HRTS eNews - 12/19/2008 (Plain Text Version)
In this issue:
Holiday Greetings
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Happy Holidays!
Features
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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Hitmakers Event Recap
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Money Talks: Wall Street's Event Recap
From the Executive Director
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Happy Holidays ... Really!
Member News
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Profile: Jim Paratore
HRTS Online
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HRTS' Photo Gallery Updated!
Jr. HRTS
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JHRTS News & Announcements
About The HRTS
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Officers, Board of Directors, Staff
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Hitmakers Event Recap
An event recap by Chris Davison, davison@intellcap.com
There are good times in Hollywood, there are bad times in Hollywood and sometimes it just gets downright ugly. On December 9th 2008, a group of our industry’s best and brightest gathered at the annual HRTS Hitmakers luncheon at the Beverly Wilshire hotel to discuss any and all of the above. The inimitable Peter Tolan (Co-Creator and Executive Producer, “Rescue Me”) found himself in receipt of a promotion, tapped to be the panel moderator after having previously been a panelist. Joining Tolan on stage were multi-hyphenate panelists James Bobin, Co-Creator and Executive Producer of “Flight of the Conchords”; James Duff, Creator and Executive Producer of “The Closer”; Al Jean, Executive Producer of “The Simpsons”; Jenji Kohan, Creator and Executive Producer of “Weeds”, and Chuck Lorre, Creator and Executive Producer of “Two and a Half Men” and “Big Bang Theory”.
Tolan began his remarks by pointing out that his previous appearance as a panelist had not gone so well and yet somehow he had been upped to moderator. Noting the possible beginning of a trend, Tolan said “if I screw this up then by next year I should be the Chairman of HRTS, what they call taking a page from the Jeff Zucker playbook”. The ax having fallen at NBC just a day before the event, Tolan went on to ask the panel to “get into the spirit of the season” and offer their suggestions on how NBC might turn things around. Al Jean said "I think they should bring back Johnny Carson and put him at nine o'clock", James Duff said "I think it's wonderful that NBC has begun a public transformation into AM radio" and Jenji Kohan wished for a Christmas special special, “where they go back and take all the best parts of the old shows…I want to see Barbara Mandrell up there singing in a dress with Cher”. 
Tolan then asked James Bobin about the genesis of “Flight of the Conchords” and Bobin related how he went up to a festival in Edinburgh, Scotland and met the show’s two stars in a cave under a castle. Bobin said he watched their show in awe and wondered to himself how he might adapt their live music into a television show. The two musicians would commute often between Scotland and Los Angeles, staying over at Bobin’s home in London along the way. Having worked on “Da Ali G Show” with HBO, the network approached Bobin one day to ask him if he’d heard about a certain two young buzz-generating musicians and he replied “well, yeah, they’re living in my house”
and the rest, as they say, is history.
Exploring the ‘death of comedy’, Tolan complimented Chuck Lorre for his continuing success with multi-camera sitcoms, saying “I am truly in awe that you have two shows of that structure that are working on network television”. Lorre said that “both shows came about in very different ways and at the end of the day you wind up sitting in a room with other comedy writers, trying to do something that makes you laugh”. Tolan noted that Lorre had worked on a series of shows with Roseanne Barr, Brett Butler and then Cybill Shepherd, causing Chuck to quip that “what doesn’t kill us makes us bitter”.
With the good of creativity and the bad of the economy, there must be the ugly of……meetings. Tolan asked the panel for their worst meeting story, and he lead off in recounting a meeting he once had with producer-director John Landis where they were sitting down and getting to know each other and Landis said “no doubt you’re aware of my work” and Tolan channeled Oscar Wilde in saying “only what I’ve read in the police reports”, thus causing Peter to spend the rest of the meeting staring at the floor. Chuck Lorre added his own ugly truth of a meeting he once had with a feature film executive at New Line. Lorre went into the meeting and at some point the film exec said “I don’t watch much television”, leading to Chuck looking at a promo piece for “House Party 2” and saying “it’s unlikely that I will ever see that piece of shit”. Jenji Kohan recou
nted how she once took a meeting when she was seven months pregnant and her agent told her not to tell the execs that she was pregnant, that she should “go to the meeting and just eat”, leading Kohan to spend the session quietly snacking on Kit Kat bars. Al Jean recalled how he once went in to pitch a movie and as he started talking, the studio exec fell asleep. When Jean finished his pitch, the exec woke up and said “you sure talk fast”. James Duff said he’d been to so many rough meetings he wasn’t sure which one to choose, settling on a time when he went in to pitch a TV movie and saw a whole bunch of awards crowded on the executive’s desk, leading Duff to say “so I see you bowl”……followed by the distinctive sound of crickets.
In closing, Tolan asked the panel which show they covet, which one they wish they had written and Al Jean said “I really love ‘Mad Men’”, with Kohan and Lorre quickly concurring. Duff said that he loves “Battlestar Galactica”, calling it the best show ever and encouraging the audience to go out and buy the DVDs. Kohan also added “and let’s not forget ‘Rescue Me’”, causing Tolan to quip “it has its charms, I know” and then, sensing an opportunity to end on a high note, “I think that’s t
he perfect place to end, don’t you? Talking about ‘Rescue Me’?” His final line got a big laugh and thus came to close one of the most enjoyable, memorable events of the HRTS season.
To see more pictures from this and other events, please go to HRTS' new Photo Gallery!