MY HOLLYWOOD MISADVENTURES

The MisAdventures began humbly enough - with about 2,000 readers. When it rose to over 50,000 (last week we hit 75,000) I started listening to those of you who urged me to collect the stories into a book. Starting at the beginning, I went back and rewrote the essays, adding new detail and events as they came to mind. This book is the result of that effort. However, I'm mindful of the fact, Gentle Reader, that you also enjoy having these little offerings posted every Friday to put a smile on your face for the weekend. So I'll continue running them until it reaches the final Fade Out. Meanwhile, it would please the heart of this ink-stained wretch - as well as tickle whatever that hard black thing is in my banker's chest - if you bought the book. It will make a great gift, don't you think? And if you'd like a personally autographed copy you can get it directly through my (ahem) Merchant's Link at Amazon.com. Click here. Buy the book and I will sign it and ship it to you. Break a leg!

THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK

Two new companion editions to the international best-selling Sten series. In the first, learn the Emperor's most closely held cooking secrets. In the other, Sten unleashes his shaggy-dog joke cracking sidekick, Alex Kilgour. Both available as trade paperbacks or in all major e-book flavors. Click here to tickle your funny bone or sizzle your palate.

THE HAWKS TAKE CARE OF THEIR OWN

2012-01-27T07:15:00.000-05:00

"I don't care if cock-a-roaches are watching my show, so long as they have a Nielsen box." (Irwin Allen)

Hawk Leader Tony La Torre And Adam Rich

In Code Red's 'Framed By Fire'

Chris Was Studying the location sheet - the daily list of locations where Code Red was being filmed.

"They're shooting at the LA Yards today," he said.

I looked at my own sheet. "It's a night shoot," I noted. "The Great Train Robbery, Beach Ball Style."

The shoot in question involved the story mentioned in the previous episode where Adam (The Beach Ball) Rich is cozened by a gang of juvenile delinquents - The Hawks - into raiding a boxcar stuffed with small, expensive electronic gear favored by the young of that era - Walkman, mini-stereo gear, hand-held Pac-Man devices, and other early 80's high tech stuff.

Chris chuckled nastily. "You mean the Not-So-Great Train Robbery," he predicted. "Hide and watch. Tonight's gonna be a cluster fuck of the first order." (A cluster fuck is GI slang for a bunch of Grunts clustering together during a firefight, presenting a single easy grenade target for the Bad Guys.)

I picked up the script in question and thumbed to the scene. "What's the problem? Other than being at night, that is. Kids can only work so many hours. And night hours count double... Or something like that."

"You see the stars, Grasshopper," Chris said in a very bad Bruce Lee imitation "But you do not see the moon."

I thought a minute. Let's see...The Hawks... Beach Ball in tow... they're supposed to hop abroad a stationary boxcar... then loot it. I circled back to the word "hop."

The light dawned.

"Shit!" I said. "These kids are really, really - REALLY, short. And doors to boxcars are..."

"...Way the hell up here," Chris said, raising his hand well over his head. How are they going to get up there - with ladders? Grapnels? Anti-gravity devices?"

"Maybe the director has already figured it out," I said. "Made arrangements. Got Props to cut down the boxcar, or something."

Another laugh from Chris. "Ha! I say to you. Ha! And Ha! once again. Look who's directing."

I looked. Damn, and double damn. I won't tell you the director's name, but he'd screwed up two of our scripts over at Universal.

Chris said, "The guy's IQ probably equals Irwin's sperm count. All single digits."

Couldn't argue with that. I reached for the phone. "Maybe we ought to warn somebody."

Chris snorted. "Fuck 'em," he said. "Let them figure it out their ownselves."

You are probably noticing about now that our morale was rather low. This had less to do with the awful show we were working on - which, despite all its flaws, had a really nice cast and crew - and everything to do with Irwin Allen 's management style. If you look up Shitheel Boss in The Dictionary Of American Slang, you'll find Irwin's picture residing there.

Irwin, it turned out, liked to manage by making everybody mad at each other, creating such chaos that only he could bring order. We'd just found out, for example, that Irwin had been telling Larry that we'd said nasty things about him - disparaged his talent, and so on. Meanwhile, he'd been telling us - a warning, as he put it - that Larry was out to get us fired. And telling terrible lies about us.

Now, I'd been a boss of people ever since I was 19. Restaurant personnel when I was a young chef; a newsroom full of reporters and photographers in my later newspaper city editor days. I'd even been to management school. (Don't worry. The bullshit didn't stick. Much.) And so I had realized what was going on the first time Irwin started bad-mouthing Larry. The second time, I went to see our story exec myself to prick the balloon, if there was one. Or clock the prick, if that proved to be the case.

Larry denied saying anything at all against us. In fact, he said, he'd been impressed with us from the beginning, and nothing had happened to change his opinion. Then I asked him if Irwin claimed we had been bad mouthing Larry.

"Absolutely," Larry said. "I was just getting ready to ask you about it. I thought it was bullshit. I've worked with Irwin on other projects and that's his style."

Within a few weeks the entire cast, crew and all the other people it takes to put on a weekly show were either at each other's throats, or creeping up behind their colleagues with knives aimed at their backs.

Attitude Check

Things were so bad that when we were summoned to Irwin's office, we'd sally through the banks of secretaries and other personnel and Chris would cry, "Attitude Check." And every single person in the place would raise their middle finger to indicate their attitude. (Chris had schooled them on this Army lower-ranks tradition early on.)

And so it was that I withdrew my hand from the phone and told Chris, "You're right. Fuck them."

Not long after we were summoned to Dailies. That's where you get to see rough cuts of what was shot the day before. It's not just rough, but raw as hell, and you can hear the director cursing when things go wrong and crewmembers accidentally wandering into the shot, actors blowing their lines and missing their marks. It's like watching Bloopers, but if you dare laugh, the Suits, who are watching Dailies along with you will order some stuntman to punch you in the larynx.

I've never been able to see the use of Dailies. Everybody wants Dailies privileges, so they are always packed with execs and exec wannabes. As knowledgeable an expert as our producer/mentor Al Godfrey once opined: "Maybe three people in this town understand Dailies... And I'm not one of them."

Anyway, we were at Dailies. And they were screening scenes from the episode where The Beach Ball is wooed by the evil teenage gang - The Hawks.

If you recall the previous episode, there was a great deal of concern expressed by the Suits at the Anything But Class (ABC) network. They feared "grittiness." Injury to Adam Rich's pristine reputation. His mother's wrath. And most of all, they wanted Irwin's casting company to seek out All American Boys, who were no taller, or menacing than The Beach Ball.

Okay, so up comes the Great Train Robbery scene.

Picture this: It's night and we are at the LA Train Yards. There's a box car with wide open doors. And then we see a half-a-dozen kids, trailed by a reluctant Beach Ball (Gee, Officer Krupke, his character isn't bad, just misunderstood.) All the kids, except the Beach Ball, are wearing expensive padded - and I mean, padded - jackets for gang colors, with "The Hawks" embroidered (Actually embroidered!) on the backs.

The kids rush to the open doors. Which, just as Chris had predicted, are way above their heads. The leader and the others grab for purchase and try to haul themselves up. Giving it the old Middle School try. They keep falling back on the ground. One of the kids tries to give the gang leader a boost and they both tumble over.

We hear the director shout, "Aw fuck!" Then, "Cut, cut, fucking cut!"

The Beach Ball turns to face the camera, presumably to address the director. "If we're gonna do this again, somebody's has to fix my hair." He brushes at some locks that have strayed from his Prince Valiant do.

Beside me, I heard Chris chortle. I gave him the elbow to shut up, but mainly to keep myself from laughing with him.

They try again. Same result. "Cut, cut, fucking cut!"

Finally, the director strides into the shot. Looks around, scratches his head. Somebody OS says, "Maybe we could use some boxes." The director finally gets it. "Yeah, boxes. That'll work." Then, "Okay, everybody, break for dinner." (An expensive decision, since the clock was tick-tick-ticking close to everybody's union Golden Time. Plus the problem of kids working at night. In and out fast as a jackrabbit is best.)

The next scene rolls and we see that during the dinner break some wooden boxes have been artfully stacked by the prop guys to make a stairway to the boxcar opening. The kids appear again, along with the Beach Ball, whose hair is perfect, and they all trot easily up the boxes and hop into the boxcar. End Sequence, then the lights came on while the reels were changed. There was a buzz of unhappy Suits around the room. "That was fucked." And, "Didn't he fucking realize...?" Also, "Why didn't somebody warn him?"

At that, Chris and I slid down low in our seats until - Thank the Gods - the lights dimmed and the projectionist rolled a new set of stomach churners.

The scene unspooled: The Beach Ball and the Gang Leader, complete with padded Hawk's jacket, are talking in the school hallway. The scene was shot on the lot, where we had a permanent school hallway set, including some faux stairs leading up to the hallway, where we could see a closed classroom door and a water cooler.

Remember that water cooler.

Gangland Terror

The Gang Leader makes an impassioned pitch for the Beach Ball to join him and his kiddy gangsters on a train yard raid that night. (Scenes on TV and the movies are almost never shot in order.)

He's supposed to end his speech with: "The Hawks take care of their own." Except his 13-year-old voice is in the middle of changing, so it comes out like the squeals of a choirboy escaping a horny priest... The Hawks (screech) Take Care Of Their (screech) Own!

