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Ramsey Ess

Most Recently: Three Pythons Reunite to Discuss, Argue, and Quip in 1989

From the Archives

Three Pythons Reunite to Discuss, Argue, and Quip in 1989

by Ramsey Ess | June 14th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 150,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.

Depending on how you count these things, the last official Monty Python production, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, turned 30 a few weeks ago. In those years that followed, there have been a few collaborations in the form of documentaries, a musical, and retrospectives, but with the death of Graham Chapman in October of 1989, as well as the occasional public spats between remaining members, the odds of any new material from the troupe seems pretty slim.

Today we look back at one of the earlier gatherings of Python members, post-hiatus, which occurred on February 13, 1989 at the New York City Paley Center (then known as the Museum of Broadcasting). On this date, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Terry Jones convened to answer some questions about their work from some very passionate fans (“very passionate” is a nice way of saying “kind of irritating”). The three discuss what it’s like working together, some of their theories on comedy, and generally try to avoid giving a straight answer to anyone. READ MORE

From the Archives

Going Back to Stuckeyville: Looking Back at 'Ed'

by Ramsey Ess | June 7th, 2013

What if David Letterman produced a show featuring a guy from The State, one of the funny actors from Modern Family, and the Mac from those Mac vs. PC ads? Well, actually, he did make a show that met every requirement of that very specific rhetorical question. The show was called Ed, and while it may be one of the newest examples to be examined here in From the Archives, its lack of DVD release and reruns has made it a largely forgotten show. Today we're going to examine the pilot episode of Ed (Technically. More on that in a minute.) and look at what made it special and possibly what made it cancelled.

When Ed premiered in October of 2000, the television landscape was a very different thing. With the exception of the second season of Survivor, Fox's Temptation Island, and the five nights a week of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, there are no reality shows, leaving the schedule much more open for scripted television. Ed is a little hard to classify as a television show: there are signs that it's a drama, such as the fact that it's an hour long, it talks a lot about feelings, and deals with trying to learn to love again after being trapped in bad relationships. On the other hand, the premise, in which the titular character buys a bowling alley and runs a law practice out of it in his hometown in an attempt to woo the girl he had a crush on in high school, is insane. So let's go with "dramedy." READ MORE

From the Archives

Mitch Hurwitz Discusses 'Sit Down, Shut Up', His Follow Up to 'Arrested Development'

by Ramsey Ess | May 31st, 2013

Hey, did you know that there are some new episodes of Arrested Development that came out? I'm just kidding; I know you already watched them and have very strong opinions about them. Well, in the early history of this column, we looked at a panel from 2004 that was conducted with series creator Mitchell Hurwitz and the cast as it was still running. Today I thought it would be interesting to examine a discussion with Hurwitz about one of the shows he created between Arrested and Arrested.

Sit Down, Shut Up was an animated show that briefly aired on Fox in early 2009. Based on an Australian show of the same name, it followed the lives of nine teachers (voiced by many very funny people such as Arrested stalwarts Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Henry Winkler, SNL castmembers like Cheri Oteri, Will Forte, and Keenan Thompson, and just general funny people like Tom Kenny and Nick Kroll) as they do anything but teach. While the show shares some DNA with Arrested, it's interesting to see just how different the program can be as well, as Hurwitz worked to push himself in new, exciting directions. READ MORE

From the Archives

Looking Back at Bob Hope's Early Work

by Ramsey Ess | May 24th, 2013

In just a few short days, on May 29th, Bob Hope would have been celebrating his 110th birthday. Before you get too upset that he didn't make it that long, take solace in the fact that he made it into the triple digits, passing away at the age of 100 after an incredibly long career in vaudeville, radio, film, stage, and television. The problem with having such a long and storied career is that the longer it goes, frequently you're alive as you get further and further from your peak. Bob Hope, for example, was a very biting, at times controversial, edgy comedian for his day, but if he's thought of at all by today's generation of comedy fans it's probably as a guy who told jokes holding a golf club, often at USO tours, lived a long time, and did tiger growls. In fact, notoriously nice guy Christopher Hitchens kindly waited a month after Hope's passing to publish his article "Hopeless," which explained (over and over again) why he thought the comedian wasn't funny.

