Fullerton is a F*** of a long way from LA

Today was only the second time I’ve ever been to Fullerton.

The first time was when my friend Roseanne invited me to speak to her tv writing class. And this week I went out there because Roseanne invited me to speak to her writing class on the topic “TV: Then and Now: From Beverly Hills, 90210 to Showbizzle” - as part of the school’s COMM WEEK - and while everyone I met was pleasant - and the students much more engaged than the ones I spoke to in ‘07, what I am going to remember from this experience is that I got lost on the freeways.  I had directions - and I got lost. Printed directions and I got lost.  I’m a local boy and I got lost. I got lost going both ways. There and back. Both ways.  Yes, I’m aware that I am repeating myself. That’s how humiliating this all is for me. See, I’m the guy you call for directions, the guy who never needs a GPS system because I have memorized all the routes, not the schlub that misses the turnoff for the 105, the 605, the 91, the 22, and the 57.  That’s another thing about driving to Fullerton. There are lots of numbers involved.

Being late meant I didn’t get to hang in the modest hospitality suite for the other speakers - like Brian Lowry, the lead TV critic for the Variety who wrote kindly about the zip code back when he wrote for the LA Times. Good thing we probably didn’t talk because he might have asked ‘what the hell happened to you?’ - and instead of confiding in him about the vagaries of my career, or trying to network, or saying something on point, I would have concocted all sorts of specious reasons why I got stuck in the diamond lane on the 405! “Brian, do you have any idea what it is like to be boxed in on all sides by four-wheel vehicles pulling U-haul trucks?”

Anyway, I get ushered into the narrow room in the conference center that doubles as my class, and it becomes immediately apparent that I only will be speaking to the students from Roseanne’s class who have been assigned to be there because everyone else is in the main auditorium is listening to Brian Lowry. Truth is, if I were given the choice, I’d probably be listening to Brian Lowry rather than the sound of my voice - which I am getting thoroughly sick of hearing now that I’m teaching a 3-hour writing class over at UCLA Extension every week.

To make matters worse, as I’m taking my notes out of my briefcase I realize there are no notes in the briefcase…so I have no choice but to wing it.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, what I have to say about the alarming decline in network television business is something I can talk about for an hour without taking a breath.  But not everything was doom and gloom and nostalgia.  The future bodes well for low budget digital production - even if only as a creative outlet. The emerging artist needs to go through exclusive channels to be taken seriously, or gain experience.  How anyone makes money, of course, is still up for grabs, but these are transformational times — and it will be the risk takers and the shameless ones that will ultimately find a niche for themselves.

 

My talk culminated with a screening of the first weekly installment of Showbizzle, called “Welcome To My World” - and since our fifteen minute download wasn’t pre-loaded, it kept freezing up at first, but then it didn’t…and that’s when I started hearing the laughs…and realized that this was fast becoming a preview screening for a random focus group.  And when they got to the story twist at the end of Bryce’s profane rant about a wild night he spent at the ‘W’ Hotel, I heard the focus group howl…and then clap…

And it was the memory of the clapping and the laughter that was ringing in my ears on the conference call with some biz development and “creative content” types started explaining why this particular mainstream digital company won’t be helping me sell our 6 hours of programming without a brand attached.  What I didn’t say back to them was that after going to Fullerton and directly engaging with a random showbizzle demographic, I’m starting to feel that it is only a matter of time before we find a good fit…and when we do, chances are we won’t be calling these clowns back.

So thank you Fullerton for giving me the confidence that I need to sell our digital showcase… but, next time, do you think you can do something about those freeways?

Those Who Forget The Past…

Whew — barely survived crossing the Red Sea last week with all that matzah brie and those ridiculously heavy commandments – including the 11th Commandment which says, “Thou Shall Not Be Snarky – unless what you’re saying is F***ing True.”

This week, to honor our shared heritage, we will be revisiting/updating a few previous blogs, re-examining themes and topics that should be familiar to anyone who has been following this ‘ol Showrunner these past six months.

