Writing for I LOVE LUCY and Other Funny Stuff: An Interview with Bob Schiller (Past Times Comedy Writing Series) (4 page)

Your contact would’ve been more with Desi, until they split up.

Yes. One time Desi calls in Jess Oppenheimer and says, “We can’t go on like this, we’ve got to work it out democratically. If you and Lucy agree on something, majority wins, you and Lucy. If Lucy and I agree on something, majority wins, Lucy and I.” Jess says, “Fine.” As he’s walking out, Jess says, “What happens if you and I agree on something and Lucy doesn’t?” Desi says, “Majority wins -- Lucy.”

Behind the scenes, Lucy had a definite idea about things.

She was a perfectionist, really. Anybody who ever worked with Lucy, particularly actors, will tell you that she had to know every eye blink. She had to know exactly where -- she would never ad-lib. She had to know everything that was going on, where you were standing, and when Desi left… he kept her from doing that. He kept her from at least being nervous. Lucy depended on him when Jess left. Jess was really -- the year that we worked with him -- he had the upper hand. Although he didn’t sleep with her, didn’t go home with her -- he could see the tension that was created by a man and his wife. Once Desi left, Lucy was -- she had a double duty. She thought that she was directing; she was acting, she was the producer, and she also had to run the studio. So she was scared. And it was not a pleasant sight.

Between
I Love Lucy
and
The Lucy Show,
you and your partner wrote for
Pete and Gladys,
with Harry Morgan and Cara Williams.

Cara was pretty good. I remember going down once and watching it. I was watching her do a take on a thing that I had written -- and being very undiplomatic, I said, “I think you’re not doing that right.” Cara was kind of taken aback by it. “Who are you to tell me I’m not doing it right?” she said. “Well,” I said, “I used to write a show with an actress [Lucy] who does a great imitation of you.

BOB SCHILLER

How did you get your first job in radio?

I had a friend who knew Ed Gardner’s agent, the agent for
Duffy’s Tavern.
And he knew that Ed Gardner would hire anybody for a week. And if he had any promise, Gardner would give ‘em $50 for the week. You know, $50 was a lot of money in those days -- so I wanted to do it for the week, ‘cause you’d make $50. I was really green, ‘cause I didn’t know how to write jokes. There’s a major difference, as you know, between writing to be read and writing to be said. Writing to be said, you have to have a strong enough -- it’s a technique -- a punchline that’s got enough muscle, that will arouse a laugh in an audience. You just can’t do whimsy, the kind of stuff you do in columns. You have to have
whamsy,
really.

Did you have any trouble making the transition from writing for radio, to working in TV?

No, I was equally bad. No, actually writing radio was tougher than writing TV. You’re writing more for the imagination -- you have to paint a picture. Which is a little more difficult to do than if you’ve got somebody looking at it. Norman Corwin told a story about a kid who was asked, “Do you like radio or television better?” He says, “Radio.” “Why?” “The pictures are better.”

You were sort of inventing the medium when you began in TV.

More or less. It was 1950 or ‘51. It’s actually a little different technique. But a joke’s a joke. I was the head writer for Danny Thomas -- having come off of all my failures in radio. Danny did a lot of his nightclub stuff. That was his major complaint; he said, “I’m using all the material that I use in nightclubs, I don’t want to do that.” His dear friend, Abe Lastfogel, who was head of the William Morris office, kept encouraging him to do it. Well, he lasted a helluva a long time. But Danny never cared too much for that hour once-a-week show; he wasn’t too happy with it. You’re treading new water there, and you don’t know how to go; you don’t know who likes what, and so forth. It was a different ballgame. There were only three writers on that show. You stop and think, on the Sid Caesar show there were great sketches, dancing, singing, amusing stuff. He started out with two writers on
Your Show of Shows,
Mel Tolkin and Lucille Kallen. Then Mel Brooks came along and amused him. And for a long time there was only the three of them.

In the beginning TV was pictures of people telling jokes, to a large extent.

No, no. They had situation comedy. It wasn’t just a matter of telling jokes -- although there were -- the bellwether was Milton Berle, he was telling jokes but he was doing sketches.

Ball and Berle take a break from rehearsals.

Did you get your ideas about what TV was supposed to be from watching Berle?

Well, I was never a big fan of Milton’s. I loved his gall. I mean, he had chutzpah -- he would tell a terrible joke as if it were the funniest thing in the world. He was not bashful about stealing. He amused me because he was so brash. But I never made a point of watching the Berle show.

Was Ed Wynn difficult to write for?

No, no. I used to love Ed Wynn, when I was a kid. I adored him. He was one of my heroes. When I was a little boy, when radio first came in, he was a big star -- the Fire Chief, and all that. “I’ve been there, Graham!” Graham McNamee was his announcer; no matter where he mentioned, Wynn would say, “I’ve been there,” and tell a story -- that was his radio show.

Wynn didn’t participate in the writing of his TV show, did he?

