Category: Screenwriting

Transcript:

So “Baywatch” and “Beverly Hills 90210” were the number one and two exports of television from America to the rest of the world and when I teach students in Los Angeles I always say so that means everybody thinks after you go to class every day you go to the beach and you have a bonfire with your friends and then you grow up to be lifeguards right? That’s a normal LA life which as we all know it’s not at all but that’s the power of Something Going Global. It brings your culture to another country.

Transcript:

Now the other thing about “Doctor Who” that we know is it went Global and this was not something that happened to very many TV shows. When we were younger and we watched it on PBS it was because PBS took the leftover stuff from England and didn’t make a big deal out of it. There wasn’t a big marketing campaign. You landed on it accidentally and went wow this is interesting. What is this and then you got hooked right? Only shows that have gone global in the past were something like Lucille Ball who was already sort of known worldwide from her movie career right or when we get into the 80s “Baywatch” went global to the whole world. The two most exported shows from the United States and we were always the country doing the most exports. Always we went out to 89 different countries. It was much harder for other countries to spread their stuff to us. We had so much on our screens that we didn’t need to buy anything else. We filled our broadcast network time but the other countries had less production so they were buying all our stuff right.

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In researching this I discovered “Scooby-Doo” has been around since 1969. So as they say you do the math. However, they would say – exactly – they would say it’s changed its iterations. There’s been “Where’s Scooby-Doo?” and “Scrappy-Doo.” So they’ve changed the shows but that set of characters has been with us all this time. This is something amazing if you think about it. In terms of live-action shows – again because an actor is not going to last 50 or 60 years – we don’t have that long longevity although “Colombo”, believe it or not, has quite a long run and they did the same thing “Doctor Who” did. They had a little hiatus where it was off the air and then after a while, the audience was still there and the network said wait a minute we could revive this and, of course, Peter Falk was thankfully still around. So they did. So really that’s an amazing run for a narrative show and just a straight show without hiatus has been 23 years the longest is Law and Order Special Victims Unit. So these are amazing things and then there’s Doctor Who.

Transcript:

“The Simpsons” has been on the air for 30 years because they’re cartoons. Bart Simpson will never grow beyond the age of nine right? So that’s brilliant for them. Brilliant for all the actors who signed on to this and as we know this was actually a little five minute piece in the Tracy Ullman show. So again an English influence in the United States and then they moved it into being a full-on show. So these actors who were just sidekicks on Tracy Ullman and some people don’t even remember what they look like have had jobs for 30 years playing Marge and all the people. So I think that’s cool. I think it’s worth noting that “Arthur” was on the air for 25 years as a PBS show for children, which I think is adorable. My son is now 24 and when they did the finale of “Arthur”, he and all the kids in his generation were paying attention to a show they’d watched when they were eight because it was “Arthur” and it was going away and I thought how cute is that. So that kind of fan loyalty comes to you when you’ve been around a long time again which is something that “Doctor Who” has generated.