I wonder what butterfly effects this timeline will have towards a certain group of Minnesotan puppeteers in a few years.
A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
- Start date
- Status
I'd actually let Warner Bros. help them out. I mean, with the help of the world's largest Looney Bin, I feel like MST3K could actually enter the mainstream. Plus, WB is among Disney's biggest rivals, and with the creator of the Muppets in their staff, I'm pretty sure that there'd be a battle between WB, Universal, and Turner to see who will be able to work with Tom Servo and Crow.
I think keeping them independent will keep corporate oversight from what they can and can't see or say.
I didn't say that corporate meddling would happen if MST3K were to partner up with someone. I was thinking more along the lines of their usual episodes, but with a higher given budget. That's all. It's just the original show, but with bigger production values.
Part of the charm is the smaller budget, less money generally mean more creative and originality. A number of different films have fallen into that trap. (Of course I can't think of any).
marathag
Banned
First Deadpool, with a 'low' $58M budget, when the typical Superhero film was over $100M, some well over, like Spiderman, Thor and Iron Man, over $140M
I was thinking more along the lines of Paranormal Activity vs. Paranormal Activity 2 or Pitch Black vs. Chronicles of Riddick.
Trinity was considered and rejected as "too religious". CBS isn'tt going to change too much. Brand recognition will keep things as they are name and logo wise and for the most part he'll treat it as a pass-through. The biggest changes will be the relocation of some executive management to Atlanta and elimination of redundancies in bureaucracy and chains of command. CBS will be the "network" name and "Turner" the Cable name for the time being.
Columbia Pictures is a separate entity from Columbia Broadcasting, as is Viacom.
Nick, along with MTV, are currently owned by Warner Communications, AmEx having sold its shares per OTL. IOTL they'd sell them to Viacom in '87.
Henson went "Huh" and went about his business. Frank Wells is watching the events closely.
(A version of) Viacom already exists at this time:
Viacom (1952–2005) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I still hope Disney still works/buys one of the other TV networks.
Is this the same as Fawcett Publications?
If this is the same as Fawcett Publications, which owns Fawcett Comics, than having Disney buying them would end Disney's deal with Marvel which could lead to Ron Perelman still buying Marvel.
Yes, Fawcett Publications, but Fawcett Comics was effectively defunct in 1980 and had already liscensed its characters (including Captain Marvel/Shazam) to DC long before the POD. Charlton's characters were bought by DC in '83 as in OTL, so Watchmen can still exist.
As to Disney buying Fawcett, not in '85. Fawcett sold for over $700 million in OTL and while Ghostbusters and Back to the Future have brought in lots of cash as have the increased parking and ticket prices at the parks, they still have the roughly $500 million in debt to pay down from the takeover battle. Any purchases in the next year or so will by necessity be small as they pay down that debt.
Hadn't put much thought to MST3K yet. Joel Hodgson would be doing standup at the moment, IIRC.
That rule only covers insider trading from knowledge from their 'official position'. If Helms was tipped off by Turner, that trading would not be illegal under STOCKS Act, though you'd hope graft/bribery rules would catch it. But even then, if Helms abstained from any vote he might just sneak inside the law.
Regular insider trading is still in the deeply murky mess of what the law is (about theft/misuse of information) versus what people want it to be about (fairness). Not helped by the fact that even today there is no actual law against insider trading, just interpretations of a vague 1930s security law.
I never thought I'd say this, but Pitch Black vs. Chronicles of Riddick is similar to Alien vs. Aliens (in a few, very limited ways). Completely different genres of film (horror vs action) that share characters and the same universe. Both series decided that they needed to change genre, as they had done all they could with the horror/survival genre and any repeat would face diminishing returns. If you make a bit change you will lose some fans but hopefully gain a few, Alien managed the change very well but Riddick did not.
I prefer film makers who do make those big changes, even if they don't work out, to just churning out sequels and remakes that follow the existing formula. I hope Henson would feel the same and this comes through in Disney's film making.
