John Kerry Residuals
When I tell tell people that I write and produce television comedies, what I hear back is either the suggestion that I should write one about the very person I’m talking to -- “You should do a sitcom about all of the nuts I work with in the payroll department. Crazy. Crazy funny” -- or something a little more aggressive and challenging, like “So what do you do now? Sit around and live off of your Cheers residuals?”
“Residuals” is one of those slang terms we use in the entertainment business to refer to the contractual payments required by the networks and studios for the reuse of a writer’s work. Even people who don’t know anything about how the entertainment business works have heard the phrase, and so they toss it around like pros. The whole idea of “residual payments” seems to confirm the outsiders sour impression that everyone in the entertainment business is rolling around in money, that checks arrive in the mail daily, for work long since delivered and forgotten, that all you have to do is write one episode of one series and you’re set for life.
For the record, you can’t really live off of residuals. Unless you live in, say, Burkina Faso.
My first writing job was on the long-running hit television series Cheers, and for the first few years, it was a residuals bonanza. Cheers was shown all over the world, and even in the United States it was in an almost-constant cycle of reruns.
Back then, whenever I saw an episode of Cheers on a television anywhere – an airport lounge, a bar, through someone’s front window, anywhere – I’d stop for a moment, check it out for a few seconds, and if it was one that had my name on it, would silently try to calculate the size of the residual check coming my way. It was never more than eighty or ninety bucks, really, but money out of the blue – even small money, unpredictable money – gives me the kind of warm, happy, purposeful feeling that others get out of yoga and charity work.
Now, though, decades later, the show is still rerunning in odd and unexpected places, but we’re into the really small figures – the price of a magazine, really, or a high-end chocolate bar. And now, instead of the giddy anticipation of money heading in my direction, something else is creeping in. I don’t feel the warm jingle of future change in my pocket. Instead, I flash back almost instantly to the production week of the specific episode.
Thanks to our friends at The American Spectator, I was reminded that we had Senator John Kerry on once. On camera, I mean. I talk a little bit about our experiences with him on the set on last week's podcast.
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Re: John Kerry Residuals
So, wait, Rob, what you're saying is: you gave John Kerry face time on Cheers and you're still getting paid for it? Shouldn't you be, like, living a life of penance and prayer in a monastery somewhere or maybe smacking yourself with one of those Thomas More do-it-yourself flagellant whips? (Although personally I've never been able to figure out how flagellants do that stuff without knocking over a lamp or killing the dog or something.) But I mean, you let John Kerry into the bar where everyone knows your name, man! You even let him borrow your sense of humor. This could've had disastrous results for our great nation. Like someone might've voted for him. I mean thank heavens that never happened, but really... Be a little more careful next time!
Jun '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
It would be simple enough to keep Kerry from leaving a favorable impression on the Cheers fans. All the writers would have to do would be allow Kerry to enter the bar sans script. Tell him to be himself. He'd have ordered a rare, expensive wine that Sam would not have on hand. If a draft beer were substituted, Kerry would either ask for the glass to be washed again or simply nurse it for the night. He'd also mispronounce the names of the Red Sox players when making small talk with Sam.
May '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Wasn't the punishment working a show with Bob Newhart that may have been the only time he wasn't a hit?
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Well, it was the second time he wasn't on a hit. And I can bore you with the numbers, if you want, but in fact the ratings were high for that show. Our demographics weren't "desirable" -- meaning: too old -- so we didn't make it.
I hate to quibble, but we didn't let him in. He was outside. On the sidewalk. A small distinction, but one I know I'll have to make, eventually, to Whomever.
May '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Maybe that's where Kerry picked up his reportedly favorite line: "Do you know who I am?"
May '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Rob Long
Well, it was the second time he wasn't on a hit. And I can bore you with the numbers, if you want, but in fact the ratings were high for that show. Our demographics weren't "desirable" -- meaning: too old -- so we didn't make it.
OK, now I'm angry. As a certified undesirable demo old WASP male who spends money, what do I have to do to get a show out there that I want to watch? If every movie is made for 13 year old boys, and every TV show is 18 to 35 range, that makes 300 shows for one group, and none for us fossils. Doesn't prosperity through niche marketing mean anything anymore?
Friends, blowhards, fellow conservatives, lend me your money. I have a proposition to make: I want to start a film/TV studio to provide product for the programming equivalent of orphan drugs, except that the cost-benefit numbers ought to be better here. Untapped market opportuinity!
Jul '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Duane Oyen
Rob Long
Well, it was the second time he wasn't on a hit. And I can bore you with the numbers, if you want, but in fact the ratings were high for that show. Our demographics weren't "desirable" -- meaning: too old -- so we didn't make it.
Friends, blowhards, fellow conservatives, lend me your money. I have a proposition to make: I want to start a film/TV studio to provide product for the programming equivalent of orphan drugs, except that the cost-benefit numbers ought to be better here. Untapped market opportuinity! · Jul 15 at 1:35pm
My home-grown answer is to buy box sets of my favorite cancelled shows. I spend many a happy hour forcing my children and grandchildren to watch "Wonderfalls," "Firefly," and "The Phil Silvers Show." No laughs, no popcorn, kids...
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Duane Oyen
...now I'm angry. As a certified undesirable demo old WASP male who spends money, what do I have to do to get a show out there that I want to watch? If every movie is made for 13 year old boys, and every TV show is 18 to 35 range, that makes 300 shows for one group, and none for us fossils. Doesn't prosperity through niche marketing mean anything anymore?
It does! Tune into TV's newest hit, Hot in Cleveland, on TV Land. Which gets more viewers than Parks and Recreation on NBC. And stars lots of women over fifty.
I talk about this phenomenon here, and I think it's going to be happening more and more. Old people are the new black.
May '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Ahhhhh... "Firefly." Perhaps the best show ever cancelled.
Jul '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Cliff, reading a tabloid, sitting at the bar when Norm approaches.
Cliff: Aaaa Normy. Looky here... "Suicidal Twin Kills Brother By Mistake"
I'll never forget that line.
Jul '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
If you wrote that, would I now owe you a residual?
May '10
Re: John Kerry Residuals
Rob, I'm curious what you think of webisodes. The actual show is available here for those who haven't seen Dr. Horrible.
A small audience is fine if production costs are also small or the niche audience is willing to pay more (and not necessarily in one lump payment). This is a concept that seems to elude many companies. The goal should be a strong cost-to-revenue ratio, rather than getting one's product to the most people.