Go Live with The Conners

Today, ABC announced that for its season 4 premiere, The Conners will once again be airing a live episode.  But this time, there's an intriguing twist.

At the same time, the network also announced an innovative sweepstakes, titled "You Can Be a Conner."  Winners will receive a call from the cast -- on-air, as part of the episode.

Today at the Television Critics Association teleconference for critics, Executive Producer Bruce Helford referred to the gimmick as "working without a net," because the selected fans will not know what the topic of the episode and thus the call will be -- nor will the producers know what said fans will say, live on-air.  (One would imagine that ABC will be airing the whole thing on the standard 7-second delay, but still, I think the censor should start practicing hitting that button now.)

The episode will air on September 22 at 9 PM Eastern, and will be performed live for both the East and West coasts.  Enter at www.BeAConner.com, and see details below in ABC's press release.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION: ‘THE CONNERS’ IS GOING LIVE!   SEASON FOUR TO DEBUT WITH LIVE PREMIERE EPISODE WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22, ON ABC   ‘YOU CAN BE A CONNER’ SWEEPSTAKES LAUNCHES TODAY GIVING FANS A CHANCE TO WIN AN ON-AIR CALL DURING LIVE PREMIERE BROADCAST

ABC’s No. 1 comedy last season is set to return with more laughs, surprise guests, a live episode and a chance for viewers to win a virtual appearance as a member of the Conner family in the season four premiere when “The Conners” returns WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22 (9:00-9:31 p.m. EDT).    The cast of “The Conners” will perform live for both the East and West Coast broadcasts of the season four premiere episode. The members of America’s favorite family are no strangers to live television, but this time, they’ll need some extra help to pull it off. Starting today, ABC and “The Conners” are launching the “You Can Be A Conner” sweepstakes, offering viewers the opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime experience by entering for the chance to win a virtual appearance during the live season premiere episode. As part of the storyline, a Conner family member will call each lucky sweepstakes winner for a live conversation regarding how they deal with some of the same life issues that the Conners navigate on a daily basis.   The sweepstakes is open to legal U.S. residents, 18 and older. No purchase is necessary to enter; visit www.BeAConner.com for official rules and full details.   “The Conners” stars John Goodman as Dan Conner, Laurie Metcalf as Jackie Harris, Sara Gilbert as Darlene Conner, Lecy Goranson as Becky Conner-Healy, Michael Fishman as D.J. Conner, Emma Kenney as Harris Conner-Healy, Ames McNamara as Mark Conner-Healy, Jayden Rey as Mary Conner and Jay R. Ferguson as Ben.    “The Conners” is executive produced by Tom Werner, along with Sara Gilbert, Bruce Helford, Dave Caplan, Bruce Rasmussen and Tony Hernandez. The series is from Werner Entertainment.     Follow “The Conners” (#TheConners) on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.    ABC programming can also be viewed on demand and on Hulu.

The Kids Are More Than All Right -- and you have a second chance to see them

For as much success as ABC has had in launching comedies that introduced us to American families of different ethnicities -- black-ish, The Goldbergs, and Fresh Off the Boat, as the most prominent examples -- the network has for some reason been unable, or more likely too impatient, to make a success out of a sitcom featuring an Irish-American clan.

In 2016, ABC launched the very funny The Real O'Neals, about a modern day Irish-Catholic family with a gay son -- but cancelled the whole enterprise after just two abbreviated seasons and 29 episodes.

Then in 2018 came The Kids Are Alright, an, I daresay, even better, funnier comedy, about the exploits of the gaggle of eight Cleary brothers and their comically world-weary parents (Mary McCormack and Michael Cudlitz) in the turbulent 1970s. One needn't be Irish-American like me to appreciate the warmth and authenticity of this truly laugh-out-loud show -- plus, isn't everyone Irish at least that one day a year in March? -- but ABC clearly didn't see it that way.  In one of the network's more shocking, short-sighted cancellations of late (although remember, they also prematurely cancelled The Real O'Neals, Better Off Ted and Happy Endings, so should we be surprised, really?), the Cleary Kids lasted just one season.

I'm sure no one was as disappointed as the show's creator, Tim Doyle, and not just for the usual workaday reasons, but because The Kids Are Alright was based on his own upbringing, as the artistic child with acting aspirations amid a writhing horde of brothers.  Doyle, whose credits include beloved shows like Better Off Ted and Ellen, on which he served as executive producer, used his acting background to provide the voiceover narration for the show, which faithfully retold many of his own hilariously humiliating life stories.

But now, in a streaming world, is any sitcom family truly dead?  Just recently, all twenty-three episodes of The Kids Are Alright popped up on Hulu, which is both a joy and relief to me, because now I can safely delete them from the valuable real estate on my DVR.  In celebration of the Clearys' return, I asked Tim six questions -- I should have made it eight, one for each Cleary kid -- about why we should watch.

Must-Hear TV:  How did the show end up getting on Hulu?

Tim Doyle:  During the initial run, Disney made each episode available after airing on the abc.com website and Hulu. But after we didn’t get our season two order, it was quickly pulled down from both — which seemed weird. I didn’t understand their hurry to make us unavailable. Other canceled ABC shows were still being offered. Hell, there are canceled shows which I wrote back in the ‘90s still running on those sites. My first TV job, Jim Henson’s Dinosaurs, is coming back to Disney+ in a couple of weeks!

