by Warren Littlefield, Former NBC President of Entertainment
Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, the powerhouse team behind the megahit The Cosby Show, among many others.
From left to right, Grant Tinker (former CEO of NBC), John Pike (former head of Paramount Television), Warren, and Kerry McCluggage (chairman of Paramount Television Group) drinking at the Cheers bar. On May 20, 1993, the last night of Cheers, “we … had a massive celebration of the series that had meant so much to us,” Warren says.
Bill Cosby (as Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable) and Malcolm-Jamal Warner (as Theo Huxtable). “Creatively, Bill Cosby insisted on an enormous amount of control over the writing and the portrayal of his TV family, and, as with Cheers, putting our faith in the talent was well rewarded,” Warren recalls.
From left to right, Jerry Orbach (as Lennie Briscoe), Michael Moriarty (as Ben Stone), Chris Noth (as Mike Logan), and Richard Brooks (as Paul Robinette). Dick Wolf claims that “Law & Order was the only series ever sold to three networks” before it aired.
Dick Wolf (second from the right) next pitched NBC on a show called Nasty Boys, about a SWAT team in Las Vegas who wore black ninja outfits. It only lasted half a season.
The original cast of Law & Order SVU, from left to right, Dann Florek (as Donald Cragen), Mariska Hargitay (as Olivia Benson), Christopher Meloni (as Elliot Stabler), and Angie Harmon (as Abbie Carmichael). In 1998, when Dick pitched NBC on a new show called Sex Crimes, Warren advised him “to spin the show out of the Law & Order brand.” That was the beginning of the now commonplace practice of procedural spin-offs.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (as Elaine Benes), Jason Alexander (as George Costanza), Michael Richards (as Kramer), Jerry Seinfeld, and Warren (background) on the Seinfeld diner set during the shooting of the final episode. “The test report that came back on the Seinfeld Chronicles pilot,” Warren reminisces, “was, in a word, disastrous.”
Bob Hope, Warren, and Johnny Carson at the shooting of Bob’s ninetieth birthday celebration. NBC decided to make one less two-hour Bob Hope special in order to pay for the first four episodes of Seinfeld. “I let Rick Ludwin break the news to Bob Hope,” Warren says.
Larry David giving notes to the cast while shooting an episode of Seinfeld. Larry thought NBC would never air the episodes. Warren mentions that Larry “tells a story where he envisioned a dinner party hosted by himself and Jerry. They invite all their friends over to eat and watch the episodes NBC never put on the air.”
An offstage moment between Jerry Seinfeld and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David in Jerry’s dressing room.
Jason Alexander and Heidi Swedberg (as Susan) on Seinfeld. Jason says, “It is the single coldest moment in the history of television when the doctor comes out to say Susan has died. George’s reaction was ‘Huh.’ Like, ‘How about that.’ ”
Jerry Seinfeld reading over a scene while getting his makeup touched up on the Seinfeld set.
Jerry Seinfeld with cast and crew watching the monitor while Michael Richards films a scene in the background from the episode titled “The Burning.”
Jason Alexander admits, “I actually had a wary eye on Julia [shown here in an episode from season 8]. I knew you didn’t do a show with three guys and one girl. In those first four shows, they made one that George and Kramer weren’t in. That’s when I famously went to Larry and said, ‘If you do that again, you’ll have to do it permanently.’ ”
From left to right, Warren, Brandon Tartikoff (president of entertainment), and John Miller (executive vice president of advertising and promotion) pose for the camera. As Warren explains, “The long, slow birth of Seinfeld marked the transition from the end of Brandon Tartikoff’s reign as president of entertainment at NBC to the beginning of [his] tenure in that job.”
From left to right, Warren, John Agoglia (executive vice president of business affairs and NBC Productions), Bob Wright (chairman), Brandon Tartikoff, and Perry Simon (senior vice president) made up the main executive team at NBC during the Must See TV era.
Don Ohlmeyer and Warren. Posing for a Must See TV promo.
Giving good face during a joint presentation. Warren confesses that “by 1996, Don’s drinking and his behavior in the office and at numerous NBC ‘off campus’ events had become serious liabilities.”
Paul Reiser and Warren at a Mad About You wrap party. As Glenn Padnick remembers, “Mad About You was sort of the domestic version of Seinfeld” in NBC’s eyes.
Paul Reiser (as Paul Buchman) and Helen Hunt (as Jaimie Buchman). Paul reminisces: “When I was writing the pilot, I met Helen Hunt at a dinner party. She was sharing a house with a good friend of my wife’s. That evening we were talking about couples, and I turned to my wife and said, ‘She’d be great.’ ”
Helen Hunt, Paul Reiser, and Lisa Kudrow (as Ursula, the waitress) on Mad About You. “Lisa told us she was going to audition for a new show. We told her good luck, but pilots never get picked up … Friends,” says Paul Reiser.
Kelsey Grammer (as Dr. Frasier Crane) and David Hyde Pierce (as Dr. Niles Crane). As NBC head of casting Lori Openden recalls, “There wasn’t a brother in the original plot of the show. One of the casting directors who was working with the producers brought a picture of DHP to the producers and said, ‘Look at this guy. He looks just like Kelsey.’ ”
“Frasier was important for me. The people I got to work with, the time we spent,” says David Hyde Pierce, shown here with Jane Leeves (as Daphne Moon).
John Mahoney (as Martin Crane) with Moose (as Eddie the dog). As Kelsey recollects, “We’d killed Frasier’s father off in the ninth year of Cheers. When Sam visited Frasier, he said, ‘You told me your dad was dead.’ I said, ‘I lied.’ ”
“Kelsey would end up playing Frasier Crane for twenty years on network television, which hardly seemed likely in the beginning,” says Warren. “He’d driven out from New York and for a time was living in his car.”
One morning Warren showed up at a table reading for an episode of Frasier and tried to make himself useful. As John Pike says, “When it came to Cheers and Frasier, both sides of the equation really needed each other. It was an interesting marriage of network and production.”
Frasier creators David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee. Casey recalls, “When we edited the [Frasier] pilot, we were seven minutes long. We cut it as much as we could, and we were still a minute long. NBC gave us the extra minute. They took fifteen seconds off every other show that night.”
The cast of Friends, from left to right, Courteney Cox (as Monica Geller), Matthew Perry (as Chandler Bing), Jennifer Aniston (as Rachel Green), David Schwimmer (as Ross Geller), Lisa Kudrow (as Phoebe Buffay), and Matt LeBlanc (as Joey Tribbiani). NBC’s pilot season of 1994, which included both Friends and ER, is legendary.
David Schwimmer (shown here directing an episode) remembers that he could feel that Friends “was something special immediately in the first rehearsals.”
Friends co-creator David Crane, pictured here (on the right) with fellow co-creator Marta Kauffman and executive producer Kevin Bright, says the show was about “that point in your life when your friends are your family.”
Lisa Kudrow remembers her audition: “At one point I even said, ‘You know, I’m more like Rachel.’ And they told me, ‘No. You’re this quirky girl.’ ”
On getting the part of Joey, Matt LeBlanc says it was between him and a guy dressed like a cowboy. “I looked at him and thought, ‘One of us is way off the mark. God, I hope it’s you.’ ”
Once when gassing up his car on Sunset Boulevard, Warren ran into Jennifer: “She asked me, ‘Will it ever happen for me?’ God, I wanted it to. I didn’t care what it would take—Rachel was the role for her.”
Marta Kauffman recalls, “The Ross and Rachel thing was fascinating. My rabbi, when I dropped my daughter off for Hebrew school, would stop me and say, ‘When are you going to get them together?’ ”
Writer and executive producer John Wells (front center) with the cast of ER, clockwise: George Clooney (as Dr. Doug Ross), Eriq La Salle (as Dr. Peter Benton), Gloria Reube
n (as Jeanie Boulet), Julianna Margulies (as Nurse Carol Hathaway), Sherry Stringfield (as Dr. Susan Lewis), Anthony Edwards (as Dr. Mark Greene), and Noah Wyle (as Dr. John Carter). Warren explains, “The original ER script was what is commonly known as a trunk job. By the time it came into our hands at NBC—in 1993—it was already a good twenty years old.”
During the casting of the ER pilot, John Wells recalls, “George Clooney begged me for a part. George was the first person to audition. He came after me for it.”
“There I was, thirty years old, and I considered myself finished. And then I had the best acting experience an actor could have on ER. I fell in love with acting again because of ER,” says Anthony Edwards of his experience playing Dr. Mark Greene.
At the time his agent sent him the ER pilot, Noah Wyle only wanted to do movies, but, as he says, “A funny thing happened on the way to my film career.”
The ER cast during a table read for the live episode “Ambush.” Noah Wyle admits, “We were absolutely merciless on each other in terms of the quality of the performances we were giving. We would be brutally honest, and it galvanized us into a really tight ensemble.”
Anthony Edwards, Julianna Margulies, George Clooney, and Warren at the May 1994 upfronts in New York. At the time, Anthony Edwards remembers, “Ohlmeyer was saying, ‘Nobody will watch ER. There are too many characters, and it doesn’t make any sense.’ ”
An off-camera moment with the ER cast and crew during the taping of a live episode. As Eriq La Salle says of the show, “We accomplished the most amazing things, we did it as a team, we did it as a group.”
The character of Carol Hathaway was originally killed off in the pilot of ER. But Julianna Margulies, shown here with George and Anthony (directing), happily recalls getting a message from George that said, “ ‘We don’t think Carol Hathaway is going to die.’ That’s an actor’s favorite line to hear on the phone.”
Quentin Tarantino directing an episode of ER. For ten of its fifteen years, ER was a top-ten-rated show.
The cast of 3rd Rock from the Sun, from left to right, French Stewart (as Harry Solomon), John Lithgow (as Dr. Dick Solomon), Kristen Johnston (as Sally Solomon), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as Tommy Solomon). “3rd Rock from the Sun—that was crazy,” says Karey Burke, former executive vice president of prime-time series, in remembering the “openness to everything” at NBC.
On taking the part of alien Dick Solomon, John Lithgow says, “There were two things that completely sold me. One was the fact that on a dime, the four actors could sing Cole Porter like Manhattan Transfer.”
Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick (back row) with Megan Mullally (as Karen Walker), Eric McCormack (as Will Truman), executive producer/director Jimmy Burrows, Debra Messing (as Grace Adler), and Sean Hayes (as Jack McFarland). As Kohan tells it, “NBC gave us the keys to the car, and they said, ‘If you dent it, we’ll take it away.’ ”
Megan Mullally recalls that she was instantly taken with Sean Hayes: “I was like, ‘Oh my God, who is that cute little elfin person?’ ”
At the time, the creators of Will & Grace “didn’t believe a network would put a show on with a gay lead.” They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Debra Messing says of the chemistry between Eric McCormack and her during the audition process, “Immediately there was just this click. You don’t know why it happens, but it was just instant. We were like, ‘All right, let’s play.’ ”
“I remember the cast going over to Max’s house to do the very first reading of the script, and we were crying we were laughing so hard,” says Debra Messing, shown here with Eric McCormack and Megan Mullally at a table read-through.
“I remember being asked, more than once, ‘What world do you live in to think America wants to watch this gay TV show?’ ” says David Nevins. It’s hard to believe, looking at this photo of the cast (including Shelley Morrison as Rosario) celebrating the show’s hundredth episode.
The Seinfeld cast takes a bow. In May 1998, the last episode of Seinfeld aired. It marked the beginning of the end of Must See TV.
At the end of 1998, after twenty years at NBC, Warren was fired. Perhaps Sean Hayes puts it best when he says, “There was this guy, this Warren Littlefield, who took us through this huge success at NBC, and then suddenly he was gone.”
