05 May 2010
Posted in Writers - David M. Stern
"I heard some good news today. The FBI and the CIA are going to start cooperating. They are going to start working together. And if you don't know the difference between the FBI and the CIA, the FBI bungles domestic crime, the CIA bungles foreign crime." —David Letterman
What: A terrorist plot to bomb the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC is suspected and The Agency has planted a group in the suburbs to uncover it.
Who: "Harry, our extremely good natured, average, everyman hero, pops a disc in his portable DVD player. A shadowy authority figure appears on the screen."
Shadowy Authority Figure: Good afternoon Harry. As you know, the Agency has discovered a mole. We are calling the mole ‘X.’ All we know about X is that he, or she, lives in Chevy Chase, MD. A quaint suburb of the nation’s capital. You are to live in this neighborhood until such time as X’s identity is determined. Here is your new address.
As a picture of the house is shown on the DVD, Harry blinks and accidentally pops out a contact lens.
Harry: Wait a minute. I didn’t get that –
Shadowy Authority Figure: Agent 14-Q17 will front as your wife, Honey. Agent 14-A23 will be your teenage son, Kip. Here are the secret codes for entrance to the house –
As Harry fumbles for his saline solution he knocks the compact DVD player to the ground, the DVD skips.
Shadowy Authority Figure (Cont.): …24 – Q. Well, that should cover it. Good luck, Harry. This tape will self destruct in five seconds.
The DVD self destructs.
Harry: Well, this should be interesting.
Needless to say, the missing information was somewhat critical to his acceptance by his new “wife” Honey, a martial arts bombshell who attacks him the moment he walks through the door without using the “secret knock.” Honey washed out of more active operations because she lost her touch – she is no longer able to chop her way through 4 to 1 odds, only 3 to 1 odds; her hammering of Harry would indicate she hasn’t lost much of her touch. Kip, their fake teenage son, is actually 27 and has been a teenager for the last 14 years, a role that is beginning to wear him down.
On his first day on the job Harry is picked up by his carpool – the other agents assigned to the undercover task:
Chief drives the car, Harry rides shotgun. Two other spies ride in the back.
Chief: Good morning Harry. And welcome to our little team. We might not be James Bond but we like to think we can do a little spying. I’m Dick –
Phil: I’m Phil.
Phil2: I’m…also Phil.
Harry: Two Phil’s? That’s a little confusing.
Phil: Tell me about it.
Phil2: Slight glitch in the phony name assignments.
Chief: We decided it was easier to live with it than go through Agency paperwork. How’s the fake marriage working out?
Harry: Fine, fine. Kip is a sweet kid…well, man, I guess. He’s 27 right?
Chief: In March, yes. And the wife?
Harry: Who Honey? She’s…
Phil: Uh oh.
Phil2: The big pause.
Harry: No, it’s fine. She’s just a little high strung. She’ll get the hang of it.
Chief: Consider yourself lucky. I’m married twenty years to a woman who still doesn’t know I’m a spy.
Phil: She also thinks you like her cooking.
Chief: I don’t know which lie is harder to keep up.
All the spies except Harry laugh at the Chief’s joke.
Harry: I just hope we are compatible. Me and Honey I mean.
Chief: Don’t worry about that. You two were specifically put together because there was a very low probability of anything developing sexually.
No one in Harry’s fake family is quite satisfied with his or her present position – Honey wants back in the field, closer to hand-to-hand combat; Kip would like to be a real spy, if only so he doesn’t have to take Geometry ever again, and, more importantly, so he can win the fair Honey; and Harry wants nothing more than to be an inventor, instead of an insurance salesman. When Harry announces his ambition to the Chief, he is greeted with suspicion; suspicion that may get him terminated in all senses of the word. It is, however, this very desire to pursue one of his inventions – an alarm clock tied into a coffee machine with a refrigerated cream dispenser that begins its brewing cycle when the snooze button is hit – that leads Harry to uncover the perpetrators of the plot to blow up the Lincoln Memorial.