Fans of The Kids Are Alright kept contacting me on social media, complaining they couldn’t watch those original 23 episodes — nothing on any streaming service, no DVD release. What gives? Then when the quarantine descended, it just struck me as wasteful, like the company was missing a bet to give folks something they might enjoy bingeing during these crazy times, and maybe even build a new audience who didn’t find the show during its network run.

When fans reached out, I basically started encouraging them to write to Disney Channel, Disney+, ABC, Hulu — the various platforms Disney now owns. These fans are passionate. I think they even sent a few pleading letters to Nat Geo! And suddenly I got a nice email from Peter Rice, the CEO of Walt Disney Television, telling me that Kids would go back up on Hulu starting August 5. No idea what their internal process was, but I have to assume that viewer enthusiasm must have played a role.

MHTV:  How do you feel about the show being back and available for viewers to discover?

TD:  I obviously think it’s great. You make these shows to be seen, and I’m afraid Kids never really got the launch it deserved. Any interest in our premiere got massively overshadowed by the huge scandal in the fall of 2018 surrounding Roseanne getting herself fired from our lead-in show, The Conners.

The press pretty much ignored our premiere, when they weren’t being preemptively dismissive as they often are with new network offerings. The glib wisdom regarding us was that we were just a ‘70s version of The Goldbergs — which nobody who watched a single episode would ever actually say. I must have read ten versions of the same smarty-pants “Goldberg Variations” joke among the quippy quick hot takes folks who write for the short attention span media.

It was gratifying, however, when more serious TV columnists weighed in and we got almost universal praise, I assume because they actually took the time to watch the episodes. We received an extremely high rating on Rotten Tomatoes as well, and the pilot script earned a WGA nomination for best writing of a comedy episode. I felt confident that if we made past summer we could easily pick up a few Emmy nods — at least Mary McCormack, Michael Cudlitz and our art department. With that encouragement the cast and crew worked insanely hard and delivered a consistently strong first series of 23 episodes. The show did well but was never quite a ratings hit, struggling to break through all the media clutter. So now I feel like there’s got to be a massive captive audience out there who can discover and love this show if we can only help them find it on Hulu.

MHTV:  What to you is so personal about the Clearys that you want to share with the audience?

The Kids Are Alright creator
Tim Doyle with his TV alter ego,
Jack Gore, at PaleyFest,
September 8, 2018.

TD:  Well, it really is based upon my childhood, my family, my parents -- so writing it was the most gratifying and fascinating creative act I have ever experienced, a true act of confession — of saying things I’ve always wanted to say about being a brother, being a parent, being a son, being a Catholic, being lower middle class, and living through that very confusing decade of the 1970s. For thirty years I’ve been writing other people’s TV shows, telling my own stories only through that distorted, veiled lens. By contrast Kids was so pure and gratifying. No, it’s not a documentary. A lot of things had to be changed from my real life for technical reasons, for legal reasons, or for comedy, but... I can now say to my daughter, or some grandchild down the road... to anybody interested, really: If you want to know who I am, watch the show. It’s all in there. I got that rare opportunity in an artist’s life to cut straight down to the bone and give you my DNA. And a major corporation paid for it all!  

MHTV:  What parallels are there between the time period the Clearys live in versus where we are now?

TD:  The anger in the public discourse was very similar to now, the social and political divide. I think now is worse, but only by a bit. In 1972 some of our beloved national leaders had recently been ASSASSINATED, and we watched it happen on live TV — as disorienting, scary and surreal as witnessing 9-11.

The Vietnam War had us divided. Nixon had us divided. Like today everyone was on a hair trigger of rage, exhilaration and frustration as we watched violent street protest and a presidency falling apart. Would our republic even survive? These are real questions we worried over then and are definitely revisiting today.

My father had terrible politics. But I loved and respected him. I loved my mom as well but she was suppressed and oppressed by the times, never becoming the fully realized person she certainly should have been. And watching the two of them struggle and puzzle through those turbulent years where everything they valued was suddenly up for grabs gave me the perspective to become — for good and for bad — the person and the artist I am today. 

MHTV:  Were you surprised the show didn't get picked up for season 2?  What were your plans for the family and their further experiences?

TD:  There were a number of warning signs along the way, but I was still absolutely flabbergasted with disbelief when ABC chose not to order a second season. In my mind — and I think there’s an objective case to be made for it — we were the BEST comedy on their schedule, CERTAINLY better than several of the shows with LOWER or absolutely comparable ratings which they chose to renew instead. I could not believe the choices they made.

I remember telling Karey Burke that she must possess a high threshold for embarrassment to keep several of the shitty shows she did and toss mine in a dumpster. (BTW this lack of diplomacy with my bosses might also have been a factor in getting my show canned.) In retrospect, our status on the network became much less secure as soon as Channing Dungey and Jamilla Hunter left ABC in December 2018, and were replaced by Dana Walden and Karey. A new creative team coming in always wants to prove itself with a sharp change of direction, and Kids was a leftover project of Channing’s. She had been our champion. Suddenly ABC was giving us fewer on-air promotions, our strong lead-in The Conners went away, and we found ourselves pre-empted to try out new shows in our time-slot. I should have seen the writing but I still naively thought that our superior quality would win the day.

