TALES FROM THE SCRIPT: THE BEHIND-THE-CAMERA ADVENTURES OF A TV COMEDY WRITER (5 page)

Slappy’s contract, though, was legit. Slappy was a black comedian, who had been in show business most of his life. He was once
the partner of Redd Foxx. With the emergence on television of other
black comedians, notably Dick Gregory and Godfrey Cambridge,
black comics were being integrated into the white nightclubs. Slappy
wanted fresh, topical material to capitalize on that.

After that phone call from Rex Morgan’s office, i wrote some audition material for an appearance Slappy had in a Philadelphia night
club. Hot topics at the time were the new movie,
Cleopatra
, and the
scandal involving the stars, Richard Burton, Liz Taylor, and her husband Eddie Fisher. One joke i did for Slappy was about the low-cut
costume Liz Taylor wore in the film. He said, “i went to see that
movie,
Cleopatra
, the other night. The man behind me kept saying,
‘i never saw anything like that before. i never saw anything like that
before.’ i turned around. it was Eddie Fisher. The man next to me
said, ‘i have.’ it was Richard Burton.”

Another big movie then was
Lawrence of Arabia.
For Slappy i
wrote: “i went to see that movie,
Lawrence of Arabia
, too, but i couldn’t
enjoy it. i can’t enjoy any movie that has that many people running
around in white sheets. no sir, i get nervous when i see two or three
Good Humor men hanging around together.”

According to our agreement, i’d supply jokes to Slappy on a
regular basis and he’d pay me 5% of whatever salary he earned as a
comedian. Faithfully, Slappy sent me the AGVA (American Guild
of Variety Artists) contracts for his various engagements, and just
as faithfully, he sent my cut. i was now a professional earning about
$1,500 a year from my joke writing. i was in Show Business. i was
making money from writing jokes. i was happy. Slappy was an ideal
partner. He listed my name in any ads he took out in the papers—
“Special Material by Gene Perret.” What an ego boost.

Slappy always praised the good material and ignored the bad.
Once, i auditioned for another comedian at the same time i was writing for Slappy. This comic called and complained bitterly about the
thirty-joke routine i had sent him. “There’re only two gags in that
whole batch you sent me that i could use. You sent me thirty jokes
and i only liked two of them. You expect me to pay money for three
pages of material when i can only use two? The next batch had better
be a lot better if you want to write for me.”

Then, Slappy called. “Hey, two of those jokes you sent me worked
beautifully. They got screams. Do a couple more like that, will you?”
naturally, i went to work writing more jokes for Slappy and never
wrote another word for whatshisname.
Slappy even paid my expenses periodically to come see his act
and hang around with him backstage at the Playboy Clubs. Once, he

flew me to Boston to catch his act at a club in nearby Revere Beach.
Between acts, he told me to take his car and go to another club to
catch the comedy team of Reese and Martin. “See what kind of stuff
they’re doing and how well they’re going over.”

Slappy drove a brand new, top of the line Cadillac. i was driving a
twelve-year-old Buick at the time that usually required a screwdriver
to help it get started. in the club parking lot, i started the Caddy,
but didn’t know how to release the emergency brake. i pushed a button and the outside mirrors started readjusting themselves. i pulled
something else and the windshield wipers sprayed water and started
clacking back and forth. The more buttons i pushed and pulled, the
more things happened in the car. The radio went on, the windows
went up and down, the heater blew harder, but the emergency brake
never did release. Finally, i decided that it wasn’t my car, so i’d drive
to the other club with the emergency brake on. When i shifted into
gear, the emergency brake pedal released.

Another time, Slappy, a dancer from the show, and i sat in a coffee
shop in St. Louis at about two o’clock in the morning. We were having a
cup of coffee after the show and before retiring to our rooms. The place
was pretty much deserted except for one other gentleman, who apparently had over-indulged. He marched over to our table and stood there
while we conversed. Finally, he said, “We don’t allow negroes in here.”

