Two Movies and Some Miscellany
Hi everyone! What have you been enjoying on TV lately?
I recently watched two movies in my favorite genre, movies about TV history: Street Gang, a documentary about Sesame Street; and Being the Ricardos, a docudrama about I Love Lucy. I'd like to share some thoughts about each here.
I'm embarrassed to say that I still haven't read Street Gang, the book about Sesame Street that the documentary jumps off of (is there a word for this? when a documentary is adapted from a book but like it is a completely different medium so it uses independent research [e.g., filmed interviews] and it's as much its own separate thing as it can be?). Don't you hate knowing there's a book out there that you're supposed to read but haven't yet? In the case of my friend Mo, it's the Nicole Krauss novel The History of Love, which he'd love and I lent him years ago and then he lost. Ask him how many times he's read Moby Dick since I first lent him The History of Love, the bastard.
I guess I'd recommend Street Gang the documentary to anyone who is completely unfamiliar with Sesame Street, or just wants a sentimental journey through some highlights (very much in line with, for example, Won't You Be My Neighbor?). It's fun and interesting to see some old clips of the show put into some kind of context, and I can't be mad about that - it was a pleasure to watch and moving. I suppose ultimately what I want is a series, maybe like that Beatles one I haven't seen, addressing the bits of Sesame Street's history that are otherwise glossed over (maybe what I really want is a book lol). The documentary made no mention of merchandising, which has been a major part of the series since the late 70s and is responsible in no small part for continued funding of the Children's Television Workshop. Similarly, it didn't touch the Kevin Clash scandal (cw sex abuse), which threatened Sesame Street's image as hard as anything else ever has. There was a fascinating segment on the rise and fall of Black muppet Roosevelt Franklin that could have supported its own documentary - I recommend reading this for a good overview of some issues involved. This imaginary documentary could also serve as an opportunity to dive deeper into the dynamics at play with the show's gradual shift from treating the muppets as figures outside of human diversity to allowing them to represent it. I'd also love a full documentary on Buffy Sainte-Marie's work on Sesame Street, which was briefly noted in Street Gang. Here are a few relevant clips:
Of course, I need to remind myself to be careful what I wish for. Being the Ricardos, for its various other flaws and strengths, was all too obsessive about providing its audience with every historical detail that could possibly be relevant. It was sold as telling the story of a week in production of I Love Lucy - a week in which Desi's infidelity made the tabloids, Lucille's once-registering as a Communist made mainstream news, and Lucy and Desi announced to CBS and the show's major sponsor, Philip Morris, that Lucille was pregnant and so would Lucy be. It was written and directed by that jerk Aaron Sorkin, and Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem played Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and I didn't hate it nearly as much as I expected to! True, everyone in the movie goes on endlessly and unchallenged about the evils of Communism, and while I do think Aaron Sorkin's politics are obnoxious, it felt in-character and true to the time that the characters - Desi Arnaz - felt that way. What I was most impressed by was how few punches it pulled in how miserable Lucille and Desi were together. They were hot for one other and made magic onstage but they were really cruel, and Desi cheated constantly, and it wasn't fun to be them or be around them. One scene where writer Madelyn Pugh explains to Lucille Ball that it was sexist the way Lucy is infantalized felt likely unrealistic - if my memory of reading a handful of books about I Love Lucy is correct, then such a conversation was unlikely at the time BUT it does represent some of Madelyn Pugh's thinking on the subject later on, which I think is worth including (even if, like a handful of other things, the facts are somewhat fudged [I can go into detail on some of the things that didn't happen exactly the way they did in the movie but most of them aren't that important!]).
But the movie's scenes about the nuts-and-bolts production of I Love Lucy, in addition to recreating the personalities and workflows as close to correctly as I am aware (again, I've read a few books on the subject but not done any deep research), were very cool and interesting! It was enjoyable watching the writers and actors figure out how to put scenes together that now feel entirely inevitable, and it really did demonstrate what made Lucille Ball's comic talent essential to the series, beyond her work on camera. Unfortunately, I didn't think Nicole Kidman was very good - she was passable a lot of the time but she wasn't as expressive or demonstrative or funny as Lucille Ball was. I'm not sure who the right star for the role would have been. Cate Blanchett was cast originally and she might have been really great. Any of these would have been interesting to watch. Javier Bardem was typically excellent. He looked nothing like Desi Arnaz but the performance captured Arnaz's spirit better than Kidman's did Ball's. Oh well!