In terms of season 2 and beyond, I have notebooks full of scribbled notions, things we just never got to in the first 23. And more stuff pops up every day — a glance at an old family album or seeing a retro commercial on the internet will send me instantly right back to 1972. The great thing about a series which comes out of your life is the deep story resources immediately at your disposal. Someone in the writers’ room asks, “Did Frank ever have a girlfriend?” or “Did your mom ever work outside the home?” or “Did Joey ever get in serious trouble with the law?” and you’re off to the races with memories of the funny, painful, real stories a family like mine experienced. I would LOVE to get to the REALLY GOOD stuff:  Timmy’s adolescence under Joey’s Bob Guccione-style tutelage and the tug-of-war I went through for years (am still going through?) between sex and my more childish passions, like magic, musical theater and puppetry!

MHTV:  Is there any chance, particularly if the show does well on Hulu, that it could come back?  And if it does, will you please change the spelling to "All Right?!" 

TD:  There’s always a chance. Just a year or two ago I would have scoffed. Dead is dead. Once a show has the stink of rejection on it no platform is going to risk the shame of associating itself with a proven failure.

But I can’t argue with the passion of our fans. They keep asking me for more — an animated cartoon, a comic book, a novel, a Halloween or a Christmas special. You have to think “never say never” these days. There is just sooooooo much TV and so so so many players with such a voracious appetite for content. Yes, I’ve moved on to other projects but I’m still scribbling in my notebooks ideas which I’d love to do on some future iteration of The Kids Are Alright. So wherever I end up next with my new series ideas — cable, streaming, network, Google Maps, the little TV built onto the gas pumps — if I find any further measure of TV success I’ll be looking to leverage that success into a revival of Kids taking place perhaps in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, reuniting that amazing cast and telling more stories from deep vault of my remarkable but also highly-typical American family. 

And yes, I’d be happy to change the “alright.” 

The Ladies of Sugarbakers Ride Again

The cast of CBS' original Designing Women (1986-93):
l-r: Annie Potts, Jean Smart, Meshach Taylor,
 Delta Burke, Dixie Carter

This morning, at the Television Critics Association convention in Beverly Hills, Hulu made one of the most exciting announcements of the press tour so far -- about a show that premiered nearly 33 years ago.

After finding huge success in streaming all seven seasons of The Golden Girls, Hulu has announced its acquisition of all seven seasons -- 163 episodes worth -- of the 1986-93 CBS hit sitcom Designing Women.  The series will be available beginning August 26, which not so coincidentally, happens also to be Women's Equality Day.

Following a similar comedic "rule of four" with its characters, Designing Women starred Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Annie Potts and Jean Smart as four women of different backgrounds and certainly personality types who ran a successful design firm in Atlanta, with Meshach Taylor joining as a fifth partner in the Sugarbaker Firm.  In many ways a Southern Golden Girls, Designing Women dared tackle political topics and social issues of its day even more directly -- in fact, it was the first sitcom to air an episode dealing with the HIV/AIDS pandemic -- and has earned a similarly devoted following even more than three decades later.  In fact, it's hard to find a gay man of a certain age who can't quote Julia Sugarbaker's "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" rant word for word, after seeing the video clip playing seemingly on a loop in American gay bars.

With reboot fever in full bloom, Designing Women's prolific creator, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, had recently written a pilot script which would feature a brand new generation working at Sugarbaker's -- but they would also be graced by recurring, if not regular, visits from the show's three original stars, Burke, Potts and Smart.  At a press event for Potts' current series, CBS' Young Sheldon, in the spring of 2018, she expressed enthusiasm for appearing again as Mary Jo Shively in any new Designing Women; but unfortunately, this past winter of 2019, ABC declined to shoot a pilot for the series.

It's not a complete coincidence that after Hulu began streaming The Golden Girls that Disney/ABC, the show's rights owner, finally began creating merchandise such as tee shirts, action figures, themed Monopoly and Clue games, and so much more.  (Immodestly, I must say that part of the credit should also go to my book Golden Girls Forever, which alerted Disney about all the merch money they had long been leaving on the table.)

So perhaps, with the new heat coming from Hulu, Designing Women might ride again?

Celebrating The Goldbergs' 100th

The Goldbergs at the Paley Center for Media,
Beverly Hills:
(l to r) Executive Producer Doug Robinson,
stars Sam Lerner, Wendi McLendon Covey,
Hayley Orrantia, 100th episode director Lea Thompson

Last night at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, cast and creators of The Goldbergs came together to celebrate the series' upcoming 100th episode.

After an advance screening of tonight's (hilarious) Revenge of the Nerds-themed episode -- not the 100th, which is not quite ready yet -- series stars Wendi McLendon Covey, Hayley Orrantia and new series regular Sam Lerner, as well as EP Doug Robinson, creator/EP Adam Goldberg and the director of the 100th episode, Lea Thompson, came together for a panel discussion about the show's past and future.  Some highlights:

The show came about when creator Adam Goldberg and producer Robinson were working on Breaking In, starring Christian Slater, which then was cancelled.  Familiar with the crazy stories from Adam's childhood, Doug said to him, "Now is the time to do your family show."

Adam put together a pitch about a family he called the "Silvers," and wrote a pilot called "How the F--- Am I Normal?"  Doug, who had worked with Wendi McLendon Covey on Rules of Engagement, instantly thought of her to play Beverly Goldberg.  So they sent her some of the real-life footage that Adam had shot throughout his life -- and Wendi was in.  "There was one moment where Beverly was yelling at Adam, 'You don't deserve anything!  You're not going to eat tonight!  That's a nice sweater. Where did you get it?'," Wendi remembers. "She turned on a dime, and my parents talked to me that way, so it rang true to me.  I thought, 'These people are crazy! I'm in!'"

