Listen: CulturePop No. 27 - Guest Jim Colucci, Real Housewives, Hostages

Listen: CulturePop No. 27 - Guest Jim Colucci, Real Housewives, Hostages

Fall Preview: CBS' The Crazy Ones

The Crazy Ones

Thursdays at 9PM Eastern / 8PM Central,

Premiering September 26

In 1997, the Los Angeles office of advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day created Apple Computer’s “Think Different” slogan, and an accompanying campaign inaugurated with a now historic TV ad.  “Here’s to the crazy ones,” Richard Dreyfuss narrated, in a salute to the geniuses and innovators who have changed the world.  The spot won raves from critics, and the 1998 Emmy for Best Commercial.

Now, CBS brings us The Crazy Ones, a new advertising-set sitcom which cleverly can be viewed as both an homage to and a lampooning of such self-serious salesmanship.  And with its cunning conceit and all-star cast, the new show is poised to bring the same type of “crazy” energy, and similar accolades, to the genre of half-hour comedy.

The brainchild of John Montgomery, the Executive Creative Director of Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett, and nurtured by accomplished executive producer David E. Kelley, The Crazy Ones snagged Oscar winner Robin Williams for his long-awaited return to series television.  Williams’ hyperkinetic character Simon Roberts is “an idea guy who’s been on everything but skates,” says the 62-year-old comedy icon.  “I watched a documentary about ad guys, and a lot of them live on the edge.  Their whole job is to think outside the envelope, and at the same time get an idea down to the simplest, purest image, to fight for your consciousness.”

“And,” Williams adds, “they can be kind of crazy.”  That’s where Simon’s daughter Sydney, his partner at their joint small agency, comes in.  After seasons of slaying vampires as Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar says she was happy to become the organized, ambitious and Type-A Sydney, whose task of wrangling her unfocused father, while finding her own place in the industry he dominates, may be just as exhausting.  “To me, some of the greatest parts of Buffy were the funny moments,” Gellar explains of stepping into this lighter role.  “And I got to a point where I thought, ‘I’ve cried a lot.  I’m ready to be funny.’”

Helping to make that happen is Bill D’Elia, himself a longtime New York ad man turned TV writer, and now one of The Crazy Ones’ executive producers.  The inspiration for Montgomery’s pilot script, he explains, “was this idea to have fun with how we create advertising.  Not to denigrate the products, but the process, and [as ad execs] ourselves.”  With a pitch like that, it’s easy to see while real-life clients are clamoring to come on board; The Crazy Ones features McDonalds in its pilot, and D’Elia expects to recruit two or three more real brands, “plus a few fictitious ones thrown in,” to round out Roberts & Roberts’ roster.

But, the producer insists, The Crazy Ones’ appeal ultimately comes not just from the craftiness of its concept, but from the chemistry of its cast.  From the start, D’Elia says, “Everyone has felt like they’ve been together for a long time.  Robin and Sarah feel like real father and daughter.”  And coworkers played by Hamish Linklater and James Wolk – fresh off his season on that other crazy/advertising show, Mad Men – have already proven themselves more than capable of keeping up with Williams, the king of comedic improv. 

As Williams agrees, “All these people can go one-on-one, and riff just as well.”  But with The Crazy Ones, he notes, “I am often on script because the script is so good.”  The actor credits the show’s quality to its writers and advisors, many of whom are “real ad agency execs, who tell us stories that are just insane.”  Of course, Williams and Gellar might be able to contribute some stories of their own; Williams recently shilled for Snickers, and Gellar has done over 100 commercials – including, at age 7, a spot for Duncan Hines cake mix, directed by D’Elia.  It goes to prove, she adds, that it’s just all one, small Crazy world.

Fall Preview: CBS' Hostages

Hostages

Mondays at 10 PM Eastern/9 PM Central,

Premiering September 23

With its similarly intense mix of political intrigue and personal drama, Hostages is obviously harboring hopes of becoming the next Homeland.  After all, the two series have more in common than merely the cleverness of their blonde heroines; both action thrillers have origins in Israel, which is fast becoming fertile ground for growing America’s future TV hits.

Showtime’s series, adapted from the Israeli Hatufim, captured critical raves and swept the Emmy Awards in 2012.  Now, CBS’ high-concept Hostages, based on a previously unproduced script out of Tel Aviv, has nabbed both a top-notch cast and one of TV’s highest-profile launching pads for a drama, the network’s Mondays at 10.

