jerseylicious time with the state’s Real Housewives – but once she started her research, “those shows are totally addictive.  I watched a lot of them – and then I was told not to, because we don’t want our show to be that over-the-top.  Still, I feel they gave me a good idea of what Martina would have grown up around.”

Montgomery worked with a dialect coach, and says that once she stepped out of her trailer in Martina’s considerable coif and jangly charm bracelet, she was able to find the character’s voice, which she says “now is second nature.  I deliberately started big, but reined it back in to something that, while it’s obviously a working-class accent, shows that she’s also an educated lawyer.”  The actress says she loves that Made in Jersey is a unique hybrid of law procedural and family drama – and so does CBS, so much so that after viewing the original pilot, the impressed network requested the addition of a few more scenes with Martina’s mom (Donna Murphy) and the rest of the garrulous Garrettis.

“Family is really important to knowing who Martina is,” Montgomery explains, adding that her own working-class upbringing as the daughter of a postal worker has given her a particular appreciation for the character.  “I don’t have anyone else in my family working in this industry.  And so this character whose lives at work and at home are so different, and who has a family who are very supportive and yet don’t fully understand her job – it’s been so much like my own life, it’s really amazing.”

Made In Jersey

Premieres Friday, September 28

9 PM Eastern / 8 PM Central

CBS

Fall Preview: CBS' Elementary

Elementary stars Lucy Liu and
Jonny Lee Miller

When producer Carl Beverly first posed the idea to Rob Doherty of transplanting Sherlock Holmes to present-day New York, the writer’s response was Elementary.

“I daresay Sherlock is the most popular character in literary pop culture from the last 100 years,” enthuses 

Doherty; perhaps that’s why there have been so many prior filmic depictions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s prototypical detective.  Doherty says it was “one of the wonderful little details that Doyle crafted a very long time ago” that became the key to Elementary, his new CBS series adaptation starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu.  The 19^th Century Holmes was famously addicted to opiates, “and that’s the way I’ve always looked at him, as an addict,” the writer explains – and not just to drugs.  “He’s driven by and very much addicted to what he does for a living.  He enjoys unfolding the origami of a crime, matching wits with someone who thinks he’s smart enough to get away with something horrible, and bringing that person to justice.”

Yes, this new Holmes does have a literal addiction to deal with, too.  Having just returned from rehab – a vanishing he explained to his local police contact, Captain Toby Gregson (Aidan Quinn), as a holiday in his native London – the hyper-observant detective “was previously used to being so ahead of everyone, and oozed confidence,” Doherty says.  “Now he’s left rattled, concerned that he may not be what he used to.  I liked the idea of a person like him feeling a little bit of doubt for the first time.”

That’s where Lucy Liu’s Dr. Joan Watson comes in.  As a former surgeon haunted by her role in the death of a patient, Watson has now gone into business as a sober companion, hired by Holmes’ concerned dad to keep him in line.  That means accompanying him everywhere, where the new duo finds that “as a doctor, obviously she has many skills in forensic science,” Miller says.  “So Holmes begins to realize that she’s not just a companion, but she’s very useful.”

It was Doherty’s innovation both to alter this Watson’s occupation and to make Watson for the first time a female, who, he says, “has much of the empathy Holmes is missing.  In that way, she completes him.”  As the writer praises, Liu brings her innate strength to Watson, who needs to be able to stand up to this quirky and demanding Holmes. But it’s also their characters’ more vulnerable moments that both Miller and Liu say attracted them to Elementary.  Watson, Liu says, “is not going in with her ‘sober companion’ coat on.  I like that she’s trying to bring a certain sense of humanity and understanding to her client.”

Miller adds that “one of the things that struck me, reading [Doyle’s] books, is how colorful and funny the characters are.”  Doherty fully intends to weave that same wit into Elementary, which is why he is excited that Miller’s embodiment of Holmes exhibits “a warmth, intelligence, and a fantastic sense of humor.”

But perhaps the most important quality that both Miller and Liu are bringing to their new show is  appreciation.  In filming Elementary’s pilot, “the first time I heard Jonny say ‘Watson!’ it was a thrill to be creating that, to be part of history,” Liu reveals.  The British-born Miller feels it, too.  “There’s a reason why the Holmes stories keep being retold and redone,” he theorizes.  “People play Hamlet a lot, and always want to play Shakespeare.  Good stories and good characters come back.” 

Elementary

Premieres Thursday, September 27

10 PM Eastern / 9 PM Central

CBS

Fall Preview: CBS' Vegas

Vegas stars (l-r) Dennis Quaid, Michael Chiklis

This past spring, after actor Michael Chiklis met with Ralph Lamb, the real-life inspiration for Chiklis and Dennis Quaid’s new western drama Vegas, “I walked away from lunch, called my wife, and said, ‘Wow! We have stories for years!”

In the mid 2000s, the MGM movie studio had commissioned a big-screen bio based on Lamb, a fourth-generation rancher who served as Las Vegas’ Sheriff from 1960 to 1978, the period in which the soon-to-be gambling and entertainment mecca was rising from empty desert.  The studio turned to author and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, who had already depicted the period in his 1995 film Casino.  But even as the writer’s first outline was delivered, everyone involved realized that with Lamb’s wealth of amazing stories, his life would make a great ongoing series instead.