Hayley Orrantia auditioned at first via videotape -- and nailed it.  But afraid to cast one of their leads so soon from a mere tape, the producers proceeded to audition many more actresses -- before coming back to Hayley.  The character of Erica is the only one for whom creative license was taken; she's based off Adam's real-life brother Eric.  "In real life, Eric is so much older than me, I thought it would open up the world of the show and create more storylines if the family had a daughter," Adam explains.  "And the great thing about the character has been, I'm so locked in to how Pops would really act, or how my dad would, or how I would, that there's one character in the family where there are no rules -- and I don't get a phone call the morning after an episode airs from someone whose feeligns are hurt.  So creating Erica has turned out to be fantastic -- and for the writers, it's really freeing."

Another freeing device Adam cleverly came up with: the "1980something" device.  From the pilot, he says, he didn't want to be locked into a certain year -- especially an early-80s year, with so little of the decade to explore.  As he and Doug worked hard to convince Sony early on, memory is a tricky thing, and it tends to blur and mix all of its references together anyway.

The Goldbergs panel at the
Paley Center for Media, Beverly Hills:
(l to r): Lea Thompson, Doug Robinson,
Sam Lerner, Hayley Orrantia,
Wendi McLendon Covey, Adam Goldberg,
moderator Jim Halterman

So now, thanks to that device, we get to see the show's trademark takes on movies from anytime in the '80s, from The Goonies, to Hayley's favorite (Dirty Dancing) to Wendi's favorite (watching Troy Gentile as Barry inside the stadium as a Ferris Bueller-type)  to tonight's episode, based on Revenge of the Nerds.  (As Thompson quipped, "I auditioned for all those movies!")  Karate Kid, Adam says, was the easiest homage to pull off -- because for one thing, it's a Sony movie, so rights and clearances were easier.  Whereas recreating Ferris Bueller proved so difficult that, as Doug joked, "I think we're still filming that." 

Rights are a tricky issue for the show; as Adam points out, broken-hearted, he went ahead and wrote a "Thriller"-themed episode, complete with dance, which was never shot because the show was never able to secure permission.  In other instances, it's come down to the wire, and some personal please.  In fact, for one episode, the show was forced to create a separate, non-Journey based version of an episode, until Adam got the okay from the band, via twitter, just before the show was to air.

That's why, of course, the video to which Adam DOES have full rights to use -- his own -- is such an amazing secret weapon.  Not only did his home video compilation help sell the pitch to Sony and help secure actors like Wendi, but a brief clip has accompanied every episode of the show so far, except one.  For the second episode of season 1, there was no clip.  Adam didn't include it, he reveals, "because I didn't know it was a thing."  But then, just as people were responding to him that "you should show more of those," episode 3 turned out to be a few moments too short.  So The Goldbergs producers threw in another of Adam's clips, and the rest was history.  "With the third episode, it became 'a thing.'"

After moderator Jim Halterman of TV Guide opened up the evening to audience questions, one woman ascended to the stage to give the panelists homemade Goldbergs gifts -- and in the process, pointed out her husband, who was "being shy" -- and who turned out to be Adventures in Babysitting star Keith Coogan.  So perhaps the producers will be inspired to create a Babysitting movie homage.  But one spoiler Adam did reveal:  with the 100th episode featuring the return of AJ Michalka as Erica's friend/Barry's girlfriend Lainie, producers are toying with Lainie and Erica forming a girl band.

That 100th episode, by the way, is set to air next week, just in time for Halloween -- which, as Adam pointed out, is always a big night for ABC's comedies.  The episode features not only Lainie's return, but an argument between Star Wars-loving Adam and his Trekkie girlfriend Jackie (based on the second of the real-life Adam's girlfriends -- the third of whom, from age 17, now being his wife.)  "It's very emotional, and hilarious," Adam promises.  "Halloween episodes are always big and kind of silly, but there was a lot of good emotion this year."

40 Years Old, Yet Exciting and New

The Love Boat seasons 1-3
are available on DVD.
clockwise from upper left:
Fred Grandy, Ted Lange,
Bernie Kopell, Jill Whelan,
Gavin MacLeod, Lauren Tewes

Today, September 24, marks the 40th anniversary of the beloved ABC series The Love Boat, which set sail as a regular series in the fall of 1977.  Earlier this year, in May, the show's cast reunited on the Today Show, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the airing of the TV movie that launched the series.

Actually, that was the third Love Boat TV movie, the other two having aired in the previous season.  After optioning author Jeraldine Saunders' book about her pioneering career as the industry's first female cruise director, producer Douglas S. Cramer knew he had the makings of a great series, a version of his previous hit, Love, American Style, on the seas.  But it took three tries, and the addition of legendary producer Aaron Spelling, to get the casting and chemistry just right.

I've been spending the past year, and will spend the months ahead, amassing interviews and never-before-seen photos and other materials for my upcoming book Love Boat Forever.  When the book is released, it will be one of many celebrations that continue, as the show continues to air on Me TV and Cosi TV, and memes such as the "Love Boat Generator" proliferate on the web.  And this fall, look for the Love Boat cast to reunite at least once more, for a special ceremony involving the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Welcome aboard!