We stopped in there each night after the show and we were
welcomed by the management. That particular drunk had his own
agenda, but it frightened me. i was prepared for serious trouble.

it didn’t bother Slappy, though. He casually looked up at this
gentleman and said, “i’m an American indian.”
The guy said, “Oh, that’s OK, then,” and walked away.
Slappy White was a master at comedian-writer relationships. He
kept me enthused and excited about writing. He even gave me a taste
of performing.
Together, we created a routine where Slappy White was the first
black man to run for President. As a supposed candidate, he held
a press conference. When he appeared at the Academy of Music in
Philadelphia, he invited me to be the “reporter” coming onstage to
question him as the Presidential candidate.
What a thrill that was for me. Duke Ellington’s orchestra opened
the show and Count Basie closed it. Slappy—and i—were the comedy relief right before intermission.
As we stood in the wings waiting to go on, the stage manager was
on a phone talking to someone in the control booth at the back of
the hall. He was directing the lighting according to one of Ellington’s
assistants. The assistant said, “Go to all blue lights.” The stage manager repeated that into the phone and the stage became awash in blue.
Then, the assistant said, “now bring everything up for the closing.”
The guy on the phone reiterated that, and then all the lights came on.
Then, the stage manager turned to Slappy and asked, “Are you the
next act?”
Slappy said, “Yeah.”
The guy said, “How do you want your lights?”
Slappy calmly answered, “Make me look like a white man.”
Without cracking a smile, the stage manager relayed into the
phone, “Harry, this next act’s a black act. i want you to make him
look like a white man.”
i was astounded when i walked onstage because the Academy of
Music is a beautiful theatre with several rows of balconies ringing it.
However, once i looked out from the stage, i couldn’t see anything.
The lights totally blinded me.
Then, as we began our act, i noticed a strange thing. The glare
from the lights was white at first. Then it changed to white and yellow.
Later, a blue light came on. Then, it switched to a red. in the middle
of our routine, it dawned on me what was happening. The guy in the
control booth must have been saying into the phone, “i don’t know
what the hell’s going on. i’ve got the guy on the right looking like a
white man, but i can’t do anything with that guy on the left.”
i began writing for Phyllis Diller through a friend at General Elec

tric, Ed Hercer. He worked a second job as a reporter for a local newspaper. One of his assignments was to interview Phyllis when she was
visiting the Philadelphia area. He mentioned that there was a guy
where he worked who wrote some pretty funny material. Phyllis said,
“Tell him to send me some. i’d like to see it.”

i sent Phyllis two routines about Fang and her kids. She sent back
a check for $85. That was seventeen gags at $5 a gag. Phyllis bought
material from writers all over the country. in fact, once i was trying
to show some of my material to comedian, Jackie Vernon, who was
pretty hot at the time. When i introduced myself, i said, “i write a lot
of material for Phyllis Diller.”

He said, “Who doesn’t?”
i became part of an army of housewives across the nation, who
wrote and sold gags to Phyllis. i got some notoriety for one of the
early jokes Phyllis bought from me. That joke singled me out from
the pack, i think.

in her act, Phyllis used to kid about her cooking. She did gags
like: “i’m a terrible cook. i once went into my kitchen and caught a
cockroach eating a Tum. i had a fire in my kitchen once. What happened was a grease fire broke out in my sink. The firemen put it out
quickly, but 3 of them had to be treated for food inhalation.”

i heard those routines and sent her a line that read: “i’ll give you
an idea how bad my cooking really is. Last Christmas the family
chipped in and bought me an oven that flushes.”

Years later when i was working on the Helen Reddy summer TV
show, Joan Rivers walked by my office, popped her head in, and said,
“i know you. You’re the ‘oven that flushes’ guy.”

Phyllis and i dealt mostly through the mail and occasionally over
the phone. The first time i met Phyllis Diller was when she appeared
at the Latin Casino in Philadelphia and invited me to see her performance. Six friends, my wife, and i went to see her one evening and
the place was packed. As we stood in line, someone came out and
called my name. When i responded, he said, “Phyllis would like to see
you in her dressing room before the show.”

