VALUABLE LESSONS - Nicholls + Vickers

Valuable Lessons 16
8. The prop associated with the line/business breaks, or doesn’t “read”
(show up as what it’s meant to be) on camera.
9. The actor who is supposed to say the line is not getting along with the
actor/actress to whom he is supposed to say it. He refuses to speak to
that actor in this episode, or even enter a scene at the same time, which
would require them waiting together behind the set for their cue. The
line makes no sense when spoken to a different actor.
10. The actress decides Friday night at 8:00 that her religious beliefs prohibit
her from saying the line, which contains the phrase “I swear.”
11. Another completely different joke that used some of the same words was
in the opening scene of a different series on the same network last year
and that series tested badly. The network insists this joke be removed
lest it jinx the current series.
12. The animal in the show gets such big laughs from standing up and
begging that the network insists the line you like be replaced in editing
with another shot of the animal standing up and begging, in the hopes
that the critter will become a “breakout character.”
13. The guest actor by whom, or to whom the line is supposed to be
delivered dies Wednesday night. The line doesn’t sound right read by his
replacement on Friday.
14. The laugh – a big one – goes to a secondary actor. The series star
demands the line be removed because it “stops the whole show.”
15. The line is shot but cut because it’s too similar to something the producer
swears he saw once on Bewitched.
16. The piece of business only plays if shot from a certain angle. On tape
night the director, anxious to get to a dinner party, tells the showrunner
he “can’t get a camera back / in / up there.”
17. The director rushes through the shot anyway but it’s technically
unusable.
18. In every take, the audience laugh/applause the line receives is too big
and can’t easily be shortened.
19. The gag is said by an actor to a dog. The actor leaves it until Wednesday
to reveal to the showrunners that he is so allergic to dogs he can’t even be
in the same studio as one, or sit on furniture a dog has sat on.
20. The line was written for a child actor to say in the concluding “Tag” of
the show, but the taping goes long and by the time the Tag comes around
we’ve exceeded the legal number of hours the child can be on the set and
the Child Welfare Worker pulls him or her off. The Tag is hastily rewritten
around other characters.