But I, and Justin Gray who recently wrote on Hope in his Begrudging Respect column here on Spltsider, beg to differ. Woody Allen (who in case you couldn't tell, I like a lot) owes his career to the man. Jay Leno, Bob Newhart, Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Martin, any many more have all been inspired by Hope. Even Seth MacFarlane, in the early seasons of Family Guy paid homage to the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby road movies with their Stewie/Brian "Road To…" episodes. Today we look at some of Hope's earliest recorded material to see who was right: the late Christopher Hitchens or a bunch of comedians you like. (Spoiler: I'm not going to agree with Christopher Hitchens.) READ MORE

From the Archives

Looking at Some of Jonathan Winters' Earliest TV Appearances

by Ramsey Ess | May 10th, 2013

Improv on TV is a mixed bag. Whose Line is it Anyway? did short form improv (and will again in the future) for years successfully, but is generally scoffed at by those who study long form improv. The Upright Citizens Brigade tried to turn their weekly improvised show, ASSSSCAT into a show for Bravo in 2005, but didn't get beyond a one-hour special. As we learned in an earlier column, even Woody Allen tried to get in the mix with a sitcom pilot that was made in 1962 about a struggling New York improv troupe. Recently, the comedy world lost one of the pioneers of improvisational comedy with the passing of Jonathan Winters. Today we look at two of his early television appearances and examine the magic of his particular brand of comedy. READ MORE

From the Archives

Garry Shandling Gives You a Tour of Las Vegas in His First Standup Special

by Ramsey Ess | May 3rd, 2013

Today, Garry Shandling is probably best known for being the creator of two of the most important television shows in modern TV comedy: It's Garry Shandling's Show and The Larry Sanders Show. Each series broke new ground in very different ways, whether it was Garry Shandling's way of breaking the fourth wall and having character's openly acknowledge the fact that they were on a TV show, or Larry Sanders' method of finding humor in painfully awkward scenarios that inspired such shows as Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office. READ MORE

From the Archives

Steve Allen Tries it Again in 1980 with Steve Martin's Brother Billy

by Ramsey Ess | April 26th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

When we last saw Steve Allen on From the Archives, it was 1964 and he was broadcasting the an audience-less version of his long running Steve Allen Show for the last time. The father of NBC's Tonight Show, and perhaps the biggest television comedian since Sid Caesar and Milton Berle, Steve Allen was a powerhouse of comedy, but the time had come for him to stand aside for a little bit. While he never completely disappeared from television, appearing on a wide variety of programs such as Get Smart, The Jerry Lewis Show, and Love, American Style, his days of hosting a regular program seemed to be over.

However, all of that changed at the end of 1980 when NBC decided to go back to their original star, Steve Allen and launch The Steve Allen Comedy Hour: a weekly variety program. The program premiered on October 18th of 1980, when the Carter/Reagan campaigns were in full swing. The easiest way to describe the format of show would be to call it The Tonight Show without the interviews or music. Steve does sketches, a couple of stand-ups perform, and Steve carries over a few of his classic Tonight Show bits such as his classic "Man On the Street" interviews, and the thing where he would turn the cameras on outside and make fun of the people on the sidewalk (I don't think there's a catchy title for that bit). The unfortunate truth is that the fact that this feels like a Steve Allen Tonight Show episode, minus music and interviews, means that it feels like it's 30 years out of date. READ MORE

From the Archives

Jerry Seinfeld on Jean Shepherd, the Voice Behind 'A Christmas Story'

by Ramsey Ess | April 19th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

You may not recognize the name Jean Shepherd, but I'd bet that if you were growing up at some time during the last twenty years, you'd recognize his voice in a heartbeat. Despite the fact that you might not be recognizing his name right now, through the course of his long career which spanned from 1951 until his death in 1999, he deeply influenced the face of modern comedy and made an impact on a generation of comedians. Today, though, he's known as the guy who narrated A Christmas Story, but in actuality he was so much more than that.