#1. Mainstream Media — a conspiracy to suppress virtually all info about digi world…

I referenced a new CBS show called Harpers Island, describing it as

“Sort of a Lost meets And Then There Were None scenario, revolving around a wedding on a secluded island where guests begin to be picked off one by one for 13-episodes” in “Mixed Signals” (posted 1/14/09) because it was being produced by CBS and EQAL, the smart digi guys behind “Lonely Girl 15”. What attracted my attention was that their show would be emphasizing “active online and mobile elements, with characters and narratives interwoven with the main show on an interactive hub being supervised by HarpersGlobe.com. I concluded the post by predicting that if “Harper’s Island” becomes a hit, “virtually no new show will be ordered for production by a broadcast network without a connecting digital presence in place.”

“Harper’s Island” debuted last week at #20 last week. This is how USA TODAY reported about it in its weekly round up of the television ratings.

“In head-to-head premieres, CBS murder mystery Harper’s Island edged NBC cop drama Southland Thursday (10.2 million vs. 9.9 million), but the latter finished nearly 20% higher among young adults favored by advertisers.”

Uh, you think maybe, just maybe that’s because all “Harper’s” young viewers were interacting on-line?  And btw, the reviewer in the LA Times wrote almost wrote two pages about the show’s “violent content” without mentioning it is being marketed to young men who play video games.

#2.  The Curse of Beverly Hills 90210

Before I became the showrunner of 90210 I was known as a working TV movie writer of social drama that mostly got produced…as well as a writer of lots of quirky and fairly well executed pilot scripts that were often the final project of those development seasons to be passed on. But after I produced the first 144 hours of 90210, I became the guy who only does mainstream melodrama about teenagers.  Ain’t success grand?

These days, however, my 90210 curse usually begins when a young fan (usually too young to have watched the show on Fox) finds out that I produced the first 144 hours of the show. What usually follows is a gushing/blushing e-mail like the one I got from Molly, a very funny and hip LA based video blogger from Boston, who I paid (actually overpaid) to do some social networking for my digital project, showbizzle last Fall.  Here’s what she wrote:

“Sir, I did not realize up until this very moment that you were responsible for writing one of my all time most favorite and universe altering shows. I mean, seriously. Not that I wasn’t already excited to be working for you, but apparently your work has been one of the biggest parts of my life between an early childhood obsession (when I hardly understood what was going on on screen) all the way up until this very day (the pilot episode of 90210 has been in my DVD player for over a month.).  I just needed you to know that I completely, COMPLETELY died upon finding out that fact and I am so so so so so super honored that we even spoke on the phone once. Biggest deal of my life. No joke.”

Well, the joke is on me because Molly promised do a few things on showbizzle’s behalf, didn’t follow through, and never followed up. She once wrote me and said, “I realize this looks unprofessional, but that’s not how I roll…”   I got news for you, babe, unfortunately that is exactly how you and so many others who grew up on Brandon and Brenda roll.  What a legacy! Go watch re-runs of Melrose Place why don’tcha?

#3.  The Bizzle that wouldn’t fizzle

Showbizzle, the digital website, I unsuccessfully launched this past Fall, started finding its voice back in December when I posted “Putting The Show Back In The Bizzle”.

What I like about producing original content for the digital world is that if it doesn’t work out you get to throw up your hands and insist that your website/start-up/show was in Beta mode the whole time — and then, with one click of a mouse, poof, all is forgiven, and you get to start over again.

And we did start over – with Lindsey re-voicing the character of Janey, our unseen blogger, on the 141 two-minute videos that get featured on our 23 week digital showcase Here is what she sounds like. It’s our title sequence.

http://meetshowbizzle.blip.tv/

The website will be up in Mid May…so there will be more bizzle news as we go along.