The Ballad of Edward Ford
Chapter 10, The Highs of Hyperion
Excerpt from Where Did I Go Right? (or: You’re No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead), by Bernie Brillstein (with Cheryl Henson)
People ask me how in the hell you can work for Disney and think, “Ya know what Disney needs? More gay prostitutes. Let’s produce Edward Ford[1]!” Even for Hyperion it was more than pushing it. Prostitutes, sex scenes, homosexuality and transvestites[2]…yea, not what you would associate with Mickey Mouse. Sure, it all seems quaint today, but 1985 was a different time. And yet when I first read the Lem Dobbs screenplay I knew it was perfect. In fact, it was the perfect Disney story.
I’m serious. It was the story of Disney the company, from the death of Walt in the ‘60s up to the day we started filming it. You had the eponymous Edward Ford: innocent, naïve, sincere, somewhat ashamed of his own secret sinful behavior, and willing to see the goodness in people. He wants to be an actor, but not just any actor, a bad guy actor in a B-Western movie. He’s addicted to Hollywood Past and that old idealized America it represented, obsessively keeping notes on all the forgotten actors and their forgotten roles. A cowboy from another time riding the streets of West Hollywood, a taxi for his steed.
I had to make this film, and I pulled every short hair in reach to make it happen. We’d play down the sex a bit, but absolutely would not sanitize it. We didn’t need to show the guy jerking off in the theater, for example, but Mitzi’s shrieking sex voice, and Edward putting his hand over her mouth to quiet it, had to stay. Not only was it hilarious, it was critical to understanding the two characters and their relationship. We’d be discrete where we could. Even so, this would be Disney’s first R-rated movie[3].
After calling in every favor and fighting tooth and nail, I got the reluctant greenlight, though with a rock-bottom budget. The first person I cast was Mitzi, the crazy wife. I knew the second that I read the script that it was perfect for [my old client] Gilda Radner. I called her up even before I signed on a director. She agreed quickly, and suggested that her new husband Gene Wilder could direct. I’d seen Gene’s work on The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, and I appreciated the sympathetic camera work he did, allowing even Marty Feldman to play his role with sympathy and dignity. I accepted the deal, and even pushed for Gene to play Edward, the title role. I thought he was perfect. The role called for sincerity and Gene is pure sincerity. But he turned me down. “It calls for a cowboy,” Gene said, “Not a skinny Jewish boy from Milwaukee.”
“Gene,” I said, “You’ve played a cowboy twice now!”
“Yea,” he said, “Once was for Mel Brooks and the other time I was Hassidic.”
He wasn’t budging. I called up Tom Hanks, who’d been in Splash. He was best known for his comedy back then, but the kid had a core of sincerity to him that I knew could work. He read the script, and decided he wanted to play adult Luke instead. “Come on, Bernie, it’s perfect for me!” he said. I showed Edward to Matt Dillon, who’d done Tex for us a couple of years earlier, but he wanted to toughen up his look and instead did neo-noir thriller Jagged Edge. Finally, Gene suggested Jeff Bridges, who’d done Tron with us a few years earlier. I agreed he was damned good, but he was red hot at the moment. There was no way he’d work for what we were paying, but we gave him a call.
To our amazement, he went for it! He liked the role and wanted to do it for the art. He also wanted to get his dad Lloyd Bridges a role as one of the old cowboys, but instead I suggested that Lloyd take the role of Luke’s dad Ben Krantz. We rounded out the cast with Corey Haim as young Luke, character actor Vic Tayback (best known from the TV comedy Alice at the time) as Edward’s childhood friend and schlock writer Al Foster, and, after a long and surprisingly frustrating search for old cowboy actors, brought in Robert Livingston and Bob Steele as washed up cowboy actors Lester Adams and Jed Dobie. Gene even snuck in a cameo for his close friend Richard Prior as one of the actors in the “Black theater” gigs Edward performed in.
