I know you are on assignment right now, but whenever you return, here are five (more or less) questions each for Mssrs. Hagen and Frankel. I hope they are not all dumb questions that have been asked and answered a million times before
Thanks so much for offering to do this and I am really looking forward to any replies you receive! ~ Becca
For Mr. Hagen:
1. Did you have any particular inspiration for the "I Spy" theme song? How much did you know about the series when you were asked to write the theme?
2. What is your favorite and least favorite TV theme song that you composed? Is there one theme song that you wish had a "do-over" on?
3. Do you ever get your own TV theme songs stuck in your head like the rest of us do? Is there a network show today that you wish you could have written the theme for?
4. What portion of the success of a TV series can be attributed to a really great theme song?
5. What countries do you wish "I Spy" had filmed in just so you could have written episode music for those countries?
For Mr. Frankel:
1. What were the best and worst things about writing for "I Spy"?
2. When you wrote an episode for "I Spy," were you always present for the filming as well?
3. How much trouble did you have with actors on "I Spy" rewriting scenes or going off-script with dialogue?
4. During the location scenes in "Turnabout for Traitors," it looks like the weather was extremely hot. Do you remember anything in particular about that filming?
5. Did you have ideas for other "I Spy" episodes that never made
it to production and if so, can you tell us what they were?
I'm back - and - off again on another assignment next week (those photo shoots just keep a girl busy)!!
But in the meantime, I sent on Becca's questions to Mr. Frankel and Mr. Hagen.
Graciously, Mr. (faster than a speeding bullet on the keyboard) Frankel has already sent back his responses!!
Thank you so much, Ernie - you're terrific!!
Ernest Frankel
1. What were the best and worst things about writing for "I Spy"?
—The best was coming in with a story idea, talking it out with Sheldon or Mort and David, adapting it to the location where it would be shot, writing it, and then getting a generous phone call from one of the guys with perhaps some suggestion for a bit of humor or a way of adapting the idea to a certain guest star. A couple of times I heard nothing until I saw the show on the air. Mort, David and Sheldon were great people, but they were professionals of the first order; and they expected their writers to be professionals. Although they might give an off-hand compliment, the way you knew you pleased them was that they called and offered additional story assignments.
—The worst was knowing before you typed, "Fade-In" that you were destined to see the actors leave out story points in favor of a wisecrack, go against character to accommodate a cutsey bit of dialogue, or defuse any sense of jeopardy in order to evoke a quick, cheap grin. (Bitter? Well....much time has passed...and all is forgiven.)
2. When you wrote an episode for "I Spy," were you always present for the filming as well?
—Generally, no. There were exceptions. At least once I was on the set for scenes shot on the sound stage after the bulk of the film had been shot on location. And....I wrote "Apollo;" and that was a special circumstance since I had worked on the Apollo project at North American Aviation, and was able to assist on getting permission to shoot at the Space and Informations Systems Division at Downey, and at the Rocketdyne test stands in Simi Valley, California. Therefore, I was on the locations for several days.
3. How much trouble did you have with actors on "I Spy" rewriting scenes or going off-script with dialogue?
—See "the worst!"
4. During the location scenes in "Turnabout for Traitors," it looks like the weather was extremely hot. Do you remember anything in particular about that filming?
—No. It was shot in Mexico; and I was pleased to be in Los Angeles.
5. Did you have ideas for other "I Spy" episodes that never made it to production and if so, can you tell us what they were?
—During hiatus, when I was set to produce and write for the season that never arrived, there were quite a few scripts prepared by the writers I hired, and I do recall a script I wrote entitled. "The Day They Gave The Bride Away." I've given the MS, along with a stack of other scripts from other shows, to the Library of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, so I can't look it over, and offer a report. I do remember that it was to be shot in London and the surrounding countryside.
Thank you again for sharing your responses with us. It is truly appreciated!!
You are right, very captivating! I am so honored that he answered my questions, and so quickly.
Despite having said that all is forgiven, it sure sounds like he still has some strong feelings about the lead actors reworking his dialog and going off script as often as they did, and for the most part, I can't say that I blame him.
I sooo wish that I Spy could've gone on for at last one more season! I would have loved to see the episodes planned for England and Australia come to fruition. But I guess it just wasn't meant to be.
Thanks again, Tatia! Let me know if it would be appropriate to send some more questions some time in the future, or maybe someone else could ask some. We are so fortunate to be able to communicate with people who were involved with our favorite show and get the inside scoop
Forgive my non-sequiter of a login, but I have utterly forgotten my original password ... hopefully I will recover enough brain cells to remember it in the future.
