Photo taken by
Alasdair Gillis
On November 6, 1998, YCDTOTV.com was privileged
to conduct an interview with Robert A. Black, a writer for YCDTOTV
from 1985-1986.
How
did you become involved with YCDTOTV?
I
decided to try writing a script or two for it during the summer
of 1984. I was between my sophomore and junior years at Vanderbilt,
and trying to write for a TV show was something I had always wanted
to do. When the scripts were done, I figured out where the show
was made, wrote to them and - eight months later - managed to make
a sale. That's how it all started.
I've
read that you were an engineering and mathematics student at Vanderbilt.
How did you go from that to wanting to be a writer for television?
I
didn't go from one to the other. I had both interests at the same
time. Still do.
Could
you please describe what it was like to be involved in such a popular
TV show?
Well,
one of the weird things about YCDTOTV was that it didn't have much
following in Canada. It was on once a week, Saturday mornings on
the CTV network, and that was it. So on the set, everyone was pretty
isolated from the show's popularity - which was probably a good
thing for the kids.
I loved hanging
out on the set, because there was such a good community atmosphere
around the place. Everything was very collaborative - the cast members
were given a lot of freedom to throw in ad libs and the like, and
even the crew got into the act every once in a while (the "amigos"
are the best example of that, but there were many other instances).
With all that spontaneity going on, you never really knew what to
expect from day to day, and that was a lot of fun.
What
is your first memory of YCDTOTV? Your best? Your worst? Your funniest?
My first?
The first episode I ever saw was the "Cooking" show, in the fall of
1983. I was home on a break from college, and it didn't take long
for me to get hooked.
My best? There are a lot of them - but I think the best may have
been the one and only time I got Les Lye to crack up during a read-through.
It was in an opposite sketch I wrote for the "Wildlife" episode,
where the camp director tells the kids that they're going to visit
a California condor nest and advises them to clean their guns so
they'll be ready. The gun-cleaning line caught Les completely by
surprise, which was a really hard thing to do.
My worst? Hmmm...
it's probably best just for me to keep my mouth shut on that question,
but... I'd say my worst memory was probably what happened to my
last episode, "Publications." Roger hated the first draft, so I
went back and wrote almost an entire new script. I think I had fewer
than 10 sketches that were in both drafts. Roger accepted the second
version, but then he later renamed it "Books and Reading" and rewrote
almost the entire thing again. I barely recognized the finished
version - and what's worse, I thought Roger's version was awful.
I didn't understand how he could throw out my stuff in favor of
what I thought was one of the worst YCDTOTV's ever made. Had I missed
the mark that much? Well, being older and wiser now, I realize
that Roger was pretty burned out at that stage (it was right before
the 1987-88 hiatus), and probably nothing looked good to
him at the time. So by now I've gotten over it all. Really, I have...
My funniest?
It's one that nobody ever saw on TV. We were shooting a sketch from
the "Fears, Worries and Anxieties" episode, where the world was
ending and Mom wanted to be sure everyone had on clean underwear.
Brenda Mason was directing, and she wanted to drag out the end of
the sketch so she could have some material in case she needed a
few extra seconds to fill out the finished episode (we did this
on a regular basis). So for about thirty seconds after the last
line, the cast members threw themselves around the set while stagehands
dropped cardboard bricks from the catwalk and a wind machine blew
junk all over the place. Finally, Les (as Dad, of course) put on
these oversized boxers he'd been given over his pants, looked down
at them, and started yelling "These aren't mine! These aren't mine!
They're your sister's!" Everyone promptly fell on the floor laughing
hysterically.
Why
did the show's production numbers fluctuate so much in terms of
how many episodes were produced each year? Why wasn't YCDTOTV in
production some years?
It
had to do with the way the show was ordered by the network, and
who was in charge of what. When Nickelodeon started showing YCDTOTV,
it was still a very young and unestablished network, and they didn't
have the resources to make their own shows. That meant they had
to buy all their shows from other places. CJOH had already produced
some early versions of YCDTOTV for local broadcast in Ottawa, and
Roger Price and Geoffrey Darby were working for them.