No Meaner Place: Our view of spydom is predicated on the very serious James Bond, Bourne, and Le Carré novels; or the hilarious – Mr. Bean, Agent OSS 117, or Austin Powers. “The Domestic Front” is clearly of the slapstick variety, hewing closely to a deadpan “Get Smart.” But Harry isn’t nearly as dumb as he looks and doesn’t seem to be entirely in on the joke. He’s the smart guy everyone, including himself, underestimates; the guy who has dreams and aspirations just out of his grasp but, like most of the rest of us, keeps on keeping on - an everyday hero. And it is this very “ordinariness” that keeps “The Domestic Front” grounded, for even though everyone surrounding Harry is a buffoon, Harry actually isn’t and it’s what makes this pilot smarter than the average bear (a misplaced cartoon reference). Even within the slapstick and ludicrous situations there is the melancholy that resides in Harry as he unravels the mysteries. Harry wants to think and live outside the box, but the box has been constructed of kryptonite and he’s Clark Kent.
I am always astonished at the comedy choices made by networks, as much by the ones they choose as the ones they don’t. There was plenty for them to love in the format and characters; and the stories didn’t necessarily have to follow mystery-of-the-week because the characters were so strong and much could be developed on the strictly “domestic” front as Kip and Honey try to perfect and expand their roles.
Life Lessons for Writers: How much better life would be if network executives understood a Cone of Comedy instead of a Cone of Silence.
Conversation with the Writer:
Neely: I’ve known about you for a long time; of course that sounds really creepy, doesn’t it.
David: I saw the email and I was really floored by how much you knew. I’m flattered and thrilled that anyone read “Domestic Front” and I even saw reference to “About Face.” I couldn’t believe you knew about that one – it seems to be you and about seven other people.
Neely: You’re such a great comedic voice. I remember in the mid 90s seeing your name at Fox. Did you have a writer Overall there?
David: After I finished my producing Overall, I went into a Castle Rock Overall and then I went to Fox, so it may well have been at that time. And as a matter of fact I even had a meeting with David Kelley at some point during that stint. Perhaps you were working at his office then.
Neely: It’s possible. I actually remember creating a “David Stern” file. You’ve always had the right “screwy” voice for him.
David: I was still obsessed with “The Wonder Years” at that time, which had been my first gig, and pitched some kind of strange screwball “Wonder Years” concept. I remember him liking it but I have no idea what happened after that – just one of those things. It’s what happens in Overall Deals – a lot of meetings and conversations and cool stuff that flies around. Whether or not it ever amounts to anything is another story entirely.
Neely: Well you did get to write a crazy schizophrenic pilot out of one of the Overalls.
David: “About Face”? I did that one after that Fox deal. It was actually on a blind script deal for HIP which was HBO’s development arm at the time. I’ve written a lot of pilots that I’ve been very pleased with and got paid plenty for but didn’t get them made. It’s frustrating and that’s kind of the crux of what you’re asking about.
Neely: That kind of frustration leads right into “Domestic Front.” This was one of those scripts that I read when I was doing development for David Kelley and never forgot it. It falls within the realm of a traditional sitcom, which some people may find slightly old fashioned, but it plays on a number of subtle psychological factors (bringing us back to “About Face”) – especially melancholy – that give it a subversive touch of depth. What triggered this?
David: Maybe I’m just a melancholy guy… I don’t know. I’m always looking for something interesting. Comic leads are the hardest and most nuanced parts to write. They can’t just be wild and crazy, they have a show to carry; and yet you don’t want them to be just responders. It’s a very narrow palette of colors to paint with for the lead comic voice. On “Domestic Front” I imagined myself as an actual spy undercover in this situation and it felt claustrophobic but funny. I thought if I could give him that little curl of wanting to be an inventor, to be something more, you’d feel it. That goes along with what I mean by a narrow palette – a little attitude goes a long way with the lead comic voice. We don’t want too strange a lead; we do want him to be relatable, and melancholy is a part of human existence.
Neely: Was this going to be single cam or multi?
David: It was written at a time when HIP was looking for multi-camera shows. They had the “Louie” show coming out and it was a tiny bubble of time when HBO was trying to develop 4 camera shows. It was designed for 4 camera, but I feel that show in particular could easily have been adapted to single camera or animation.
Neely: It’s like you’re reading my mind because a bit later on I was going to ask you if you had ever thought of repurposing this into an animated series. Obviously, you had thought of all the different permutations.
David: Yeah. You know it never felt right. I thought, “Really? You guys want to do 4 camera? Okay, I’ll believe it when I see it.” And sure enough, they didn’t. They never really had a plan. They were never going to put this on HBO so we went around to all the networks; but at that time the networks were all exclusively about one camera comedy. Nobody bit. Even though it was designed as a multi-cam, it still would have been a challenge. This pilot was never shot, but I did a pilot before this that was shot, called “Manhattan Man” about a family of super heroes.