Jean Shepherd first came into prominence on a medium that doesn't launch too many stars any more: radio. While rarely referred to as a comedian, the terms that do get attributed to him are in a similar vein: most commonly "storyteller," "raconteur," and the often loaded term "humorist." Working the overnight shift on New York's WOR, Shepherd would address his loyal group of fans and tell long, detailed stories that made mountains out of the tiny and insignificant and painted portraits of the experiences of growing up in America. He worked without a script, preferring to improvise his stories, embellishing details and weaving his narratives like a jazz musician. He never reached the prominence of the comedians of his day like Bob Newhart, Lenny Bruce or Mort Sahl and according to the author of the book Excelsior, You Fathead, Eugene Bergmann, this aggravated him greatly, but still his unique storytelling style and his ability to examine life through his specific lens affected much of the comedy that we enjoy today.

One such comedian who was influenced by Shepherd is a man by the name of Jerry Seinfeld, and on January 23, 2012 he appeared at the Paley Center in New York to speak with New York Times reporter and author Bill Carter to discuss just what sort of impact Jean had. One of the great things about Jerry is not just the fact that he knows comedy, and can craft a solid joke, but he also can talk about comedy, and analyze the nuts and bolts of how a pause improves a joke, or how trimming a word here or there can enhance a punchline. He is a true student of comedy, and has cracked the code, so to speak, and as such is able to specifically discuss the impact Jean had on his comedy, and what made him different from the other humorists of his time. READ MORE

From the Archives

Watching 'Not Necessarily Television' Skewer 1985's Pop Culture

by Ramsey Ess | April 12th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

Not long ago on the site, writer Nell Scovell wrote about her early experiences in "the greatest Writer's Room you've never heard of," working with Conan O'Brien and Greg Daniels on a short-lived program known as The Wilton North Report. The show was a nightly, hour-long topical comedy show and collected a pretty impressive roster of writers from a number of prestigious houses of satirical comedy of the time period. These included writers from Spy Magazine, The Realist, and of course Conan and Greg from HBO's Not Necessarily the News.

Never heard of Not Necessarily the News? Unfortunately such is the fate of many topical comedy programs: they are true products of their times, and the more time that passes, the less relatable they become. (Ever watch a late night show's monologue, realize it's a rerun and feel a pang of disappointment? Multiply that by a few decades and you'll see why TV Land doesn't show reruns of That Was the Week that Was.) NNTN aired on HBO from 1982 to 1990 and launched the careers of SNLers Rich Hall, and Jan Hooks. The program was based on a British version known as Not Necessarily the Nine O'Clock News and often incorporated bits of actual news footage, overdubbed comically, as part of it's satire.

I say all of that in one giant infodump of a paragraph because we're not going to talk about NNTN today. Instead we're going to look at a one-off special that poked fun at television as a whole, called Not Necessarily Television. READ MORE

From the Archives

Don Rickles is Not Don Rickles in The Don Rickles Show

by Ramsey Ess | April 5th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

The tradition of the standup-helmed sitcom goes back a long ways, and for good reason: it often works. From Newhart to Seinfeld, from Welcome Back Kotter to Everybody Loves Raymond, the idea of taking a person who is very good at performing and being funny and building a show around them is the kind of decision that takes little to no thought. However, this doesn't work for everybody. For every massive hit staring a standup there are dozens that are cancelled halfway through its first season. And for some reason, insult comedian and comedic icon Don Rickles hasn't had much luck in this arena.

