Notes Leave TV Writers to Read Between the Mines

Notes are arrows shot into the hearts of TV writers.

They are the poisonous snakes in the green, green grass of writing for TV.

Technically, notes are simply proposed changes to a script. But depending on the nature of the change and the clout of the person proposing it, notes are the stuff writers’ ulcers are made of.

In Roger Director’s “A Place to Fall” (published by Villard), fictional Billy Ziff writes for a hit TV show, called “Father Joey,” that features a crusty but lovable priest. Made rich and famous by “Father Joey,” Ziff is also made miserable. Soon he is guzzling Maalox, thanks to notes from his megalomaniacal star asking for more opportunities for Father Joey to score.

Former writer-producer of “Moonlighting,” Director has sold his book, which just hit the bestseller list, to the movies. Writing well is the best revenge.

Most notes are helpful and end up improving the script, according to Lee Goldberg, a Tarzana writer / producer whose tact suggests a sincere desire to continue working in this town.

Then there are the notes that don’t help or even make much sense. One classic came to Goldberg from NBC when he was writing dialogue for the dolphin that was the cetacean star of “seaQuest 2032.” The note advised, “The dolphin wouldn’t say that.” Goldberg didn’t get defensive about the problem of coming up with compelling character arcs for marine mammals. And he doesn’t suggest for a moment that that kind of thinking got the show canceled. But he does say, “I don’t ever want to write for another dolphin, whether he talks or not.”

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Network censors send some of the oddest notes, says Goldberg, whose credits include “Hunter,” “Baywatch” and “Diagnosis Murder.” Allusions to sex are an obvious target, but sometimes the lewdness exists only in the minds of the guys wielding the blue pencils. Goldberg once got a note about a line written for a character who complained about the gunk growing in her dirty bathroom--”The fungus grows back faster than I can scrape it off.” The censors asked him to “remove the sexual reference.”

“I’m still trying to figure that one out,” says Goldberg, who is currently writing a sequel to his first novel, a comic mystery about TV called “My Gun Has Bullets.”

Another head-shaker was prompted by his setting a scene in the zoo. Do not, he was warned by the network censor, “show any sequences of monkeys copulating.” “There goes our fourth act,” Goldberg joked to writing partner William Rabkin.

Stars produce some of the most baffling notes, Goldberg says, unless you keep in mind that they often care less about their lines than how they come across. He once wrote a scene for a popular series in which the star was trapped in an underwater cave full of poison gas. The script called for him to signal to his friends by thrusting his watch through a crack in the rocks. But the star thought the watch was wimpy.

“The actor refused to do the scene unless he could stick something more heroic, more manly, through the rocks,” Goldberg recalls. Counseled by the writers to signal with whatever he liked, the star prudently opted for a knife.

Joyce Burditt, who created and produces “Diagnosis Murder” for Viacom in Universal City, was once told by a studio executive on another project to change a script whose female protagonist was involved with a delightful younger man. “He’s too good,” the exec advised in her note. When pressed by Burditt, the executive explained, “I’ve never dated a guy like that.” Burditt dropped the project rather than rewrite the script.

Another time, Burditt recalls, she wrote about a baseball rivalry that led to a murder on one of the teams. That one prompted a “money note.” The show’s bean counters thought the script would be awfully expensive to make, given the need to shoot outdoors on a baseball field and the like. But the note assured her that the proposed change would have no effect on the integrity of the script. “It’ll be fine. Just take out the baseball.”

Burditt, who wrote “The Cracker Factory” and “Triplets,” recently finished her third novel, a mystery about TV called “Buck Naked,” to be published by Ballantine in May.

Goldberg has a writer-producer friend who once wrote a pilot for a show about two rappers. In a subsequent note the writer was told the studio loved the script. They just wanted to make one little fix, which they were sure wouldn’t take him more than a half-hour at his word processor. “We want one of the characters to be dead,” they explained. The writer did what a writer must sometimes do, even when the money is really, really good. He walked.

Bill Freiberger of Studio City once consulted on a project whose protagonist was supposed to be a pilot. Since there were no flight scenes, the network insisted on establishing the man’s profession by having him wear his uniform, including his pilot’s cap, even in his own living room, recalls Freiberger, who writes for “The Show” on Fox. “We joked for hours about, ‘Who’s landing the apartment?’ ”

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A Valley-based writer-producer who asked not to be identified recalled writing a pilot a decade ago for NBC. The protagonist was “a big, lovable bear of a man,” who stood 6 feet 3 and weighed 300 pounds. The network loved the show, absolutely loved it, he was told. There was just one thing. The president thought Mickey Rooney would be perfect for the lead. The writer duly rewrote the script for a lovable bear cub of a man, even changing the locale from Malibu to New York City, where Rooney was starring on Broadway in “Sugar Babies.”

Everything was going swimmingly, until the network president saw the dailies.

“Whose idea was it to put Mickey Rooney in this?” he asked.

A note like that will kill a project every time.