"Aw Jesus!" I heard Chris groan.

Then the Beach Ball turns and sidles to the water cooler, pretending he needs a drink to get some distance between him and the mini-Satan gang leader.

And... And... And...

"I knew it, I knew it! He can't fucking reach it!" Chris blurted.

And sure enough, the water cooler is so high that the Beach Ball has to stand on his tip toes just to get to eye level.

Chris is starting to say something, but he's drowned out by the sounds of pissed off Suits. Never mind it was their idea to cast Adam Rich, and their idea to get Beverly Hills Middle School kid actors to play the gang members in this episode. It was all everybody else's fault.

I grab Chris by the sleeve and we duck down and slide out, then up the aisle and through the door before all hell (excuse me, Ms. Futterman - all Hades) breaks loose. We were standing there, blinking in the sunlight, and Chris said, "We'd better get off the lot for a couple of hours. We are about to get a whole trainload of shit rolling down our personal hills."

Maybe I was shell shocked, but I still thought it was funny. "What's to worry about, partner?" I said. "Didn't you hear the guy?"

And in my best imitation of a goosed castrati I squeak, "The Hawks take care of their own."

NEXT: FOLLOW THE BOUNCING BEACH BALL

THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES: IT'S A BOOK!

THE VITAL LINKS:

THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK

THE TOWERING TOUPEE THROWS UP

2012-01-20T07:30:00.000-05:00

The Suits filed into Irwin's office with such precision they looked like refugees from the Synchronized Briefcase Drill Team at the annual Pasadena Doo-Dah Parade.

In two minutes flat Irwin's office was packed with Network Suits. And when I say Suits, I mean guys who looked like zillion-dollar-an-hour lawyers, with eyes glinting through steel-rimmed glasses, even if they didn't wear glasses. It was apparent from the get-go that there wasn't a creative bone in their collective bodies and at times I doubted if there were enough brain cells distributed among them to rub two together.

I mean - get real. These boyos were from the Anything But Class (ABC) network. Lords of the IQ deprived.

One guy, who looked like an accountant, complete with dandruff on his shoulders, leaned in and with great sincerity said: "We're concerned that our show is danger of becoming too gritty."

His Colleagues Of The Suit muttered agreement.

Irwin, who sat at the head of the conference table, black toupee perched precariously on his head, frowned then said, "Anyone who has ever worked with me, and knows my track record, will tell you that 'gritty' is something that I just don't do."

He lifted his hands in appeal. "Was the Towering Inferno gritty? No. Was the Poseidon Adventure gritty? Not one bit. Lost In Space? Land Of The Giants? No and no."

Our story exec, Larry Heath, who sat at Irwin's right, asked, "What's the cause of this sudden concern?"

Dandruff Shoulders tapped the script in front of him. It was the episode I mentioned before where Adam (The Beach Ball) Rich is falsely accused of setting fire to the school gym. Although, with budget cuts, the fire had been reduced to a wastebasket and some charred curtains in the principal's office.

"In this story Adam joins a gang," he said, voice quivering indignantly. "The Hawks. Who are a clearly delinquent group of young toughs."

"He doesn't join them," Larry pointed out. "They try to woo him into joining the gang. In the end he not only refuses, but convinces the leader of the gang to see the error of his ways."

Irwin broke in: "Your own Program Practices... uh, person... loved this episode," he said, not mentioning Susan (The Censor) Futterman by name because he hated her so much that his stomach would rebel. (More on Irwin's rebellious stomach later). As for Ms. Futterman, she wasn't at this gathering, which made it the usual all-male enclave of that era. If Suits can be called male, that is. Chris said they were all "smooth between the legs, like Barbie's boyfriend."

Irwin smiled with satisfaction, and added: "This... umm... umm... Person said it was an excellent example of the kind of moral lessons we want to impress on our young audience."

Dandruff Shoulders replied, "Possibly, possibly... But Adam's mother thinks it is bad for his image. All this gang business."

Now it was all out in the open. It was the Beach Ball's stage mother who was behind it all. A Hollywood Force Of Nature that is hard to resist.

"But that's the character he plays," Larry argued. "He's an orphan, a street kid rescued by Lorne and Julie who raise him as if he were their own. A troubled boy, who finds his way, thanks to the embrace of a warm family atmosphere, with real heroes as role models."

Chris groaned and I kicked him under the table. Thankfully, nobody heard. I knew what Chris was thinking: Poor little Adam Rich clearly had troubles, but they weren't of the street variety.

The Beach Ball

Just the other day, our tech advisor, Joe Weber, a retired LA County Fire Department Chief, had presented the Beach Ball with an actual fire department helmet, cut down to fit. In the series, the kid joins the Fire Scouts and gets to wear a cool uniform and hat while riding around on the fire trucks. Never mind every kid in America would be envious, Chris and I were jealous. A real fireman's helmet. Damn! Could we have one too?

What does the kid do? He gingerly accepts the gift, glances at his mother who has a dangerous look in her eyes, then offers polite but chilly thanks.

But - and get this - he doesn't don the helmet. Instead, he touches his perfectly shaped Prince Valliant hair-do and says, "I won't be able to wear it much because it'll mess up my hair. And it takes an hour for them to fix it." His mother smiled in approval.

Back at the meeting - A balding Suit with an expensive comb-over jumped in: "If we do this story at all, we'll have to be very careful with the casting."

Irwin turned green. Put a hand to his mouth and went, "umph, umph!" Then excused himself and rushed into his private bathroom, where we shortly heard sounds of upchucking.

Larry covered for Irwin, saying, "Sorry. He's got that... uh... thing that's going around."

There were murmurs of false sympathy; sure, everybody's getting it, awful bug, etc.

Larry shrugged, saying, "We've committed all the money in the script budget." He tapped the script in front of him. "If you scrap this one, which, I might add, was previously approved by all of you, including Ms. Futterman, we'll need you to okay the fee for another one."

There were gasps of protest. A chorus of: "More money? No, no. Not necessary. We think it's a wonderful script." It was like Larry was asking them to offer up their wives, or mistresses, instead of a few thousand bucks.

Comb Over came to their rescue. "We talked it over and concluded it's just a matter of casting," he said.

"Yes, casting," was Dandruff Shoulders' contribution.

He pulled a manila envelope from his expensive briefcase. Got out some 8X 10 color photos from it and dropped them in the center of the table like the flop in a game of Texas Hold'em.

"My son," he said proudly.

We all looked respectfully at the pictures. They showed a very handsome, very clean, very preppy, Jewish American prince of about 13 with a head of blond on blond curls. I looked closer to see if he had inherited his father's dandruff genes, but so far he appeared safe.

Irwin had returned by now, wiping his face. He looked at one of the pictures, then turned to Dandruff Shoulders.

"You want us to hire your son?" he said. Not waiting for an answer, he turned to Larry, "Remind me to ask Tanya to put the young man on the casting call list."

"No, no. That's not what I meant," protested Dandruff Shoulders. Although I noticed from the look in his eye that he wasn't adverse to a bit of casting bribery. Thinking, screw his son, maybe whisper something in Irwin's ear about his starlet girlfriend, who would then make him a very happy man on black silk sheets, sprinkled with dandruff.

He continued, "This picture is just an example of what we are talking about. When you cast for the gang, get clean cut young American boys like this."

"That way Adam will look like he's in good company, even if in the script he's in bad company," added Comb Over.

"It'll make his mother happy," somebody said, but when we all looked we couldn't tell who, except for one kid Suit who was staring at the table.

Ignoring the interruption, Dandruff Shoulders said, "Not gritty kids. Not kids who will loom over Adam, acting like a threat. He's a very vulnerable boy, you know. And looks it."

Chris barely buried a snort. I knew what he was thinking. The Beach Ball was not just 'vulnerable looking,' but so short we'd have to cast midget kids to avoid the "looming" business.

On the other hand, I could partly see the point, which scared hell out of me, because when you agree with a Suit's point, it's time to take a hard look at your drinking habits and see if an increase is in order.

However, now that the deed was done - firing the kid who played the Adam Rich's role in the pilot, who at least looked like he could act bad ass and replacing him with the Beach Ball - the script we were looking at was totally out of whack. As were most of the others on the burner.

Adam Rich just wasn't believable as a kid from the streets. Unless you were talking about the runaways who hung out on Melrose looking for "dates." So we would have to hire a bunch of Beverly Hills delinquent wannabes. Short ones.

Irwin picked up one of the pictures, pretended to study it closely, then said, "Gentlemen, I'm in complete agreement with you. We'll take this to heart when we are casting." He showed Larry the picture. "Won't we, Larry?"

Larry said, "Absolutely."

The tension in the room eased. Suits shuffled papers, snapped briefcases open and closed, while Irwin regaled one and all with tales of his adventures with Groucho Marx.

As he talked, he picked up a pencil, and absently pushed it UNDER his toupee. And SCRATCHED his bald head leissurely, and with infinite pleasure.

I lost it. Desperately covering my mouth to keep from bursting into laughter, I turned to the left to hide my face. Only to find myself looking into the eyes of one of the Suits, who was doing the same thing. Mouth covered with a hand. Barely controlled laughter.

We both almost erupted with loud guffaws, and quickly turned the other way.