The last role filled was that of schlock director and transvestite Harry Blake, an obvious reference to Ed Wood. When animator Tim Burton (I swear, that kid was everywhere back then!) found out about the role, he auditioned for it himself, but his talents were definitely behind the camera. Instead, he eagerly volunteered to create the deliberately bad B-movie effects for the Blake Film Festival screening scene in the late second act. He also suggested actor Paul Reubens for the role, who was an underground comedian at the time. Reubens certainly looked a lot like Wood and he gladly agreed to the role, but just prior to release he asked us to list him under the pseudonym Reuben Pete since he was in discussions to do a Pee Wee movie and wasn’t sure how child-friendly he was going to make it yet.
Even as everything was slowly falling into place, the next year and a half still proved to be a living hell. It was one of those cursed productions. Tom and Ron would push back on every decision, desperate to try and neuter the production. I had to resort to shooting scenes in secret, shooting the “real dailies” and then a few “decoy dailies” where maybe Harry Blake in a black bra wasn’t in the scene. We had technical problems with sets and equipment. We had issues with Corey’s parents. Our first four old cowboy actors flipped out when they read the script. Paul Reubens and Robert Livingston got on each other’s nerves and Bob Steele had to be rushed to the hospital due to complications of his emphysema (both Bobs would pass away a couple of years after the film debuted). Several extras and small role actors argued with Gene, mistaking his soft-spoken nature for weakness. Alcohol and cocaine use caused more than a few issues, both on-set and off.
Still, the show went on and we managed to keep the total filming budget under $6 million, which was made easier since most of the scenes could be shot from sound stages and all the location shoots were local in Hollywood and could even be shot guerilla when we needed to (which actually helped increase the naturalism of the scenes). There was plenty of vintage and cowboy clothing in the costuming department that could be hastily retailored to fit the actors (Jeff once wore an outfit Don Knotts wore in The Apple Dumpling Gang, for example), and the fact that so many of our characters were described as having bad, ill-fitting clothing made it that much easier. By the fall of ’84 we were finished with filming and handed the cans off to the incomparable Dede Allen[4] to edit, and by January we were finished with editing and post.
Gene and I, seeing this as a modern-day cowboy story, turned it into a secret urban western. We had Elmer Bernstein do the score as if he was scoring a western back in the ‘60s. We changed the name to The Ballad of Edward Ford to play up the western angle, and shot lots of scenes with old Western posters in the background or famous cowboy-associated images. The opening credits were all cuts of iconic cowboy images and movie scenes from the Marlboro Man to Gene Autrey and John Wayne, with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing “Happy Trails” in the background. Gene Wilder deliberately used John Ford angles and old cowboy flick framing. We played up subtle associations between Edward’s awkward auditions and a high noon shoot-out, with ticking clocks, close-ups on eyes and hands, and the worried looks of onlookers. The hooker-strewn streets of West Hollywood were filmed like the dusty streets of Deadwood. Edward’s filthy taxi was subtly expressed as his trusty horse, with him absentmindedly patting it as if to calm it. It was Taxi Driver as if written and directed by John Ford or Sam Peckinpah.
Lem’s script was gold, but there was one change that I insisted on: more lines for Mitzi. In the original she’s more of a first-act foil for Edward, but I wanted to make her, and Gilda, a bigger part of the film. When Mitzi returned to collect the alimony check and when we see her with her new husband near the end, she now exchanges a few meaningful lines with Edward. She’s now as much a victim of the system as Edward, a former child star broken by the abuses of Hollywood. It was, I feel, one of the most important things that I ever did in my entire life. The next year, Gilda was diagnosed with cancer. She’d be dead before the decade was out. Gene and I still consider The Ballad of Edward Ford to be her movie.
We were on pins and needles when the damn thing screened for the first time on the lot. I could feel the burn of Ron and Tom’s eyes as the uncensored scenes aired one after another. I was certain I’d be fired and replaced, but like a good captain I’d go down with the ship if I had to. When the credits rolled and the lights came up there was silence. I was ready to cash in my chips and go home when the applause started, slow at first, and then building to a crescendo. It got cheers and a standing ovation. The comment cards were almost entirely positive. In the face of the positive reactions, Tom relented, even saying to me later “I’m glad you kept it all in.”
