tv – Page 5 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

05 Scooby-Doo and SVU from The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

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.

In this presentation given at the 2022 San Diego WhoCon I had the chance to trace the many ways Doctor Who changed the TV universe. By focusing on the interesting and innovative things the many writers did with the show across the years we were able to see the Who footprint by becoming the first narrative program to reach 50 years on the air, the first to create a spin-off across the ocean, and a show alongside Star Trek that created the Con-craze that brought the world of cosplay to the mainstream. Perhaps most importantly, a love of Doctor Who lead more Americans to watch programming from other countries – from Korean dramas to Mexican telenovelas – which has so enriched our culture.

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Drs. Rosanne Welch and Sarah Clark discuss The Monkees “Son of a Gypsy” episode on the Zilch Podcast’s Monkees 101 Series

In my side hobby, I work on the Monkees 101 segment for the Zilch podcast by recording analysis of each individual episode of the show alongside my fellow Dr., Dr. Sarah Clark, a Library Dean in Pennsylvania.

Our latest episode covers ad problematic episode — #16 “Son of a Gypsy” — which aired 12/26/66. In this episode, “The Monkees are forced to steal a priceless statuette called the Maltese Vulture.” While it’s a fun send-up of The Maltese Falcon, it also includes a stereotypical portrayal of Romani people, which Sarah and I address. Part of the fun (and work) or watching classic TV is finding what’s timeless and naming what’s not for the new generation of viewers. On top of that it’s a great exercise in deciding how things could have been handled by more careful consideration during the writing process.

Sarah and Rosanne Welch’s Monkees 101 segment for episode 16 “Son of a Gypsy” which aired 12/26/66

Synopsis “The Monkees are forced to steal a priceless statuette called the Maltese Vulture.”

Songs: “Let’s Dance On,” “I’m a Believer” and Davy does a bit of “Clarksville”.”

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Want to learn more about The Monkees? Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy.

Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.

This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.

Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of the 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In, and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music, and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Rider, and Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

04 The Simpsons and Arthur from The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

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.

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03 Fifty Years on the Air from The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

Face it. there is not another show that got a 50-year anniversary on television that was a narrative piece of work. This is not something that happened. Every time, even when we checked in the hotel the other day and we were trying to explain “Doctor Who” to the lovely women behind the counter. Well, how can a show be on the air for 50 years? Because the writers were so smart that when – as we all know Hartnell was feeling ill and they thought oh no we’re gonna have to stop – they said wait a minute. He’s an alien. He doesn’t have to die. He can change completely. Which is a beautiful writer’s idea which has given us the chance to enjoy so many different actors over the years including of course Tom and we’ve gone all the way through to my favorite is Peter Davidson of the old Who and then the fact that they could reboot and be something that children two generations later are still enjoying. So this 50-year thing, let’s face it, doesn’t happen and they’re gonna have a 60th-year anniversary. 60 years on television with the same general format. This isn’t done. The only other people that have been on the air that long are soap operas and game shows and they stay and stay and stay. The funny thing is, in the game shows they’ve had some of the same lead men for all those years. It’s fascinating when that’s a changeover. I mean sadly we lost Alex Trebek. So now there’s this great change over but “Jeopardy” is not going away. So because they’re not narrative they can continue for all these years.

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Watch Panel: Anatomy of a Meet Cute: Writing Romantic Comedies – WGA Foundation – Hosted by Dr. Rosanne Welch. Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

One of my favorite events during each of our Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Residency Workshops is when I have the opportunity to moderate a panel of WGA writers on a topic of interest to our MFA candidates. This January it was Anatomy of a Meet Cute: Writing Romantic Comedies.

Panelists included MFA alum Sahar Jahani (Writer, Hana Khan Carries On, The Bold Type, Ramy), Tracy Andreen (Writer, The Holiday Sitter, All Saints Christmas, Two Tickets to Paradise); Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith (Writer/Producer, Trinkets, Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Ugly Truth); and Nia Vardalos (Writer/Director/Actor, My Big Fat Greek Wedding films, Larry Crowne, I Hate Valentine’s Day).

