Development
British actress, comedian, singer, and former dancer Tracey Ullman was encouraged to try to break into American television by her husband, British producer Allan McKeown, who was looking to station himself in the United States. [3] Ullman, who was already a household name in her native Britain, had already been making the rounds in the US promoting her film and music career in the mid 1980s. Unlike British audiences, Americans were not aware of her comedy background outside of humorous appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman . Ullman already had three British comedy television shows under her belt, garnering her awards and accolades. "I didn't believe there was anything above Webster standard [in America]. I was wrong." [4] Her British agent put together a compilation of her work and began circulating it around Hollywood. Her tape landed in the lap of Craig Kellem, vice president of comedy at Universal Television. "I could not believe my eyes. It was just about the most extraordinary piece of material I'd seen in a long time." He wanted production on a series to begin immediately for her. [5] Saturday Night Live scribe and creator of CBS's Square Pegs , Anne Beatts was hired to write the pilot. While Universal liked the script, Ullman didn't appreciate changes that senior executives wanted to make. Recalling the project: "We'd just hit on an idea, then some white-haired executive – very, very important – would come in from the race track and say, 'I don't like that idea. I think Tracey should be a caring person. I think there should be a kid in this. Now, I'm just pitching here. I don't know if this is funny. But I think Tracey should love this kid and maybe there's a moment where she tells the kid something about life.' And I'd say, "Look – I don't want to work with little kids being cute who I eventually adopt'." [4]
Ullman's new agent, Martha Luttrell sent her tape to James L. Brooks, who had a deal with Fox. Fox, dubbed America's "fourth network", was looking to create its own brand of original primetime programming. [4] Brooks was bowled over by Ullman's material. "I saw original talent, and how often does that happen to you?" [6] "I started showing [her work] to people like you'd show home movies." [7] "I was just startled by the size of the talent. I got chills." [8] Ullman explained to Brooks her situation at CBS and the fact that she was now pregnant. Brooks convinced her to get out of the CBS deal, and after she had her baby, they would do a show together. Brooks felt that a sketch show would best suit her assets (acting, singing, and dancing). "Why would you do something with Tracey playing a single character on TV when her talent requires variety? You can't categorize Tracey, so it's silly to come up with a show that attempted to." [7]
To ensure that she was well-versed in American comedy, Brooks began sending her tapes of American sitcoms and variety shows to watch and study. [9] Ullman also began visiting and spending time at the Museum of Television & Radio. [10]
"After I made [the 1985 film] Plenty , I thought it was sad that everyone left London to go home to Hollywood. Thought I'd join 'em. [...] I thought of myself as a Peter Sellers type. No one does American accents better than him. Look at Dr. Strangelove and Lolita ". As one critic noted, Sellers had American director Stanley Kubrick as his visionary and Ullman would get American television and film director James L. Brooks, the man behind such hit television shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show , Taxi , and Rhoda , and the films Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News . "I came to America in 1985 and James made me stay. If I had a mentor like him in Great Britain, I would've stayed there." [11]
"Variety hadn't been done for sometime and we wanted to do a show that would allow me to do the things I like to do and can do," stated Ullman in 1987. "I think, literally, the word unique and mean it," said Brooks in regards to Ullman's talent. "We're so obsessed with comparisons. The only one I could even think of that comparing her to is Peter Sellers – he's the only one you can mention. He could do a variety of Americans. And then you have to add that Tracey sings and dances." [12]
The key to getting Ullman ready for primetime was "assembling the right people" according to Brooks. Brooks, along with co-executive Jerry Belson, Ken Estin, and Heide Perlman, went on a retreat in Northern California to think through the show. "We wanted to tell a story, to be involved in character. We did not want to do spoofs or takeoffs. You define a show by what you don't want want to do as well as by what you do. We rushed on the air and have been finding the show while we're on the air. You lose a lot of sleep that way, but it's great. Now, we have five or six characters that we repeat from time to time, and new ones are candidates for repetition." When it came to Fox, Brooks stated, "It was helpful for us to do the show without any preconceived context. Not only were we new, but so was Fox. There was no notion of something to fit into." [12] Fox was reportedly backing the show with nearly $1,000,000 per broadcast. [13] The series landed an initial 26-episode commitment deal, unheard of for a television comedy; Fox ordered a further 30 episodes in October 1987. [14] Describing the show proved difficult; creator Ken Estin dubbed it a "skitcom". [8]
An array of original and diverse characters was created for Ullman to perform. Extensive makeup, wigs, teeth, and body padding were used, sometimes rendering her completely unrecognizable. One original character created solely by Ullman back in Britain was uprooted for the show: long-suffering British spinster Kay Clark. Kay was based on a real woman who worked in a Midlands bank that Ullman kept in touch with long after leaving Britain for the United States. [15] "Kay" would ask her about Hollywood on the telephone; Ullman would subsequently do the voice she heard on the other line to her dog. [a] She had been obsessed with spinsters ever since she was a small child, and kept a mental file on them. [b] She never saw "Kay" and imagined what she looked like. Tracey Ullman Show costume designer Jame Ruhm suggested a drooping bust and cellulite-covered hips for the character. Ruhm created a costume complete with "hydraulic pistons". "Tracey is really, really interested in what her characters look like," revealed Ruhm. "She is constantly going around collecting pictures of people and coming to me and saying, 'I want to do a character dressed like this!' I file that in my memory, and then we'll get a script and I'll say, 'That character that you wanted to do, can we use it on this?' She'll say, 'Yeah!' And we'll go." "It's a real thrill to me that someone like Kay can be famous in America."