“It’s kind of what I call the low-hanging fruit of Sheriff Lamb,” says Greg Walker, who, after Pileggi then turned the idea into television, was brought on board as the showrunner of Vegas.  “Every story Lamb tells, you just realize it’s a no-brainer.  They’re filled with such rich detail.  With such vivid characters, you can’t help but think about how his world could come to life on screen.”

Reading Pileggi’s pilot, “I got to page five, and was hooked,” Walker remembers.  “As soon as the DC-6 flew over Lamb’s cattle, I was in.  I loved the clash between the modern world and the Old West.”  Quaid, too, cites that first script as what lured him to play the colorful sheriff in this, his first television series.  Vegas pits Quaid’s Lamb against Chiklis’ Vincent Savino, a Chicago gangster and savvy businessman with designs on the budding gaming empire.  “It’s a story about how all that power corrupts on both sides,” says Quaid.  “Because the lines in Vegas were hazy back then.  It was a different set of rules.”

“In Vegas, you have two men who are thrust into the spotlight of being kings,” Walker explains.  “One who wants it, in Savino, and one who’s reluctant, in Lamb.”  With the face-off between the two men and their allies – including on Lamb’s side, his younger brother Jack (Jason O’Mara) and the town’s Assistant District Attorney Katherine O’Connell (Carrie Ann Moss) – as its underlying construct, “we created a hybrid procedural and character-based drama,” Walker says.  “The show has the adrenaline and satisfaction of solving a mystery, but at the same time, there are multiple characters’ stories getting more and more complicated, with greed, envy and desire whirling around this world of crime.”

With Vegas’ 1960 setting, Lamb and his deputies won’t be enforcing the law using fingerprints or computers or cell phones like in that other Vegas-set mystery, CSI.  “He is also not a guy who’s going to put a gun in people’s faces week to week,” Walker says. “He’s going to solve things with his own hands, man-to-man.”  That type of character, the showrunner says, “is something Dennis is uniquely equipped to play.  There are very few men who have that kind of stillness, that raw, masculine power.  We just don’t build them like that anymore.”

Vegas’ pilot was shot, coincidentally, in the small town of Las Vegas, NM, where an old commercial row, last updated in the early 20^th Century, could be gussied up with props and CGI neon to look like the Fremont Street of ‘60s Sin City; the series will build it all from the ground up in Santa Clarita, CA.  Undoubtedly, today’s audience will be paying close attention to all that period detail, because we’re so intrigued by the town’s formative years.

“We’re all interested in how Vegas became Vegas.  Today it’s a fantasy world where you can get anything you want, and to watch how that was made is very captivating,” Walker notes.  Like Lamb, the town itself is a natural for a Hollywood treatment, its story comprising two cinematic archetypes, the cowboy and the mobster.  “These are two worlds that we’re very familiar with, but we haven’t ever seen them together.  When they collide, there’s something very electric.”

Vegas

Premieres Tuesday, September 25

10 PM Eastern / 9 Central

CBS

Fall Preview: CBS' Partners

Partners stars (l-r):
Brandon Routh, Michael Urie,
David Krumholtz, Sophia Bush

By David Kohan’s estimation, he and Max Mutchnick have been friends for over 35 years, and writing partners for more than 20.  Such a multi-purpose relationship can have its challenges, but Kohan and Mutchnick’s has yielded impressive results; in 1998, drawing on Max’s own real-life experiences, the creative duo brought us TV’s first gay leading man in the landmark sitcom Will & Grace.

Now, much like that long-running hit was the first to capture the age-old relationship between a gay man and his devoted best galpal, the writers’ new, equally autobiographical comedy Partners corners the market on friendship between two men of differing sexual orientations.

Of course, as Kohan notes, their real-life relationship – and thus the one between their Partners alter egos Louis (Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie) and Joe (Numb3rs’ David Krumholtz) – can be muddied by much more than just that one superficial distinction.  “The fact is, our sensibilities about everything are really different.” True to stereotype, Kohan admits, he loves sports, whereas Mutchnick’s tastes run more towards clothes and design.  But their true spark comes more from differences in temperament.  “Max has never met a boundary that he didn’t want to smash, and I deal with my resentment passive-aggressively.  It makes for an interesting contrast.  And so the fact that one of us is straight and one is gay is part of our deal, but it’s not the essential factor.”

As the writer explains, he and Mutchnick were motivated to turn the mirror on themselves in recent years, as they have suddenly found themselves seriously romantically involved with other people.  “For us, it raised a lot of questions about what makes for a great partnership,” Kohan says.  “Where are the pressures?  What are the best forms of communication?  What are the lies that we tell each other?  What are the truths that we tell each other?  And where do the conflicts arise?”  In parsing all of this out in their own real lives, “we realized this seemed like a rich, fertile area for comedy.”

