7/1/23
Newsletter #383
The Crack of Dawn
I can’t stand laugh tracks on TV shows. I recently thought, “I used to love The Dick Van Dyke Show, let’s watch it again.” Five minutes into the first episode I had to bail out due to the laugh track. The same goes for M*A*S*H: I loved it when it was first broadcast, but now the laugh track makes it unbearable to me. On top of which, Hollywood has been using the same laugh tracks forever, with very recognizable specific laughs.
Good old Scott Spiegel focused in on one specific laugh that was in most laugh tracks, that was so stupid it was only used now and then. The laugh was a high-pitched, “Woo hoo hoo,” that Scott named the “Sippy Laugh.”
So, when Scott went to L.A. for the first time, he got tickets for The Johnny Carson Show. Right from the very beginning of Johnny’s monologue, as soon as the audience began to laugh, Scott began adding his Sippy Laugh now and then. After two or three of his high-pitched Sippy Laughs – which are, in their own way, very insulting – you can clearly see Johnny wincing every time Scott does it. And Scott won’t stop doing it.
When I attended Sherwood Oaks Experimental College in 1977, I became friends with an actor named Harry Gold. Harry was just achieving some popularity, having recently appeared in Carrie (1976), which is one of my favorite movies. Harry is one of William Katt’s buddies, and has his own little comedy bit when the three boys rent tuxedoes. The second that I recognized him in school, I went straight up to him and introduced myself, gushing about my love of Carrie. This was my first taste of “star fucking.” Harry took a filmmaking class (that I didn’t take) where he had to make a Super-8 film. He confessed to me that he was extremely nervous about making this film, which was to star the oldest of his four young daughters. I said, “Harry, I have a Super-8 camera and an editor, let me shoot and cut it for you.” He was extremely relieved, and I suggested that he work on the script.
Harry lived in the San Fernando Valley with his wife and four young daughters. I do not recall what the film was about, but it starred his eldest daughter, Tracey, who was 8 years old, and her sister, Missy, who was 6, and they were both good little actresses. It became obvious quickly that Harry had an ulterior motive for making this film, he wanted to showcase his cute daughters. And both of them were little hams. Most of the film was exteriors around his house. It was a clear, hot, sunny day in the valley, and I wisely shot Kodachrome 40. The blue skies came out beautifully. The girls were cute, we did some gags, I cut it together, gave it to Harry, and after the end of the semester I never saw him again. Harry’s acting career never went anywhere. His daughters, however, went on to stardom. Tracey and Missy Gold had big childhood TV careers, of which I’ve seen none, but I was aware of it.
In any case, Harry got me into the filming of the TV show, Phyllis (1975-1977), starring Cloris Leachman, whom I absolutely adore, twice. These were the only two TV shows that I ever attended as an audience member in all those years in Hollywood. But seeing Cloris Leachman live, in her own show, was terrific.
I think Cloris Leachman is great. She totally deserved her Oscar for The Last Picture Show (1971). The movie ends with her putting her hand on Timothy Bottoms’ cheek and saying, “Never you mind.” I become verklempt just remembering it.
The character of Phyllis was so obnoxious, and Cloris Leachman played her so perfectly, that I found it endlessly funny.
And here is the big pay-off to that story. When I arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2006 to make (Stan Lee’s) Harpies (2007), I was given a production cell phone by the 1st AD, Ivo. Ivo said, “I just dropped Cloris Leachman off at the airport. She was here making Lake Placid 2. That was her cell phone. It probably still warm and has all of her numbers in it right now.” I don’t know if it did or didn’t, I was just impressed that I had her phone, and I was sorry that I had just missed meeting her.
As the emperor in Amadeus (Jeffery Jones) says, “Well, there you have it.”