I've been meaning to jump into the fray, but frankly I've been enervated by this hot, tedious summer, and anyway, there hasn't been much "fray" to jump into. I expected to see more postings from Mr. Beardface, which might embolden me to speak up, but I suppose I shall have to lead off.
I have been reading over Mr. Frankel's comments, and have also read his extensive comments in the I Spy companion book, which are consistent with his recent remarks, and I find myself unable to refrain from putting my two pesos in. It seems to me, as Becca pointed out, that when Mr. Frankel insisted that "all is forgiven", he was trying to deflect what he obviously realized himself was a bitterness that clearly knaws at him to this day. I am surprised to find myself -- a director who has indeed struggled in the past with actors who do not fully respect the written word -- saying this, but I think in this particular case it is obvious that if Mr. Culp and Mr. Cosby had not derivated from the scripts, had not dared to bring their own special brand of irreverance, not to mention insouciance, to the show, which for them meant inventing their own language and rhythm, we would not still be talking about this show forty years later. In episode after episode, our boys were confronted with cartoonish situations, laughably bad dialogue (one has only to listen to the words as spoken by many of the guest stars to be able to envision what this stuff looked like on paper), and very often performances by supporting players which remind one of an Ed Wood movie, and IMHO it was only through the humor and affection between them that they managed to bring a sense of "aliveness" to the show. Place any other actors from this period into those roles, performing them as written, and I believe the show would not have lasted more than a season. Mr. Frankel laments the way in which "the actors leave out story points in favor of a wisecrack, go against character to accommodate a cutsey bit of dialogue, or defuse any sense of jeopardy in order to evoke a quick, cheap grin." As a viewer, I don't see it that way -- I see their use of humor as a way of being honest about the fact that the so called "sense of jeopardy" was just not credible to begin with. One has only to switch over for a moment to "The Man From UNCLE", and observe those humorless actors trying to be grim about equally unbelievable situations to see how ridiculous that can be.
Mr. Frankel does indeed seem to have issues with Mr. Culp -- who knows, there may have been some unpleasantness between them. In the I Spy book, he speaks witheringly about Mr. Culp's talents as a dramatist, in response to Mr. Culp's comments about Mr. Leonard's intuition about good writing and bad. "He thinks he knows more about writing than Sheldon!" Well, no one said Mr. Culp was as great a producer, a boss, an executive ... but if one is simply to compare Mr. Culp's seven scripts with virtually every other script ever written for the series, which are as Bentleys to Buicks, I think it is quite obvious that he knew a great deal more about good writing from bad than anyone else connected with the show. This doesn't mean, of course, that his brashness did not rub people the wrong way, obviously it did ... which must account for why he did not go on to a long career as actor/writer in television, like Alan Alda or Michael Landon.
But that is a seperate issue from the ad-libbing business -- that, I truly believe, was borne out of two actors who not only clicked with each other in a big way but realized that to remain "organic", they had to take liberties, and make it their own. And because they did, we are still discussing it. As we do with anyone who defies form and convention -- Debussy, Picasso, Miles Davis, Burt Bacharach, Marlon Brando ... the list goes on -- it's just that the list of renegades in television is rather short, but I do believe that our boys are on that list.
Regards,
Dotterer
This message has been edited by whirlygig from IP address 162.84.247.193 on Jul 31, 2007 1:20 AM
I find myself, yet again, in the rather unexpected position of agreeing with Dotterer - it is no secret that Sheldon Leonard has always disparaged the talents of Mr. Culp, as an actor, in favor of Mr. Cosby and as a writer, in favor of himself - so it makes sense that Mr. Frankel would have adopted a similar attitude. Dotterer literally took the words out of my mouth with regard to Mr. Culp's scripts as compared to all others in the series. I will match "Home to Judgement", "The Warlord", "The Loser" and "Magic Mirror" against any script from any other writer, working in TV at that time. Bob's gift for dialogue, structure, character and dramatic intensity were on par with the talents of Rod Serling and Sam Peckinpah's.
Other than perhaps "A Room with a Rack", I can think of no episode that even comes close to approaching the sophistication of Bob's scripts. And his writing was, by no means a fluke. You have only to look at the scripts he wrote for "Trackdown", the legendary episode "The Swinger" for the show "Cain's Hundred", his two episodes for "Greatest American Hero", to see his gift. Not to mention, I have had the pleasure of reading several of Bob's film scripts throughout the years that have never as of yet been produced.
I think when we recall "I Spy", it is always the relationship that lingers. Of course, it is a rare treat to have a forum such as this, well versed and enthusiastic in all things "I Spy", to keep the show's spirit alive. But even with the amusing, "I Spy Returns", it was all about those two guys, still together, still trudging along still protecting each other, when they're not trying to save the world.