I had a hard time getting myself together and when we all rose to leave, Chris gave me a strange, what the fuck, look.

I shook my head. "Don't ask," I whispered. "If you do I'll lose it and we'll both be fired on the spot."

Somehow I got out of the meeting without looking at Irwin - studying my boots when I shook his hand. Chris covered by making noises about the nice meeting.

Back in our office - and fueled by a shot of Metaxa - I told Chris the story. I started giggling uncontrollably before I was done. Chris caught my giggles, then we were both laughing so hard that the tiles threatened to come loose from the ceiling.

Our secretary - a super lady named Genevieve - stuck her head in the door. "What so funny, boys?" she wanted to know.

This only made us laugh harder. We couldn't get a word out to explain. Gasping. Pounding the table.

Genevieve nodded knowingly. "You boys have been upstairs visiting Cheech and Chong again, haven't you."

NEXT: THE HAWKS TAKE CARE OF THEIR OWN

THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES: IT'S A BOOK!

THE VITAL LINKS:

THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK

OF BEACH BALLS AND FLYING FICKLE FINGERS OF FATE

2012-01-13T07:54:00.001-05:00

Flying Fickle Finger
Of Fate

MEMO FROM IRWIN ALLEN TO BUNCH AND COLE: The network, in its wisdom, has decreed that all episodes (of Code Red) will feature at least two instances of fire. Please see that our writing teams are informed of this.

The legal-size envelope that contained the memo also included a large (folded up) sheet of paper with columns that bore the name of all eight freelance writers or writing teams at the top and a list of sixteen script titles running down the side. A second sheet contained our names, along with Larry Heath's, and columnar space for the four scripts we and Larry had contracted for.

"What the fuck is that shit?" Chris wanted to know.

"I'm not sure," I said, tipping the envelope down.

A river of multi-colored stars spilled all over my desk, my lap, the floor, everything.

Chris barked laughter. "What are we supposed to fucking do, Cole?" he wondered. "Award different color stars to the writers for completing their assignments and spelling words more or less correctly."

"Maybe this explains it," I said, fishing out another sheet of paper.

If was a memo from Irwin's secretary detailing the purpose of the charts and the stars. Some were supposed to show script progress. Others, the number of fires. And the others... well, the other purposes fled my mind the moment I read them. It isn't that she didn't explain things clearly - she was a very intelligent woman - it's just that the system defied all logic.

I shoved the explanation over to Chris. He scanned it, then declared, "I'm not fucking doing this."

I didn't blame him. This was not only the lousiest system for tracking writers' assignments that I had ever encountered, it was humiliating to boot. Here we were, grown men - whiskey drinkers at that - and we were supposed to lick the backs of these little stars and stick them beside people's names.

Before I could join him in blasphemy, the phone rang. It was Irwin's secretary. "Did you get Irwin's little present?" she cooed.

"We did," I said, and it was hard to keep the piss off out of my voice.

"I know, I know, it's a bunch of baloney," she said.

"I'd call it something worse than baloney," I replied.

"I couldn't agree more," she said. "But the little stars are nothing. You should see what I have to put up with."

"Doesn't make us feel any better," I said. "We're not kindergarten teachers. We're writers."

Chris shouted to be heard: "And we've got our own little IBM Selectrics to prove it!"

Irwin's secretary said, "Tell Chris that if he wants to keep his Selectric he'd best not displease our Fearless Leader."

"Okay, okay, I'll do the damn stars," I said.

I was about to say bye-bye and hang up when she said, "Wait, there's more."

"You sound like a TV pitchwoman," I said. "Do we get a free set of steak knives if we buy your miracle salad chopper?"

She was kind enough to laugh, which made me feel a little better.

Then she dropped the bomb: "Since we've been cut back to 7 p.m." she said, "our budget has been cut from a little under a million to a little over six hundred thousand."

I was shocked. "But we've just been ordered to have at least two fires a show," I said. "You can't do two fires for six hundred thousand. Hell, I'm not sure you can do two fires a week for a million."

"Yes, but the Studio says they won't deficit finance four hundred thousand dollars," she said. "And Irwin will never pick up the tab, no matter how rich he is."

"What do we do?" I asked, realizing just what the poor sap feels like who finds himself caught between the Devil and the deep brown shithole.

"Irwin said to make one fire small," she said. "Have a little one in the first or second act and save the big one for Act Four."

I sighed. "Okay. I got it. Wastebasket fire in Act One, LA County Dump fire in Act Four."

Then, just to give her a dig - undeserved though it might be: "What color star do we use for the wastebasket fire?" I teased.

Without a beat, she replied, "The brown ones." Then she hung up.

Chris looked at me. He hadn't heard most of the conversation, but he knew from my side of it that things were not good. In fact, they were deplorable.

I filled him in. "Aw, fuck," he said. "On the job less than two weeks and we're already in the shitter."

I had no argument. Sighing, I flattened the sheet of paper and started figuring out which colored stars went where.

Chris' estimate had been dead on. We were wading hip deep in sewer creek and the waters were steadily rising. Without warning, Code Red, the show we had contractually obligated ourselves to for twenty weeks, had been shifted from a nice 8 O'clock spot, to the clottin' Children's Hour.

It was like the Flying Fickle Finger Of Fate had appeared out of the sky just to diddle Bunch & Cole. I mean, once again we were slotted at 7 p.m. Sunday night on ABC, a network we had dubbed Anything But Class long ago. Just like good old Galactica 1980, Sixty Minutes was waiting there on CBS to eat not just our lunch, but breakfast, dinner and any candy bars we might have stashed away. Sixty Minutes regularly grabbed the Number One spot on the weekly Nielsen list and Chris and I were not so foolish as to think we could match them.

I forget what show was on NBC, but the only way we could have taken it out was if it was a documentary series on skiing in downtown Poughkeepsie. And with Irwin The Towering Toupee Allen at the helm, the task was hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.

To make matters worse, there were many other things conspiring against us besides our Alzheimer-out-patient boss and his nasty little stars.

There are several very good reasons that the lifespan of your average TV series is shorter than a lab-raised fruit fly.

First off, the guys who originally buy the show are never the same network crew that oversees the series when it goes into production.

Resentful of their colleagues, whom they consider fools (and who is to say they are wrong?) they immediately engage in a lot of leg lifting. They piss all over your project like it was the Great Fire Hydrant at the end of the doggy rainbow.

This had a lot to do with the reasons behind the show's demotion to the Children's Hour. And the recruitment of Adam (The Beach Ball) Rich to bedevil one and all - including really nice people like Lorne Greene and Julie Adams.

Also, as things turned out, there was more than envy at work. In short, they hated Irwin's guts - and who could blame them? He had made many enemies over the years and it seemed that a veritable army of them had converged on Code Red at Columbia Studios for paybacks.

Hence, the demand for two fires a week after a four-hundred-thousand dollar budget cut.

Making matters worse, our old nemesis, Susan Futterman, the VP of Censorship at ABC, was back to darken every second of our weekly 44-minutes of air time. (Yes, there really are that many ads on TV; actually, it's even more these days.)

Since our viewing audience was supposed to be composed of mostly rug rats, we were only allowed so many "violence beats" (Roughly, a beat is a scripted moment) per episode. As it turned out Susan defined fire of all kinds as a violence beat and since our show was about fires and the men and women who fight them, we were screwed Day One.

In a way, this turned out to be a not such a bad thing. At our current budget, we could set a lot of waste basket fires, which were pretty damned cheap, and not anywhere so violent.

Chris interrupted my self-propelled rail car of misery. "You know, your wastebasket idea is spot on for this sucker." He was holding up the first draft of a script that had just been turned in. "In Act Two, the Beach Ball accidentally sets his school on fire."

(The Beach Ball, as mentioned before, was the moniker our tech advisor from the fire department had hung on Adam Rich. And you know, when you thought about it, he really did look like a beach ball. Two beach balls, actually. A small one for his head and a larger one for his body.)

Our Fire Budget In Action

Chris continued, "The fire starts in the gym - after the Beach Ball has been chewed out for general mopery. Then spreads to the rest of the school."

He held up a finger, indicating that brilliance was on the way: "But, if we have the principal kick his fat little butt - and put the butt kicking in the principal's office - we can start the fire in the principal's wastebasket. Have it spread to the curtains, if we can afford charred curtains, then somebody rushes in to put it out and finds evidence to falsely accuse the little turd those shitheads at ABC stuck us with."

"I like it," I said. "I'll call the writers and tell them to make the change."

As I reached for the phone Chris said, "Tell them that if they do a good job with the wastebasket we'll give them a gold star."

NEXT: THE TOWERING TOUPEE THROWS UP

THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES: IT'S A BOOK!

THE VITAL LINKS:

THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK

CODE DEAD: THE BEACH BALL COMETH

2012-01-06T07:41:00.003-05:00

There's an old fireman's joke that goes something like this: A fireman working outside the station house spots a little girl in a red wagon with a little ladder hanging off one side, and a coiled garden hose on the other. Behind the wagon is a cat tied to the wagon by its testicles.

Trying to be tactful, the fireman says, "That's a great fire truck, little partner. But, you know, it might go better if you untied that cat." The little girl shrugs. "You're probably right," she says, "but then I wouldn't have a siren."

If only Chris and I had heard that joke before we met Irwin Allen and signed on to Code Red our voices might not have gone from Middle to High C.