Behind the Scenes with Downward Dog's Title Character

Ordinarily, summer is a tough time for a network show to have its premiere; we the audience have been conditioned to tune out after May's season finales, and we spend more precious primetime hours still outdoors, enjoying the longer evenings of summer.

But Downward Dog seems to have timing on its side.  The show premiered on May 17, in a plum position following the season finale of Modern Family.  And of course Downward Dog, starring Fargo's Allison Tolman as single, dog-loving Pittsburgh creative executive Nan, follows in the wake of this year's earlier hit film, A Dog's Purpose.

Downward Dog co-creator Samm Hodges
and star Allison Tolman

In May of 2016, when ABC announced the show's pickup, it was unfortunately in the same breath as another show announced for midseason, Imaginary Mary.  And so the two shows became lumped together in the minds of critics, who thought ABC must be desperate to pick up shows about an imaginary friend and a talking dog.

Smartly, though, Downward Dog soon distinguished itself from the pack.  In January, the show, which is based upon a popular web series of the same name, became the first broadcast TV series to premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, to positive reviews from the audience and critics.  And the ratings for the show's premiere were respectable, with a decent retention of Modern Family's audience, even though it aired against another big hit, Fox's Empire.

As of last night, ABC has now aired four of the series' eight episodes -- and word is, the network will be making a decision about cancellation/renewal any minute now.  My dog Gabby and I love the show.  And while she's got her paws crossed for season two, I spoke with the web series and show's co-creator, Samm Hodges, who also provides the voice of its irresistable canine star, Martin.

An erstwhile commercial director, Hodges says he and colleague Michael Killen originally created Downward Dog just so as to have a creative outlet not beholden to any client.  But as I also found out when I spoke with Samm, there's another interesting angle to this story, about how becoming the voice of a TV dog has helped not just his bank account, but his personal growth as well.

Downward Dog co-creator Samm Hodges
provides the voice of top dog, Martin

Must-Hear TV:  Downward Dog certainly has had an interesting path to the small screen, as it caught the eye of some Hollywood managers and evolved from your web series into a half-hour show.  But the other aspect I don't feel the press has covered at all is that here you are, voicing the lead character -- and as you mentioned earlier, you grew up with a stutter.  How has that affected how you feel about voicing a character for TV?

Samm Hodges:  I grew up with a stammer, and there are things about the way I speak -- whether it be stuttering or the fast-paced delivery and other techniques I learned to get through it -- that now are helping to make Martin's voice feel unique and special.  There are other things I can do to help, like tailoring the lines to match my speech pattern in way that won't give me trouble.  Plus, if a stutter does slip into a take, sometimes rather than retake the line we might decide to use it.  In the end, we just want to have a character that sounds natural, and hopefully the voice actor disappears anyway.  I think people are going to watch the dog, and I hope they don't think about me ever.

MHTV:  Do you find it challenging or difficult to perform the role?

SH:  I think a lot of the show is about owning your flaws, and looking at your flaws.  And for me, doing the voiceover with a stutter, I get really frustrated.  I’ll always dread it.  My wife always knows the day before I have to record, because I might be an asshole that day.  It's very hard.  If you've ever had a really bad speech impediment, you know you're never really over it.  I know it will always be with me, and yet I'll get past it.  But then when I do go do the voiceover, I end up also realizing that it makes the show feel really authentic for me.  Our whole show is about characters who are vulnerable, afraid to be made fun of, and not being the polished star.  We’re all kind of outsiders, and now we the producers of Downward Dog are part of this punk rock TV show on a network.  A while back, I had wanted to recast mysef, but then I realized that even though performing the role was a pain for me, it actually gave something to the show.  So I realized I’ll do it for the show.

MHTV:  Your voice has a laconic quality that really helps give Martin a fun personality.  You really should be doing voiceover for a career.  You must find that odd to hear someone say that to you in 2017, because there was probably a time as a child where you beat yourself up for your voice.

SH:  It’s crazy.  The thing is, whenever you’re told what you can’t do, it kind of makes you want to do it.  I think as a writer, I write from a place of trying to be really radically honest.  And the show is really radically honest.  And I feel that if I ask my actors to be vulnerable, then I have to step up and be vulnerable myself.  Martin provides me a way to make fun of all my worst qualities.  If Martin thinks he’s smart, I think I’m smart.  When you put that in a dog’s mouth, it reveals how silly we are.  We in the entertainment industry tend to be narcissists, and I’m a narcissist.  So I always thought I was special. And for me, being a dog who thinks he’s special is a way to admit how messed up I am, but also how I’m still a worthwhile person, 

MHTV:  What kind of work did you do to overcome the stutter the way you have?

SH:  It’s funny.  I was raised really poor.  I never had any speech therapist offered to me.

MHTV:  I had speech therapy in elementary school, and I know how hard the work can be.  That’s impressive!

SH:  I was a senior in high school and couldn’t really speak well.  I got so frustrated that my dad’s friend, who was an undergraduate for speech therapy, gave me a worksheet.  I would just read it out loud to myself.  I worked really hard at it.  There had been times in a McDonalds where they’d think I was mentally handicapped.  It was really embarrassing, but that ended up giving me a lot of confidence and makes me hard to embarrass now.  So if I’m pitching, I don’t get scared because I’ve lived through so much embarrassment.  It’s weird in life how things work out that way.