We debuted at Cannes where we took home the Palm d’Or and then went wide-release in June of 1985. We weren’t breaking box office records, but we had a long, steady sleeper that ultimately raked in a good $33 million, over four times its budget. When awards season came, we swept up, both at the Oscars and the Golden Globes. Gene got Best Director. Jeff got Best Actor. Gilda, God bless her, got Best Supporting Actress. Dede got Best Film Editing. Lem got Best Original Screenplay, just beating out The Bureau. We lost out to Out of Africa for Best Cinematography and lost to The Bureau for best makeup, but we nailed the Big One: Best Picture. My first Oscar. Some people say we stole it from The Color Purple. Maybe we did. We all have our opinions. I have no regrets.
In fact, you could say the movie also won me an Emmy, though indirectly. The hell we experienced during the production led to my next big TV idea for the new Hyperion Television label: Production! A new situation comedy, Production! would be co-produced with Witt/Thomas/Harris, who were just winding down the popular Benson. The show took place on the set of a long and troubled movie production for an increasingly bizarre period melodrama called “The Wind Cries Westward”. The sitcom would air on CBS Wednesday nights and would star Caroline McWilliams as the prima donna star of the film, Kate D’Lourve. She stars opposite former Royal Shakespeare actor Sir Anthony Williams Thomas Moore, played by Rene Auberjonois, who despises D’Lourve and can’t believe that he’s stuck in such a lowly “genre” film.
They were joined by sweet-but-promiscuous ingenue Felicity Fairweather (Cindy Morgan), dashing young (and dumb) love interest Beau Breaux (Tony Ganios[5]), and filthy-minded cameraman Mack Judd (John Kapelos). Meanwhile, director Max Best (Robert Guillaume) and producer Bernie Shriekinger (Richard Stahl) tried their best to keep the whole mess afloat while every imaginable trouble struck the star-crossed production: collapsing sets, constant micromanagement by studio head Allan Paul Unger (show runner Paul Junger Witt), scandals in the tabloids, union strikes, drunk and/or high actors, and pregnancy scares. Production! Ran for three seasons on NBC and another two on the new Hyperion Channel on basic cable. It won a few Emmys here and there and helped revive Caroline’s career.
The twin successes of The Ballad of Edward Ford and Production! caught the attention of Tom, who appreciated my eye for talent in particular. I moved up in the hierarchy at Hyperion and got a slot on the Hyperion board. Furthermore, the successful partnership with Witt/Thomas/Harris resulted in producer Susan Harris pitching us a sitcom idea originally called Miami Nice and featuring four retired women in Miami. You may have heard of it. It was called The Golden Girls[6].
[1] Edward Ford is “celebrated” today as the “Greatest Movie Never Made”. The script is available online for free. It is in my opinion somehow both a product of its time and way ahead of its time, reminiscent of a strange cross between Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, and a Cohen Brothers/Tim Burton mashup picture written by Charlie Kaufman. It breaks the fourth wall, has some clever screen and editing techniques and juxtapositions, and numerous pathos-filled comedy/drama blends. Here, I just can’t help but assume Bernie would have produced it if he could, given how much it unapologetically shows us Hollywood from the ‘60s-‘80s during his heyday with it.
[2] He’s using the now-considered-offensive term out of anachronism rather than out of hate, like your great grandmother unironically using the term “negro” to be inoffensive.
[3] In our timeline Disney’s first R-rated movie was Touchstone’s Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986).
[4] The greatest moviemaker you’ve never heard of.
[5] A Disney production staring a Porky’s star! Don’t anyone tell Card!
[6] The same sitcom got picked up by Touchstone TV in our timeline. In this timeline as in ours it will be an award-winning breakout hit and TV Classic.
Excerpt from Where Did I Go Right? (or: You’re No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead), by Bernie Brillstein (with Cheryl Henson)
People ask me how in the hell you can work for Disney and think, “Ya know what Disney needs? More gay prostitutes. Let’s produce Edward Ford[1]!” Even for Hyperion it was more than pushing it. Prostitutes, sex scenes, homosexuality and transvestites[2]…yea, not what you would associate with Mickey Mouse. Sure, it all seems quaint today, but 1985 was a different time. And yet when I first read the Lem Dobbs screenplay I knew it was perfect. In fact, it was the perfect Disney story.