There were other signs. Signs we ignored. Everything and everybody was just so - well, nice.

The Rolls in the driveway of Irwin's Bel Air manse was nice. The chauffeur polishing the Rolls nicely directed us up the path to Irwin's very nicely carved front door. The nice maid who opened the door greeted us nicely, and then she turned us over to Mrs. Irwin Allen who was so sweet and nice our teeth ached.

"The boys are out by the pool," she said nicely, pointing at the patio door. "Why don't you join them? Ellen will be along directly with some sandwiches and drinks."

As we headed out the door, she said, "What would you prefer - soft drinks or some nice ice tea?"

We said the nice ice tea would be nice, then exited into a lavishly landscaped pool area. The waters in the pool were sparkling blue and beyond you could see the entire Valley Of The Studios sprawling all the way to snow-topped Mount Baldy.

There was a patio table next to the pool, with a large brightly colored umbrella shading it. Two men rose as we advanced. One was a small guy in his late forties with ginger hair and a nervous smile. We guessed this would be Larry Heath, the exec story consultant.

He offered a hand and confirmed our suspicions: "Hi, I'm Larry Heath," he said, It's great to meet you two. We've heard a lot about you."

Larry indicated the other man, who had a smile like a skeleton. "This is Irwin Allen."

If Larry was small, Irwin was a midget. And a skinny midget at that - except for a small, round pot that protruded below his beltline. His features had an unhealthy pallor and his face had that shrunken head wrinkly look, made even more bizarre by large, round specs. Except for the glasses, think of Mr. Burns, Homer Simpson's boss and you've got Irwin (The Master Of Disaster) Allen down pat.

One more largish difference: the first thing you noticed when you reached out to shake Irwin's hand was an enormous pompadour - an obvious toupee - dyed so black you could see the little dots of desiccated dye on the strands.

Since he was sitting by the pool, he was doing his best to look relaxed but only managed to appear uncomfortable in pressed golf pants (striped), white shoes with see-through socks and a starched short-sleeved shirt. I don't remember the color, but it was of some bright, offending hue.

I'll admit that minor alarm bells were ringing, but Irwin was an immensely charming man - very old school gentleman. He also said writers were his favorite people - he 'd been a writer himself once. He told us stories about old Hollywood, especially Groucho Marx, who he said was a pal.

You just had to like the guy. Larry seemed likeable enough, but remained in the background for most of the interview.

Irwin told us that Code Red had been born from one of his recent hit movies - The Towering Inferno. He said his first idea was to do a firemen's TV series based on the San Francisco department featured in Inferno. However, when ABC bought the series - to be produced at Columbia Studios - Warner Brothers and Fox, his partners in Inferno crime, made him drop any mention of the movie in the title.

So, Code Red it was.

At the time, Code Red had nothing to do with any nomenclature in American fire departments, but it sort of crept into the general language of Hollywood movies and television, even though most people never saw the show, and the few who did, have mostly forgotten it. I get emails now and then from people who say they were inspired to become firemen/women by the show and all I can say is God Bless.

We learned that besides Lorne Greene, our old fellow Galactica 1980 survivor, who played the station house chief, the stars included Julie Adams, who was to play his wife, Andrew Stevens and Sam J. Jones, his firefighting sons, and Denis Haysbert as one of their fireman chums.

Julie Adams is a supremely talented actress with extensive credits that go back to the Golden Age of Hollywood where she starred opposite many of the great leading men, like Clark Gable. She's probably best known these days by the frat boy cult favorite: The Creature From The Black Lagoon. She played the lovely victim the creature carried away to his lair to await rescue.

Andrew Stevens, the son of the beautiful Stella Stevens, was - and is - a multi-talented artist who acts, writes, directs and has his own production company. Sam J. Jones who had just come off a starring role in Flash Gordon, is no slouch himself when it comes to impressive film and television credits.

You'll recognize Dennis Haysbert, of course, who reached real fame as the President Of The United States in the mega-popular series, 24, and now is one of the "most trusted men in America" as the spokesman for Allstate Insurance. At the time we knew him from Quincy M.E., The Incredible Hulk, and (moan whimper) Galactica 1980. (Space Croppers)

Okay, great cast, right? Not only that, but Irwin said he was bringing in a whole shitload of freelance writers who would have two-script guarantees and offices on the lot to write them. That way we'd be well ahead of the game before the first show was shot.

Chris and I didn't like the idea of the writers being hired without our input, but their deals had already been negotiated and signed so what the hell could we say? Irwin must have sensed our feelings, because he delivered a double helping of charm.

We went away telling each other what a good deal this was, and what a grand fellow Irwin was, and by the time we had escaped the freeway traffic and smog and arrived at my house, we had pretty much convinced ourselves that we were making the right move.

If you are still wondering how we could have been so stupid, I'm pretty sure I mentioned the fact that we were just out of a three-month WGA strike and broke. Did I not?

Later, when the whole thing went into the shitter, that was the only excuse we had for joining that speeding fire truck to hell.

The first day on the job was good.

TBS (The Burbank Studios) was the last but one film complex in the Valley. (The last was Disney and the pissing Dwarfs, but more on that later.) At that time TBS was the home of Columbia Studios (helmed by Irwin's old buddy Herman Rush), Paramount and Warner Bros. It was a warren of sound stages, warehouses, and streets lined with false front buildings of every variety and age. Vehicles of every description and purpose, some of which could only be imagined, whizzed and rumbled about this way and that. (Full disclosure: Much later we sold a TV series pilot - The Treasure Game - with Herman's adopted son, James. It was done as a "Fantasy Island" spinoff. )

A large water tower with TBS painted on all sides, marked the vast complex from a distance. All the roads leading to TBS were decorated with huge billboards advertising the latest movies and their stars, as were the high walls that surround the lot. There were guarded gates, natch, with nice guards to assist us. We had a brand new pass plastered on the window of Chris' BMW, so we were whisked on through.

We had been assigned Burt Reynold's old offices, which were huge and nicely appointed and came with two secretaries. A very long way from our double-wide trailer parked along the LA River at Universal Studios. Our official parking space was inconveniently located a hundred miles distant, but to save us a minimum twice-daily tram ride, Chris checked out the front of our new office building.

To our pleasant surprise among the parking spaces was one with Burt Reynold's name still painted on it. He was long gone to other projects and other studios so Chris parked his Beemer there, figuring (rightly as it turned out) that nobody would dare question it.

We learned later that down the hall from us were the offices of Falcon Crest, overseen by our old buddy, Jeff (The EatAnter) Freilich. The whole upstairs was given over to Cheech and Chong, who were making a movie and whenever they were home clouds of suspicious-smelling smoke came rolling down the stairs. Chris knew them from his days as the (self-proclaimed) worst PR man in the music business so our visits were welcome.

Sounds super, right? We thought so too. Then - in the very first week - things began to go wrong.

Irwin called us into his office. Larry Heath was there by his side. Irwin didn't look well. Not that he ever looked well, but today was worse.

"Fellas," he said, "I've gotten word from the network that they are changing our timeslot."

Chris and I looked at him with interest. We were set for 8 p.m. Sunday on ABC. A good slot, aimed at a family audience. Maybe they were kicking us up to 9 O'clock, which was cool, because it opened the show to grittier plots and saltier language and situations.

Then Irwin dashed all hope and it was hello Susan (The Censor) Futterman again and here comes that old familiar feeling of the 60 Minutes being rammed up our you know where's.

In other words, we had just been turned into a 7 O'clock show.

The Children's Hour had struck again. And we had the awful feeling that it was going to be Galactica 1980 all over again.

Chris and I were so shaken we could hardly speak to one another later on, unless assisted by sufficient quantities of scotch. What was said was incredibly profane, adds nothing to this tale, and so is best left on the Dark Side of your imagination.

The next disaster struck a few days later. Once again we were called into Irwin's office. We were accompanied by Larry and our new tech advisor, (courtesy of the LA County Fire Department) Chief Joe S. Weber.

"Fellas, I called you here to meet our new star," Irwin announced, forcing a smile.

We all looked at each other. What the hell? Lorne was the star, right?

"Since we have been moved back to 7 O'clock," Irwin went on, "the Network, in its wisdom, thought we needed a younger person to play Lorne's adopted son." The adopted son in question was supposed to be a recently ex-delinquent kid Lorne and his sons had rescued from the streets. All the scripts that contained that character had been aimed at gangs and other gritty situations.

Larry asked, "Who's it going to be, Irwin?"

Irwin coughed into his hand. Later, we would learn that this was a sign that his stomach was quarreling with its contents.

Another forced smile. "Adam Rich," he said.

"Shit," Chris opined, "you mean the little rug rat from Eight Is Enough?"

Irwin winced at Chris' word usage, but nodded. "None other," he said. "The Network assured me that he's easily worth six ratings points."

Larry sighed. "Did they say plus or minus, Irwin?"

Irwin's eyes glittered. He was starting to get angry. The intercom buzzed, announcing the arrival of Mr. Rich and his mother and saving Larry from Irwin's wrath.

"Now, remember, he may be young, but he's still a star. A little star, but a star nonetheless," Irwin warned us. "So be nice to him."

The door began to open.

All of us put on welcoming smiles and looked at the spot we thought he would first appear. But in a flash we realized we were looking up way too far. And then we looked down, and down, and then down some more.