My wife and i went backstage to meet her. The first thing she said
to me was, “You’re my best writer.”
Rather than graciously accepting the compliment, i said, “Then
how come i’m not in Hollywood?”
She said, “You’re not ready yet.”
it turned out to be the first of many lessons Phyllis taught me and
it served me well throughout my career. it’s better to be patient with
career moves, rather than to rush into them before being prepared.
At that time, i was writing about thirty jokes a week for Phyllis. i
didn’t want to do more because i was afraid it would appear “pushy,”
and also i was afraid she’d balk at paying more.
She said, “Honey, i can afford to buy all the jokes you can give me.
You’ve got to start writing more.”
After that meeting i really started churning out one-liners for her act.
Of course, when we got back to our table, i told everyone about
our meeting and how Phyllis had called me out of line. As we walked
back to our car in the parking lot, i told them all about meeting Phyllis and how she had called me out of line outside the Latin Casino. As
we drove home, i repeated the story of how i met Phyllis Diller after
she had called me out of the line at the Latin Casino. Finally, someone
shouted, “For God’s sake, we heard the story already.”

This was our table the night I first met Phyllis Diller in person.
My wife, Joanne, is third from the right. I’m second from the right—
the one laughing the hardest at my own jokes.

So, i shut up . . . for awhile. Then, i told them about it again, just
in case, and maybe a few more times after that.
After Phyllis goaded me into writing more, i upped my weekly
quota from thirty gags to sixty gags. For several weeks, i felt like the
top of my head was going to explode, but eventually, i got used to the
additional writing. Another lesson learned from Phyllis Diller—you
can do more than you think you can.
When i sent material to Phyllis, she marked and numbered which
gags she liked and sent me a check. Eventually, she called and said,
“Look, i’m getting tired marking these jokes. About how much do i
buy from you?”
i said, “it has averaged about $150 a week.”
She said, “i’ll send you a check for that amount each week and
you just keep on writing jokes. OK?”
Of course, it was OK.
Each Friday, i took Phyllis’ check to the bank and deposit it along
with my salary. i gloried in the celebrity that check afforded. i pushed
the checks toward the teller very casually, as if it was no big deal for
me to be getting money from a nationally-known celebrity. i reveled
in the double-take when the teller noticed the name on the check.
One time, the teller looked at the name and opened her eyes
wide. She took that check to the teller at the next window, showed
her the famous name, and they both chuckled.
When she came back to me, she said, “Phyllis Diller, huh?”
i said with all the false humility i could muster under the circumstances, “Yeah.”
She said, “is she anything like the real Phyllis Diller?”
Offended, i said, “That is the real Phyllis Diller.”
The teller held the check up, examining it more closely, and said,
“no, it’s not.”
Then she gave me my receipt and i left.

Every successful career has a turning point, the “break.” it’s simply
another link in the chain that’s probably no more important than the
hard work that preceded it, but it does mark a change of direction or
intensity. Phyllis Diller provided my break when she starred in her
own variety show on nBC in the 1968 television season. it was called
The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show
.

Phyllis persuaded the producers of the show, Bernie Orenstein
and Saul Turtletaub, that i should write her opening monologs. They
had their agent, Bernie Weintraub, call me to arrange a deal. They
were not prepared to hire me full-time, but they did want me to write
material that Phyllis could use on the show.

Bernie Weintraub still laughs and tells the story of our first financial
negotiations. He said, “How much do you make on your regular job?”
i asked, “With or without overtime?”
That got him chuckling on the phone. There was no overtime in
Hollywood. Writers agreed to a price and worked as long as was necessary to get the job done. Bernie had never dealt with anyone who
punched a time clock before.
i told him, “i make $12,000 a year, with overtime, $15,000.”