Neely: Oh my god! You did that? The one where Ken Howard played the lead? I read that script when I was an assistant and I thought it was the funniest script that I had ever read and I could visualize it on the page. On top of that, I loved the way the filmed pilot turned out! What the hell happened to that???
David: Good question. I don’t know.
Neely: It was brilliant!
David: Thank you. I was really proud of that one. I thought for sure it was going to go. I have no idea. I think that they had just signed all these very expensive deals at the time and I guess I was lower on the food chain. They had other priorities. I felt it was political because everyone I knew at the time had the same response – “this thing is really funny.” But it didn’t go. I really got a taste on that one – it was another high concept that I did for 4 camera and I really got a taste for trying to do outrageous things on a stage. I thought “Domestic Front” would have been another one like that.
Neely: This season, one of the pilots in contention for series pickup is called “No Ordinary Family” about members of a family who develop different super powers. It’s written as a one hour and lacks focus and humor. All I could think about when I was reading it was, “Whatever happened to ‘Manhattan Man’?”
David: Well, at this point in time, I’m just glad to have a show. I spent a lot of time in different development deals, developing pilots I was thrilled about but didn’t get made. Now I’m just interested in getting things made.
Neely: I don’t know what to say. I loved the stuff that didn’t get made. I’m looking forward to seeing the show you did get on the air - your animated show called “Ugly Americans.”
David: “Ugly Americans” is for Comedy Central. It’s a peculiar show about a social worker in New York City helping humans and non-humans assimilate into the country.
Neely: Changing focus slightly… Either on this or on some of your other shows, what were you influences? You have a fertile imagination, but even the most fertile imaginations are usually fed by other things.
David: In terms of other shows? TV I was influenced by? Literary? In TV, maybe it’s just fresh in my mind since we’re talking about “Domestic Front,” but I was a big “Get Smart” fan as a kid. What’s cool is that my father’s name is Leonard Stern, and Leonard Stern was one of the Executive Producers on the show. I used to walk around telling people that that was my dad. They say all young writers are plagiarists and I started with a fake father. Maybe that’s where “Domestic Front” came from.
I also loved “The Andy Griffith Show;” I loved the expansion of the world of that show. I always felt that “The Simpsons” was influenced by “The Andy Griffith Show.” On one it’s Mayberry and on the other it’s Springfield. On “The Andy Griffith Show” they could take a full episode telling me who Floyd the Barber was and I’d be interested. That’s incredibly rare. Most shows are driven by the power of the lead, and even though Andy would always be involved, the world of Mayberry expanded out so far. You really bought that world. I really believed there was a place called Mayberry. A similar major influence was “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Same reason – there wasn’t a second that I didn’t think I wasn’t in a newsroom, easily allowing me to suspend my disbelief. This is a hard thing to do and takes real discipline or maybe passion to accomplish what you’re trying to say, to sell the authenticity of your world. And, by the way, going back to “Get Smart,” as funny as it was, I bought that there was C.O.N.T.R.O.L. and C.H.A.O.S. I completely bought the world. And Mel Brooks proved to be the ultimate master of what I’m talking about. In his movies, take “Young Frankenstein,” for instance, he sold it – it wasn’t just Frankenstein gags; he sold the world.
Neely: And “The Producers.” I still believe in the world of “The Producers.” That world is absolutely realistic. It happens all the time; it’s just that in real life it’s not funny.
David: It’s commitment; full commitment to what you’re doing is the key, really taking your world seriously and not selling out for a cheap joke. If it doesn’t fit into that world, then don’t do it. Those little disciplines make all the difference to me as a fan. As soon as you pop that bubble, as soon as you sell out – I’ve done it plenty, so don’t get me wrong – you’ve lost the audience.
Neely: Did you have any mentors in the business?
David: Neal Marlens and Carol Black gave me my start on “The Wonder Years” and they were brilliant brilliant people. I loved them and love them still. They were fantastic. I remember that I was 23, had just arrived in town and I read the pilot script and was blown away. So I banged out a spec script as quickly as I could and sent it to them. They responded to it immediately. The pilot hadn’t even been shot yet and that’s how I got my first gig. I was on the show for the first three seasons.