It was an engaging, entertaining, and especially supportive group of women talking about the importance of stories about choosing our partners in life.

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Most Hitchcock Films are Harrison Films – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, January 2023

The main problem with the auteur theory that allows phrases like “Hitchcock film” to seep into our conversations is that it dismisses the work of the screenwriter who comes up with the theme, the plot, and the characters – or if they are adapting a novel, which themes, which plot lines and which characters they choose to include, combine or leave behind. The auteur theory is a false idea that grants all the credit for a film to one person despite our understanding that film is a collaborative medium. The films written and later produced by Joan Harrison prove this fallacy quite well.

Read Most Hitchcock Films are Harrison Films

Read about more women from early Hollywood

02 Writers Rooms: US vs. UK from The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

…and he wanted to test the waters of how our American Show is done because we do a writer’s room where there’s a showrunner and everyone sits in the room and talks all day. In England they still do a story editor from the network – so BBC or ITV whatever you’re from – and that person is kind of the overall person in charge. They hire a head writer. So our Davies and our Steven Moffats, but they talk with them. So it’s almost like a team working and then you hire freelance writers. You don’t do a room the way we do. So he wanted – Russell Davies – wanted to come and have that experience and see what it would do for his writing and would he want to bring that idea back to England and some people there are doing it, but they’re still pretty steady in the way they’ve done. So I think just the idea that they took that chance is really a very fascinating thing. So to me, that’s a big step.

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01 Introduction from The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

Today is going to be about how our show “Doctor Who” changed the television Universe because it really has had great a great effect in what we see on TV today and I think people don’t even necessarily recognize the power of this one show. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. As we’ve discussed in the past and I always do this just because in case there’s new people but you all know me. So you know what I’ve done and blah blah that I have so I’m going to skip through all this stuff and get to the meat of what we’re doing which is how it changed the TV Universe. I’m gonna say right off the bat, we had never done a spin-off that would take place in another country. That we would take “Torchwood” and do “Miracle Day”– which we all have our opinions on. I’m not a huge fan of “Miracle Day” – but the idea that they transported a show to another country right? It got a new staff of people and gave it that different feeling. That’s huge and I’ve not seen another show do that yet. So the power that they could say we want to try seeing what would happen if we moved to the States and got this other feeling. So to me that’s always big and of course, he really wanted to work with Jane Espenson who I love and adore from “Buffy (The Vampire Slayer)” and many other shows. So there was this cross-cultural respect for the kind of work that happens someplace else.

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The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe (Full Presentation) – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

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The Doctor Who Changed the TV Universe (Full Presentation) – Dr. Rosanne Welch

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24 Conclusion from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]

Transcript:

Host: I know it’s always so heartening when something turns up that was thought to be lost and there may still be some Treasures out there and people are discovering new things every day and that’s what you know of course of interest to us at the Museum – finding those rare rare voices that luckily were preserved in some way or other and just bringing them to light more.

Rosanne: Well and that’s what I always tell students too. If you go to places like museums you know when my students are in town – they’re low residency but they come in town once twice a year – and we’ll go to The Autry. We’ll go to the Herrick. We’ll go to different places but what – even long before I did this job – I would go to The Autry with my son because of course cowboy stuff cool but also you look at the photographs of who the Cowboys right and we all know they weren’t John Wayne. We all know that wasn’t who it was right? They were the Mexican Americans and they were Chinese Americans and you see that in the photographs but movies came along and made them all Caucasian and that’s ridiculous but that became the myth right? So the more we look at the real history the more we can tell those real stories. I love research.

Host: Me too. Well, thanks so much for joining us it was such a wonderful conversation and I especially I think I’ll take away this idea of a sort of community type stories in westerns particularly from our perspective – what are those western films that feature that Community story and is that a sort of more feminine point of view or a kind of women’s view of the West. That’s going to stick with me but as will many other points thanks so much for joining us.

Rosanne: Thanks for asking me. I love to talk about this clearly and I love The Autry

Museum

Host: Thanks

the archery Museum of the American West thanks our members and supporters

The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.

I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —

What this entire presentation

As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.

Find more information at the Autry Museum of the American West

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