His biggest hit as the star of a TV show came in 1976 when he starred as the titular character on C.P.O. Sharkey, in which he played an officer in the US Navy, but that only lasted for two seasons. Most recently in 1993 there was Daddy Dearest, which lasted 13 episodes. In 1968 there was a variety show called The Don Rickles Show that was very quickly cancelled. Then there was the focus of today's article: another iteration of The Don Rickles Show, this time a straight-forward sitcom on CBS, which first aired on January 21, 1972, and would not live to see 1973. READ MORE

From the Archives

The Episode Where David Letterman Had 13 Cameras

by Ramsey Ess | March 29th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

As all of my surface dwelling readers are already aware, the winds of change are once again blowing around the gates of late night TV. The Tonight Show is looking towards Jimmy Fallon to take the reigns, pushing Jay Leno off into who knows where. Now, I know everyone idolized Carson, everyone wants to be on TV earlier than midnight, and everyone wants to join that really small club of people who hosted The Tonight Show, but in spite of all of those perfectly legitimate reasons, there are some really good reasons to stay on at 12:30, too. Actually, I can sum it all up in one reason: at 12:30 you can be ridiculous.

At 11:30, old people are awake. People who watch local TV news are watching. Those people aren’t interested in “Let Us Play With Your Look” or “Potato Judge” or the “Late Night Monkey Cam.” So today, to celebrate the ridiculousness of 12:30, I’m going to look back at an episode of Late Night with David Letterman from March 2, 1988, when it was Camera Night. READ MORE

From the Archives

'Head of the Family': The Pilot for 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' Starring Carl Reiner

by Ramsey Ess | March 22nd, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

The Dick Van Dyke Show began in October of 1961 and ran for fives seasons before quickly entering the history books as one of the great American television classics, and launching the stars of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. However, at many points through the process, history was nearly thwarted by outside circumstances. The biggest roadblock came at the end of Season One when CBS decided to cancel the show. Luckily their sponsor went to bat for them and the program lived on. But the first major struggle came even earlier, after the filming of the first episode, when The Dick Van Dyke Show was The Carl Reiner Show. Today we look at the original pilot, then known as Head of the Family, which featured the show's writer and creator as the star as well, with Carl Reiner as the original Rob Petrie, and compare it to the pilot episode of Dick Van Dyke's version of the character. READ MORE

From the Archives

Watching a Comedic Voice Evolve: The Rare, Early Clips of The Muppets

by Ramsey Ess | March 15th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

When the late Jerry Nelson, the puppeteer who performed as Robin the frog, Sgt. Floyd Pepper of the Electric Mayhem, and Snuffleupagus, was asked a difficult question at the Paley Center about the loss of the human form in the digital landscape, he replied: "I would say first off, that art is an expression of life and life is an expression of art. It can go in both directions at the same time and probably will." He then revealed that he had no idea what that meant.

I imagine that when you think of The Muppets, you think of the movies, the show, or possibly even Sesame Street. While there is humor throughout all of these examples, it's easy to categorize it all as "kids' stuff." However, there's a deep, rich history to Jim Henson's Muppets that extends far beyond these classic kids shows. And through them all there is a thread of comedy that is purely adult, sophisticated, and frequently irreverent: which is exactly the kind of thing I want these articles to preserve. READ MORE

From the Archives

Harry Shearer's First Post-'SNL' TV Special

by Ramsey Ess | March 8th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

Harry Shearer, who today is probably best known for being the voices of hundreds of characters on The Simpsons, quit Saturday Night Live in 1985 while dressed as Ronald Reagan. After three consecutive weeks of not appearing on the show, having multiple sketches cut, and experiencing clash after clash with producer Dick Ebersol, he felt that his voice was being stymied and it was time to move on. According to Tom Shales' and James Andrew Miller's Live From New York, when called for a quote on the press release that said he was leaving due to creative differences, Shearer responded, "Yeah, I was creative and they were different."

Later that year when Cinemax aired a special from Harry Shearer called It's Just TV he might have been making a larger statement. READ MORE