MHTV:  Where were you raised?

SH:  In Washington state.  In a cabin off the grid.  No electricity, no running water.  Really weird.  My mom passed when I was young.  Not a happy childhood.

MHTV:  I hope you give yourself a lot of credit for learning from a worksheet.  It’s hard when you have someone working with you, and you did it yourself from a piece of paper.

SH:  As a poor kid from a poor town with a stutter, I felt like I was doomed.  I felt like there was no way out. Then in high school, I was part of a mock trial.  I chose to be the lawyer, which is insane.  And I actually won the mock trial and got all these awards.  I decided I wasn't going to stop fighting.  It’s the kind of thing where someone tells you “You’re not going to make it.”  It’s such a motivator.  If I go back home now, most of my friends are still stuck there.  And the meth use is really tragic in small towns now.  I was lucky.  I think I worked really hard, but I was really lucky.

MHTV:  [Downward Dog executive producer] Kat Likkel has encouraged you to get a voiceover agent and career.  Would you want to pursue that?

SH:  I would, totally.  I’m a small-town kid.  I like working.  But it’s the last thing I ever imagined myself doing.  It’s kind of happened naturally, and that’s the weird way life works sometimes.  I would never have thought this would be where I’d be.

How Speechless Will Continue Giving Voice to Families with Special Needs

On May 17, ABC's family comedy Speechless finished a flawless first season, with a finale episode in which the DiMeo family flew across the country to deliver son JJ to camp.

ABC's Speechless stars, l-r:
John Ross Bowie, Mason Cook, Micah Fowler,
Kyla Kenedy, Cedric Yarbrough and Minnie Driver
at the Paley Center for Media, Beverly Hills
May 9, 2017

It was a great moment for each character:  for Micah Fowler's JJ, who gets to taste a first bit of independence; for siblings Ray and Dylan (Mason Cook and Kyla Kenedy) who experience their own firsts along the route; and for John Ross Bowie's Jimmy and particularly Minnie Driver's Maya, who learn they're going to have to start letting go of the disabled child they've protected all his life.

And as beautiful a bookend as this 23rd episode -- ABC likes the show so much that back in December, they ordered one extra installment for this first season -- was for the family we had come to care about, JJ's ability to survive summer camp certainly doesn't signal that the struggle is over.

Last month, on the eve of its upfront presentation, ABC officially renewed Speechless for a second season.  Just days before the official order, which everyone had anticipated, I attended an event celebrating the series at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, and caught up with the show's creator, Scott Silveri -- upon whose own family the DiMeos are loosely modeled -- to talk about what we can expect for season 2 and beyond.

Must-Hear TV:  So what have you thought about for season 2?  There obviously must be some family stories with which you probably frontloaded the series in season 1.  But are there still more personal stories you want to tell?

Speechless creator and Executive Producer,
Scott Silveri

Scott Silveri:  Yes, that’s the way to characterize it.  In the first season, you have to really concentrate on those dynamics between the [main characters] who are in the show every week.  And in the second season, hopefully people are familiar with them, and we can open it up a little more.  We can learn a little about where Minnie’s character came from, where John’s character came from, and have the kids have friends who are not paid aides [like Cedric Yarbrough's amazing Kenneth] or siblings.

But I think more than anything, it’s just not going to get easy for these guys.  Because that’s life, and that’s particularly this life.  You go to the right school, and then something changes.  You get the right aide, and then they go on to something else.  Life is like that.  But particularly for a family with someone with a disability, if you care about the care of the person you love, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment over and over again.

MHTV:  People change, and people move.

SS:  Exactly.  It’s not difficult to think of ways to make life hard for these guys!  And the joy is going to be in that struggle, and having them face it with a little bit of courage and some fun.

MHTV:  Have you pitched season 2 to ABC already?  For many shows, that’s what happens, pitching to network executives, "This is what our season would be, if we get renewed."

SS:  No!  Sometimes you do that, but we were not asked to, so… I think they know generally we’re going to open it up a little, to explore the next step for these guys.  JJ is a senior in high school.  What is his next step going to be?  And towards the end of the season, we really explored his independence, and his life away from his family a little bit.   Before that there had been none of that, and now we’re slowly rolling that out.  And I think it’s a natural spot for a lot more of that, which will be a challenge for him and a challenge for people who care for him.

MHTV:  When you said you would be "expanding" their world, obviously there’s a certain percentage of the main characters of season 1 that came right from your life, and other writers’ too.  But do you have auxiliary people in your mind, who were in the background of your real life, and now  you get to think, “THAT’s a good secondary character!”

SS:  Yes.  People I both want to celebrate, and to take down.  A healthy dose of both!  Celebrating people – how much fun is that?   I have some names of some administrators we’ve been sharpening the axe for for months – for years, actually!  We’ve got some Silveri grudges to settle.

MHTV:  It’s an Italian thing.  What percentage of season 1 is from real life for you?  In real life, your brother's disability is a little more pronounced than JJ's.

SS:  From my real life, it really wasn’t episode for episode.  There are shows that do that and do it well.  Like The Goldbergs do that, and there’s a lot of “this happened to me, my brother said this, my mom wore that.”  And that’s cool!  But that’s not how we chose to do it.  I found it particularly suffocating, frankly, to try simply to mimic things that had happened in my life.  I found it a lot more freeing when we changed who these people were, we put a couple of people together, and gave license to these guys to be characters rather than caricatures of my folks.