Let me know what’s up with you…

Candy and Tori : A glimpse of the real Beverly Hills, 90210

On my first visit to the Spelling “Manor”, one of the largest and most expensive homes ever built in Los Angeles County, I broke a chair.  The ‘Mister’ had just given me and a couple of programming executives from Fox a tour of the downstairs “public rooms”, including the bowling alley and his wife’s very own gift wrapping room, before we settled in a newly furnished den to figure out what the hell we were going to do now that Fox had ordered us to produce summer episodes.  For true fans of the zip code this was when the idea of “The Beverly Hills Beach Club” was first hatched, but for me it was the first time I realized who wore the pants in the family…because the moment the legs of the rickety wicker chair gave way under the weight of my fat ass, Aaron Spelling and his formidable, tough guy producing partner, Duke Vincent, spent the next ten minutes strategizing how to break the news to Candy so that she would still let her hubby have his little meetings with “the hired help” at the new digs.

The only other time I can recall being at “The Manor” was for the Spelling’s annual Christmas Eve celebration replete with Carolers in costumes, a massive Christmas tree in their massive rotunda, and lots of vodka and egg nog…not exactly what you would expect from Jewish people, but then the Spellings were always confounding expectation.  For instance, here they were having a warm, spare no expense gathering for family and friends, except I barely remember any family being there, and the only friend in attendance was a former cable TV executive about to serve time in prison for some kind of white collar crime (and who was rumored to be Candy’s secret squeeze)  Who was in the house was “the hired help” - the vp’s of production and post production, the head of business affairs,  the head of casting, Jonathan Littman from Fox, who was  the 90210 exec during the Rosin years, and a few writer/producer types from 90210 and Melrose Place.  No stars from any show were there that year. No Darren Star either. He was in Maui, or Paris, or Aspen, or wherever chic, showbiz LA went for the holidays that season.  See, that’s why we mere mortals made it onto the guest list that year.  Everyone who mattered was on a private jet, but since Aaron suffered from an acute case of fear of Flying, Candy was stuck with “the hired help.”

I actually remember Candy speaking to me that night because she and Aaron walked Karen and I to the door after we regrettably announced that we would have to be the first guests to leave so that we could relieve our wonderful Guatamalan nanny who agreed to stay with our three young kids until we got home. Moments before, a grinning, impish Mr. Spelling selected me to put on one of the caroler costumes and lead the group in a sing-a-long to “Rudolph, The Red Nose Reindeer”.  I think he expected me to freeze from embarrassment or warble off-key, but the fact is/was I can carry a tune and was a hambone long before I became a showrunner. And because I had little ones at home I knew to shout out those funny little asides that are always play best after a few shots of booze (”…you would almost say it glowed” LIKE A LIGHT BULB!).  Anyway, we got warm hugs and a promise to invite us to the party every year “no matter what happens” . The moment the door closed, Karen and I turned to each other and predicted we would never be invited over to The Manor again. And we never were.

This week, some fifteen years later,  Candy put the Manor up for sale for 150 million smackers and published her first memoir “Stories From Candyland”.  She also revealed in a recent newspaper interview that she no longer talks to her only daughter, and has never seen her newest grandchild.  Mrs. Spelling also told the interviewer that her new grandchild will appreciate her sometime in the future because she instructed the estate to set up a generous trust fund for him, cutting momma Tori out of the loop in the process. For her part Tori issued a statement saying she has “no comment”.  Oy vey.  Not only is their fractious relationship and petty public sniping vintage Spelling melodrama in the “Dynasty” tradition, but it is sadly predictable and, unfortunately, might be the real legacy of the imperious lifestyle and mercurial personality of the late Aaron Spelling.

Some of my favorite moments being the showrunner of 90210 were the private moments I got to spend in Aaron’s office when he would confide in me about his family’s travails and his deep concern for Tori’s future - not because he doubted that she had the instincts and acting chops (especially when it came to comedy) to have a legitimate and long lasting career, but because he questioned her judgment when it came to her personal life. Even today I remember the anguish of a doting father petrified that his impressionable daughter was getting serious with a spoiled son of an actor whom he suspected of smoking crack and influencing Tori in all the wrong ways…and I remember the way he teared up after I felt compelled to say that “it must be hard being a Spelling”…but a moment later we hopped on a conference call with the network and turned our attention back to showbusiness.