Right about door knob level.

And there, a short, plump boy with an immaculately coiffed Prince Valiant haircut and chronically blinking eyes appeared.

As we rose to greet him, I heard Chief Weber whisper, "I knew he was short. But not that short!"

Then his mother followed and a younger, and yes it was possible, shorter version of Mr. Rich. His brother. Both kids looked terrified and jumped and jerked whenever their mother said a word.

Irwin reached out a hand, turning on all his charm. "Welcome, Adam," he said. "Welcome to Code Red."

Adam briefly touched Irwin's hand, then primped his hair. "Thanks," he said in a voice we could barely hear.

"Fuck," I heard Chris mutter.

Later, on the way over the hill where home and lots of scotch awaited, I asked Chris, "How bad do you think it's going to be?"

Chris shook his head. "We're fucking tits up in the sun, Cole," he said. "Code Red has gone to Code Dead."

NEXT:
OF BEACH BALLS
AND
FLYING FICKLE FINGERS OF FATE

THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES: IT'S A BOOK!

THE VITAL LINKS:

The MisAdventures began humbly enough - with about 2,000 readers. When it rose to over 50,000 I started listening to those of you who urged me to collect the stories into a book. Starting at the beginning, I went back and rewrote the essays, adding new detail and events as they came to mind. This book is the result of that effort. However, I'm mindful of the fact, Gentle Reader, that you also enjoy having these little offerings posted every Friday to put a smile on your face for the weekend. So I'll continue running them until it reaches the final Fade Out. Meanwhile, it would please the heart of this ink-stained wretch - as well as tickle whatever that hard black thing is in my banker's chest - if you bought the book. It will make a great gift, don't you think? And if you'd like a personally autographed copy you can get it directly through my (ahem) Merchant's Link at Amazon.com. Click here. Buy the book and I will sign it and ship it to you. Break a leg!

THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK

IRWIN ALLEN'S RECIPE FOR DISASTER

2011-12-30T07:46:00.010-05:00

WGA Strike Class Of '81
Richard Brooks, Bo Goldman,
Gore Vidal & Billy Wilder

To understand how we wound up getting run over by Irwin Allen's big fat toupee, you first have to know about the Writer's strike of 1981.

The strike wasn't as long as the 1988 strike, which lasted a bank-account-bruising, lose-your-home-and-everything-you-own, five months. Nor, was it as short as the two-week 1985 eating-Danish-at-Farmer's-Market-while-picketing walkout. But it did last a mortgage payment squeezing three months, just like the recent 2007-2008 Studio ball buster.

The '81 strike, like all that would follow, was over technical issues, such as how much the royalties ought to be for hitherto unknown media markets, like VHS, and later DVD's and streaming videos. In my view, despite all the agony the writers have suffered during those strikes we've never come out well. The '81 strike was badly mismanaged - also in my view - by a professional labor negotiator.

She was a person whose name I totally forget, but whom we immortalized in Sten #3 (Court Of A Thousand Suns) as a voracious sea monster. We called the critter a Gurion (Gurionus-awfulus, to you biology majors) and it featured many barbed tentacles and turned itself inside out to swallow you with its fang-lined stomach.

Yech, right?

Our view of the dis(re)membered woman entirely.

Defenders Of The Earth

During the strike we scraped by with some magazine freelance work, and even wrote a little animation - the animation writers weren't Guild members, so although the pay was low the work was legal. We also got a helluva education about comic book heroes and animation from Stan Lee, working on some his shows like Defenders Of The Earth. (Mandrake Rocks!)

We worked the picket lines regularly, which was sort of fun because you got to meet old friends, catch up on their news - thereby gaining ammunition so that later on you could talk about them behind their backs.

Meanwhile, Kathryn's career in the escrow business was really taking off, so when vacation time came around and her boss said company policy was use it or lose it, we had money enough to pack up our little Honda car and set off on a camping trip up the coast of California, Oregon and Washington. Chris remained behind to tend our rather empty freelance store.

Kathryn and I took El Camino Real (The King's Highway, or Highway One) all the way, getting forced onto a freeway or a larger road only occasionally.

We had a marvelous time, cruising along the Pacific Ocean where cattle ranches ran right down to the water's edge and you'd see longhorns standing belly-deep, cooling off. There was the Big Sur, the redwoods, fishing villages and the mountains, where we saw an eagle owl with a wingspan as long as our car, pursuing some kind of lapdog, clutched in the arms of a scampering woman.

Along the way, we would buy things for dinner - artichokes from Castorville (the artichoke capital of the world) crab claws and sourdough bread from the docks in San Francisco, and so on until we stopped for the night.

Our camping gear was all from motorcycle magazine advertisers - light weight mountain tents, sleeping bags, pop out butane burners - on loan for the trip with promises of articles lauding said gear upon our return. We set up in seconds every night, while others struggled with ungainly tents, or leveling and hooking up their motor homes.

Then it was a nice dinner under the moon and the stars, a loaf of sourdough, a good jug of wine and a dusty bottle of brandy for afters and thou - Kathryn being my thou. And I hers. And there was much singing in the wilderness.

Eventually, after many days and hundreds of miles we reached the end of the King's Highway. It stops at Port Angeles, just across the bay from Vancouver Island, in Canada. We wanted to try the famous High Tea at the Empress Hotel, so we took the ferry across. It was delicious, as advertised, and we had a lovely time playing tourist on the island.

On the way back, a radio news announcement broke into the easy-listening music station playing on the ferry's loudspeakers.

It seems that the Hollywood Screenwriters' Strike had ended.

Son of a gun. Amazing to hear such news from afar - and in another country yet. Proof positive that you'll get airtime anywhere in the world if you use Hollywood as a modifier.

Over at Port Angeles I phoned Chris. "Shit, Cole," he said, "did you hear the news?"

"That's why I'm calling," I said. "Your sister and I are going to hop on I-5 in the morning and we can be home in a couple of days. Meanwhile, you can beat up on our agent to set up pitch meetings before all the shows are sold out."

There was an unusually long pause on the other end. Unusual for Chris, that is. Who was a motor mouth of the first order and proud of it.

I blinked first. "What's the problem?" I asked. "Did you get pissed at the agent and fire him? Don't sweat it for not asking me first. He probably deserved it."

I don't remember who our agent was. In those days we went through agents like bacon through a goose. Chris used to say: "In the spring the swallows return to Capistrano, the buzzards come back to Hinkley, Ohio, and Bunch and Cole fire their agent." (More on that subject a little further down the Misadventures road.)

Chris said, "No, I didn't fire him. In fact, it looks like the little weasel got us a job. Or, damn close to it."

I was pumped. I gave Kathryn a thumbs up and said, "Out of work for three months and back on the job in nothing flat. That's great news, partner."

Another pause, but a shorter one. "It's not exactly great," Chris said. "Maybe good news, or even so-so news. Or maybe it's plain old shit news."

"So what if we have to write a dumb script for a dumb show," I said. "We'll be on to another one in a few weeks. That's the joy of freelancing. Bad boss one day. Good one the next. All putting money into the book-writing coffers."

"It's a fucking staff job," Chris blurted.

Now it was my turn to pause. For those of you who have been following these misadventures, you'll know that we swore off staff jobs back when we escaped Galactica 1980 and seven years of indenture at Universal Studios.

Chris said, "Al, I'm so damned broke that American Express is calling to tell me to leave fucking home without it."

"You don't have American Express," I pointed out.

"Well, if I did," he said, "the fucking phone would be ringing off the hook with creditors dunning me."

I sighed. "Aw, shit."

Chris sensed that I was weakening. He said, "The weasel's pretty sure he can get us a two-script guarantee. On top of four grand or more a week."

"Okay, okay," I said. Then: "Who's the meeting with?"

"That's the good part," Chris said. "It's with Irwin Allen."

You know who the late Irwin Allen was, don't you? The self-proclaimed Master Of Disaster? Architect of the first "Poseidon Adventure," and "The Towering Inferno" movies. Creator of Boob Tube hits like "Lost In Space," "Land Of The Giants," and "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea," to name just a few.

Pretty damned impressive, right?

Chris said, "It's a show about firemen. Called Code Red."

That sounded cool. Who doesn't love firemen?

"We can learn how to blow things up and set things on fire," Chris added.

I liked that too.

"Plus," Chris said, "plus... and this is even better... our old buddy Lorne Greene is the star of the show."

"Holy shit," I said, delighted.

Lorne was one of the few bright notes on Galactica. Doing his best with lousy scripts and even lousier production bosses. He was also very kind to writers. A prince among men.

Chris said, "Maybe we'll get to pay Lorne back for all the shit he had to put up with on Galactica."

"Damn straight," I said, ending the hesitation waltz. "We owe him big time... I'm in if you are, partner."

Poor Lorne.

NEXT: CODE DEAD

THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES: IT'S A BOOK!

THE VITAL LINKS:

THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK

A HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS

2011-12-23T07:05:00.000-05:00

A Marilyn Monroe
White Christmas

NOTE FROM ALLAN: This episode, which first appeared last Christmas, was set at the end of our sojourn at Werewolf - a show created by our old friend Frank Lupo for Fox Television. It was so popular, that I thought I'd run it again. Happy holidays, one and all.