MHTV:  I would think it makes it easier to take a step back so you can fictionalize it without feeling weird about it, like an actor with a mask.

SS:  That’s it, precisely.

MHTV:  So JJ is not exactly your brother, and your mom is not British.

SS:  They have some overlap, but no.  And I’ve had my mom checked.  She’s not British.

MHTV:  So you did 23 and Me while she was sleeping?

SS:  Exactly.  I think there is a feeling that was important to convey.  These guys feel different, and take pride in being different.  No apologies.  In fact, sometimes we think we’re better than the other folks for being a little different.  There was that, and there was how they always coming back to their center, and form a unified front.  “It’s us against the world.”

But luckily that doesn’t happen too often.  But you have a choice in any given situation:  are you going to cry or are you going to laugh?  And my folks, God bless them, always chose to laugh.  So I thought that was something to be replicated, protected and celebrated.  The rest of it, the exact quirks and plot twists that our lives took, I didn’t feel the need to cling closely to that.  The vibe is what I wanted to protect.  And it’s been fun to get to do that.

MHTV:  In terms of tentpole events that might happen in season 2:  will JJ’s graduation be one of them, like at the end of the year?

SS:  I think that’s something to work towards.  And that’s such a big thing.  A lot of friends of mine who have disabilities bemoan the fact that there’s a lot of attention paid to children with disabilities --but once you grow up, there’s a little less of that.  There’s something adorable and cute and inspirational – which is a word that everybody hates – about a child, but then you don’t get quite the same attention and care as an adult.

MHTV:  "Good luck to you – and thanks for taking forever to get on the bus!"

SS:  Exactly!  So I think we’d like to explore that.  Because every time there’s been a challenge that has come up for the characters, we’ve tried to find a funny take on it. 

MHTV:  Non saccharine.  That’s what I appreciate.

SS:  We’re going to keep looking for these very real challenges, and it ain’t hard to find them.  And turn them into opportunities for this family to bust their asses, to find a way, and to laugh.

Life Goes On on Home & Family

Check out the latest reunion of a beloved TV clan:  on today's episode of The Hallmark Channel's fun, informal talk show Home & Family, it's the cast of Life Goes On, the groundbreaking 1989-93 ABC drama centered on the Thacher family, and particularly on their son Corky, living with Down Syndrome.

Life Goes On stars, L-R:
Kellie Martin, Chris Burke, Patti LuPone

For their interview on today's show, the actor who played Corky, Chris Burke, is reunited with his TV mother and sister Patti LuPone and Kellie Martin.  LuPone gets teary after not having seen Burke for years.  But for Burke and Martin this is not so much a reunion; because Chris currently lives in New York, where he works for the National Down Syndrome Society, he has been spending this visit to L.A. staying with Martin and her family.

If like me, you're a fan of the show, you'll love this reunion, with Chris revealing the process by which he won the role, Kellie pulling out an old pair of Becca's very '80s glasses, and the whole cast attempting a singalong of the show's theme song, The Beatles' "Ob-La-Di" -- but not quite remembering the words.

And for good measure, there's another classic TV star, Happy Days' Henry Winkler, on today's show as well, charming and funny as he discusses his series of Here's Hank books, wherein the hero, like Henry himself, has dyslexia.

On today's Home & Family, L-R:
Matt Iseman, Henry Winkler, Brooke Burns
Mark Steines, Patti LuPone, Kellie Martin, Chris Burke

Later in the show, there's a fun segment where Home & Family hosts Mark Steines, Matt Iseman and Brooke Burns (subbing for the vacationing Cristina Ferrare) play a game based on Happy Days trivia.  I won't tell you who wins -- but let's just say that, while Mr. Winkler makes sure to tell Patti LuPone early on how much he loved her in Evita, it soon becomes clear that Patti was too busy on Broadway in the '70s and '80s to have watched much TV.

"I watched you..." the former Fonz tells her, feigning insult.


Home & Family
The Hallmark Channel
Today, Monday Feb 23
10 AM Eastern / 9 AM Central

Annie Potts Talks Turkey about GCB and Chick-Fil-A

Annie Potts as Gigi Stopper in the woefully short-lived GCB.

By the time in 1986 when Annie Potts showed up on the small screen in the role for which she will always be best remembered, Designing Women's Mary Jo Shively, I'd already loved her for years.  Anyone who came of age in the '80s may remember Potts' brilliant best-friend role in 1986' Pretty in Pink, or her wacky Ghostbusters receptionist Janine in both the original 1984 film and its 1989 sequel.

After Designing Women ended in '93, Potts went on to many more TV roles; the Kentucky native was awfully convincing to me as the Italian-American chef Dana Palladino, when she replaced Susan Dey as the female lead in the final two seasons of CBS' underrated sitcom Love & War.  Later, Potts headlined Lifetime's 1998-2002 series Any Day Now, and has also had regular or recurring roles on Huff, Joan of Arcadia, Men in Trees and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

But of all Potts' roles, it was GCB about which I was most excited in recent years, bringing her back to the Southern milieu in which we all know she particularly shines.  I was shocked in May when ABC announced the show's cancellation -- surely the network could have given this fun romp of a show more of a chance to grow.