He said, “We’ll pay you $250 a week to work with Phyllis on the show.”
i said, “Fine.” it was fine because it more than doubled my income.
After we agreed to terms, though, i began to feel paranoid. i pictured

those Hollywood producers grumbling about Phyllis Diller insisting on
having some “non-pro” write her material. in my mind, they were cursing me for intruding into their producing arena. They were waiting, i
thought, to get my first batch of jokes so they could take them to their star
and say, “We’re dumping this guy because he’s incompetent, a mountebank, and an embarrassment to the comedy writing community.”

instead, they called the next day and congratulated me on my
contract, welcomed me to the show’s writing staff, and invited me to
fly out and work with them for a week so i’d feel more comfortable
about the show. “Would i be willing to do that?” they asked.

i told them, “First, i have to apologize to both of you.”
“For what?” they asked.
“For all the terrible names i called you yesterday.”
They sent me a first-class ticket—that’s right, a first-class ticket—

and $500 to cover incidental expenses along the way.
So much for my paranoia.
Of course, i was still a working man, so i had to arrange to visit

Hollywood during my vacation. My wife and four children went to
the seashore, where we usually spent our summer vacation, and i flew
off to Tinseltown.

The producers welcomed me like a visiting dignitary. They introduced me to the staff writers and several producers on the nBC lot.
They took me to dinner at elegant restaurants. To me, that was Big
Time Show Business.

i was still a working man, used to traveling for the company. i
kept a detailed account of all my expenses. At the end of the week, in
saying goodbye to Bernie and Saul and thanking them for their gracious hospitality, i mentioned that i had money left over from the
expense allowance they’d given me.

“How should we settle up?” i asked.
They said, “Take that money and fly to Las Vegas for the weekend.”
They weren’t interested in getting a formal expense account, nor

Las Vegas was tempting, but i was more eager to get back and
spend the weekend with my family at the seashore. They were expecting to meet me when they arrived back in Philadelphia on Monday,
but instead, i wanted to surprise them by driving down and spending
the weekend with them.

That’s when i learned what the saying, “A prophet is never received in his own country,” meant. i approached the house we had
rented at the shore and peeked in the window. The kids were excited.
They shouted, “Mommy, someone’s looking in our window.”

So much for my ego.
Working on a California-based show from Philadelphia was a
challenge. i’d do monologue material and send it in advance. That
was no real problem. However, the producers did like my material
and wanted my input on the rest of the show. They sent me the completed script in the beginning of the week. There was no overnight
mail or computer e-mail in those days, so i’d receive the script in the
middle of the week.
i worked on the script through the night, adding jokes wherever i
felt they improved the show. Then, i shaved, showered, and dropped
the revised script into the mail on my way to work. One day a week,
i went sleepless.
The producers appreciated my work, but the rest of the country
apparently did not. The show drew low ratings and was cancelled in
mid-season . . . along with my $250 stipend. it seemed i was right
back where i started.
it was demoralizing, not only for me, but for my family. By then,
i had been writing for about nine years. Although i made a little bit
of money from my comedy, we did not spend any of it. instead, we
invested it with the idea that when the move to Hollywood happened,
we’d have enough saved up to make it convenient.
However, it looked like no move to Hollywood was going to happen. So, my wife and i discussed my career and decided to abandon
it. We were going to take the savings and buy a new house.
Fortunately, deciding on a house took time. Before we found anything we wanted to spend our life savings on, i got another call from
Bernie Weintraub. Since the cancellation of Phyllis Diller’s show, he
had been scouting up work for me in television.
Orenstein and Turtletaub were hired to do
That Girl,
the situation
comedy starring Marlo Thomas. They knew i wasn’t ready for situation comedy writing yet, but they did feel i could work as a staff writer
on a variety show. They mentioned my name and recommended my
work to several other producers who would be working in variety,
and they convinced their agent, Weintraub, that he could place me
on some staff.
He had two potential shows—one featuring Jimmy Durante
and the Lennon Sisters, and the other a variety show featuring Jim
nabors, who became a bankable television star with his hit sitcom,
Gomer Pyle.
Bernie told me, “Write some samples of what you would do for
both shows and get them to me.”
i did, and the Jim nabors producers made the first offer.
i took it.
i was going to Hollywood.
i was delighted, but not everyone was. When i told my mom that
i was leaving General Electric to become a television writer, she said,
“What? And give up all that security?”
The “break” not only altered the direction of my career, but i discovered it also changed the way people thought about me.
General Electric was predictably very supportive. When i informed my superiors there, they all said, “Should you come back, your
job will be waiting for you.” That was a tremendous offer because it
took some of the fear out of the adventure. if Hollywood rejected me,
we would’ve spent the money that we had put aside for that purpose
and returned to the same job i left. All it would’ve cost would’ve been
my loss of seniority and a week or two of vacation time.
Others weren’t so encouraging. At a goodbye party some friends
threw for my wife and i, one of those friends commented on my hair.
it was slightly long because i needed a haircut. He said, “Getting a
little artsy, aren’t we?”
i made a mental note never to send him any autographed copies
of any books i wrote in the future.
The funniest put down i received, though, was from a person at
General Electric that i didn’t even know. She went to Ed Hercer, the
editor of the plant newspaper, who happened to be one of my closest
friends, and she gave him the scoop.
“There’s a person who works over in Medium Voltage who has
been writing jokes for Carol Burnett and now he’s going to Hollywood.”
Ed corrected her. “He’s actually been writing for Phyllis Diller.”
She insisted, “no, he writes for Carol Burnett. His name is Gene
Perret.” She pronounced my name with the accent on the last syllable, just like Carol Burnett.
Hercer knew i pronounced my name “Perret” with the accent on
the first syllable to rhyme with that little animal, the ferret. He corrected her, pronouncing my name correctly.
She said, “no, it’s Perret.” She still made it sound like Burnett.
it was useless to argue, so Ed said, “Fine, we will run a story about
him in the company paper.”
The following day, that lady came back to the newspaper office
and said to Ed Hercer, “You know that guy i was telling you about?
Gene Perret?” She pronounced it incorrectly again.
He said, “Yeah?”
She said, “Well, he’s getting so uppity now that he changed his
name to ‘Perret.’” She pronounced it the way i’ve been pronouncing
it since birth.
i didn’t care. i was going to Hollywood.