***

"It's Christmas time in Hollywood, Santa's back up in the hood..."

........Lyrics by The Hollywood Undead

* * *

'Twas the day before the night before Christmas and all through the Werewolf 's house, every critter was stirring, and as far as I can recall, not a single one of us was soused.

We were all too darned busy figuring out new and interesting ways to scare hell out of people and besides, it was going to be a short day in a short week because our boss, Frank Lupo, was throwing a big party for the staff and crew.

To locate everyone, this was Wednesday, Dec. 23, 1987, and we all had Thursday off as well as Friday, which was Christmas. In the high speed, high stakes world of weekly television, this meant that everything had to be done by the (early) close of business, because shooting would resume in Salt Lake City, Monday morning. (The day starts well before the crack of dawn for actresses because of makeup and costume requirements. The guys wearing the Werewolf suits started even earlier.)

Chuck Connors

To further locate you, this was a little before Chris and I got to TWEEP Chuck Connors on the new Fox Network series, so we still had that little bit of fun ahead of us. (For the definition of TWEEP, see The CIA dictionary.)

We were just working on our second cup of coffee, when our secretary buzzed us to say that Bob Butler was on the line. Butler was a hot, hot, hot television director who had a nice production deal with Viacom.

Chris slapped the speaker phone to "On" and said, "Ho, Fucking Ho, Robert!"

I heard Butler chortling at Chris' greeting, then he said, "And Merry Fucking Christmas to you too, Bunch."

I came in. "Gonna come over and check out our new digs? See a werewolf or two? Let us buy you a couple of drinks?"

Butler said, "Maybe later, boys. I'm just calling to give you guys an early Christmas present."

Chris said, "Hmm, let's see. I already asked Santa for a new crossbow and a speedloader for my AK-47. Got something like that in mind?"

More laughter. Then Butler said, "Actually, I was getting ready to call your agent and re-up the option on We Take The Palace." He was referring to an hour-long comedy series Chris and I had created about a group of screwball mercenaries who end up running an equally screwball island. Sort of like "F Troop," but with an ocean view.

I said, "Same deal? Option for another year at the same price?"

"That was my thinking, " he replied.

"Far fucking out," Chris said.

"Would that be a 'Yes, thank you, Mr. Butler, sir?'" Robert said.

"Fucking A," Chris said. "And Merry Christmas back at you... Mr. Butler... sir."

We exchanged a few more pleasantries, then got off the line.

Chris said, "Now, that's gonna brighten our Christmas." He started flipping through his Rolodex. "Gotta call Kurtz Jewelers," he said. "Buy Karen something shiny."

A little over an hour later - and I swear I'm not making this up - we got a similar call, this one from Phil Fehrley, a producer, but one of our favorite people just the same.

"Ho, Fucking Ho, Uncle Phil," Chris greeted him.

"You're such a heathen," Fehrley laughed. "Better watch out for lightning."

Chris said, "Hey, it wasn't JC who said Ho, Ho, Ho. It was Saint Nicholas and he was a fucking Turk, and last I heard the Pope yanked his sainthood stripes. So, I'm pretty sure I'm safe."

I said, "Let me guess, Phil. You're calling about the option on The Berlin Reel, right?" The Berlin Reel was yet another TV series proposal, this one a drama about an American newsreel journalist in pre-war Berlin.

Phil said, "That's the size of it, Allan. And Merry Christmas to you both."

The option money for The Berlin Reel was similar to We Take The Palace, so Christmas was looking merrier by the minute. Chris called Kurtz again and I made grander plans for Kathryn as well.

Naturally, things couldn't continue in that vein, even if it was the day before the night before Christmas. The next call was a little troublesome and involved outgo, not in-go. It was from the artist/owner of a crystal-making shop in Venice.

Chris and I had conspired to create some special gifts for people on the show. We'd scored photographs - from different angles - of one of the werewolf costumes. We'd given these to the artist to make crystal statues for everyone. Lupo was to get the largest - about ten inches high. John Ashley, his right hand man, John York, star of the show, and Rick Baker, who created the costumes, would get smaller ones - about six inches high. And we'd had another two dozen or so made up for our secretary and other key people on the show. These consisted of the werewolf head, mounted on a base.

They were very, very cool, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, the order was a week overdue. The good news - the artist was calling to say they were finally done. The not so good news - he was so swamped by Christmas orders that he couldn't personally deliver the gifts to our office.

I jumped on the line, called ABC Messenger service, and arranged for a pick up. Naturally, with the holiday, ABC was pretty busy. But for an extra fee, they promised delivery before the party.

Finished what we were doing and went to see Lupo. Stuck our heads in the door. Chris said, "Want to hear how we're going to kill that son of a bitch, Chuck Connors?"

Lupo paused, hands dangling over his keyboard. "Ah, geeze, guys, it's the holidays. I never kill people during the holidays."

I gestured at his typewriter. "What's the body count on the Fade In? Two hundred? Three hundred?" He was working on the pilot for his new science fiction series, Something Is Out There, which opened with a violent break out on a prison space ship.

Frank chuckled. "Fuckin' guys," he said. Then he waved us off. "See you at the party."

When we got back to our office, Kathryn and Karen had shown up. They'd both come directly from work. Karen was the top designer at a fancy flower shop. While Kathryn owned an escrow company at Wilshire and Bundy in West LA. (Escrow Revue, decorated with antique movie posters and sporting a big, working popcorn machine just inside the front door.) Kisses and embraces were exchanged. And we shared the good news about the two timely options.

After chatting awhile, Kathryn said, "I saw the funniest thing this afternoon. It was right outside of my office. We wouldn't have noticed at all, if it wasn't for the fabulous old car."

Chris, who was making drinks, looked up at his baby sister and asked the typical guy question: "What kind of old car?"

"Oh, I don't know," Kathryn said, impatient. "The story isn't about the car, it's about what happened while we were looking at the car."

Wisely, Chris said no more, but just delivered the drinks.

"You know how I have all those big windows in my office?" Kathryn said.

We did indeed. The entire front of the long building was all window, with mirror coating. People in the office could see out, but people trying to look in only saw their reflection. Kathryn and her staff used to love to watch people pause to pose and primp, not knowing they had an audience.

Maria & Arnie In Somewhat
Happier Times

"Anyway, we were all looking at the old car, when who should come out of the Bicycle Shop next door, but Arnie and Maria." The Bicycle Shop was a trendy Hollywood lunch stop. Arnie and Maria were, obviously, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver.

"It was Arnie's car," Chris guessed correctly.

"Right," Kathryn confirmed. "And that's where they headed when they came out of the restaurant. They were in the middle of a knock-down fight. Maria was furious about something, and Arnie was stupid enough to argue back. Can you imagine? Making a Kennedy mad?"

Chris and I laughed, guessing what the fight was about. A friend of ours was a Below The Line craftsman on one of Arnie's recent shoots. He said Arnie had been after one cutie something awful, demonstrating in spades, what he would later call in his run for Governator of California, "My playfulness." The girl finally came around to his way of thinking, but the director spotted them in mid-act, and a couple of minutes later, Arnie begged: "Don't tell Maria. Don't tell Maria. It was jus' a ploh jhob, jus' a ploh jhob. It doesn't count."

Kathryn continued, "They stood right in front of our windows yelling at each other. Except Maria was doing most of the yelling. Arnie took off for the car, but Maria got in front of him, and she kept on yelling. And she was shaking her finger at him - she's so teeny, and he's so big, but he wilted like a scared you know what. Oh, it was so funny to see. Finally, they both got in the car and took off, but you could see her still yelling at him."

We had a good laugh at that. Chris looked at his watch. Frowning. "Where the hell's that messenger with the werewolves?" he wondered.

I started worrying. The party would start any minute and our presents hadn't shown up. Then our secretary buzzed us. I answered and she said, "Allan, there's something weird going on."

I asked what could be weirder than working on a show about a Werewolf, and she said, "What's weird about a Werewolf?" When I couldn't answer, she said, "There's some loony guy running all over the building asking for Brunch and Cola. He's going from office to office and floor to floor. Somebody thought it was a practical joke, or something. You know, Brunch and Cola? So they sent him to the restaurant. The receptionist finally figured it out and called me."

Right away I knew it was our missing gifts. I said, "Tell the receptionist to send the guy up."

She said it was too late, he'd already left. Chris and I bounded up and headed for the elevators. We searched for the guy floor by floor. Finally, we ended up in the basement in the Security office and there we found our missing presents in the keep of an hysterical guy with the looks and thick accent of somebody whose native land was South by Southeast of Somewhere The Hell Else. Obviously the messenger service was short-handed during the holidays and he was a temp. We showed Security our IDs and they released him into our custody.

There were several boxes and he wanted to help, but he was so screwy we were afraid he'd drop them and next thing we'd know there'd be this horrible crash and crunch of all those crystal figurines. We tipped him, snagged a nice rent-a-cop to help, and elevated the boxes upstairs to our office.

Christmas music blared over all the hallway speakers and it was time for the party. We carried the boxes into the main meeting room, which had been turned into a Hollywood Christmas Wonderland. Our set decorators had really gone overboard and we had glitter and lights and glorious Yuletide props everywhere.

A copy of the scarred Skorzeny Werewolf 's head was set up as a centerpiece of the table, with lights and candy canes dripping from his ears and muzzle.