For other characters, she drew upon people she either knew or celebrities for inspiration. "I based one character on Maggie Smith, which the script supervisor suggested. I remember her in California Suite saying, 'Well, I don't care if I didn't win the fucking Oscar.'... It sounded good. It made me laugh, and then I felt that I could do the character." She based the character Francesca on a neighbor, an awkward teenaged girl, who would come to visit her in her kitchen and would sheepishly stand in the corner. "I wanted to portray painful adolescence, but not an adolescent that was spoiled. I'd seen so many that were just, 'Like I really want to go to the movies, and you're totally stupid.' I didn't want to play a horrible kid." [c] Ullman believed in progressing the characters, adamant that they didn't stagnate. "You have to advance the characters [...] you have to find new situations for them [...] They have to do something or say something or grow as people. And they have to be unusual." [d] Like Kay, another character created and performed by Ullman first for British television ( Three of a Kind ) and then adapted for the Fox show was impoverished housewife Betty Tomlinson.
Producers decided to add animated segments when they had trouble figuring out a way to end one sketch and go into the next. They had considered talking animals, specifically a talking bear. "I don't know why we were so into a bear," explained Ken Estin. "Nobody was in love with that idea, but we just couldn't think of how else to do it. In most variety shows, it was just sketches that were so short that they didn't have to worry about from going from one to the next. Nobody had ever really done this before." Estin was given with a drawing of Life in Hell by Matt Groening from Richard Sakai. "It was very different. It was smart. It was unusual. It was drawn poorly, which I thought added the charm [...] I said, 'What if we have this guy do these little cartoons in between the scenes? Is that possible? Does anybody like that idea?' They all said they liked the idea. This is how Matt ended up being our guy." James L. Brooks was also familiar with Groening's work. Polly Platt, producer of his film Terms of Endearment had given him a cartoon called "Success and Failure in Hollywood" drawn by Groening as a gift. Platt suggested that he do a special on the characters.
Heide Perlman found another artist to do animated segments – M.K. Brown, who worked for National Lampoon . She agreed to do a cartoon based around a female psychiatrist, Dr. N!Godatu. Producers stopped hearing from Groening when Fox wanted to take over Life in Hell merchandising as part of his deal, resulting in his passing on the project. Estin asked Sakai to ask Groening if he had any characters that he would be willing to allow Fox to merchandise. Groening said that he did have other characters and would send them over for consideration. "Well, two, maybe three days after I spoke to Richard, Matt sends us a drawing of the Simpsons exactly as–well, not exactly–almost exactly as they are. Anyhow, everybody said, 'Fine. That's fine. We like them.' And Matt made his deal with Fox." Eventually, producers found that Groening's work suited the show better than Brown's and her segments were no longer used. Tracey Ullman was approached to do one of the voices of the Simpsons, but with her already spending up to three hours in the makeup chair, adding voice-over work was not feasible. Fellow cast member Julie Kavner then agreed to do it. [18] Groening approached Ullman sporadically about doing a guest voice for the shorts, but with her heavy workload, she never had the time.
