Word: show
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Both the honk and those extrasensory ears belong to James Brooks, and if he breaks up at his own jokes, he has a good excuse: Brooks is one of the funniest writers in television history. His offbeat humor animated The MTM Show, a TV icon; it is the moving force behind a hit from last season, Taxi; and it is now making The Associates into perhaps the brightest, if not the highest rated, sitcom of the new season. Movie audiences can also sample his wit in his first film, Starting Over, which stars Jill Clayburgh, Burt Reynolds and Candice Bergen...
...experience with 10,000 other sitcoms, the viewer thinks that the good guy will win and expects them to play off one another for the rest of the series. But Brooks has Mr. Good not only lose the job, but also quit the firm -and leave the show forever. "Once you make that move," he explains, "then you are no longer predictable...
Brooks' comedy depends on individuals, not situations, and in most shows a viewer would be hard put to retell the plot. Ted Baxter's cheapness on The MTM Show is as funny to this generation as Jack Benny's was 30 years ago, and Lou Grant's scowls are as familiar now as Groucho's raised eyebrows were back then. "Character is what fascinates me," says Brooks. "I love populated things. The great thing about literature is that it tells you that you are not alone...
...broke into television at CBS News, and then moved west in 1965. Soon after, he developed the concept for Room 222, which was then produced by Allan Burns. The two formed a team, and in 1970 Grant Tinker, Mary Tyler Moore's husband, asked them to write a show for his wife...
...that point, as Brooks phrases it, "the inmates took over the asylum." Tinker, the perfect boss, gave his writers nearly total freedom, and the result was not only The MTM Show, but eventually Rhoda and the Lou Grant show. Brooks, Weinberger and a fellow writer-producer, Stan Daniels, went their own amicable way in 1977 and formed the partnership that has produced The Associates and Taxi. If The Associates survives its early low ratings, Brooks' income will rise faster than the price of gold...