There were also segments of the movie made to look like interviews with I Love Lucy's writers after the fact - I have no clue why they were there and they added nothing. Additionally, the flashback sequences added context but I think the movie would have been better trying to tell the story through the situations presented in the plot's Monday through Friday drama. Instead of flashing back to how Lucille and Desi met and their career arcs, why not show the important details through their lives in the present (1953)? The movie was over two hours, and maybe it didn't have to be. It was also chock-full of long scenes in one setting, and I wonder if this wouldn't have worked better as a play - I enjoyed The Farnsworth Invention! If anyone wants to try a staged version of this, let me know. I really didn't hate it!
I'm going to close out with something somewhat embarrassing. Almost exactly ten years ago, I wrote an email to a comedian of whom I'm still a huge fan. She used to respond to emails on her podcast, so I thought she'd be interested in my ranked list of the best made-for-TV movies about TV history. I'm not sure I stand by this list today, but here it is:
1) Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy. Chris Diamontopoulis plays young Robin Williams, Erinn Hayes plays Pam Dawber, and Tyler Labine plays John Belushi (!!!). It's mostly about Robin Williams having drug problems (when John Belushi shows up on set to go PARTY with Robin Williams, everyone gets very upset). The greatest tragedy is that it didn't result in remaking Wired starring Tyler Labine, who could in twenty years star in the big screen reboot of The Shield.
2) Gleason: Brad Garrett plays Jackie Gleason. He actually turns in a very good performance (exactly what you'd expect from a sitcom star playing Jackie Gleason in a TV movie). It turns out that Jackie Gleason was pushed on by the fact that his father was so distant (exactly what pushed on James Dean in James Dean: starring Franco [but that's about movie history, not TV history, so it's ineligible for this list])(exactly what pushed on every male genius, according to every biopic I've ever seen). Michael Chieffo plays a very old-looking Art Carney (like Odd Couple-era Art Carney). It also has a great moment: "What are we gonna call this sketch?" "The newlyweds?" "The happy couple?" Gleason: "No. The honeymooners."
3) The Late Shift: Bill Carter's books read like stories of crabby people trying to deceive each other, like a medium Coen Brothers movie. This movie plays like a hijinks-filled comedy of people acting wacky for almost no reason. So it's a loose adaptation, but John Michael Higgins as David Letterman is a performance worth remembering forever, like his performance on Kath & Kim. The important question, though, is who will play Conan in The Late Shift 2: The Late Wars? I vote for Zach Woods.
I also included in that same email a list of "TV histories that deserve to be made into TV movies." I definitely stand by almost none of this:
1) The February 18, 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live - Chevy Chase hosts, and Bill Murray punches him in the face. We need a movie about this week in the lives of the cast & Chase. John Krasinski plays Chevy Chase, a slimmed-down Chris Pratt plays Bill Murray, and Lorne Michaels plays himself (as in Man On The Moon).
2) The final season of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, which was also the final year of Lucille and Desi's marriage. Imagine working on the set of the last season of the biggest sitcom while the producers/stars hated each other. Amy Poehler plays Lucille Ball (critics say: "remarkably realistic aging makeup"), Oscar Isaac plays Desi Arnaz, and Buck Henry plays William Frawley.
3) The making of the pilot of Lost. Jason Lee plays Matthew Fox, Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse play themselves, and everyone thinks their performances are, at least, "better than Jeff Zucker as himself on Fat Actress."
This comedian never responded to my email.
Are there any TV histories you'd like to be made into a movie? Let me know! I'll see if I can think of any better than the above.
Tags:
Paramount Plus now has its own cable-style streaming semiplatform (Variety describes them as "linear channels"), which as far as I can tell is only available to subscribers, which is stupid. If you air commercials, viewers shouldn't have to pay. Period!
Hooooo boy Yellowjackets! Who's watching? I may want to write about this great show soon.
This broadcast's theme song is the version of I Love Lucy's theme song with lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRfrMy9i090 I love when a show's cast sings the theme song on the show itself, and adding lyrics: What could be better?
I wanted to share a quick list of primetime producers who, if new daytime soap operas would ever be made again (fat chance), I'd like to see them create some:
Tyler Perry
Sarah Gertrude Shapiro
Shonda Rhimes
Whoever makes Claws
Whoever makes Riverdale
Greg Berlanti
This guy on youtube makes well-researched videos about late night talk shows. I like some more than others but his latest, about women hosts on NBC at 1:30am, is his best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MwvuEIBhYk