With the at that point soon-to-be GCB star Annie Potts
at the TCA convention in Pasadena, CA
January 2012

This past January, as GCB was about to make its debut, I had met Potts at the Television Critics of America conference in Pasadena, and took the photo, at right; both of us were full of hope that GCB would be ABC's next big soapy hit.  Cut to last week, at the TCA Summer conference in Beverly Hills, when I again spoke with Potts at a luncheon given by the Hallmark Channel, where the actress will be appearing in the TV movie The Music Teacher later this year.  It's always a pleasure talking with her, because of the way she answers questions; she speaks slowly, every word clearly being carefully chosen.  And so when Annie Potts speculates about the reasons behind GCB's premature demise, and about being a Southerner in the age of Chick-Fil-A, I'm that much more excited to listen.  Our interview, below:

Must Hear TV:  There’s a campaign out there to save GCB, if you’ve seen it on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you think it’ll have any effect?

I know.  But I believe if it was going to have any effect, then it would have had an effect already, regrettably.  Really regrettably.  Ah, GCB, RIP!  Bummer.

MHTV:  What do you think happened?

I think a lot of different things.  I think our ratings could have been a little better.  But you know they hardly give anything a chance.  I think if they’d given us a little time, we could have done better.  I think in the end, there were some advertising problems, because big advertisers had had some complaints.  If they get 10 emails going, “We don’t think you should be advertising during that…”  People got all flustered about what they thought we were, without seeing what we were doing.

MHTV:  Where were these people when the novel Good Christian Bitches [on which the show was based] came out?  It had the word “Bitches” in the title, and GCB didn’t even have that.

Yes, but I think it was implied.   There are some who were associated with it who felt like if we’d just named it something else, like “Homemade Sin” or something, that people wouldn’t have gotten their feathers ruffled from the get-go.  And that maybe we could have [lasted.]

MHTV:  It’s a shame people could be so closed-minded.  Not even seeing a show, yet three initials gets them riled up.

We could have named it “WTF,” and really pissed people off!

MHTV:  I wonder if that would have pissed Christians off as much as the idea that they think they’re being made fun of, with “GCB.”

I don’t know.  My Christian friends welcomed it, because I think everybody likes to smoke out hypocrisy when they can.  It’s like, “Hello, do you see how you’re saying one thing and doing another?”  So I felt that there was a lot of support in the Christian community.  But it only takes a few.

If you haven't heard, Chick-fil-A has
long supported hate groups like
the National Organization for Marriage
which advocate against gay rights.
Please don't patronize Chick-fil-A!

MHTV:  Speaking of Christians and the South, we happen to be in this moment right now where there’s a culture war going on, and Chick-fil-A has gotten itself embroiled.  You’re a Southerner, and you have obviously worked with gay people in Hollywood.  Do you have an opinion about this controversy?

Yes, I know about it.  I think maybe the problem is people having opinions on it.  I think if whoever is the head of Chick-fil-A had not espoused a bigoted opinion – it’s like, what does anybody care who people love?  They should be more interested in that they love.  Isn’t that what everybody’s supposed to be doing, and not be judgmental about who?  But, see, I’m judging him saying that.

MHTV:   I’m judging him too.  Because even if he’s entitled to his opinion, he’s supporting suppression of my rights with money we might be spending on his chicken sandwiches.

Yes, well I won’t eat there.  That’s all.  I grew up in a little town, and if somebody did something you didn’t like, my daddy would just say “We don’t trade there anymore.”  And I’d say, “We’ve been going to that gas station for 15 years!”  And he’d say, “We don’t trade there anymore.”  So I would say to Chick-fil-A, if people want to change things, then you just say, “We don’t trade there anymore.”

Of course, with the power of the media now, that’s essentially the same thing kind of closed GCB down.  People saying, “We’re not going to trade there.  We’re not going to tune into that show.”  Well fine, you don’t tune into the show.  And just keep it to yourself.

MHTV:  I thought it was a loving portrayal of Texans.  Yes, it pointed out hypocrisy, but I think everybody knows that that’s an element of Texas and of Big Religion.   I didn’t think it made particular fun of them.

I don’t think so either.   I know that it was not the intent of our creator, and our writers, who were almost all Christian.  Church every Sunday Christians.

MHTV:  This means we have another opportunity to bring you back to network television.  Do you have anything in your sights?

I’m trying to develop something right now.  But that is a long row to hoe always.  I love doing series television.  I’m a real workhorse in that way.  I love the work.  The work is hard, and the hours are long, but it’s what I’ve done for most of my adult life, and that’s what I like to do.

MHTV:  TV more than film at this point?  There are so many films fans love you in, too.

I think there are more opportunities for me in television.  Most movies are made for 14-year-old boys.

MHTV:  You’d have to be the long-suffering mom in film at this point.

I am a long-suffering mother.  So I would be happy to play that role.  But I think the roles are just better, with a little more complexity, in TV.

MHTV:  What kind of character would you like to play next?  A Southern woman again, or do you want to mix it up?

I always like to mix it up.  Although I think on television, there is some evidence that the kind of closer you are to the character you’re playing, the more successful you are.  And playing Southerners is something I really like to do.  I know them well, and I like to do that because I feel like sometimes Southerners aren’t portrayed as if they are complex characters.  And I always beg to differ on that.  And also, when you are playing a Southerner, you can say the most awful things and get away with it!

MHTV:  As long as it’s followed with “Bless your heart,” right?

That’s right.  So there are benefits to that, especially on TV.