Spread around the head, we had plenty of drink to drink and goodies to eat. In one corner, there was a huge stack of presents piled under a spectacular tree blazing with lights.

The room filled up quickly and everybody got something to eat and drink and the fun began. Frank came in and he and Ashley handed out presents to everyone. Chris and I got new Sony stereo systems with all the gadget trimmings, including dynamite speakers.

Everybody oohed and ahhed over their loot, then Chris and I started handing out the boxes of crystal werewolves. When Lupo opened the box meant for him and drew out the large Werewolf figurine - an exact crystal copy of Rick Baker 's original - he was speechless.

"Fuckin', guys!" he said, choking up.

Then everybody else got their crystal mementos, including Ashley, York and Baker. And the reactions were equally appreciative. We also had smaller ones made up - just the head with bared teeth - for the rest of the team.

The party moved on and we had a nice chat with Rick Baker, a superb costume artist. He told us some of the tricks of the trade, such as the hydraulic puppetry he'd developed to bring the werewolves to life.

A short, but muscular stuntman was inside each costume for the main movement. But the really cool scary things - like the opening of slavering jaws, sharp claws reaching out, the head turning to show those blood red eyes - were performed by a team of technicians with control boxes hooked up to hydraulic lines that were connected to the werewolf.

Wherever the werewolf went, the team followed, all dressed in black, and keeping carefully out of camera range.

Our Star Werewolfing Out

Then we got to talk to our star, John York, who was a little shy and unassuming - a lot like the character he played.

York joked about the werewolf transformations. All his clothes would be ripped off, of course, and later there'd be a scene where the human York - quite naked - had to score new clothing. Stealing them from clotheslines, or whatever.

It was a challenge to come up with something different for each transformation.

"You guys are always making me flash my butt," he said.

Chris said, "Hey, we're past masters of flashing actors' butts, John." He clapped York on the back. "Just ask Bill Bixby. Two, maybe three Hulkouts per episode. Losing all his clothes every damned time... And poor Lou Ferrigno... There was the Hulk, always stuck in ripped up shorts with his balls hanging out."

"Happened so often," I lied, "they had to spray paint 'em green to match the rest of him."

York had to agree that he wasn't as bad off.

Rick added, "At least the guys in the werewolf suits don't have to worry," he said. "I made them smooth between the legs, like Barbie's boyfriend."

Chris said, "That bothered the shit out of artist who made the crystal statues, so he added a set on each of them. Take a look and see."

They all bent down and peered between the legs of one of the statues. And Chris said, "What're you guys, pervs or something? Staring at the poor werewolf's balls."

That broke everybody up and we all had a couple of more drinks.

The party wound down and finally, Chris and I and our ladies made our separate ways home.

***

DISSOLVE TO:

Thursday. The day before Christmas. Kathryn and I slept in, recovering from the party and a hard (albeit) short work week. The doorbell bing bonged and I grumbled and got up. It was chilly for California and the polished wooden floors weren't so charming in bare feet.

We were in our new house on Amoroso Place, in Venice. It was a two-story 1918 Arts & Crafts home, with leaded glass windows looking out on a wide front porch. I could see a young man in a suit and tie waiting there, with a big box beside him.

Even though there are few things in Venice Beach more worrisome than a short-haired guy in a suit and tie, I answered the door. He was too young and the suit was too nice for him to be some breed of cop. Also, even though I was a Venice denizen, I didn't have any current reason to feel guilty. That I knew of, anyway.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Cole," the kid said, beaming like one of Santa's elves. He told me his name, then added, "I'm from 20th Century Fox, Mr. Cole. The studio sent this little gift to thank you for the fabulous job you're doing on the show."

And he lugged the huge box into my house, shook my hand, refused coffee, and rushed out into the chill beach air, probably on his way to Chris' place in Manhattan Beach.

My sleepy-eyed wife wandered into the living room, tying her robe about her. "Who was that?" she asked.

I indicated the big box. "It's from the studio," I said.

Sleepiness was replaced by bright interest. "Ooh, let's open it," she said.

And so we did. The first thing we found was a large, wooly lap rug. It was red and black and white, and in the center was a big 20th Century Fox logo - like you've seen at the beginning of every Fox movie since 1935 when the legendary Mr. William Fox merged his company with the equally legendary Mr. Darryl F. Zanuck.

Beneath that were all kinds of goodies. Bottles of champagne and cider with two glass flutes. Cakes and cookies. Fine cheeses and sausages and crackers. Two 20th Century Fox mugs with packets of gourmet hot chocolate to go in them. And lots, and lots of other things, too many to remember.

While Kathryn made some hot chocolate and unpacked the cake and cookies, I finished setting up the new stereo Frank had given us.

Kathryn put on a record, then curled up with me under the 20th Century Fox lap rug, sipping at mugs of chocolate. Kathryn clicked the remote, a record fell into place, there was the hiss of a needle in the grooves and the music purred out of the speakers.

And this is the very first Christmas song she played:

Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby."

NEXT: IRWIN ALLEN'S RECIPE FOR DISASTER

THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES: IT'S A BOOK!

THE VITAL LINKS:

THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK

BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE HULK

2011-12-16T06:25:00.000-05:00

Run, Lou, Run!

SLEAZY PUBLISHER: What makes you think that you can capture the Hulk when everybody else has failed?

ASSASSIN: I said nothing about capture.

* * *

It was another emergency call from The Hulk.

The show was usually blessed with excellent ratings, staying well up in the top twenty for most of its five-season run. Near the end, however, when the network started moving the time slot around, the ratings began to sag.

And that, as Al Godfrey was wont to say, "is when they really start to fuck with you."

Meaning, everybody from the network and studio brass to their mistresses' Tantra coaches, think they know how to fix the sucker.

Godfrey opined that the best position to be in was second place. (This was in the day when there were only three networks. Fox was just a gleam in Rupert Murdoch's avaricious eyes.) "First place, and they fuck with you so much you break out in hives when the phone rings. Third place and you start feeling as jumpy as an altar boy with a horny a priest. Second place you just keep chugging out the ad money and everybody forgets you are there. Quiet phones. Zip meetings. And you get home in time for a nice dinner and a cuddle."

"Every show you ever worked on was in first place," I pointed out. "Mission: Impossible. Vegas. Baretta. Quincy. All top shows."

Godfrey grinned and ran a hand through his graying hair. "Yeah, and would you believe I'm only 22," he said.

"Maybe twenty five years ago," Chris teased. "Shit, Godfrey, one of these days you're gonna pass us by. We'll wake up one morning and you'll be younger than us."

Chris' joke proved to be prescient. Godfrey always shaded his age. When we first met at Quincy in 1979, Chris and I were 36. Godfrey was easily ten years our senior, although he claimed he'd just turned forty. Channeling Jack Benny, no doubt.

When I was in town a couple of years ago and had lunch with him, Godfrey looked me up and down, then asked, "How are old you, Allan?"

I told him.

He got a quizzical look and said, "When the hell did you get older than me?"

Meanwhile, back at Panic Pass, the Hulk was calling and they wanted us in soonest with a notebook full of stories to pitch. We were several years into our careers at this point, and our reputations were growing. We'd crept into the secretive "A List" territory and networks were smiling favorably at Show Runners who commissioned Bunch & Cole scripts.

Even so, we were still green enough to worry about foolish things.

"All we're doing is shoot 'em ups," Chris complained to Godfrey. "We don't want to get typecast as writerly knuckle draggers. Guys you go to for Biff, Bam and Pow. But never anything with serious themes."

"Jesus Christ," Godfrey came back. "A few years ago you could barely afford the gas it took for you to ride your motorcycle to the studio. And now you're driving a BMW. Biff, Bam and Pow have been very, very good to you."

"Still," I said. "Still."

Catherine Bach As Daisy Dukes

Godfrey gave one of his pitying sighs, then said, "Look, in case you haven't noticed, there are only two things happening on television. Sitcoms with laugh tracks is number one. Number two is car chases with over-dubbed gunfire and lots of Daisy Dukes' type T&A. Scripts featuring over-dubbed gunfire and Daisy Dukes go for twice the price of half-hour laugh tracks. Take your choice."

"We didn't say we were going boycott the Hulk," Chris pointed out. "We're just saying we want to do something different. A change of pace."

"Just don't say I didn't warn you when Nick Corea quickens your pace with a boot up your ass," Godfrey said.

But we were determined to hang tough. Came up with some sweet change of pace stories about real people with real problems. Social issues shit.

Come meeting day, we got waved through the gates by the ever-smiling Scotty, who shouted "Break a leg, boys," as we sailed by.

The production offices for the Incredible Hulk were in one of the Producer's Buildings, opposite the dreaded Black Tower. The commissary was just across from the Jaws pond, and we could see flocks of pretty secretaries in bright summer dresses flitting by the pond to lunch.

As we turned toward the parking slot we'd been assigned, a tram went slowly by and Bruce The Shark rose out of the depths, snapping his bloody-stained fiber glass teeth at the shrieking tourists.

It was good to be alive and in Hollywood and on our way to bag a big fat check imprinted with numerous zeroes, signed by one of Lew Wasserman 's sycophants in Business Affairs.

Ah, Capitalism.