When YCDTOTV
got more popular, things began to change. Nickelodeon had more money,
so they were more interested in making their own shows and less
interested in buying shows from other places. Roger Price had produced
a hit series, so he was less interested in working for an Ottawa
TV station and more interested in doing some stuff on his own.
After the 1984
season ended, Roger left CJOH and teamed up with a partner to form
a new production company based at the CFTO studios in Toronto. But
since Nickelodeon's deal to make YCDTOTV had been with CJOH and
not with Roger directly, that meant Roger still had to work with
his old bosses in order to do the show. He almost chose not to do
it. His new company was making Turkey Television in Toronto,
and Christine (who is a year older than I am, by the way) wasn't
really interested in another round of green-slimings and being called
"Moose." But in the end, both Roger and Christine decided to go
back, and that's how we got the 1985 season.
By 1986, though,
Turkey Television had flopped (largely because of Nickelodeon's
meddling), Roger's company hadn't worked out, and Nickelodeon was
becoming increasingly disinterested in buying new episodes of YCDTOTV.
By the end of 1986, the contract between Nickelodeon and CJOH had
run out. Meanwhile, Roger had sold a series called Morningstar/Eveningstar
to CBS (you can read about it at http://us.imdb.com/Title?%22Morningstar/Eveningstar%22+(1986)),
and had hopes of getting a job in Hollywood. When that didn't work
out (the series concept was mangled pretty badly by the Hollywood
production company and the show only lasted two or three weeks),
Roger took off for Europe, where he stayed for two years. By the
time he returned to CJOH, I had already moved on in my own life,
so I really don't know what sort of decisions were made to create
the 1989 revival of the series.
I'm
curious to know how specific actors on the show were in real life,
so let's try some name association. What comes to mind (in relation
to the show) when I mention: Christine McGlade? Les Lye? Alasdair
Gillis? Doug Ptolemy? Vanessa Lindores? Alanis Morissette? Lisa
Ruddy? Abby Hagyard?
What
comes to mind, eh? There are a number of things that come to mind
about each one, actually. It's hard sometimes to find one or two
that make sense all by themselves.
Christine? Picture
her on her motorcycle, wearing blue jeans, a blue paisley shirt
and a leather jacket, with a white helmet. Either that or trying
to describe the book, The Origins of Consciousness and the Breakdown
of the Bicameral Mind, to Roger over lunch. Oh, and even though
she didn't like being called "Moose," her favorite beer was Moosehead.
Les? I've already
given you two Les stories, and there are so many more. We were all
very fortunate to have gotten the chance to work with him. In just
about every sketch he did, he would throw in some kind of ad lib
that would jazz things up a bit. Some of them were so small that
you wouldn't notice them unless you were looking for them - kind
of like "inside jokes." But they're always there. If you have any
old tapes of the show, watch an episode or two and try to follow
all the things that Les does with his hands. You'll see what I mean.
Alasdair was
probably Les's best "student" - he was always trying to imitate
Les's techniques, and frequently asked Les for advice on things.
So when you watch those old episodes, keep an eye on Alasdair's
hands as well. In many ways, Alasdair was very much a normal kid,
but he could be very serious and professional about his job, too.
Since he was the star, he had a much heavier shooting schedule than
any of the other kids, but he was always there and ready to perform.
The day we shot the space shuttle sketches for the "Outer Space"
show, Alasdair had a miserable cold. Between set-ups, you would
see him lying down over on the Link Set because he felt so awful.
But when it was time to start shooting, he was in his place, and
he made it through the entire day like that.
The summer of
1985 was the season when "Dougie" became "Doug." We even rewrote
all the scripts to change his name. I'm not quite sure what prompted
the change - he was just that age and it was time. Or maybe it had
to do with the fact that we were shooting the "Romance and Dating"
episode and he was running around in that Cupid costume a lot. You
know, trying to make up for the outfit or something. And speaking
of the Cupid costume, at one point Doug was going to wear it over
to the walk-up Dairy Queen that was across the street from the studio
- but he decided not to at the last minute.
