Word: mortons
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...renamed it the CBS Orchestra and rescored the bluesy theme song to give it "more pizazz." Guests too are likely to be ratcheted a notch higher in marquee value. "At 11:30, with such heated competition, you have to have guests that are more surefire," says executive producer Robert Morton. "On the old show, we had more breathing room. We might put on a guest who wasn't a great talker but someone we really liked. Now we're going for the best possible performers." Among those scheduled for the first week: Robin Williams, Martin Short, Debra Winger and John...
...down or changed in any substantive way to suit the earlier time period. In a series of brainstorming meetings on the subject, Letterman and his producers considered several ideas -- expanding the opening monologue, switching from a single chair for guests to a Tonight-style couch -- and rejected them. Says Morton: "We decided we do a pretty darn good show...
...because only one of the show's 12 writers is female; it is also because the off-camera Letterman is much like the on-camera, prank-playing fraternity boy. Staffers recall the chaos that ensued during an office celebration several years ago, when he set off a flare in Morton's office and triggered the building's smoke alarms. A couple of weeks ago, Letterman challenged head writer Burnett to an oyster-eating contest: $150 if he consumed 50, $10 for each one thereafter. (Burnett wolfed down...
...join in the adult male rituals of his teammates. There's a beamy gentleness about actor Daniel Stern's directorial debut (he also contributes a version of his klutzy Home Alone crook, this time playing an addled pitching coach), and there are finely tuned supporting performances by Amy Morton as Henry's mom and Gary Busey as a fading pitcher who takes the kid under his faltering wing...
...Dallas Symphony is widely admired as a model orchestra for its fiscal health and user-friendliness. When retirees George and Gwen Beardsley appeared at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center to inquire about season tickets one Sunday morning six years ago, marketing director Douglas Kinzey himself was there to persuade them to sign on; returning to their car, they found the garage had closed, so Kinzey drove the elderly couple home. Since then the Beardsleys have been loyal subscribers. "We abandoned the whole concept of selling tickets and started building relationships with our customers instead," explains Kinzey...