In all, Partners depicts the dynamics of three relationships -- not just between New York architectural design firm partners Louis and Joe, but also those of Louis and his nurse boyfriend Wyatt (Brandon Routh) and of Joe and his now-fiancée Ali (Sophia Bush) – and shows how the multiple couplings both cross-pollenate and complicate.  As meddlesome Louis, “I get to be Max Mutchnick,” enthuses Urie.  The part, he was pleased to discover, “comes with a lot of inspiration, because these two guys, in their real-life dynamic together, are so entertaining.”

“It’ll be interesting to mine their relationship further as the show goes forward, because they put on a show,” Krumholtz agrees.  “Max and David don’t know it -- or maybe they do -- but their working relationship is very out there for everyone to see, and it’s hilarious.  It’s really just a matter of capturing it on paper, and there’s a lot more there.  I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface with them yet.”

Indeed, Kohan says the nicest surprise so far for him has been to witness how Urie and Krumholtz effortlessly come off as bickering old friends.  But neither actor is surprised by the instant chemistry.  “Any great bromance I’ve ever had is with someone who makes me laugh,” Urie says.  And, Krumholtz adds, “We have the same head for funny.”

Partners

Premieres Monday, September 24

8:30 PM Eastern / 7:30 PM Central

CBS

The New Normal Continues a Fine Tradition

Actor Eddie Barbanell appears in
tonight's episode of The New Normal,
"Baby Clothes,"
9:30 PM Eastern on NBC

In their new fall series The New Normal, writers Ryan Murphy and Ali Adler have already created two groundbreaking characters for primetime TV, gay wannabe dads.  Now, with tonight's airing of the series' third episode, the writers will be continuing another pioneering tradition which Murphy has long followed with his acclaimed shows:  providing work and visibility for the disabled community by featuring actor(s) with Down Syndrome.

Back in July at the TV Critics' Association convention in Beverly Hills, I asked Murphy what had inspired him to write a guest-starring spot for actor Blair Williamson on his long-running FX drama Nip/Tuck -- and then to continue to create regular roles for actors with DS on his later shows Glee and American Horror Story.   "It certainly made sense [to include characters with DS] for Glee.  And it made sense when we were [planning] American Horror Story," Murphy explained.  "People ask me that all the time, if I have [Down Syndrome] in my life or if I know somebody.  No, but I've always just been very moved by the stories that I've heard, and I like writing those characters."

Murphy may be responsible for much of the current trend (which of course famously may have begun with actor Chris Burke's role as Corky on the 1989-93 ABC series Life Goes On), but other producers have tapped into Hollywood's community of actors with DS as well; this past February, Entertainment Weekly profiled prominent actors within the community, including Glee's Lauren Potter, The Secret Life of the American Teenager's Luke Zimmerman, and American Horror Story's Jamie Brewer.

The founder of a group called Down Syndrome in Arts & Media (DSiAM), Blair Williamson's mother Gail works with about 200 aspiring actors nationwide, all while advocating to bring attention to the issues which can particularly affect individuals with DS.  Recently, DSiAM was involved in bringing three Glee actresses together for a photo shoot, both to honor that show's commitment to DS and to bring attention to a health problem to which those with Down Syndrome are prone.

Three generations of Glee girls:  (l-r):
Lauren Potter, 22; Jordyn Orr, 8 months; Robin Trocki, 55
Photo by Shandon Youngclaus of Amazing Headshots

Individuals with DS have a high incidence of developing Alzheimer's disease; it's believed this is because an indicator for the disease is located on the triplicate 21st chromosome responsible for DS.  Until the death of her character, Sue Sylvester's older sister Jean, actress Robin Trocki appeared on five episodes of Glee.  Now at 55, Robin is exhibiting symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease, and her family is coming forward with her story in order to raise funding for medical research.

In Glee's first episode this season, there was no mention of Sue Sylvester's new baby having DS, but a beautiful close-up of her new daughter Robin -- named in honor of Robin Trocki -- made it apparent that the baby, played by 8-month-old Jordyn Orr, has the syndrome.  And so the photo shoot, featuring Glee's three generations of gals with DS -- Trocki, little Jordyn, and 22-year-old Lauren Potter, aka the deliciously devilish Cheerio/Sue Sylvester henchman Becky Jackson -- was planned, as Gail Williamson explains, "for Robin to meet Jordyn Orr while she still has memory of her work on Glee."

"Researchers are hopeful that they will have a vaccine to prevent Alzheimer’s before Lauren Potter reaches the age for symptoms," Williamson says hopefully.  "And just think of what kind of medical intervention they may have by the time Jordyn Orr reaches adulthood."

left-to-right:  Lauren Potter, Jordyn Orr, Gail Williamson, Robin Trocki
Photo by Shandon Youngclaus of Amazing Headshots

(For those in the Los Angeles area:  this Thursday, September 20 at 7 PM, Gail and Blair Williamson, along with Potter, Brewer, Zimmerman and other actors with DS will be appearing for a SAG/AFTRA-sponsored panel discussion, "Ready and Able:  Working Actors with Down Syndrome."  Click here for more info.)