Couldn’t have said it better myself (although I might have spelled “gnaws” a little differently). I had much the same reaction reading Mr. Frankel’s comments: his animosity is clearly not a thing of the past, but alive and kicking. As to his saying that Culp and Cosby went “against character” in their ad-libs and dialogue changes, it simply isn’t true.
And thank you, Mr. Dotterer, for the nod to my namesake, who coined the phrase “The pen is mightier than the sword.”
That's what I get for pontificating late at night -- rules of spelling begin to overlap in my feeble brain, and suddenly "to gnaw" is the same as "to know" .... Thank you, Mr. B.L., for the correction and the affirmation ....
My dear, I've had the same problem -- and me with a mustache and goatee!
No, but seriously -- It wouldn't have to be a prevalent illusion with me, as I've only been back to the forum a short time, not long enough to know who's who or what's what, and my memory of the cast of characters from years ago is somewhat fuzzy and hazy. I guess Bulwer-Lytton has such a strong sound to it, like "Bulwark" -- forgive my inadvertent stereotyping!
When I said that I agreed with Mr. Frankel, I added the phrase "for the most part" to indicate that I, too, acknowledge that the ad-libbing and unscripted humor is what we all tend to remember most about I Spy. At the same time, as a freelance writer myself (okay, I write about sports, but still), I can sympathize with the plight of writers who have their words changed after working so very hard to craft them properly. In my case, it is an editor who takes great liberties with my articles despite my pleading with him not to do so. He seems to feel the need to insert a bunch of extranneous words to "explain" things to the readers - things which I believe the readers are intelligent enough to figure out for themselves. I don't like to spoon-feed my readers and I don't like to insult their intelligence, which is what his "enhancements" do.
I have been fortunate to correspond with a famous writer of another very successful TV show, and when asked whether there was any adlibbing done in his show, he always says, "If it isn't on the page, it isn't on the stage." This seems to be something of a credo among writers as concerns actors, so it's not surprising that Mr. Frankel and the other I Spy writers would have their feathers ruffled by all the improvisation that took place.
Overall I suspect that, as in most situations where there is a conflict with strongly divergent opinions and recollections, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. No doubt the adlibbing and humor of Mr. Culp and Mr. Cosby was critical to I Spy's success, but perhaps there were occasions when they took it a bit too far or interjected it at an inopportune moment.
Becca, clearly your thoughts on this matter prove that you are a compassionate and understanding human being, a very rare thing indeed. I, as a writer as well, though a writer of screenplays and TV, not a journalist, also know the feeling of someone taking the words you've labored over and struggled to craft and then change them around to suit their concept of the character you created. However, I also know that in TV, especially TV of the 1960s, writing was something of an assembly line - I also think that in the case of "I Spy", 99.9% of the scripts written were of the typical disposable network standard of the day.
I do not wish to impune Mr. Frankel's accomplishments, whatever they may be, but from what I could see, he was hardley David Mamet - who will kill you if you deviate one syllable from his text, but then again, he's got a Pultizer - but I imagine on an emotional level, it made him angry that the stars of the show felt the need to "improve" his words with their own. But let us remember, no less an accomplished wordsmith than Woody Allen encourages his actors to improvise on his stuff if they feel they have something better.
In the case of Bob and Bill, I think the evidence is on the screen. The improvisations they came up with were not only superior to anything they were given on the printed page (with the exception of Bob's 7 scripts), they were years, some might argue decades ahead of their time in terms of a level of intimacy and perfomance on television. In fact, I think something that must be re-iterated over and over, is the singular phenomenon that is "I Spy" - Never before, or since, I imagine, though please correct me if I'm wrong - have the stars of a network primetime series made the decision to cast aside their episodic scripts in place of improvising. It remains to me, an astonishing event in the history of television and it pains me that "I Spy" is not celebrated alongside other TV series of the time such as "Star Trek", for that very reason.
I think Becca, you are giving Mr. Frankel too much the benefit of the doubt, but that is to your credit. One can learn from your willingness to see both sides of the story. But as one who knows RMC intimatly, it is safe to say that for the most part, he and Bill thought the scripts were pretty much disposable. That does not diminish Mr. Frankel's hurt and rancor, which, as you pointed out, is completely understandable.
What is interesting to note, is that the scripts that Bob wrote have a minimum of "banter". It is pretty obvious, when you listen to the dialogue, that he crafted each line carefully. I daresay he is a writer who would be quite upset if an actor went "off book". But in his case, I think he would be justified. Another interesting side note, I read an early draft of one of the many "I Spy" feature film scripts that Bob wrote over the years and I noticed the one thing he could never successfully re-create in his scripts was that spontaneous banter between Kelly and Scotty. It is chemistry, pure and simple, something that cannot be captured on the printed page, but can only exist when these two creative forces are together.
