Written By Summer 2012 : Page 27
in to pitch our thoughts and ideas directly to him as the sea-son progressed.” It was Leahy who guided her through pitch meetings and story rewrites with Cosby. Watching Cosby in action had a major influence on her and she reiterated thoughts previously expressed by others. “Mr. Cosby’s hand was strong and steady on the show at all times. Mr. Cosby was the show. It was named for him, creat-ed by him, and celebrated the aspects of life he cherished. He had his imprimatur on everything—from every line in the script to the sweaters he wore, to the color of the paint used on the set. We were to use proper grammar in the scripts. No contractions. The parents were in charge in the Huxtable home. Respect the parents. Comedy without humiliation or degradation. No cheap laughs. “Most important,” Trigiani says¸ “he let me know straight away that scripts were literature. He said that you should be able to pick up a script in a hundred years and it should be written as well as any good book.” To Trigiani, Cosby’s world view was staggering. “He had an innate sense of responsibility about how to honor nation-ality, race, and religion on his show that was inclusive and respectful to all without being mealy or wishy-washy. The power of the medium of television cannot be measured. I learned from Mr. Cosby that you must honor the privilege of writing for a worldwide audience. The audience deserves our best. Maybe that’s why Mr. Cosby was diligent about the details. He knew the audience would notice. Mr. Cosby respected the audience, and that made all the difference.” Leahy encouraged her to create her own voice working within the parameters of The Cosby Show [see sidebar]. “That,” Trigiani says of Leahy, “is a real talent in a showrunner—pulling the best out of each writer. Janet was spectacular at that. She made each of us feel integral to the process. Everything I have done since has been in the glow of that experience. It was the best job I ever had. I poached everything from Janet Leahy and tried to do as well as she had. But I know I didn’t come close.” After Cosby Years later, as they developed Home Improvement, Williams and Finestra set out to create a show that the whole family could watch together. As Finestra explained, “Like The Cosby Show, we wanted people to feel they were watching believable situations that could occur in a family and a marriage. Matt Williams used to say that we should find a moment of truth and shine a light on it.” Williams believes that an early turning point for him as a writer occurred while watching a rehearsal of a scene between Rudy and Theo, two of the children in Cosby’s television family. Cosby, also watching the scene, leaned over to Wil-liams and whispered, “Hey, man. If you were sitting at home right now, wouldn’t you want to be a part of this family?” Williams realized that Cosby was sending a message to the home audience: “Come on in. You get to sit around the table with us. You get to sit on the couch with us. You get to be a part of this family, and this family has a lot of love.” That was a realization Williams carried into Roseanne and Home Improvement . “To me, it was a huge epiphany that drove what I did in TV for the next 15 years. Black, white, it didn’t matter. Bill made it very clear: Families are families are families. If you’re a mom or a dad and you have a 13-year-old who’s sneaking out of the house, it doesn’t matter what color the child or the parents are. That is family behavior. “We all worry about the same things,” Williams adds. “Bill was saying that we are human beings and we’re responsible for our kids. We are responsible as a family. He was Dr. Cos-by and was very, very clear about the message he wanted to send: Work hard; do your homework; get an education; your parents know more than you.’” But if Cosby was an influential teacher to Williams and Finestra, Elliot Schoenman was their mentor. From Schoen-man, both Williams and Finestra learned the importance of taking a group of individual writers and turning them into one mind in the room; taking the focus and energy of the competing writers and making them think as one. They dwelled on structure because, if the story changed—which with Cosby it usually did—the framework would still be there even if all the dialogue had to be revised. Was Bill Cosby tough to work for? “It was his show, and it’s my job to get it,” says Kott of those long-ago all-nighters. “It’s not his job to do it. His job was Bill Cosby, and anybody who worked for him in any capacity was just expected to get it. I don’t have one bad memory. Bill is just a great man; he’s the most talented person I ever worked with.” Marcy Carsey puts it this way: “His job was not to men-tor, so any mentoring he did was above and beyond the call of duty.” Cosby’s influence was felt long after The Cosby Show ended in 1992. Earl Pomerantz created a series modeled after his own life, just as The Cosby Show was modeled after Cosby’s family, ultimately titling it simply Family Man . Matt Wil-liams created Roseanne for Carsey-Werner, a series about a loving family at the other end of the economic and ethi-cal spectrum. He, David McFadzean, and Carmen Finestra went on to create Home Improvement, a series that both writ-ers indicated was heavily influenced by the family dynamics shown on The Cosby Show . Schoenman, who had mentored both Finestra and Williams, later ran Home Improvement for them. Ehrich van Lowe went on to create Where I Live, a se-ries modeled after his life experiences, and hired another he’d met on The Cosby Show, Lore Kimbrough. Adriana Trigiani, after successful stints on other series (including Linc’s, which reunited her with Susan Fales-Hill from A Different World ), is now a best-selling novelist. The Cosby Show : Friendships were formed, influence was exerted, in some cases mentorships occurred. All carried on the mantra from Bill Cosby, something that indelibly affect-ed their lives and work: “Tell the truth first. The funny will come.” SUMMER 20 12 WG A W Written By • 27
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