Ed? No. He was a dear man. Like everyone else, an enormous ego. Ed claimed that he discovered everybody in show business. But he was such a cute fellow. It was very difficult not to like Ed; he was a sweet old man who had this wonderful reincarnation thanks to television. By the time I knew him he was pretty old. You can’t really relate to Ed Wynn because he’s not a person -- he’s a clown -- any more than you can relate to Jimmy Durante or Bert Lahr.

So you even saw Wynn as that personality off the air?

When Ed talked, the head shook from right to left. The producer was a man named Dick Mack. His head shook -- he had a tick -- he shook up and down. One wonderful day Ed was saying, “I like it,” and shaking his head no [right to left], and Dick Mack was saying, “I don’t like it at all,” and shaking his head yes [up and down]. It was a classic moment.

Where did you go from there?

Four Star Revue
was canceled, then I came back here [Los Angeles] and did
December Bride
on radio. That I did a full season on, and I didn’t get fired. So after writing for Danny Thomas and Ed Wynn, I went back to radio for a year. Then I went to
The Red Buttons Show
for eight weeks.

Eight weeks?

Everybody got fired on that show except Larry Gelbart. I think Red Buttons had 40 or 50 writers. I was the first in a long line of writers who came and went in [a few] weeks. In later years, I saw him under different circumstances, and he apologized. He said, “I was crazy.” He’d gone through analysis, and so forth. It was sudden fame -- he was one of those guys who...

He couldn’t handle it.

Well, the country couldn’t handle it either. The first year Buttons was a major sensation. The second year, he went right down the tubes. The public is not too faithful. They learned all his tricks. He had a bag of tricks. He did them, and they got boring after a while; he didn’t do anything different. “Ho, ho, ho...” -- how often can you listen to that? A lot of the comics in those days would go on for a year, make a big splash, and fade. Alan Young was a big sensation for a year, then he became second banana to an equine.

Red Buttons didn’t vary his material very much?

That’s right. One of the things -- the story is told about the guys who wrote the first Red Buttons show -- Joe Stein, who wrote
Fiddler on the Roof,
and his partner, Will Glickman -- it was on live in New York, and it was an enormous success. They were getting into a taxi. One said to the other, “Jesus, this is really great.” And the other one said, “Wait ‘til he gets that shit-eating grin.” They go into rehearsal for the second week, and the first thing Red says is, “This isn’t me.” And the two guys walked out. That was the last show they did. They were independent enough not to have to take any crap from him. He was nutsy. From nowhere he became a major star, and then he fizzled like 4th of July firecrackers.

Were you on the show the first year?

No, the start of the second year. I went back there [New York] with Larry Gelbart, who was a friend. I think I was getting $250 a week. I had an eight-week deal. At the end of the sixth week -- they had to give me two weeks notice --  they said they weren’t picking me up. I said, “Why? You have no idea whether I’m one of the great sketch writers in America, because I’ve working with other people.” They had never seen anything I had done alone. Gelbart worked with a fellow named Hal Collins, who was one of Milton Berle’s flunkies for many years. Woody Kling and Buddy Arnold and I worked in a different location, and just sent in sketch jokes -- they didn’t know which. They didn’t know whether I could write or not. And Buttons’ agent said, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re the best sketch writer in the world, we can’t afford you.” I said, “$250 a week?” He said, “Red only gets $1250 a week and he’s got to take money from the writer’s budget, so we’ve got to get somebody less expensive.” I said, “You’re in trouble.”

That second year was just writers going through the revolving door.

That’s all I know about. I had eight weeks of it. I came back home to California. I wasn’t fired, but my option wasn’t picked up, which is a nicer way of saying it I suppose. Less harsh -- and his band of renown.

According to Steve Allen, Buttons was unable to resist reworking the script.

We never went to rehearsals. Gelbart would go; he was the head writer. He would call us and tell us what he needed. I may have gone to rehearsals and blocked it out; to be honest, I don’t remember. I wasn’t working with Larry directly. I was sitting in a room with two other guys, working on jokes and ideas for sketches. It was frustrating. There was no chance for any kind of individuality.

Did you work directly with Red Buttons at all on his show?

No. Well, we saw him, and he knew us. But he was suddenly rich. Nouveau riche. When we came to his apartment -- there were a few sessions there -- we had to sign in, so he could deduct us for tax purposes. You know you’ve made it when it you have a tax advisor.

Did he seem to have a good sense of material?

Oh, yeah. Buttons pretty well knew his characters. Most comics know their characters; after all, they’ve worked with them for years. It’s not easy to create a new comedy character, and these were characters that he knew. Same thing with Red Skelton. He had this list of characters that never varied; he had a bunch of ‘em, so it didn’t seem like the same show every week. But there’s a big similarity between Buttons and Skelton.

Why would Skelton last for umpteen years, and Buttons fizzle?

Had you worked with Larry Gelbart before?

He was a kid when I first met him. I don’t remember whether we overlapped on
Duffy’s Tavern
or not. But he was working with Sid Dorfman on
The Eddie Cantor Show,
and they called me over to help them -- Sid was sick or something. They were working at a little bungalow in Hollywood; it was one of those typical
Day of the Locust
bungalows. There was a very small group of comedy writers then. We all knew each other socially. In those days, we used to have Saturday night parties at each other’s homes.