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| 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.
