"Family Ties" Creator Gary David Goldberg 1944-2013

[Mr. Television]

Originally Posted by MacLeaper

I'm sorry to hear of Mr. Goldberg's death. He created one of my all time favorite shows ever- that being "Family Ties" of course.
I have also come to like his late '80s show "Day By Day" recently as well- I wish this one would get released to DVD- I'd love to watch more episodes of this.
May God bless and comfort Mr. Goldberg's family in this sad time.

Day by Day was a pretty good show that seems to be forgotten. It would be great if a DVD of that series would be released.

[principehomura]

[TMC]

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture...y-ties-America

Gary David Goldberg died this past weekend, just short of his 69th birthday, of a brain tumor. For anyone under the age of, say, 45, this sad news might raise a question: Gary David who?

This is a shame. Goldberg was one of America’s great comedy writers, a contributor to “M*A*S*H” and “The Bob Newhart Show,” creator of the political spoof “Spin City.” His greatest achievement, however, was “Family Ties,” the 1980s sitcom that remains one of the best TV comedies ever made.

“Family Ties” cast a young Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton, a money-obsessed, ultra-conservative kid born to devotedly liberal parents—a miniature Gordon Gekko in a middle-class commune. This was the show’s punch line.

Alex didn’t fit in. He wore monogrammed sweaters and swore allegiance to Ronald Reagan (reportedly a big fan of the show). He was given to saying things like: "People who have money don't need people." In one episode, he lectured a roomful of toddlers on taxes: "A terrible, hairy, liberal monster."

Mom: Alex was offended by our political magazines and ripped them up.

Alex: You have no proof.

Mom: Yes we do. We found your rattle on the floor next to the evidence.

Alex: It could have been [his sister] Mallory's.

Mom: It was your Nixon rattle.

This was a typical joke, played out via countless permutations during the show's eight-year run. “Do you think maybe he was switched at birth and the Rockefellers have our kid?” asked the dad. In the show’s last episode, with Alex about to leave home to go work in a New York investment bank, he shakes his father’s hand and says: “Goodbye, dad. Remember, you still owe me $74.50.” Then there was this exchange, which perfectly summed up the show’s essential premise:
Alex: The ’60s are over, dad.

Dad: Thanks for the tip.

“Family Ties” first came to American screens in 1982, a year after Reagan became president, a time when the liberalism of the 1960s and ’70s had finally imploded. Alex represented the new wave. He was young, brash, unwavering in his self-belief. His ex-hippie parents—well-meaning, peripheral—represented what was being left behind. In this sense, the show was a reflection of the American political landscape of the time—in all but one important detail.

Inevitably, a Christmas episode of the show (1983) presented an update of the Dickens classic, with Alex in the role of Scrooge. At the end, humbled, the boy rushes out to buy gifts for the family. Unable to find any stores open except a 7-Eleven, he returns home with a cup of coffee, a TV Guide, a six-pack of cough syrup. It’s a funny, sweet moment, and it captures an element of “Family Ties” that helped elevate it from diversion to something more important: No matter how much we sympathized with the parents, it was Alex we loved.

The early 1980s—more so than now, perhaps—was a time of apparently unbridgeable political division. The truly remarkable thing about “Family Ties” is that, while presenting us with outsized representatives of both camps, it never once took sides. The butt of the joke was not conservatism or liberalism, but the ideological divide itself. And within this fact was a promise of reconciliation. The Liz Lemon/Jack Donaghy dynamic on the late 30 Rock carries a similar promise, but for the most part, today, partisan warriors are content to lob bombs from either side of the barricade; Goldberg’s aim was to tear that barricade down.

In the end, this was not a story about what separates people, but about what binds them (look at the title). Given this starting point, it took a deft hand to ensure that audiences laughed rather than gagged. But Goldberg—aided by the flawless delivery of his cast members—had a knack for making even the sappiest of sentiments seem sardonic. Above all else, the show was unflaggingly, brilliantly funny.

In one episode, trying to wriggle his way out of doing household chores, Alex launches into a lengthy, mock-schmaltzy monologue about how, as the firstborn son, he will always enjoy a special bond with his mother. Mom’s response is to roll her eyes and tell him to get on with his chores. “The bond stretches,” Alex says, undaunted, “but it never breaks.”

[Mr. Television]

Here are some other tributes from his 2 hit shows.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...-576476?page=1


The Emmy-winning writer and producer, who died June 22 at age 68, drew tributes from the cast and writers of his biggest hits, "Family Ties" and "Spin City."

This story first appeared in the July 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Gary David Goldberg's Death: Hollywood Mourns 'Family Ties' Creator
'Family Ties' Creator Gary David Goldberg Dies at 68

Michael Gross
Castmember, Family Ties

I sent Gary a note as recently as last Friday. Meredith Baxter [who played Elyse Keaton] and I got together on Saturday to celebrate — we have the exact same birthday — and he was very much on our minds and our lips.

Everybody is replaceable in show business, but Family Ties could not have been done without Gary. He was the driving spirit. He told stories that were warm, generous and sympathetic. He had gravitas, but he also had humanity. He was extremely collaborative but had a strong point of view. He knew what he wanted and when he wasn’t getting it.



I came out of the theater, and Family Ties was my first sitcom. I didn’t know other sitcoms weren’t as funny or as well run as ours. I took it for granted. We all loved one another. That’s hard to find. Gary set the tone. I don’t think he had an ounce of tolerance for unpleasantness on the set because it got in the way of the creative process.

Gary was also very progressive in his thinking. He persuaded Paramount to open a child day-care center on the lot. That was the first one of its kind. I’ve also seen pictures of Gary on antiwar marches when he was a kid. So much of the liberal parents [on the show] were based on his life and his longtime companion, love and wife, Diana, whom he met in his college days. His college days were pretty short. He would always remind us he didn’t get a degree.

I remember a time in the first or second year of the series that he had an accident. He was badly injured off the coast in a boating accident. He had part of his chest pierced by the bow of a catamaran, if I remember correctly. We were in serious jeopardy. We didn’t know if we could carry on. He was the heart and the soul of the show. He didn’t miss many episodes, and even though he was home, he surveyed everything. He was constantly on the phone or sending a fax. He was supervising, even though he wasn’t there.

There was little contention on the show. He surrounded himself with people he liked and let them do their job. He was very sweet, too. Every Friday night, our line producer Carol Himes got a fresh gardenia corsage from Gary. Every Friday for 180 episodes. It’s difficult for me to smell a gardenia, even now, without thinking about Gary.


Michael J. Fox

With a full heart I say goodbye to my mentor, benefactor, partner, second father and beloved friend, Gary David Goldberg. He touched so many with his enormous talent and generous spirit. He changed my life profoundly.

Bruce Helford
Writer, Family Ties

I turned in a spec script to Family Ties in 1983, and they actually bought it! Shortly after, Gary brought me on as a story editor. I wasn’t a kid when I met him; I was closer to 30. But he did give me my first opportunity to write for television. I remember you had to be willing to take time to play basketball to be on his staff. Though I was short, so I usually stayed in the room and hung out while everyone else played. He was also a great believer in “fantasy chaining,” which is when you talk about everything in the writers room but the script and the ideas would bubble up while you were talking about other things. About writing he said, “Take time at the beginning of each script to get the audience oriented. The audience can’t laugh if they’re trying to figure things out.” That was something I always took to heart. He had such a great sense of storytelling; an amazing mind. He could take a script apart, and if the story wasn’t working, he’d take the metal brads out, put all the papers on a desk and rearrange them at super speed. He had a great sense of puzzle-solving. He was also one of the warmest people I’ve ever known. He hugged everybody. I was never a hugger, and I gave my dad a hug after that and he said, “What are you doing? We don’t hug!” And I said, “I do now!” He was also a very important part of my life when my dad died. I would say a lot, “Well, you know, he’d been sick ...” and Gary said, “Don’t skip any of the steps of grief. If something is ****ty, just say it’s ****ty, and don’t worry about putting a better face on it.” So for now I’ll just say: Gary’s passing is really ****ty.

Alan Ruck
Castmember, Spin City

I’m currently in Vancouver, where my wife [actress Mireille Enos] is filming The Killing, and about three weeks ago [Spin City co-star] Michael Boatman called me and said, “I’ve heard some news about Gary.” A few weeks later, Mireille and I were in New York for a premiere, and I got an e-mail from [Goldberg’s wife] Diana that said, “Gary is knocking on the door of the next world. ... We’d love to receive e-mails that have your memories, stories or thoughts.”

I quickly dashed off a note and two days later, Diana wrote back and said, “He sleeps a lot, but he’s smiling when I read the stories to him. Just know that he’s hearing your words.” We were all able to say our little goodbyes, and I’m very grateful for that.

Gary was my champion from the first time we met. When I auditioned for him and [Spin City co-creator] Bill Lawrence, they said, “We’d like to fly you to NYC to audition for Michael J. Fox” and somewhere in the interim, ABC asked, “Who are you looking at for some of these other parts?” Gary said, “Well, for Stuart we’re looking at Alan Ruck.” They said, “Yes, we know Alan, but this isn’t really the kind of part he plays.” Everybody has an opinion, right?

But Gary told them, “Yeah, we’re going to hire Alan.” The same thing happened with Michael Boatman’s part. From the beginning, he validated me like that. And when someone of that stature says, “I want you to be on my team,” it does something to your insides that you can’t describe.

I got very ill in the final season of Spin City. I was sick as a dog for two months and missed five shows, but Gary made sure I was paid for every one of them. He didn’t have to do that. The writers also went out of their way to mention me in those episodes. “Hey, where’s Stuart? Oh, he’s on vacation.” But I was bound and determined to make it to the final episode. I was still a little incapacitated, wasn’t walking well, and my legs were very weak.

But the writers were sweet and let me sit at my desk and gave me killer lines, really raunchy stuff to say to Heather [Locklear] and Charlie [Sheen]. And after that scene, Goldberg comes up to me, crying, and said, “That was so great!” and gave me a big kiss.

That was Gary.


Bill Lawrence

Even with all of Gary’s amazing professional accomplishments — the TV shows, movies, awards — they are nothing compared to how great a guy he was. I will forever consider myself lucky to be one of the many, many people whose lives he changed for the better.

Connie Britton
Castmember, Spin City

Gary gave me my first opportunity to do a big part in a TV show, and one of his many great qualities was that he loved to give people chances. He was never judgmental and always wanted to see inside, to who you really were. I remember in my final audition for Spin City — Michael J. Fox was there too — I will never forget Gary’s face; he had this giddy smile on the whole time, as if to say, “Yeah, you can do this, girl!” I learned so much from him. How lucky was I?

It’s funny; I never thought of Gary as being a guy who worked “in the business.” He became a family member to everyone he let in his life. He also made an impact in the outside world. He was an amazing father and husband; he and Diana were really beacons of exemplary parenting. To be those things and also remarkable in this business? To me, that’s someone who’s truly a hero.

Allan Burns
Co-creator of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant, which Goldberg co-produced

When you look at the shows Gary made, they’re all about decency and good people. The humor is never forced; it’s always totally believable. Most of all, Gary was smart as hell and could really make you laugh.

Mike Royce
Warm-up comedian, writer, Spin City

I was the in-house comic for Spin City from about 1997 to 1999. Normally you just try to make the audience laugh before the show, and if you don’t, you get fired. But Gary and Bill [Lawrence] went out of their way to make me feel like part of the family. I remember once I ended up having to do two hours of materials — that particular episode took a long time to tape — which happens sometimes.

Then, three days later, I got an envelope with a check for $500 from Gary’s personal checking account. As a struggling comic, that was my biggest paycheck in a while. Holy ****! He was such a generous guy, he had this great big laugh; the show was simply a nice place to be because of him. I ended up writing a script for the show, which was the first script I ever wrote. Gary helped me get my first big break writing for TV, and for that I’m eternally grateful.

[Family Ties Forever!]

Nice tributes.

[Mr. Television]

http://deadspin.com/nostalgia-done-r...gave-612326392

"Brooklyn Bridge" child star recalls Gary David Goldberg


tribute

by DANNY LANZETTA

Nostalgia Done Right: The Family Ties Creator Who Gave Me A Shot

In the summer of 1991, I was sitting next to my sister in the back seat of my parents' Toyota Previa, reading a book about Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World." We were driving across country because my parents were afraid to fly, Hopewell Junction, N.Y., to Los Angeles, California, where I was going to become the next Michael J. Fox.

I'd been sent the book by Gary David Goldberg, the creator of the television series Family Ties, who died last week of brain cancer. The show initially focused on two hippie parents but eventually came to center on Fox's smarmy young Republican, Alex P. Keaton. After a rather whirlwind audition process, I was cast as Alan Silver, the dashing, athletic, impossibly smart young man at the center of Gary's newest show, Brooklyn Bridge, which chronicled his Jewish upbringing in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Though Nathaniel, Alan's younger brother, was the chronologically correct version of Gary (the show began in the early '50s, when he would've been 8), it was clear my character was Gary the teenager, navigating the shoals of adolescence while under the influence of his domineering but ultimately doting Grandma Sophie (played by Marion Ross).

Family Ties made Gary Goldberg very rich and very famous. But you got the feeling that everything in his career was leading up to Brooklyn Bridge. The show spared no expense. We were routinely over budget and past deadline because of Gary's (and his creative team's) maniacal attention to detail. Brooklyn Bridge was CBS's most expensive show and, in a time when Nielsen ratings were paramount, one of its least productive. Somehow, we were allowed to make 35 episodes, a testament to the belief the network had in Gary's vision to recreate the nostalgic fantasyland of his childhood. Judging the aesthetics of Brooklyn Bridge in the context of a modern period piece like Mad Men doesn't do our show justice. By 1991's standards, Brooklyn Bridge was top-of-the-line when it came to authentically conjuring another place and time.

Perhaps because of how personal Brooklyn Bridge was to him, Gary and I were never particularly close. He was always very cordial, and my family once spent a weekend at his ranch in Vermont along with a number of other cast members. But the relationship seemed mostly circumstantial. Fox called Gary a "mentor" in a statement about his death. Gary was not a mentor to me. When he was on the set, he was aloof, occasionally taciturn, and there was always a bit of wariness among the cast and crew, which happened to vanish when he wasn't directly overseeing production. (Perhaps that's the case with all showrunners, though it didn't really jibe with what I'd heard about him before production began.) I don't have a lot of memories of interactions with Gary because most of the time they were muted, brief. I was far closer with the other writers and directors. I do remember occasionally playing impromptu pickup games on his specially designed basketball court in a corner of the Paramount lot. He had bad knees, so he wasn't playing as much as he used to or would have liked.

Mostly, though, I remember wanting to make him laugh. Whenever he was on set for a rehearsal, or a table reading, I wanted to hear his chubby chuckle. It meant I'd delivered the dialogue perfectly—dialogue he had often written. It was a point of pride, and, quite honestly, a relief.

Nostalgia Done Right: The Family Ties Creator Who Gave Me A Shot

Reading reminiscences in the days following his death, I had totally forgotten that Gary created Spin City after our show went off the air, a success that presumably helped ease the pain of Brooklyn Bridge's failure. But though I had very little contact with him after our cancellation in 1993, I have a feeling that Gary never really recovered. He was bitter at the network for all the time-slot shuffling, was convinced we hadn't been given a proper chance to succeed. Whether that's true or not, Brooklyn Bridge was the full flower of Gary's artistic sensibility, his "auteur" moment. And despite glowing critical praise, the public rejected it. One likely doesn't ever fully recover from that—not creatively, anyway.

The New York Times obituary called Gary a "writer and producer who created warmhearted television shows." Normally, I wouldn't view such a description as a recommendation. But Fox recently called attention to Gary's impeccable ear for a gentle, observational humor that was incisive without being mean-spirited: "A line like, ‘Why are there two milks open in the fridge?' You could tell it was from Gary, so well observed without being trite or sappy." The recollection made me think of our pilot, when Grandma Sophie wants to know what Alan would like for dinner over the next several days so she can defrost the meat. Alan observes wryly that perhaps she also wants to know what he'd like to eat "a week from Tuesday." That was Gary at the peak of his powers, able to strike in a brief exchange the right notes of absurdity and devotion, at once sweet and exhausting, that is the essence of the overbearing Jewish—or Italian, or Irish—grandmother.

Something else Fox said in the same article, shortly before Gary died, struck me as well. "Gary is one of those guys who has no guile in him." No guile? Really? Surely he's exaggerating. Everyone has to have at least a little guile, right? Especially among the piranhas of Hollywood. But whether or not Fox's statement is literally true, the spirit is not lost. Brooklyn Bridge was a very earnest show, almost too earnest at times. But that earnestness emanated not from the treacle of typical sitcom tropes, but from Gary's foundation of family, loyalty and baseball. Throw in the residue of his '60s-era dissent and the result was a show that felt fresh and, well, yes, warmhearted. Brooklyn Bridge wasn't lazy schmaltz. It was truly the life Gary lived because Gary didn't grow up in TV. He grew up in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Bridge belongs to the part of my life that almost feels like it didn't happen. I certainly didn't become the next Michael J. Fox. But Gary's legacy, for me, is an appreciation for the healthy uses of nostalgia, as both a comforting reflex and a melancholy diversion. Nostalgia can be an easy trap for television writers who are content not to challenge audiences, who serve up sanitized characters and familiar TV situations. Brooklyn Bridge was sweet, but it wasn't familiar, which is why critics liked it and why it probably failed. The nostalgia of Brooklyn Bridge was earned because it was overseen by Gary and his tender, tireless approach to the material, not by a cynical scribe-for-hire. And though our show didn't get a chance to fully realize his vision, Gary taught me that the things we remember are beautiful and difficult and elusive, and that they deserve care when we unearth them.

Ebbets Field is now an apartment complex. Gary is gone. Nostalgia helps keep them both alive. Sometimes, it's OK to be sentimental. For a little while, at least, Brooklyn Bridge allowed Gary David Goldberg a genuine glimpse of his past. I'm glad I was a part of it.

Danny Lanzetta's most recent novel is called Gadfly. He is currently working on his third book. He is also a spoken word artist, a professor of writing, and a degenerate Knicks fan. You can see/hear/read his ravings at dannylanzetta.com.

[simmytbone]

Gary David Goldberg also Co-Created and Co-Produced the short lived NBC Sitcom called Sara Starring a young Geena Davis of the films Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own and Stuart Little (which ironically features the voice of Michael J. Fox), Alfre Woodard of TV's St. Elsewhere and I'll Fly Away, Bill Maher of abc's Politically Incorrect, Musician Mark Hudson, Bronson Pinchot of TV's Perfect Strangers, Ronnie Claire Edwards of the short-lived NBC Drama Boone and Matthew Lawrence of TV's Boy Meets World and the real life brother of Joey Lawrence who also co-starred with Matthew and Andrew Lawrence in Brotherly Love

Sara was set in a San Francisco Legal Aid office and featured one of the earliest regular gay characters on an American television series (Dennis Kemper, played by Pinchot).

Although the series was critically well-received, it was scheduled opposite Dynasty, which was then the most popular series on the air. Sara failed to attract an audience and was cancelled after 13 episodes, although NBC did re-air the series in 1988. According to TVTango.com's ratings database, Sara ranked 48th out of 104 programs that aired during the 1984-85 season, with an average household rating of 14.44.

The theme to Sara was composed by Famed Jazz Saxophonist Tom Scott who also did music for Family Ties as well as the short lived Pat Sajak Show and most notably, Seasons 2 & 4 of the popular abc Cop Show Starsky & Hutch

The series was also Videotaped @ NBC Studios Burbank, CA which was also the home to Punky Brewster, $ale of the Century, Wheel of Fortune, SCRABBLE, Super Password, Days of our Lives and The Tonight Show w/the late Johnny Carson

Here's the opening and the closing to the series

The Opening w/the NBC Bumper


The Closing w/NBC Voiceover