Space Cases, part 3

Originally published July 7, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1129

The delayed (last installment was in #1125) wrapping of my Space Cases journal (Space Cases being the series pilot created by Bill Mumy and me for Nickelodeon.)

April 26, 1995: David Schramm arrives today for his guest appearance on the show. The plot for the episode calls for the kids to encounter a sort of intergalactic travelling salesman (shades of Lost in Space), an over-the-top Yosemite Sam-type with the name Yeehaw Jones. (He’s a character who makes such original Trek types as Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones look subtle in comparison. Wouldn’t it be cool if Yeehaw Jones, Cyrano Jones, Rick Jones and Indiana Jones formed a law firm? Jones, Jones, Jones, and Jones. It’s not quite up there with my dream law firm composed of Joe Straczynski, Len Strazewski, Len Kaminski and John Stracuzzi, but, well, there you go.)

Schramm is a wonderful actor, best known to viewers as the portly and Dickensian-named “Roy Biggins” on the long-running series Wings. In fact, it takes a while to get him through customs, just because the immigrations guy is a big fan of Wings and wants to keep talking to him.

Under ordinary circumstances there’s no way we could afford a guest-star of his caliber, but exec producer Susan Dietz is a long-time friend of his. And so Schramm schleps all the way from Los Angeles to Montreal to do the appearance.

The trick is that the rest of the cast has already been here for nearly a week, getting to know each other, bonding, etc. So to a certain extent, Schramm is an outsider. But the dynamic only helps, because, since Yeehaw Jones is likewise an outsider, the cast can’t help but react to him accordingly and appropriately.

Schramm is in an appropriately outrageous costume: A yellow body suit with a huge and ornate purple great coat over it, plus huge whiskers and a hat made from gold wire mesh. Schramm in a yellow body suit is something to see, let me tell you.

Takes forever to get a simple gag right. The android Thelma (Anik Matern) produces a soda fountain drink for Harlan Band (Walter Jones) by pouring the liquid out of her index finger and then pulling a straw from her nose. (Harlan declines her offer of ice; he doesn’t want to see where it comes out of.) Anik has to keep her head perfectly still, otherwise the camera picks up the rig on the side of her head that enables the straw to be produced. Oh, sure, we could have just rammed a straw up her nose rather than use a trick, but the cerebral hemorrhaging might have slowed down production.

We have one shot that’s an extreme close up on Yeehaw chewing tobacco chaw. I ask director Bert Metcalfe for another take, this time with David Schramm chewing with his mouth open. Bert and David oblige. The result is truly disgusting. Hey—it’s Nickelodeon.

That evening, Bill Mumy and I watch a tape of my latest episode of Babylon 5. At one point a character has been tricked into an incriminating confession, and Security Chief Garibaldi holds up a slim glass rod and says, “We recorded your entire confession…”

“…onto this rectal probe,” wisecracks Mumy, sending me into hysterics. All we need is a couple of robots and we can go on the road.

April 27: There’s a story about Frank Sinatra, while filming a movie, sitting and chatting with a friend. And the director comes over, telling Sinatra (in a tone that he doesn’t like, apparently) that Sinatra better stop screwing around and get out there for filming right now, because filming was going slowly and they’d fallen three pages behind.

And Sinatra took his script, ripped out three pages, tossed them in the garbage, and said, “Now we’re on schedule.”

We’re in that situation now. We’re in danger of falling behind, and the sure way to get black marks from Nick is to produce a show that runs over in production. So Mumy and I put our heads together over scenes that we’re supposed to be shooting later in the day. A scene that originally ran two-and-a-half pages gets whacked down to 3/4 of a page. Bam. We’re back on schedule.

In the studio next door they’re shooting a beer commercial. There’s an elaborate set of the inside of a tomb, and actors dressed as mummies are staggering around. If we were in production on the series, I’d be pleading with the commercial producers for just one hour on the set with a Steadicam, ad-libbing stuff with our cast getting chased around by the mummies. I’d build a whole episode around it.

April 28: Last day of shooting—an extended sequence shot on the Command Post (Compost) involving a climactic chess game. That’s a sure way to carve out a niche for yourself in the annals of Nickelodeon, home of slime and broadly played farce: Have your pilot episode, which is going to be screened for focus groups of 7- to 12-year-old video game addicts, hinge its entire tension-filled climax on a ripping game of chess. Oh, sure, it’s holographic 3-D chess with the pieces blinking in and out, and all the chess moves are science fiction in-jokes, but still, it’s chess, for crying out loud. Oh well.

Since the game is between Walter and David, both very strong actors, they should be able to sell the bit.

With the job ending, naturally the cast members are wondering where their next job will be—or if, for that matter, Space Cases will be that next job. We’re scheduled to deliver the final pilot at the beginning of June, at which point Nick will run the show for focus groups. And then we’ll know after that.

We have a small cast party. Several of the actors approach me individually, telling me earnestly how they or their relatives have been to psychics over the past year, and the psychic’s predictions seem applicable to the genesis and eventual success of Space Cases. Of course, the “predictions” are so broadly phrased that they also seem to me to apply to just about anything, from movies to Broadway shows. Still, I’ll take whatever I can get.

At one point Walter clears some space and starts demonstrating some Power Ranger moves. It’s incredible to see in person. A trained brown belt, he flips through the air, looking like he’s on strings. If we go to series, we’ve got to give his character some karate stuff to do.

I spend some final time with the actors, hoping I get a chance to see them again.

Long after the cast has gone home, however, we’re still working, finishing some “lock off” special effects shots.

The final gag involve several bottles that are supposed to shatter in sequence as a result of high sonics. One shatters on cue.

The other won’t break. We’re doing take after take and the dámņëd thing has the constitution of titanium. We go past midnight and still it won’t break.

This seems a bad omen. We can’t keep trying to get this one shot: We’re into overtime budget that we don’t have. We give up.

But Mumy won’t. “We have to have closure on this,” he declares. He grabs the bottle, places it down on the floor. I pull out a nine iron from a bag of golf clubs that “Yeehaw” had had among his objects for sale. I hand Mumy the club, he takes a stance, swings, and shatters the stupid thing. The crew cheers. You’d think we just launched the QE 2.

It’s a good way to go out.

And now—we wait.

Anybody know a good psychic?

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport NY 11705.)