I’m serious. It was the story of Disney the company, from the death of Walt in the ‘60s up to the day we started filming it. You had the eponymous Edward Ford: innocent, naïve, sincere, somewhat ashamed of his own secret sinful behavior, and willing to see the goodness in people. He wants to be an actor, but not just any actor, a bad guy actor in a B-Western movie. He’s addicted to Hollywood Past and that old idealized America it represented, obsessively keeping notes on all the forgotten actors and their forgotten roles. A cowboy from another time riding the streets of West Hollywood, a taxi for his steed.
I had to make this film, and I pulled every short hair in reach to make it happen. We’d play down the sex a bit, but absolutely would not sanitize it. We didn’t need to show the guy jerking off in the theater, for example, but Mitzi’s shrieking sex voice, and Edward putting his hand over her mouth to quiet it, had to stay. Not only was it hilarious, it was critical to understanding the two characters and their relationship. We’d be discrete where we could. Even so, this would be Disney’s first R-rated movie[3].
After calling in every favor and fighting tooth and nail, I got the reluctant greenlight, though with a rock-bottom budget. The first person I cast was Mitzi, the crazy wife. I knew the second that I read the script that it was perfect for [my old client] Gilda Radner. I called her up even before I signed on a director. She agreed quickly, and suggested that her new husband Gene Wilder could direct. I’d seen Gene’s work on The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, and I appreciated the sympathetic camera work he did, allowing even Marty Feldman to play his role with sympathy and dignity. I accepted the deal, and even pushed for Gene to play Edward, the title role. I thought he was perfect. The role called for sincerity and Gene is pure sincerity. But he turned me down. “It calls for a cowboy,” Gene said, “Not a skinny Jewish boy from Milwaukee.”
“Gene,” I said, “You’ve played a cowboy twice now!”
“Yea,” he said, “Once was for Mel Brooks and the other time I was Hassidic.”
He wasn’t budging. I called up Tom Hanks, who’d been in Splash. He was best known for his comedy back then, but the kid had a core of sincerity to him that I knew could work. He read the script, and decided he wanted to play adult Luke instead. “Come on, Bernie, it’s perfect for me!” he said. I showed Edward to Matt Dillon, who’d done Tex for us a couple of years earlier, but he wanted to toughen up his look and instead did neo-noir thriller Jagged Edge. Finally, Gene suggested Jeff Bridges, who’d done Tron with us a few years earlier. I agreed he was damned good, but he was red hot at the moment. There was no way he’d work for what we were paying, but we gave him a call.
To our amazement, he went for it! He liked the role and wanted to do it for the art. He also wanted to get his dad Lloyd Bridges a role as one of the old cowboys, but instead I suggested that Lloyd take the role of Luke’s dad Ben Krantz. We rounded out the cast with Corey Haim as young Luke, character actor Vic Tayback (best known from the TV comedy Alice at the time) as Edward’s childhood friend and schlock writer Al Foster, and, after a long and surprisingly frustrating search for old cowboy actors, brought in Robert Livingston and Bob Steele as washed up cowboy actors Lester Adams and Jed Dobie. Gene even snuck in a cameo for his close friend Richard Prior as one of the actors in the “Black theater” gigs Edward performed in.
The last role filled was that of schlock director and transvestite Harry Blake, an obvious reference to Ed Wood. When animator Tim Burton (I swear, that kid was everywhere back then!) found out about the role, he auditioned for it himself, but his talents were definitely behind the camera. Instead, he eagerly volunteered to create the deliberately bad B-movie effects for the Blake Film Festival screening scene in the late second act. He also suggested actor Paul Reubens for the role, who was an underground comedian at the time. Reubens certainly looked a lot like Wood and he gladly agreed to the role, but just prior to release he asked us to list him under the pseudonym Reuben Pete since he was in discussions to do a Pee Wee movie and wasn’t sure how child-friendly he was going to make it yet.