Vanessa, on
the other hand, did go out in costume once. We shot the links
for the "Wildlife" episode on her thirteenth birthday, and the closing
sketch, where all the kids are dressed up like punk rockers, was
the last thing we shot before lunch. Vanessa wanted to wear her
outfit - sparkly dress, blue and white makeup and a blue wig - over
to the restaurant we always went to, and so she did. Vanessa was
always coming up with those kind of strange ideas for things to
do - which is probably why I liked her.
Alanis wasn't
part of the summer 1985 cast that I worked most closely with. I
only met her during a brief visit I made to the studio in the summer
of 1986. She was shooting her last episode, "Contests." What struck
me was that she seemed much older than she actually was. She was
hanging out with Vanessa on the set, and I thought she was fourteen,
like Vanessa was. It was quite a surprise to find out she was only
twelve.
Lisa Ruddy had
a habit of getting the giggles, which could make for some very long
afternoons. The opening "Jolk of the Jungle" sketch from the "Wildlife"
episode, for example, required seventeen takes. But even so, she
was great to have in the cast. The one odd thing is that what was
probably her best sketch ever - or at least her most difficult -
is one that you'd barely notice on-screen. It was from the 1984
"Science" episode, where Ben does a cloning experiment and ends
up with what Brenda Mason called "the thunderous nattering Lisas."
To get the effect right, Lisa had to do four different shots, wearing
four different outfits, each time talking continuously with no
one. They then superimposed the four shots onto a common background
to give the impression of four Lisas all chattering away at each
other. On screen, you only see about five seconds of the shot. In
reality, the whole thing was about thirty seconds long - and the
most amazing thing is that Lisa managed to blend all four of her
monologues (which were all ad libbed, by the way) so that they sounded
like an actual crazed conversation. Now that's talent.
And lastly -
Abby. I was always trying to find more parts for Abby to play, because
she was certainly up to the challenge, and I liked trying to broaden
the range of things we could do on the show. I think we really hit
paydirt with the Grandma character. In the original version of the
"Relatives" episode, there was only one sketch with both Les and
Abby as grandparents, but then we got the idea that Abby and Les
would work really well together with Abby playing Lance's mother.
That's where the other Grandma sketches came from. And of course,
Abby loved playing Grandma, because unlike Valerie, Grandma always
won!
What
were some of the scripts that you wrote for the show? How did you
come up with the topics?
"Fears,
Worries and Anxieties," "Music" and "Mysteries and Crimes" were
all topics I thought up myself. In each of those cases, I came up
with an idea for a set of links and then filled out the topic from
there. "Outer Space" and "Wildlife" originally started out as a
single script with the topic "Science" - but that one wasn't very
good and they'd just done their own "Science" episode, so I junked
it, salvaged the appropriate sketches and built new episodes around
them.
The others -
"Romance and Dating," "Know-It-Alls," "Poverty and Unemployment"
and "Publications" were all topics I chose from lists that Roger
gave me.
I
often hear about how a lot of TV producers are nightmares to work
around. Was this true about your relationship with Roger Price?
How about Geoffrey Darby? (Ed. note = What were the exact titles
of these two?)
Roger
Price's official title was "Producer," although he was also the
chief writer and (later on) a Director. I never worked with Geoffrey
Darby. By the time I arrived on the scene, he had moved to New York
and was working for Nickelodeon as an Executive Producer. Brenda
Mason had taken his place in Ottawa as Producer and Director.
Roger could
be difficult to work with at times, especially toward the end of
things when he was very obviously suffering from burnout. I often
found him to be somewhat distant, but that may just have been because
I was an intimidated college kid at the time. But Roger never acted
like the Hollywood monsters that everyone hears about.
What
is your opinion about the general direction of the show after you
left?
Hmmm...