Hostages stars Toni Collette in the juicy lead role of Ellen Sanders, a Washington, DC surgeon whose family is taken captive by team of rogue FBI agents on the eve of her operation on the President of the United States.  Commanded to kill her political patient, Sanders is tested in her resolve as a medical professional, as a wife and mother, and as a patriotic citizen.  The scope of the story, says producer Alon Aranya, who teamed with writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff to tailor the original script for an American audience, reaches beyond that of the typical television procedural.  The intricately-plotted, surprise-rigged Hostages “will be like a feature film designed for TV.”

In another way that Hostages will be notable for the network, the series will, following its September premiere, run for 15 straight episodes with few repeats or interruptions, before ceding its timeslot in early 2014 to another hotly anticipated drama. (Intelligence, which stars Lost’s Josh Holloway as a government intelligence operative whose brain has been implanted with a supercomputer microchip and CSI’s Marg Helgenberger as his agency boss, is scheduled to debut February 24.)  Such shorter seasons have long been the norm on cable, but as network president Nina Tassler explains, this is a first for CBS:  “We’re normally in the 22-episode business, because our fans don’t want less of their favorite shows – they want more.”  But Tassler and her team were soon won over by the Hostages producers’ detailed plans for a nailbiting first season, which she describes as “fifteen really terrific episodes, jampacked with big events and plot twists.”

The twists were what lured actors like Collette, who remembers that “when I read the pilot script, it was unlike any other show.  I loved that I didn’t know what was happening -- although I thought I did.  It really was a page-turner, where I couldn’t put it down.”  Collette is joined by Tate Donovan as Ellen’s less successful – and less-than-faithful – husband Brian, Dylan McDermott as Duncan Carlisle, the erstwhile Fed turned conspirator and kidnapper, and James Naughton as the President targeted for assassination.

But both Hostages’ producer and leading lady warn not to blindly accept these simplified descriptions of the show’s characters.  “The show is a conspiracy thriller – and as such, all is not what it seems.  There’s always another layer,” Aranya teases.

“People keep asking Dylan, ‘How is it to play the bad guy?’” Collette adds.  “But he may not be entirely bad.  All of these characters have their reasons for doing what they do.  And those reasons will slowly be revealed.”

Fall Preview: CBS' Mom

Mom

Mondays at 9:30 PM Eastern/8:30 PM Central,

Premiering September 23

As the executive producer of a trio of today’s top comedies, Chuck Lorre might want to take some advice from his Big Bang Theory character Sheldon:  look into cloning.  Because this fall, after already bringing forth the Big Bang, plus Two and a Half Men and Mike & Molly, this man in demand is bringing his fourth sitcom to CBS.

Co-created by Lorre and his Men writers Eddie Gorodetsky and Gemma Baker, Mom is the story of Christy (Anna Faris), a thirtysomething waitress at a posh Napa Valley restaurant who struggles not only with the challenges of being a single mom to a rebellious teenage daughter and pre-teen son, but with addiction.  Christy’s four-month-and-counting sobriety will continually be tested, now that her man-hungry mother Bonnie (Allison Janney), herself a (barely) recovering alcoholic, has reappeared in her life, armed with passive-aggressive insights and questionable advice.

“I’ve always wanted to tell the story about somebody trying to reclaim his or her life after destroying it, repairing the damage of perhaps a poorly thought-out lifestyle,” Lorre says of his latest inspiration.  With Mom, “We get to see the second act of Christy’s life.  I think the idea of a second chance is a very American theme.”

After building a successful career on the big screen, Faris chose Mom as her first TV project, similarly moved by the show’s complex dynamic and message.   “On film, I’ve played a lot of very simple characters, so now it’s fun to play someone like Christy, who’s so complicated,” explains the 36-year-old actress and real-life mom to year-old son Jack with her husband, actor Chris Pratt.  “Christy is flawed, but trying to be better.  She has the best of intentions, but doesn’t always know the right way to get there.  I think we all have issues like that to some degree, whether it’s from not yet achieving your life goal, or not being sober, or having financial struggles.  I think that’s why from page one as I read this script, it felt like Cinderella’s shoe.  I realized, ‘Wow, this is me!’”

After winning four Emmys during her stint on The West Wing, Faris’ co-star Allison Janney is already TV royalty, and was equally eager to become America’s new favorite Mom.  “The best comedies deal with the reality of recognizable situations without always trying too hard to be ‘funny,’” Janney enthuses.  “With Mom, everybody will be able to recognize the truths behind this very frustrating relationship.”