Neely: You know that that breaks all the rules – you’re never supposed to submit a spec for the show you want to work on.
David: I would put a major caveat on that theory. The time to write a spec is immediately when there are not piles of scripts, and make it good … I caught them so early. The pilot hadn’t been shot yet and they had a 6 episode commitment. If you’re already on the air, then millions of people are clamoring to get on your show. But if no one knows who you are and you have a 6 episode commitment, or 13 or 22 - This doesn’t apply to a guy like David Kelley, who’s so prolific it’s insane; he just seems to squirt these things out like water - but for most of us it’s a serious chore. So when they had 6 episodes to come up with, they were thinking “Crap, I need something.” And my script appeared and they thought “Wait a minute. We can actually use this.” They needed help. That would be my major exception to that rule. If you can get on when people actually need your help and you can deliver the goods –that’s another way to get in.
Neely: Let’s talk about reading and writing a bit. Are there any literary figures exerting influence on your work? What do you read for fun?
David: When I get time off from work I sit quietly. Quite frankly, what I really read is news – I just go online these days. I’m not even reading a book, unfortunately; so I spend my time as a news/political junkie flipping around Huffington Post, the Washington Post and other sites. It’s weird, but maybe it’s because I spend so much of my time dancing around in my imagination that I find facts and news and non-fiction to be the most interesting or relieving – it’s the biggest escape, in a strange way. I like to escape my crazy head with actual facts.
Neely: Going back to “Domestic Front,” how far into the process did this one get?
David: I made a bad deal on that script. I should have been able to predict from the beginning that I wasn’t going to get any traction. It was HIP and they weren’t going to put it on HBO. We went hat in hand to the networks; it just wasn’t the right approach. What I’m really proud of is the response I’ve gotten from it. I was up for a staff job on “Andy Barker, P.I.” for Conaco, Conan’s company, and David Kissinger read it and loved it. I didn’t get the gig, but he did option “Domestic Front” for Conaco. They didn’t do anything with it because it’s that age old dilemma – once a pilot has been through the process, it’s dead.
Neely: Well, that’s why I started the blog. I don’t understand why that is and wish someone, someday, will realize that such waste is crazy.
David: That whole process is insane. This cyclical “out with the old and in with the new” where nobody wants to touch the “old” because it’s somebody else’s discard. It’s just silly and wasteful. The Features side doesn’t do that. Stuff can kick around and switch around and still get made eventually. But in pilots – once somebody passes, it’s like a leper.
Neely: I’m trying to say, “Hey there’s a lot of really great stuff that’s out there that’s better than any of the crap you’re looking at now. Why aren’t you looking at this stuff again?” I suppose this is part of my quixotic nature, tilting at windmills.
David: Keep tilting. I hope people listen.
Neely: What kind of notes or comments came at you?
David: It was silence. I suppose it’s the ultimate compliment. It felt like people didn’t have anything to say. When I was pitching it, even pitching it to CBS, which, at the time was an incredibly conservative comedy development team, I was killing them in the room; and I walked out of that room and turned to Harvey Myman, my Executive Producer at the time, and said “They’re not going to buy that.” Everybody loved it and nobody wanted to buy it because it didn’t fit into the incredibly narrow comic model that everyone had decided they wanted. I don’t know why people box themselves into corners like this.
Neely: Okay, so we know that no one is willing to revisit, and you had already considered animation, which makes sense since you did, after all, have a long stint on “The Simpsons.” How about setting this up as a small, inexpensive and hilarious feature. Have you given that possibility any thought?
David: You want to produce it? Hey let’s go.
Neely: I wish I had the backers. But could you see this as a feature?
David: You asked what do I read for pleasure and what I watch for pleasure, but the truth is that movies, for me, are “play” and television is something I’ve worked at. It’s sort of a variation of “I’m officially in the kitchen, so I don’t eat in the restaurant.” I’ve always left Features off to the side. I just enjoy movies – I go and I watch them and love them and am dazzled by them and I don’t understand how people put 2 hour storylines together. It blows my mind a bit. That said I’m now willing to venture into that world. However, and it’s a big however, I just got 14 more scripts picked up for “Ugly Americans.” I just got through my first run and they just piled 14 more on top, which is great news but it also means, “Do I have time to do a feature? Nah, I don’t think so, not right now.”
Neely: So you have considered features. Do you have any feature ideas percolating in your head?