How can I put it best? The thing I noticed about the show after
I left - and even before I left, actually - was that Roger was tending
to take on more and more responsibilities by himself. When he came
back and revived the show in 1989, he and Adam Reid were writing
all the scripts by themselves, and Roger was doing the directing
as well. As talented as Roger is, I don't think that loss of diversity
was very good for the overall quality of the show. Gags tended to
repeat themselves much more, and there wasn't as much room for surprises
as there had been in the earlier times.
One other thing,
though - there was one kid in the 1989 cast who had an on-screen
persona that I'm almost positive was Roger's depiction of me. Can't
remember his name, I'm afraid. It's been too long.
When
you look at the entire cast of the show's run, how do you rate the
cast that you had to work with?
I
think that "my cast" - and by that I mean the 1985 cast of Christine,
Lisa, Alasdair, Doug, Vanessa, Adam Kalbfleisch, Adam Reid, Eugene,
Justin, Marjorie, Stephanie, Les and Abby - was the best one they
had during any of the taping sessions. But then, I would think that,
wouldn't I?
Who
was your favorite cast member (acting-wise and to work with)? What
was your favorite episode?
Each
cast member had his or her good points. I liked them all, really.
But if I have to choose one, then I'd say that Alasdair was my favorite,
both acting-wise and to work with. And to hang out with when not
working, as well. His family put me up in their guestroom for the
last two weeks of my summer in 1985, and they took me to the Glengarry
Highland Games as well. He called my little sister on the phone,
too. That was fun.
My favorite
episode? Do you mean of mine or overall? At the time, I thought
"Romance and Dating" was the best show, on both counts. Looking
back, I think "Poverty and Unemployment" has held up the best since
the time that I wrote it. "Wildlife" is the one that changed the
least from my original version to the finished show. And "Know-It-Alls"
is special to me because the early drafts were really bad, and it
took three of us locked in a room for several days to hammer out
a decent version.
Overall, I'm
going to make a really strange choice and single out "Fairytales,
Myths and Legends" as an episode that was really special. Because
I know how much work went into making it, and how many different
people contributed to it along the way (some of whom, like yours
truly, didn't get credited in the end - not that I'm bitter or anything).
Mind you, though,
I'm only choosing that one for the sake of choosing one. There are
an awful lot of good ones out there.
When
you wrote a script, did you get to designate which kid played each
role, or did you just write the skit and the director chose the
actors?
I
designated which kid played each role, but that of course could
always be changed in rewrites. For example, Alanis wasn't in my
version of the "Music" episode, because she didn't join the cast
until after I wrote it. Roger put her in later.
What
have you been doing since your time with YCDTOTV?
Many,
many things.
I'm currently
the Director of ISO Quality Systems for DACOR, a manufacturer of
"high end" (aka "really expensive") household kitchen appliances
(if you're curious, check out our website at http://www.dacorappl.com).
That means I'm the person responsible for keeping the company in
compliance with the internationally recognized standard for Quality
Control known as ISO9001. It also means my life often looks more
like something out of "Dilbert" than out of YCDTOTV - except I have
to take it seriously.
I did make my
attempt to break into Hollywood. I made some contacts, got some
leads, had some agents read my work - but in the end I looked at
what breaking in was going to cost me from a personal and creative
standpoint and decided it was a price I didn't want to pay. I remember
the crucial moment quite clearly. I was listening to a talk by Gillian
Horvath, who was a script editor for Highlander at the time.
She said, "If you really, really care about the artistic integrity
of your work, don't go into television." At that point, it was like
the scales fell from my eyes and allowed me to see things clearly.
So... these
days I'm not quite sure where I'm going as a writer. I dabbled in
fan fiction about a year ago and produced a rather demented crossover
story called The Night of 100 Stars. If you're interested,
you can find it and some of my other stories at http://Slayerfanfic.com/Robert/robert.html.
Is
there anything else you'd like to add?
Just
that I'm amazed by how much interest YCDTOTV is still generating,
even after it's been off the air for many years now. And it's very
strange to think that you folks who watched the show as kids are
now the same age I was when I wrote for the show, and that you're
the ones who are creating these websites. I never dreamed I'd become
part of somebody's nostalgia - but I think it's pretty neat.
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