So I don't wish to ruffle any feathers and I salute your sober assessment of two divergent opinions, but as a fan of the show, I must disagree that Kelly and Scott were ever excessive in their deviations. I think if anything, it simply pointed up the weaknesses inherint in the scripts.
I remember reading, somewhere; Robert speaking with Carl Reiner saying somethng close to:
"We got three years out of I Spy with the ad libing."
Reiner responded:
"If you stayed with the scripts, you might have had four."
Had Sheldon not sold the show out from under them; they would have had five (according to The Book).
Mr. Beardface, you make a strong argument, but I am particularly intrigued by the question of how Mr. Culp, the writer - not Mr. Culp, the actor - would react if another actor took the same liberties with his scripts as he (and Mr. Cosby) did with the scripts on I Spy. Perhaps if you see him again, you could find a way to tactfully pose this question?
FWIW, "Home to Judgment" is my all-time favorite I Spy episode and I know that Mr. Culp infused it not only with his unique understanding of the relationship between Kelly and Scotty, but with many personal details from his own upbringing and childhood memories. No matter how many times I've seen it, I can not watch the scene where Kelly's aunt and uncle realize who this stranger is and Kelly recounts the tale about the rifle on the wall without getting teary-eyed myself. I credit that entirely to both the writing and acting talent of Mr. Culp.
Interestingly, as you also pointed out, there was a minimum of banter in Home to Judgment, perhaps because the strength of the story and the seriousness of their predicament simply didn't call for any.
Let me give you a few examples regarding Bob's attitude about tampering with his words: in the "Cain's Hundred" episode, "The Swinger", in which Bob plays a Rat Pack type Vegas crooner named Hank Shannon, probably my favorite guest spot he ever did (in which Bob's voice was dubbed by Sammy Davis, Jr., who also appears in a cameo) there is a scene when Hank recounts that Nick Cain (Mark Richman) saved Hank's butt in the writing of his first contract and adds, "Fee, one glass of beer, right?" and Mark Richman, the show's star replies, "Right -- one glass of beer. But it was expensive beer! ha ha ha..." Bob would always say, "I didn't write that," thinking the addition of "It was expensive beer!" was cheap. So clearly, he didn't like it, but in that case, he didn't make a stink out of it, presumably because Richman was the star of the show.
In "Vanity Said the Preacher", however, he allowed Bill Katt to improvise -- in fact he always tried to get Katt to improvise, just to loosen him up and Katt was happy to do this. At one point for instance, Connie Selleca says "El Caballo Rojo" and Katt says, "You say that one more time I'm gonna Rojo your face!" Bob thought it was an idiotic ad-lib but he let it go because he was trying to get them to be more playful with each other. So the upshot is, while he probably didn't like it, he saw the value of it from an acting point of view, and didn't make too much of a fuss.
I should ammend my earlier thoughts about scripted banter, because a scene in 'The Loser', where Kelly and Scott are finally together, handcuffed in a locked room, it contained the prototype for the banter (I'm gonna punch you right in the mouth; Go ahead, take your best shot; That did it, untie my hands; I'll untie your hands if you untie mine first ....) and in 'Court Of The Lion' (the scene where the japanese girl is speaking to Kelly and Kelly tries to get Scott to translate) that was all written down -- so he did manage to get it on paper on occasion... it's just that no one else did successfully, except possibly Michael Zagor (Mainly On The Plains, etc.)
Bob was a veteran of dozens of made for TV movies, where the writing was mediocre at best, also, he learned about writing from two of the great masters, Richard Brooks and Sam Peckinpah, so he had in his mind an idea of what constituted good writing versus not so good writing.
I think in regards to "Home to J" as we always called it, that was, as you adroitly observed, a more personal episode, so you'll see less banter, since the episode was probably one of the most dramatic of all in the series. I too always get a chill when Will Geer, in his broken, high pitched voice says "Kelly...?"
Thank you for sharing your valuable insights. It is really fascinating reading and I am happy to hear that Mr. Culp is pretty consistent in his views about adlibbing, regardless of which side of the pen he is on
On another note, what do you think about his involvement in the lawsuit against the L.A. Zoo? If the allegations against the zoo are true, I think it is admirable that he is taking a stand and putting his money where his mouth his, so to speak. I did not know he was an animal lover, but as someone with a particular fondness for elephants myself, I hope that his actions will, if nothing else, result in an investigation of the zoo's practices and improved care of the animals.