Yes, i was going to Hollywood, but i had no idea what to expect once
i got there. i had studied comedy writing and served about a nineyear apprenticeship writing material for standup comedians. As one
producer said about my work, “You certainly know your way around
a joke.” Sure, i could sit at my kitchen table back in Philadelphia and
write gags about whatever topics were current, send them off, and get
a check occasionally. That’s what i knew about comedy writing.

About television comedy writing, i knew very little. i had more
questions than answers. What was i expected to write about? How long
would i have to write it? Would i be writing alone or with a partner?
Maybe i’d be writing with a whole roomful of other comedy writers?
Who would be deciding whether my writing was acceptable or not?

Many people wonder how television shows get written. Some of
the questions i’m frequently asked are: “How many writers are on a
show?” “is your writing life anything like the old
Dick Van Dyke Show
?”

Everything that goes on in front of the cameras is seen by most of
the nation. People accept that Lucy Ricardo will cause some sort of
trouble and that Ricky Ricardo will be furious, frustrated, and finally
forgiving. Folks know where Edith and Archie Bunker live and how

they’re likely to behave. They’re familiar with Joey, Phoebe, Monica, Chandler, Ross and Rachel—the gang from
Friends
. They feel
as though they should be able to barge unannounced into Seinfeld’s
apartment just the way Kramer did. if they sat at the bar in
Cheers,
they’d begin to trade one-liners with all the regulars.

Since the writing of the television shows is done behind the camera, though, it remains a mystery to most of us. it certainly was a
mystery to me, as i headed towards Hollywood.

Permit me, then, to flash forward to a point well into my television writing career. i knew a little bit more about the protocol of writing a television show at that point. So, it might be a good idea to discuss some of the procedures involved in writing for a television show.

Most of my writing fell into three main categories: weekly variety
shows, situation comedies, and specials. Let’s look into each of them
separately.

Production on a typical weekly variety show usually followed a fiveday schedule. Most of the shows i wrote for ran from Monday to Friday. Although the scripts are written in advance, the actual production work began with the table reading on Monday morning. A table
reading was where the cast sat around a table, scripts in hand, and
read through the entire teleplay. Each of the writers took notes along
the way, marking jokes that didn’t work, or might be dropped or replaced, and any spots where the story line seemed awkward, or the
pace of the comedy slowed down. in short, we marked up our copies
of the script where we felt the show could be improved.