But our mood changed the moment we were ushered into Nick's office. It was a lot like the first meeting we'd had with him several seasons before. The room was crowded: producers and staff people lining either wall with their chairs. There was Karen Harris, her partner Jill Sherman-Donner and guys like Andy Schneider and Reuben Leder. There were pre-production people and post production people and so on and so forth. The office was dimly lit and there was a buzz of anticipation when we entered.

At the far end, framed by his staff, sat the show's El Segundo, Nick Corea, teeth showing white through his dark goatee.

He waved for us to sit, saying, "What do you have for us, boys?"

Chris and I looked at each other. Here goes nothing.

My partner took point: "We've been working on a change of pace, story, Nick. Something with real meat to it."

Nicked nodded - go on.

Chris drew a breath, then said, "What we'd like to do is 'Lilies Of The Field.' You know, that classic movie with Sydney Poitier? Except, instead of a black guy with a bunch of nuns, we'll have a big green guy with a bunch of nuns."

The air left the room as everyone in it sucked in deep breaths of Disappointment.

In a flash, I saw all their faces. Smiling and welcoming moments before. Now dark and somber with hurt looks of betrayal.

After a very long moment, Nick said, "Ah... guys. We were thinking of something a little different from you two. You know?"

Indeed we did. Fucking Godfrey had been right.

Immediately, I said, "Try this: A mercenary with a bazooka is stalking the Hulk. We call it 'Bring Me The Head Of The Hulk.'"

The air whooshed back into the room.

"Go write it," Nick said, gleaming teeth splitting his beard once again.

"Don't you want to hear the rest of the story?" Chris asked.

"No, just go write the fucker," Nick ordered.

And so we did.

Bixby To The Rescue

EPILOGUE: Everybody loved the script. So much so, that the episode was directed by our star, Bill Bixby. He was known as an excellent director, and we were told that he'd long wanted to helm an episode of the Hulk. Problem being, he had to spend so many hours in makeup - for the David Banner To Hulk transition scenes - that he never had the time.

But with the show obviously in its last season, he picked our script to direct. Not only that, but the full transitions were shown, from beginning to end. Usually, to save money and time, they cut in stock art of the Hulkout from the original two-hour pilot into those scenes. (Usually there were two Hulkouts in every show. In the First Act, trailing over into the second act. And then the Fourth and final Act.)

Finally - and best of all - when the show aired it not only took its hour, but came in way at the top of the weekly Neilson ratings.

Here's where you can get a peek at the episode.

NEXT: A HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS

THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES: IT'S A BOOK!

THE VITAL LINKS:

THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK

SKYDIVING HULK, Or: WHAT THE HELL TO DO IF LOU WON'T JUMP

2011-11-23T07:07:00.022-05:00

NOTE FROM ALLAN: I will be in Minsk on a film consultation gig for a couple of weeks. These MisAdventures will return Dec. 16 with "BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE HULK," followed by "A HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS." Meanwhile - read on...

***

"You don't need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice" (Old Skydiver Joke)

* * *

"Here's the problem in a nutshell, guys: Fucking Lou is afraid of heights."

Afraid Of Heights?

The person speaking was Nick Corea. And the "Lou" he was referring to was none other than Lou Ferrigno - Bill Bixby’s big green alter ego in The Incredible Hulk.

"No shit," Chris said. "So that explains it."

"Explains what," Corea wanted to know.

"Why you bounced our story about the High Steel Hulk a little while back."

Chris was referring to what we thought was a perfectly good story idea: an episode of the Hulk involving the very dangerous and thrilling occupation of the guys who build our skyscrapers. It would also have given us a last act Hulkout in midair, which the kid in us really wanted to see. (The idea for the story was inspired by one of Chris' favorite books: On High Steel: The Education Of An Ironworker by Mike Cherry.)

Nick grimaced. "Well, I couldn’t exactly admit that Lou soaks his jock when he’s more than five feet off the ground."

Although we all laughed, with Lou being over 6’5" and over 300 pounds, the prospect of a fall from any added height might give even a Strongman pause.

"I don’t get it," I said. "If he’s acrophobic, why did you promise the network a skydiving Hulk story?"

"Fuck if I know," Nick admitted. "We were pitching the new season and it just sort of worked its way into the pitch."

Nick Corea

Nick was Ken Johnson's El Segundo on The Incredible Hulk. A superb story man. Possibly the best in the business. Give him any fact and any character and he could spin a yarn in three seconds flat that would tickle the fancy of the dimmest Network Suit. (It is a previously unheralded fact that the combined IQ of all the Suits at all the Networks might - just might - equal that of a brain-cell challenged chimp) However, his talent sometimes caused him trouble - such as the Skydiving Hulk episode we were now discussing.

"But, that’s not all," Nick continued. "There’s another problem. Maybe an even more serious one."

"Wait a minute," Chris said. "I’m still back on Lou fainting at the sight of a ladder. What about Manny? Is he afraid of heights."

Manny Pearl was the black stuntman who doubled for Lou.

"Fuck no," Nick said. "If you look up 'Big Brass Ones' in the Dictionary Of American Slang, you’ll find Manny’s picture there."

"So, why not just have Manny jump in at the last minute like he always does," Chris said, "and fall into an airbag or whatever?"

"That brings us to the second problem, Nick said. "Bixby says there is no way his character would ever jump out of an airplane."

That made sense. The David Banner character hated turning into the Hulk. In the internal logic of the show purposely triggering a skydiving adrenalin spike that would bring on the big green man was out. Bixby, a thorough professional, would never allow such a violation of his character.

An aside: It was our impression that as the seasons went by, Bill and Lou started to take on more and more characteristics of the parts they played. In short, they began to dislike each other. We were told that Bixby was always wanting to do an episode where the Hulk never appeared. And Lou kept lobbying to do an episode in which there was no David Banner. All that changed when the show ended and it is my understanding that they remained friends until Bixby’s untimely demise.

"Among the reasons I asked you guys in," Nick added, "is that you are the only writers I know who have ever jumped out of an airplane."

This was only partly true. I was with Lou. Nothing could ever tempt me to engage in the sport of damned fools. Chris, on the other hand, had been an airborne ranger in his Army days and had belonged to a skydiving club in civilian life. He used to joke: "Didn’t know that airplanes actually landed until I mustered out."

"Let me get this straight," I said. "You want us to write a story about David Banner joining a sky diving team - which Bixby says he’d never do. And Lou turning into the Hulk while parachuting - without Lou ever getting any higher than the first rung of a very short ladder."

"You game?" Nick asked with a wolfish grin.

Chris and I looked at each other. Shrugged.

"What the fuck," Chris said. "The fall will probably kill us anyway." (A line we loved to steal from William Goldman's Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Sums up the choices in life so well, don't you think?)

After that things got complicated. We had to have an airshow, complete with wildly cheering and whistling audience. The Hulk was already special effects heavy, which meant that before you even began shooting, your budget was stretched tighter than a Hollywood starlet’s tank top.

So, how to have an airshow when we couldn’t afford to stage one, and there was no chance of ever finding an event that just happened to be occurring during our shoot?

Producers Jill Sherman Donner,
Jim Hirsch And Karen Harris

I believe it was Karen Harris and her partner, Jill Donner who came up with the solution. They did most of the actual work on the Hulk, rushing around to pick up the pieces that Nick scattered about when he was having one of his attacks of brilliance.

Somehow they tracked down footage of a recent airshow in Palm Desert, or some such place. It included shots of small planes taking off in front of bleachers filled with skydiving fans. Skydiving teams - dressed in team colors - climbing into those planes. Shots of skydivers leaping out into the wild blue whatchamacallit. Helmet shots of skydiving tricks. Parachute landings. Crowds applauding. And so on.

Chris and I studied that footage until - without benefit of inducements - our eyes were a ghastly red. We took careful notes, making sure that we had every detail straight, including the colors the various teams wore so they could match our actors' costumes. And we worked out some scenes with very tight shots so they only had to build a tiny piece of the bleachers, filled with our own people, that they could match to the stock footage. And so on.

Finally came the day for first draft notes. Everybody agreed that we had solved the problems. We had delivered a story that got around Bixby’s objections and Lou’s fear of heights.

But, Nick said, there were a couple of fuzzy logic points they’d like to clear up.

Chris raised a warning hand: "Fine, Nick. But be careful. This thing is held together with spit and bailing wire. Pull one string and the whole fucking thing is likely to come apart."

Nick saw his point.

And so they shot the script.

They got Reza Badiyi - one of the best in the TV business - to direct the episode (titled Free Fall) and some superb guest stars. You can get the complete list here.

But the real work was in the editing room, matching live action to the stock footage of the airshow. In the end, you couldn’t tell that a plane never once took off, that no one ever was in an airplane, much less jumped out of one.

And the midair Hulkout was the stuff of every kid’s dreams.

Hulu.com doesn’t offer that episode for free any longer, thanks to the greedy so-and-so’s at Universal Studios. But if you want to see how Free Fall turned out, and don’t mind paying $1.99 for it, click on this link. here. (The full season goes for $12.99)

Full disclosure: if you choose that route, thanks to several Writers Guild Strikes I get about .000000000000000000000000004 cents in residuals. If about a zillion of you go for it, Kathryn and I will take it all and fly to Rio for the Carnival

NEXT: BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE HULK

THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES: IT'S A BOOK!

THE VITAL LINKS: