Becker article from The New York Times (Dec. 12 1999) - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Skywalker · 04-10-2008, 11:40 PM

Aging and Grumpy but With a Bit of Sam Malone
By ANDY MEISLER
Published: December 12, 1999

THE food at the corner coffee shop, albeit cooked and served by a comely ex-model, is terrible. Parking in the Bronx is bad and getting worse. Every car on the street is a rolling rap concert.

Whining hypochondriacs live stubbornly into their 90's; sweet-faced inner-city children waste away from H.I.V. You can center a sitcom on an egotistical, self-righteous misanthrope, if he's played by a famous actor associated with a well-loved comic character in his past.

In short, the world is nasty, brutish and almost totally unfair. God -- whether you believe in him or not -- almost inevitably acts in an irritatingly inscrutable manner, and all of the above, serious and frivolous, fairly comprehensively sums up the concept, execution and comedic underpinnings of the most unconventional and underpublicized hit comedy on the air today.

''He's the most flawed character I've ever written,'' says David Hackel, proudly, of Dr. John Becker, the middle-aged lead character played by Ted Danson, the ex-''Cheers'' matinee idol whose sitcom star seemed permanently eclipsed after the failure of his heavily promoted ''Ink'' in 1996. Becker is a politically incorrect malcontent with no real counterpart in today's youth-obsessed sitcom world.

Positioned neatly at 9:30 p.m. on Mondays on CBS behind the hit ''Everybody Loves Raymond,'' ''Becker'' the show regularly finishes in the Nielsen top 20 and has become what Mr. Hackel, a 51-year-old veteran sitcom writer and producer, a bit nervously calls a ''stealth'' success.

''CBS has to be very happy with it,'' says Tim Spengler, executive vice president in charge of national broadcasting for Western International Media, a Los Angeles media management company. ''It drops off only one share point from its hit lead-in, which in this day and age is very good.''

What the ''Becker'' audience seems to be responding to is Mr. Danson's portrayal of a man who, for pure irascibility, recalls bygone characters like ''Taxi's'' noisome dispatcher Louie De Palma and Bill Bittinger, the scabrous talk show host of NBC's short-lived ''Buffalo Bill.''

During an interview in his Paramount Studios office, Mr. Hackel described Becker this way: ''He has clear attitudes about things. You may not agree with them, I may not agree with them, but when he speaks, everybody listens.

''I think he is an unhappy person, but not all the time. I think he is a very frustrated person, and sometimes depressed. I think he is also one of those guys who sometimes thinks the rules are for everyone else besides him. He is not a consistent character, and he is often dead wrong. But by being consistent and wrong, I contend that he is the most human character I've ever written.''

To be precise, John Becker is a twice-divorced general practitioner with a lower- and lower-middle-class Bronx practice, and -- astounding for a sitcom character -- a car and an apartment considerably junkier and dingier, respectively, then the ones he would probably own and inhabit in real life.

Becker usually opens each episode with one of his trademark jeremiads against some form of societal absurdity or injustice, real or imagined.

For example: ''Parents are too permissive. Today, you let the kid cry; 10 years from now, he's running a chain of crooked lemonade stands. Next thing you know, he's got a gun in my back at an A.T.M.'' Or: ''The only people dumber than talk radio listeners are talk radio callers. It's an entire audience made up of the infirm, the unemployed and the insane.''

Becker's outbursts are usually met with scorn or censure by the supporting characters, including Margaret (Hattie Winston), his efficient nurse and office manager; Linda (Shawnee Smith), the dingbat receptionist; Reggie (Terry Farrell), the model-turned-hash-slinger with whom he has a warily platonic relationship, and Jake (Alex Desert), a blind newsstand operator with whom he has the closest thing to a male friendship.

The plots are basically extensions of Becker's peevish tics and obsessions. In one episode he insists on his right to call an Asian-American motorist he has collided with a bad driver. In another, after being shot during a robbery, he's as rude to the female emergency physician treating him as he normally is to his own patients; in another he deals with a woman excessively grateful to him for saving her life (''Jesus sent you to me!'') as if she were a crazed stalker.

In the end, of course, Becker's basic decency is reluctantly revealed. In the episodes above he (1) eventually convinces everybody that he was simply venting his spleen at bad drivers in general, (2) starts an awkward, prickly love affair with the E.R. doctor and (3) discovers to his embarrassment that the grateful woman is a Roman Catholic nun in mufti.

Along the way, too often to be accidental, Becker and his colleagues discuss a matter not often dwelt upon in sitcoms: the presence or absence of a Supreme Being.

''We do debate God's existence,'' says Mr. Hackel. ''The existence of a sort of greater good, of an arbiter of right or wrong.'' The main combatants are Margaret, a devout Christian who insists that Becker and his healing powers are a gift from God, and Becker, who protests shrilly that nobody or nothing could be at the helm of such a messed-up world.

In one episode, a supposedly psychotic shoe salesman (played by the comedian Steven Wright) comes to Becker's examination room and says he often hears the voice of God -- who goes by the name Larry. Becker refers the patient to a psychiatrist, who silences the voice with drugs, but in the end the salesman confesses to Becker that he has stopped taking his medication, because he misses Larry's advice.

In another episode, Becker angrily shakes his fist at the sky (for reasons too complex to recount here) and declares that ''they'' are out to get him. ''That's interesting,'' Margaret says acidly. ''You're being persecuted by a God you don't believe in.''

Mr. Hackel admits readily that a character as abrasive and unlikable as Becker is almost by definition unsuitable as a sitcom figurehead. And that only Mr. Danson's skills as an actor -- plus the reservoir of audience good will he built up playing Sam Malone, the charming ladies' man of ''Cheers'' -- made ''Becker'' a viable comedic vehicle.

Over coffee at a West Los Angeles restaurant, Mr. Danson agrees with the second part of that theory.

''The baggage I bring to anything new after 11 years of 'Cheers' is that Ted is a nice guy,'' he says. ''I think that there is a comfort zone I bring to the part that allowed me a bit more time to establish this character.''

''Sam Malone and Becker have something in common also,'' he adds. ''Both are lonely men, very lonely.''

Mr. Danson, now 51, says he is pleasantly surprised to be able to shake off old typecasting and establish a new sitcom character, especially after ''Ink,'' the much hyped and reworked CBS project in which he played a swaggering newspaper columnist still in love with his ex-wife and editor (his real-life wife, Mary Steenburgen).

''My theory about that one,'' says Mr. Danson, ''is that if you're not a stand-up comedian -- a Cosby or a Seinfeld -- it's a mistake to hire people to find your comedic voice, which is what happened. What we are is actors, and what we need to do is find somebody else's passionate self-expression and then ask very nicely if we can be in it.''

Mr. Danson adds that after the demise of ''Ink'' (after one season) he was extremely pessimistic about ever returning to sitcoms. ''We still totally believe in him as a TV star,'' says Leslie Moonves, president of CBS Television, ''but after 'Ink' went off we'd sent him a number of things that he rejected. There was a real chance he wouldn't be coming back.''

Meanwhile Mr. Hackel, after stints on shows like ''Webster'' and ''Wings'' and as a consultant on ''Frasier,'' decided to take a chance and develop a sitcom about a spokesman for political incorrectness. It eventually became ''Becker.''

Mr. Danson (and Ms. Steenburgen, he adds) saw the role as an interesting challenge for him. CBS planned to introduce the show in January 1999 but rushed it onto the air in November 1998 in place of the quickly canceled ''Brian Benben Show.''

In the lee of ''Everybody Loves Raymond,'' ''Becker'' quietly prospered and, according to Mr. Moonves, is a cinch for renewal. As for Mr. Danson, he notes with some satisfaction that although he is still usually hailed on the street with cries of ''Sam Malone!'' he has heard a ''Becker!'' or two recently.

''Another thing I like,'' he says, ''is that I play my real age.'' But that's not all he has in common with Becker, Mr. Danson admits. In the last few years, he says, he has ''become a little bit more judgmental.''

''It's the little stuff I have opinions on, about nearly everything,'' he explains, but not about the big issues. ''And you can ask my fellow actors, you can ask my wife, it flips across my face with less charm the older I get.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...+Danson&st=nyt

Janice · 04-11-2008, 01:04 AM

That's an excellent article. Spot on too! Thanks for posting.

The author nailed Becker's character down perfectly. Becker's a great show, and underrated, in my opinion.

Skywalker · 04-12-2008, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janice

That's an excellent article. Spot on too! Thanks for posting.

The author nailed Becker's character down perfectly. Becker's a great show, and underrated, in my opinion.

You're welcome.

Very underrated. I just wish it hadn't took me so long to realize that though.

I never appreciated this show when it was originally on. I started watching it during it's last season and really didn't think the show was anything special. It's never a good idea to start watching a show when it's in it's last season, especially when a few of the supporting characters that were there when the show was considered to be at it's best are gone(Bob and Reggie).

I found out it was airing on USA about a month ago and thought I'd give it another chance and I'm glad I did because it really is a great show and has quickly become one of my favorites.

thetornado · 04-12-2008, 02:16 AM

I like becker it is one of my favorite sitcoms of the late 90's!

04-10-2008, 11:40 PM	#1
Skywalker Member Forum Fanatic Join Date: Apr 04, 2003 Posts: 14,205	Becker article from The New York Times (Dec. 12 1999) Aging and Grumpy but With a Bit of Sam Malone By ANDY MEISLER Published: December 12, 1999 THE food at the corner coffee shop, albeit cooked and served by a comely ex-model, is terrible. Parking in the Bronx is bad and getting worse. Every car on the street is a rolling rap concert. Whining hypochondriacs live stubbornly into their 90's; sweet-faced inner-city children waste away from H.I.V. You can center a sitcom on an egotistical, self-righteous misanthrope, if he's played by a famous actor associated with a well-loved comic character in his past. In short, the world is nasty, brutish and almost totally unfair. God -- whether you believe in him or not -- almost inevitably acts in an irritatingly inscrutable manner, and all of the above, serious and frivolous, fairly comprehensively sums up the concept, execution and comedic underpinnings of the most unconventional and underpublicized hit comedy on the air today. ''He's the most flawed character I've ever written,'' says David Hackel, proudly, of Dr. John Becker, the middle-aged lead character played by Ted Danson, the ex-''Cheers'' matinee idol whose sitcom star seemed permanently eclipsed after the failure of his heavily promoted ''Ink'' in 1996. Becker is a politically incorrect malcontent with no real counterpart in today's youth-obsessed sitcom world. Positioned neatly at 9:30 p.m. on Mondays on CBS behind the hit ''Everybody Loves Raymond,'' ''Becker'' the show regularly finishes in the Nielsen top 20 and has become what Mr. Hackel, a 51-year-old veteran sitcom writer and producer, a bit nervously calls a ''stealth'' success. ''CBS has to be very happy with it,'' says Tim Spengler, executive vice president in charge of national broadcasting for Western International Media, a Los Angeles media management company. ''It drops off only one share point from its hit lead-in, which in this day and age is very good.'' What the ''Becker'' audience seems to be responding to is Mr. Danson's portrayal of a man who, for pure irascibility, recalls bygone characters like ''Taxi's'' noisome dispatcher Louie De Palma and Bill Bittinger, the scabrous talk show host of NBC's short-lived ''Buffalo Bill.'' During an interview in his Paramount Studios office, Mr. Hackel described Becker this way: ''He has clear attitudes about things. You may not agree with them, I may not agree with them, but when he speaks, everybody listens. ''I think he is an unhappy person, but not all the time. I think he is a very frustrated person, and sometimes depressed. I think he is also one of those guys who sometimes thinks the rules are for everyone else besides him. He is not a consistent character, and he is often dead wrong. But by being consistent and wrong, I contend that he is the most human character I've ever written.'' To be precise, John Becker is a twice-divorced general practitioner with a lower- and lower-middle-class Bronx practice, and -- astounding for a sitcom character -- a car and an apartment considerably junkier and dingier, respectively, then the ones he would probably own and inhabit in real life. Becker usually opens each episode with one of his trademark jeremiads against some form of societal absurdity or injustice, real or imagined. For example: ''Parents are too permissive. Today, you let the kid cry; 10 years from now, he's running a chain of crooked lemonade stands. Next thing you know, he's got a gun in my back at an A.T.M.'' Or: ''The only people dumber than talk radio listeners are talk radio callers. It's an entire audience made up of the infirm, the unemployed and the insane.'' Becker's outbursts are usually met with scorn or censure by the supporting characters, including Margaret (Hattie Winston), his efficient nurse and office manager; Linda (Shawnee Smith), the dingbat receptionist; Reggie (Terry Farrell), the model-turned-hash-slinger with whom he has a warily platonic relationship, and Jake (Alex Desert), a blind newsstand operator with whom he has the closest thing to a male friendship. The plots are basically extensions of Becker's peevish tics and obsessions. In one episode he insists on his right to call an Asian-American motorist he has collided with a bad driver. In another, after being shot during a robbery, he's as rude to the female emergency physician treating him as he normally is to his own patients; in another he deals with a woman excessively grateful to him for saving her life (''Jesus sent you to me!'') as if she were a crazed stalker. In the end, of course, Becker's basic decency is reluctantly revealed. In the episodes above he (1) eventually convinces everybody that he was simply venting his spleen at bad drivers in general, (2) starts an awkward, prickly love affair with the E.R. doctor and (3) discovers to his embarrassment that the grateful woman is a Roman Catholic nun in mufti. Along the way, too often to be accidental, Becker and his colleagues discuss a matter not often dwelt upon in sitcoms: the presence or absence of a Supreme Being. ''We do debate God's existence,'' says Mr. Hackel. ''The existence of a sort of greater good, of an arbiter of right or wrong.'' The main combatants are Margaret, a devout Christian who insists that Becker and his healing powers are a gift from God, and Becker, who protests shrilly that nobody or nothing could be at the helm of such a messed-up world. In one episode, a supposedly psychotic shoe salesman (played by the comedian Steven Wright) comes to Becker's examination room and says he often hears the voice of God -- who goes by the name Larry. Becker refers the patient to a psychiatrist, who silences the voice with drugs, but in the end the salesman confesses to Becker that he has stopped taking his medication, because he misses Larry's advice. In another episode, Becker angrily shakes his fist at the sky (for reasons too complex to recount here) and declares that ''they'' are out to get him. ''That's interesting,'' Margaret says acidly. ''You're being persecuted by a God you don't believe in.'' Mr. Hackel admits readily that a character as abrasive and unlikable as Becker is almost by definition unsuitable as a sitcom figurehead. And that only Mr. Danson's skills as an actor -- plus the reservoir of audience good will he built up playing Sam Malone, the charming ladies' man of ''Cheers'' -- made ''Becker'' a viable comedic vehicle. Over coffee at a West Los Angeles restaurant, Mr. Danson agrees with the second part of that theory. ''The baggage I bring to anything new after 11 years of 'Cheers' is that Ted is a nice guy,'' he says. ''I think that there is a comfort zone I bring to the part that allowed me a bit more time to establish this character.'' ''Sam Malone and Becker have something in common also,'' he adds. ''Both are lonely men, very lonely.'' Mr. Danson, now 51, says he is pleasantly surprised to be able to shake off old typecasting and establish a new sitcom character, especially after ''Ink,'' the much hyped and reworked CBS project in which he played a swaggering newspaper columnist still in love with his ex-wife and editor (his real-life wife, Mary Steenburgen). ''My theory about that one,'' says Mr. Danson, ''is that if you're not a stand-up comedian -- a Cosby or a Seinfeld -- it's a mistake to hire people to find your comedic voice, which is what happened. What we are is actors, and what we need to do is find somebody else's passionate self-expression and then ask very nicely if we can be in it.'' Mr. Danson adds that after the demise of ''Ink'' (after one season) he was extremely pessimistic about ever returning to sitcoms. ''We still totally believe in him as a TV star,'' says Leslie Moonves, president of CBS Television, ''but after 'Ink' went off we'd sent him a number of things that he rejected. There was a real chance he wouldn't be coming back.'' Meanwhile Mr. Hackel, after stints on shows like ''Webster'' and ''Wings'' and as a consultant on ''Frasier,'' decided to take a chance and develop a sitcom about a spokesman for political incorrectness. It eventually became ''Becker.'' Mr. Danson (and Ms. Steenburgen, he adds) saw the role as an interesting challenge for him. CBS planned to introduce the show in January 1999 but rushed it onto the air in November 1998 in place of the quickly canceled ''Brian Benben Show.'' In the lee of ''Everybody Loves Raymond,'' ''Becker'' quietly prospered and, according to Mr. Moonves, is a cinch for renewal. As for Mr. Danson, he notes with some satisfaction that although he is still usually hailed on the street with cries of ''Sam Malone!'' he has heard a ''Becker!'' or two recently. ''Another thing I like,'' he says, ''is that I play my real age.'' But that's not all he has in common with Becker, Mr. Danson admits. In the last few years, he says, he has ''become a little bit more judgmental.'' ''It's the little stuff I have opinions on, about nearly everything,'' he explains, but not about the big issues. ''And you can ask my fellow actors, you can ask my wife, it flips across my face with less charm the older I get.'' http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...+Danson&st=nyt

04-11-2008, 01:04 AM	#2
Janice Retired Admin - Hollywood Swingin' Forum Legend Join Date: Aug 03, 2001 Location: Beantown Posts: 36,389	That's an excellent article. Spot on too! Thanks for posting. The author nailed Becker's character down perfectly. Becker's a great show, and underrated, in my opinion.

04-12-2008, 02:16 AM	#4
thetornado Thetornado Frequent Poster Join Date: Aug 02, 2006 Location: Texas Posts: 221	I like becker it is one of my favorite sitcoms of the late 90's!