Even as everything was slowly falling into place, the next year and a half still proved to be a living hell. It was one of those cursed productions. Tom and Ron would push back on every decision, desperate to try and neuter the production. I had to resort to shooting scenes in secret, shooting the “real dailies” and then a few “decoy dailies” where maybe Harry Blake in a black bra wasn’t in the scene. We had technical problems with sets and equipment. We had issues with Corey’s parents. Our first four old cowboy actors flipped out when they read the script. Paul Reubens and Robert Livingston got on each other’s nerves and Bob Steele had to be rushed to the hospital due to complications of his emphysema (both Bobs would pass away a couple of years after the film debuted). Several extras and small role actors argued with Gene, mistaking his soft-spoken nature for weakness. Alcohol and cocaine use caused more than a few issues, both on-set and off.
Still, the show went on and we managed to keep the total filming budget under $6 million, which was made easier since most of the scenes could be shot from sound stages and all the location shoots were local in Hollywood and could even be shot guerilla when we needed to (which actually helped increase the naturalism of the scenes). There was plenty of vintage and cowboy clothing in the costuming department that could be hastily retailored to fit the actors (Jeff once wore an outfit Don Knotts wore in The Apple Dumpling Gang, for example), and the fact that so many of our characters were described as having bad, ill-fitting clothing made it that much easier. By the fall of ’84 we were finished with filming and handed the cans off to the incomparable Dede Allen[4] to edit, and by January we were finished with editing and post.
Gene and I, seeing this as a modern-day cowboy story, turned it into a secret urban western. We had Elmer Bernstein do the score as if he was scoring a western back in the ‘60s. We changed the name to The Ballad of Edward Ford to play up the western angle, and shot lots of scenes with old Western posters in the background or famous cowboy-associated images. The opening credits were all cuts of iconic cowboy images and movie scenes from the Marlboro Man to Gene Autrey and John Wayne, with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing “Happy Trails” in the background. Gene Wilder deliberately used John Ford angles and old cowboy flick framing. We played up subtle associations between Edward’s awkward auditions and a high noon shoot-out, with ticking clocks, close-ups on eyes and hands, and the worried looks of onlookers. The hooker-strewn streets of West Hollywood were filmed like the dusty streets of Deadwood. Edward’s filthy taxi was subtly expressed as his trusty horse, with him absentmindedly patting it as if to calm it. It was Taxi Driver as if written and directed by John Ford or Sam Peckinpah.
Lem’s script was gold, but there was one change that I insisted on: more lines for Mitzi. In the original she’s more of a first-act foil for Edward, but I wanted to make her, and Gilda, a bigger part of the film. When Mitzi returned to collect the alimony check and when we see her with her new husband near the end, she now exchanges a few meaningful lines with Edward. She’s now as much a victim of the system as Edward, a former child star broken by the abuses of Hollywood. It was, I feel, one of the most important things that I ever did in my entire life. The next year, Gilda was diagnosed with cancer. She’d be dead before the decade was out. Gene and I still consider The Ballad of Edward Ford to be her movie.
We were on pins and needles when the damn thing screened for the first time on the lot. I could feel the burn of Ron and Tom’s eyes as the uncensored scenes aired one after another. I was certain I’d be fired and replaced, but like a good captain I’d go down with the ship if I had to. When the credits rolled and the lights came up there was silence. I was ready to cash in my chips and go home when the applause started, slow at first, and then building to a crescendo. It got cheers and a standing ovation. The comment cards were almost entirely positive. In the face of the positive reactions, Tom relented, even saying to me later “I’m glad you kept it all in.”
We debuted at Cannes where we took home the Palm d’Or and then went wide-release in June of 1985. We weren’t breaking box office records, but we had a long, steady sleeper that ultimately raked in a good $33 million, over four times its budget. When awards season came, we swept up, both at the Oscars and the Golden Globes. Gene got Best Director. Jeff got Best Actor. Gilda, God bless her, got Best Supporting Actress. Dede got Best Film Editing. Lem got Best Original Screenplay, just beating out The Bureau. We lost out to Out of Africa for Best Cinematography and lost to The Bureau for best makeup, but we nailed the Big One: Best Picture. My first Oscar. Some people say we stole it from The Color Purple. Maybe we did. We all have our opinions. I have no regrets.
In fact, you could say the movie also won me an Emmy, though indirectly. The hell we experienced during the production led to my next big TV idea for the new Hyperion Television label: Production! A new situation comedy, Production! would be co-produced with Witt/Thomas/Harris, who were just winding down the popular Benson. The show took place on the set of a long and troubled movie production for an increasingly bizarre period melodrama called “The Wind Cries Westward”. The sitcom would air on CBS Wednesday nights and would star Caroline McWilliams as the prima donna star of the film, Kate D’Lourve. She stars opposite former Royal Shakespeare actor Sir Anthony Williams Thomas Moore, played by Rene Auberjonois, who despises D’Lourve and can’t believe that he’s stuck in such a lowly “genre” film.
They were joined by sweet-but-promiscuous ingenue Felicity Fairweather (Cindy Morgan), dashing young (and dumb) love interest Beau Breaux (Tony Ganios[5]), and filthy-minded cameraman Mack Judd (John Kapelos). Meanwhile, director Max Best (Robert Guillaume) and producer Bernie Shriekinger (Richard Stahl) tried their best to keep the whole mess afloat while every imaginable trouble struck the star-crossed production: collapsing sets, constant micromanagement by studio head Allan Paul Unger (show runner Paul Junger Witt), scandals in the tabloids, union strikes, drunk and/or high actors, and pregnancy scares. Production! Ran for three seasons on NBC and another two on the new Hyperion Channel on basic cable. It won a few Emmys here and there and helped revive Caroline’s career.
The twin successes of The Ballad of Edward Ford and Production! caught the attention of Tom, who appreciated my eye for talent in particular. I moved up in the hierarchy at Hyperion and got a slot on the Hyperion board. Furthermore, the successful partnership with Witt/Thomas/Harris resulted in producer Susan Harris pitching us a sitcom idea originally called Miami Nice and featuring four retired women in Miami. You may have heard of it. It was called The Golden Girls[6].
[1] Edward Ford is “celebrated” today as the “Greatest Movie Never Made”. The script is available online for free. It is in my opinion somehow both a product of its time and way ahead of its time, reminiscent of a strange cross between Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, and a Cohen Brothers/Tim Burton mashup picture written by Charlie Kaufman. It breaks the fourth wall, has some clever screen and editing techniques and juxtapositions, and numerous pathos-filled comedy/drama blends. Here, I just can’t help but assume Bernie would have produced it if he could, given how much it unapologetically shows us Hollywood from the ‘60s-‘80s during his heyday with it.
[2] He’s using the now-considered-offensive term out of anachronism rather than out of hate, like your great grandmother unironically using the term “negro” to be inoffensive.
[3] In our timeline Disney’s first R-rated movie was Touchstone’s Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986).
[4] The greatest moviemaker you’ve never heard of.
[5] A Disney production staring a Porky’s star! Don’t anyone tell Card!
[6] The same sitcom got picked up by Touchstone TV in our timeline. In this timeline as in ours it will be an award-winning breakout hit and TV Classic.
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The Ballad of Edward Ford and Production! both sound like interesting productions and something I might have liked- esp Edward Ford with that cast!
Good on Brillstein - esp on the awards and board seat it got him.
Also good for Hyperion getting a hit.
Nice work @Geekhis Khan
Good on Brillstein - esp on the awards and board seat it got him.
Also good for Hyperion getting a hit.
Nice work @Geekhis Khan
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Love this chapter. I am a bit sad that this takes away William Hurts oscar, but seems like the right call. Would love to see a newspaper article about the 58th Academy Awards if you think it would flow with the story.
I think I noticed a mistake though. As it is now you have written that The Bureau wins original screenplay and that The Ballad of Edward Ford also wins original screenplay. Maybe The Bureau can take adapted screenplay as a loose adaptation of 1984? Also, right now both Mask and The Bureau have won best makeup.
I think I noticed a mistake though. As it is now you have written that The Bureau wins original screenplay and that The Ballad of Edward Ford also wins original screenplay. Maybe The Bureau can take adapted screenplay as a loose adaptation of 1984? Also, right now both Mask and The Bureau have won best makeup.
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D'oh! Missed that. I'll edit accordingly. Can't keep my own awards straight!
1: So you're telling me that The Ballad of Edward Ford earned Disney the one award that not even OTL's Beauty and the Beast could grab at the height of its popularity?
2: Can you give me a complete list of all the shows made by Hyperion Television in this timeline?
2: Can you give me a complete list of all the shows made by Hyperion Television in this timeline?
I mean, just on the face of it the Ballad seems like way better Oscar bait than Beauty and the Beast, basically catnip for the Oscar committee. If nothing else, it doesn't suffer from the animation ghetto issue. Throw in how it homages old Hollywood and...
Oh, he'd love that, and be amazing at it. Honestly I think if he made a whole slew of short "deliberately terrible" B-Movie homages for the Wonderful World of Disney they'd all become cult classics for B-Movie monster fans like myself.
As someone who finds film production as interesting as the films themselves, having a whole show about the antics happening behind the camera is a fantastic idea. I think there was a Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts romantic comedy where the 'big twist' at the end was when the director of the terrible movie production the story revolved around got bored with his own production and, noticing the on-set drama was more interesting than the film being made, secretly filmed that instead, catapulting the protagonists to instant stardom, like a modern Singing in the Rain. Anyway, I thought the idea of a movie about making a movie was a great idea, Production! sounds like a great way to vicariously scratch that itch.
Ah, yes, The Golden Girls. A few interesting OTL facts about that show (which they still run on TVLand and Hallmark channels every day of the week):
-Betty White was supposed to play the Blanche character (she had previously played a similar character, Sue Ann Nivens, on the Mary Tyler Moore Show), while Rue McClanahan was supposed to play the Rose character (as she had played a similar ditzy character, Vivian, on Maude, which also starred Bea Arthur, who played Dorothy in Golden Girls). However, the director, Jay Sandrich, suggested that White and McClanahan switch roles; McClanahan was pleased, since she wanted the Blanche role and had no idea on how to play Rose (Betty White played her as ditzy). If you believe Rue McClanahan, this switch helped get Bea Arthur to sign on to play Dorothy.
-There was a gay cook character named Coco in the pilot (played by Charles Levin); however, Estelle Getty (as Dorothy's mother, Sophia) proved so popular (she was originally just a drop-in character) that she was bumped to the lead and Levin left the show.
BTW, Bea Arthur is the only person participating in The Star Wars Holiday Special who doesn't regret appearing in it (Carrie Fisher would play it to get guests to leave parties she was hosting, and was high on cocaine while doing the special...
-Betty White was supposed to play the Blanche character (she had previously played a similar character, Sue Ann Nivens, on the Mary Tyler Moore Show), while Rue McClanahan was supposed to play the Rose character (as she had played a similar ditzy character, Vivian, on Maude, which also starred Bea Arthur, who played Dorothy in Golden Girls). However, the director, Jay Sandrich, suggested that White and McClanahan switch roles; McClanahan was pleased, since she wanted the Blanche role and had no idea on how to play Rose (Betty White played her as ditzy). If you believe Rue McClanahan, this switch helped get Bea Arthur to sign on to play Dorothy.
-There was a gay cook character named Coco in the pilot (played by Charles Levin); however, Estelle Getty (as Dorothy's mother, Sophia) proved so popular (she was originally just a drop-in character) that she was bumped to the lead and Levin left the show.
BTW, Bea Arthur is the only person participating in The Star Wars Holiday Special who doesn't regret appearing in it (Carrie Fisher would play it to get guests to leave parties she was hosting, and was high on cocaine while doing the special...
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The Academy loves movies about movies, and Beauty and the Beast was animated, a "genre" (it isn't a genre, it's a medium, but tell them that) that has only a 10% better chance of winning a major Oscar than sci-fi or straight horror because of the ingrained prejudice against it.
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