David: I’ve got tons of them and I’ve written a couple. Again, a couple that I’m really pleased and proud of that just didn’t go anywhere. I’d come off “The Wonder Years” and “The Simpsons” and everyone seemed to like what I was doing and they were offering me these great Overall Deals. And I jumped in writing things that I really liked. The truth of the matter is that I jumped into the world of development too early. The sober truth is that everybody always seems to like my stuff just fine, my creativity and imagination, but I never quite had the juice back then to get my stuff made. I’m realizing that now, so I’m really pleased to have a show on the air, (a) because I really like the show and it’s fun and (b) because it was always the missing element that I never paid attention to before. It’ll give me the power, when I actually have the time, to get my features made. When I had the time, nobody seemed remotely interested.
Neely: This brings up an interesting comment by Michael Hanel, who at that time was an executive in Comedy Development at Fox (now he’s partnered with Mindy Schultheis in their own production company, Acme Productions). He said that nothing ruins a good writer faster than going into development too early.
David: Michael was one of the people who helped me develop “Manhattan Man.” And I have to say, I’m hardly ruined.
Neely: Of course not, but you understand the process enough to know that it didn’t just involve writing, it also involved working the system so that you could get those things you loved produced, and, as you pointed out, that was something you didn’t know how to do.
As we’ve noted, you do have an interesting skew on things. Tell me something about the schizophrenic, “About Face.” How did that come about and what happened to it?
David: That was another blind script that I sold to Fox – Tracy Katsky, an executive at the time, bought it in the room. I have to say that Sandy Grushow wasn’t thrilled about it, but Tracy was a big fan. I wrote it up, but ultimately, even though she loved it, she didn’t want to go that strange. Of anybody, Fox should go as wild as they can. That’s another one that sits on the sidelines that I’d love to develop as a feature one of these days.
Neely: Let’s talk a bit about you. What brought you out here in the first place?
David: I’m from Chevy Chase, Maryland, outside of DC and from an early age I was a TV junkie. I think one advantage that I had over other people was that I didn’t come out here to get into entertainment; I came here specifically to be a sitcom writer. I was an English, not a film, major at Ithaca College, but was already writing scripts on my own. My first year out of college I had a handful of specs ready – having written them off the television screen, trying to learn the format. I wrote a “Family Ties,” a “Cheers,” a “Perfect Strangers.” I would have done anything; I was driven. I came out and got a job as a production assistant and on my first day on that job I met a guy named Mike Becker, a still photographer at the time who was good friends with Neal and Carol. He introduced me to them and so it went. They were coming up with “Wonder Years,” and I wrote a spec based on the as yet unproduced pilot and sold it to them. Like I said, I was lucky in that I always knew what I was going to do – for some reason I just knew that sitcoms were going to be it for me.
Neely: What got you your first agent?
David: “Wonder Years.” Once I made that sale, it was amazing how casual it all was.
Neely: It’s amazing how easy it is to get a job once you have a job.
David: Well that’s it. Neal and Carol asked if I had an agent and I said no, and they asked if I would like theirs. I said sure. That was that. They were with Leading Artists at the time. I started with Marty Adelstein and moved to Robb Rothman. And then Robb jumped out and formed his own agency and I followed.
Neely: I know that now you’re with CAA, but that you’re still close to Robb.
David: How much do you know about my life??
Neely: I have to keep a few things secret. It is amazing when you start digging, how many people in common you end up having.
David: It’s a small town, isn’t it?
Neely: It’s a very small town. David, I don’t want to keep you because I know you’re really really busy. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time with me.
Do you work here in LA?
David: I work in Santa Monica, and am living in Ocean Park. I work 5 minutes away from home and that ain’t too bad. I love Ocean Park, I really do. I’m at 3rd and am looking out at the beach right now.
Neely: See, there are still wonderful things about scripts that don’t get made. They still end up paying for wonderful views.
David: You’re right. That’s what I’m saying. In terms of getting a show on the air, I don’t know; I’m not sure I was ever in that much of a rush, anyway. Right now, at this point, I have a show, I’ve got a really strong handle on my craft and I’ve got plenty of dough. Everything is just fine. And maybe, just maybe, we can circle back and get some of these other things made.
I just love that you love some of my faves. I love these scripts and I hope you have success in convincing the industry to make shows they believe in and not just whatever is hot in November.
Neely: Thank you so much David. This was so much fun for me.