Rue McClanahan's Behind the Scenes Secrets About The Golden Girls, Betty White, Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty : Obsessed: glamour.com

Rue McClanahan's Behind the Scenes Secrets About The Golden Girls, Betty White, Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty : Obsessed: glamour.com

Devious Ana Ortiz

As the substitute host of yesterday's Frank DeCaro Show on Sirius XM OutQ 109 (so that Frank could attend the funeral here in NYC of James Gandolfini), I had the pleasure of interviewing Ana Ortiz, one of the stars of Lifetime's new series Devious Maids.

If the description of Devious Maids sounds familiar -- five women come together and form a friendship after the murder of one of their own -- it's because it's from the creator of the long-running hit Desperate Housewives, Marc Cherry.  In the interview below, Ana -- an incredibly funny, sexy lady whom I first met nearly a decade ago when she was acting in a sitcom pilot created by a mutual friend -- talks all about her new character, Marisol, and about her star-making role as Ugly Betty's fabulous, high-heeled sister Hilda.

And by the way, if you missed the premiere of Devious Maids this past Sunday, June 23, there are a few ways to catch up before episode 2 this Sunday.  This IMDB link will work for the next few days, so go ahead and enjoy the pilot for what looks like a fun, soapy new end-of-the-weekend treat.


Devious Maids
Lifetime
Sundays, 10 PM Eastern

Welcome Under the Dome

A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight

Starting Tonight, June 24, Spend Your Summer Under the Dome

In his dozens of novels and their TV and film adaptations, Stephen King has turned ordinary townspeople into vampires, terrorized them with demon-possessed cars and rabid dogs, and buried them – but not for long – in a haunted “Pet Sematary.”

Now King is about to seal the unsuspecting folk of Chester’s Mill under an enormous, transparent dome.  As in the author’s 2009 novel, CBS’ new 13-episode summer series, Under the Dome, will portray the town’s inhabitants -- and one mysterious new stranger, Dale “Barbie” Barbara, played by Mike Vogel -- as they strain to survive in post-apocalyptic conditions and to find answers as to what this barrier is, where it came from, and if and when it will go away.

Although the show has this far-out conceit as its start, its executive producer Neal Baer stresses that Under the Dome, from producer Steven Spielberg, “is not a sci-fi show per se.  It’s much more character-driven, about how people in a town in Anywhere, USA cope in an environment where resources, and faith, are running out.” 

Desperate, the population of Chester’s Mill – the exterior shots of which are a combination of the real-life towns of Southport and Burgah, North Carolina – will have to struggle to keep order as they both re-learn some of mankind’s most basic skills, like farming, and capitalize on some new technologies, like solar energy.  Along the way, “we know you’ll fall in love with these characters,” Baer says, “and be drawn into how they cope with this mystery.”

When author Stephen King visited Under the Dome’s Wilmington, North Carolina set for the start of production, “he said to me, ‘We all live under a dome,’” reports executive producer Neal Baer.  “He meant it in the sense that resources are limited, and sustainability is an important issue of our time.  So this is a modern-day parable of the crises we could all be facing.”

So in case someday you should find yourself similarly trapped under a dome of your own, Baer offers some helpful clues about the phenomenon and its mysterious physical properties.

Impenetrable.  As we’ll soon see, neither airplanes nor the bombs they drop can break through Chester’s Mill’s mysterious dome…

Insurmountable.  …Nor can the barrier be tunneled under – “but you’ll see that they try that,” Baer reveals.  And because the dome encapsulates part of a nearby lake, “they try to swim under, too.  They’ll try anything.  They’re desperate.”  And here, Baer reveals a small clue.  “In their attempts, they find that it’s not really a dome; it’s more like a sphere or bubble.”

Electrified.  Touching the dome, Baer says, “shocks you at first, but then you get used to it.”

Non-Stick.  After the efforts of one apparently unlucky dome-toucher, we’ll see for a while, courtesy of special effects, his or her bloody handprint hanging in the sky.  “But the thing is, the dome is like Teflon,” Baer explains.  “And so ultimately, the handprint kind of slides off.  It’s much like a self-cleaning oven.”

Microclimatic.  The encapsulated area of town is large, and contains a lake, Baer says; therefore, as sunlight shines through, it evaporates water and makes clouds and rain.  “For these people, it’s like living in a giant terrarium.”

Transparent.  “The dome is invisible – at least when we start,” Baer teases, and so being able to see the outside world makes life even more tantalizing for those trapped.  For example, leading lady Julia Shumway (Rachelle Lefevre) can look out at another house she had thought of buying. “’Why didn’t I buy that house across the street?’ Julia asks herself.  But actually, I leave it to the audience to decide what side of the dome it’s better to be on.”

Under the Dome

CBS

Mondays at 10 PM Eastern /9 PM Central

Starts June 24

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: