Sherwood Schwartz and the number 89

[James]

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Schwartz

Sherwood Schwartz, producer of The Brady Bunch, is 89 years young today (Monday)!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHERWOOD !!!

[gilligan fanatic]

Happy Birthday Mr Schwartz.

He is such a great person. I wrote him a letter and he wrote me back with a nice letter and many autographed pictures. I sent him a thank you and he even wrote me back again. Such a great person who gets very little notice. He needs a star on the walk of fame.

[Tweety]

Originally Posted by gilligan fanatic

Happy Birthday Mr Schwartz.

He is such a great person. I wrote him a letter and he wrote me back with a nice letter and many autographed pictures. I sent him a thank you and he even wrote me back again. Such a great person who gets very little notice. He needs a star on the walk of fame.

You're kidding? No star for Sherwood?? That's a disgrace! If Vanna White and Judge Judy are there (they will be next year, I just checked), and not Sherwood, something is wrong!

[gilligan fanatic]

Originally Posted by Tweety

You're kidding? No star for Sherwood?? That's a disgrace! If Vanna White and Judge Judy are there (they will be next year, I just checked), and not Sherwood, something is wrong!

I know, its plain awful. He has written for the greats like Bob Hope and Red Skelton. He was in the Armed Forces Radio Network. He won an Emmy for Red Skelton in 1961. He saved My Favorite Marian from cancelation. He wrote for Ozzie and Harriet on radio. And also created the two most syndicated shows of all time And even wrote the theme songs. And its not just all that he has been married to his wife since 1941.

[mykel]

Are you people KIDDING me?

That old fart should use his MILLIONS to ensure that NOT ONE of the actors, including Florence and Ann, should EVER have to work for a living AGAIN.

I hope he rots in Hell for cheating the kids out of potential millions.

Mykel

[gilligan fanatic]

Originally Posted by mykel

Are you people KIDDING me?

That old fart should use his MILLIONS to ensure that NOT ONE of the actors, including Florence and Ann, should EVER have to work for a living AGAIN.

I hope he rots in Hell for cheating the kids out of potential millions.

Mykel

get out of here. you are terrible and you deserve to go to hell for saying that about him IMHO. Sherwood Schwartz is a great guy who donates a lot of his money and is real good to his fans. I am sure the Florence Henderson is not poor. Also its not Sherwoods fault about the money its ABC's. He did not cheat anybody. Just get out of here and don't come back.

[snl 70s show fan]

happy birthday sherwood and thanks for giving us so many great shows

[mykel]

Just get out of here and don't come back.

No.

If you cared about the kids, like my gay idol, Bob Reed did, you'd demand more from Schwartz, who sits nice and pretty, rakin' in the dough, while Ann stays in a group home, for Heaven's sake, Maureen takes the rare acting job, Eve has to sell paintings, Barry and Susan have to host radio shows and Mike does camera work.

Chris is only doing well by virtue of his computer sales work.

Those kids deserve to reap a great big chunk of the millions and millions of dollars old Sherwood and Paramount gets.

Or do you think they should have to continue working for crumbs?

Well? Do you?

Mykel

[gilligan fanatic]

kid actors have never been paid a lot. Once again it is not Sherwood Schwartz's fault. I don't mind you saying the kids should have gotten more but don't say bad things about Sherwood Schwartz.

[Tweety]

Originally Posted by gilligan fanatic

kid actors have never been paid a lot. Once again it is not Sherwood Schwartz's fault. I don't mind you saying the kids should have gotten more but don't say bad things about Sherwood Schwartz.

I agree... it is unfortunate that people (kids and adults) who played characters on popular shows years ago don't get to benefit as much as one would think from their work...most of the time, actors get paid to portray a role for a period of time, and then that's it... it was probably sort of standard to be paid for the original network broadcast, and then probably for the first few reruns of the show, but that's where the character/show owner's obligation ends, from a legal standpoint... morally, it's a whole other question...

Actors, for the most part, don't "own" the characters they play. That's true of adults as well as children. Adam West did not "own" the Batman character, even though he was the first (and the best) to portray the role on TV and movies. I also seem to recall that Clayton Moore, who of course played "The Lone Ranger" in the '50s TV Series, was told (later in life) that he could not make personal appearances as the "Ranger", and the reason was because he did not own the character he played for so long. He'd been making a modest living by making appearances as the Lone Ranger during the later years of his life before he passed away...

I don't know, or follow, all the legalities involved in situations like this...but the way I see it, a TV character is nothing more than something to be "owned", like a car or a house... and whoever "owns" a particular character, by virtue of copyright or trademark, is the only person/entity who is legally entitled to make money off of that character.

Another example...If Jerry Mathers doesn't "own" the character trademark of Theodore Cleaver (and I'm sure he doesn't), he (unfortunately) doesn't have a right to any of the money being made from the reruns/DVD sales of "Leave It To Beaver". If he can negotiate something with the people who do own the character, good for him...otherwise, he's out of luck...

Unfortunate? Yes... but unfortunately true...

[erin05]

sherwood schwartz rocks! happy birthday lol. but (and please dont jump down my throat at this, its nothing personal towards him) i disagree with his idea to make 'the real gilligans island'. but still, he is a great person and should definetly have a star on the walk thing

[gilligan fanatic]

Originally Posted by erin05

sherwood schwartz rocks! happy birthday lol. but (and please dont jump down my throat at this, its nothing personal towards him) i disagree with his idea to make 'the real gilligans island'. but still, he is a great person and should definetly have a star on the walk thing

you should come to the GI board. All of us there hate the Real Gilligan's Island.

[sixfingers]

Originally Posted by mykel

Are you people KIDDING me?

That old fart should use his MILLIONS to ensure that NOT ONE of the actors, including Florence and Ann, should EVER have to work for a living AGAIN.

I hope he rots in Hell for cheating the kids out of potential millions.

Mykel

Susan Olsen said she was tired of hearing about childhood actors bellyaching about how their lives were ruined because they were lucky enough to be on a popular sitcom. She stated that although the cast of BB didn't go on to have stellar acting careers they were all very successful people.

But putting that aside, It was common practice for actors to receive payment for only the first 7 to 11 times an episode was shown and to get very little if anything from merchandising.

The cast of Star Trek got very little from the initial run and nothing from syndication. They didn't start raking in the dough until they started making movies, and then only from the movies.

Things are different now, however. Contracts give far more money up front and often grant a generous share of merchandising revenues and even residuals.

Schwartz and the studio took risks with a show that didn't perform well in the intial run and managed to keep it going against the odds for five seasons. They deserved to reap the benefit of its success in syndication.

If you want to judge them then compare the deals the Brady actors got to deals that other actors got at the time, contemporary contracts aren't a fair comparison.

When they Brady actors were doing the show they didn't expect to make a bunch of money from syndication. To the extent that they have made money from reunion shows, interviews, various specials and books it could be said they have profited from syndication, and deserve what they've gotten.

History is full of people who cashed in on their fame as well as those who didn't. The Olsen twins, for example, does anybody really believe we would ever have heard of them if they hadn't been on Full House? On the other hand, how about Mark Spitz?

[Johnny be good!]

Actually Sherwood is 91 now.

[Tweety]

Originally Posted by sixfingers

...Schwartz and the studio took risks with a show that didn't perform well in the intial run and managed to keep it going against the odds for five seasons. They deserved to reap the benefit of its success in syndication...

That's exactly right, and that's one of the least understood things about TV and syndication/reruns.

The actors who played on the BB did not invest in the show. They were employees, and as such, were entitled to whatever payments they could negotiate for the show's initial run as well as reruns...

The show going into syndication is kind of a similar situation to employees vs. investors when ANY company sells. When a bank sells, for example, the people who put their money at risk to start up the bank are the ones who will benefit when the bank sells... the employees will only benefit from the sale if they actually own stock in the bank. (I use banks as an example because they're always being bought and sold).

it's the same with the BB property. The people that should profit from the "sale" of the show into syndication (and DVDs etc) are the people who took the risk and invested in the show to begin with...not the "employees". The actors themselves didn't really take any "risk", other than starting out working on a show that may or may not make it (just like everyone else who goes to work as an actor on a new show).

It's producers who take 100% of the risk in putting a TV show together...it's THEIR money.

It does seem to me that, overall, the Brady kids have done pretty well for themselves. A couple of kids ran into problems, but they're all still around and most are doing what they want to do.

Yes, the kids on the show brought a lot of fun and enjoyment to fans of the show over the last (nearly) 40 years, but they were just doing a job...a great job, to be sure, but still, a job.

Yeah, you wish that the kids could have made more off of their efforts, but that's the way Hollywood is... Schwartz has certainly kept the BB franchise alive for all these years, and he's given the actors a chance to keep cashing in on their efforts. Maybe it's not as much as we'd like to see them make, but Schwartz probably takes "better care" of his former actors than most producers do.