Early reports regarding the show's premise were: The focal point would be Ullman starring in one, 12-minute-long "playlet", a shorter sketch, some music, and a weekly lecture from Harry Shearer. The show would start with no pilot and a 26-episode commitment, and would be produced by Brooks along with some of the top writers from Cheers . [20] Shearer's weekly lecture never materialized.
When the time came to go out and promote the show, Fox only allowed Ullman to tour Los Angeles and New York. In 1988, she insisted that she be allowed to tour Middle America. Never a fan of dialect coaches, this promotional tour would allow her to have ample opportunity to do some character study. "I want to see America a bit, I really do. I've only been to LA and New York, and they make very disparaging remarks about Middle America there. I mean, Des Moines, Iowa, is the place network executives always talk about, like, "Would they like this in Des Moines?' They think you just want Facts of Life and She's the Sheriff, that you really want that type of television, and I don't really believe that you do. There's no intelligence, no truth in anything like that. I think you want something a bit smarter. [...] We take pictures everywhere [on this promotional tour]; we're taping people's voices. I'm taking it all in, and it's great. Some journalist once said that I was a 'social satirist,' and I thought, 'That sounds quite intelligent, doesn't?' So that's what I'm doing, I'm meeting people from a social satirist's point of view." [21] Whenever she was stuck on particular voice or accent, she would open a phone directory. "If I wanted to do somebody from Brooklyn, I would call the library in Brooklyn and listen to their voice and tape them surreptitiously so they didn't know." [22]
Also helping her in her quest for accents was the show's staff. When she had to find a Brooklyn accent distinctive from the Queens accent she used for her character, United States postal worker Tina, she had the show's staff make a long compilation tape of genuine Brooklyn accents (recordings from radio stations and even randomly placed phone calls placed to random Brooklynites). [23] Ullman would also call car dealerships in different parts of the country pretending to be interested in buying a car just to hear how the people there spoke. [24]
Production
Casting
Dan Castellaneta, a relative unknown, was asked to read for the show after he was spotted by Ullman at Chicago's The Second City. Castellaneta's portrayal of a blind man who wants to be a comedian brought her to tears instead of making her laugh. [25] Ullman told producers that she wouldn't do the show if Castellaneta wasn't hired. [26] He gave up the opportunity to appear in the short-lived sitcom version of the film Nothing in Common , in which he appeared, so as to star in the Ullman show. "Tracey always says, 'You're so lucky, Dan. You can always go back to Nothing in Common," joked Castellaneta in a 1988 interview. [27] Describing the show, Castellaneta stated, "Essentially what dictates it is that there are no parodies and even if it's an unusual situation, Tracey and (executive producer) Jim Brooks try to keep things as believable and real. You've got to be honest." He would continue to stay true to his Second City philosophy when playing comedy and characters. "Don't ever do what's expected. Always try to find a different way of doing something. ...Always play to the top of your intelligence. A character should be as smart as you are. And if the character isn't as smart as you are, you can't make a comment about it, you can't make fun of the character." Castellaneta felt that audiences could see right through a character that wasn't done honestly and that The Tracey Ullman Show's audience were both pretty demanding, as well as intelligent. "They're people who like something different, they're certainly an intelligent audience. And they're an audience that isn't as easily offended as other people might be." [28]
Actress Julie Kavner had co-starred in Brooks' spin-off series to The Mary Tyler Moore Show , Rhoda , starring Valerie Harper. Kavner played Harper's younger, socially awkward sister Brenda, a role for which she won an Emmy Award. Kavner was at the top of the list of people Brooks wanted to be part of the show. Brooks on Kavner: "When somebody's intrinsically funny – you know, in-their-bones funny – they never have to work at (being funny), so they're free to work on other things. We were all nuts about her work. She was the person we most wanted to work with Tracey." [29]
Actor Sam McMurray read for a guest spot on the show playing William, lover of 13-year-old valley girl Francesca's (Ullman) father. McMurray recalled his casting: "The first Francesca sketch, they said, 'Play the guy not so gay.' And I said 'I disagree.' I had a big mouth then -— still do. I said, 'I think he's more the woman. I think he's more out there.' So I read and I read it big, and they cast me. It was just a one-off, and then we were on hiatus. I did the one week, and I had a friend coincidentally who used to write, a guy named Marc Flanagan, and he was on the show as a staff guy. He called me up and said, 'Did they call your agent?' I said, 'No, why?' He said, 'They wanna make you a regular.'" [30] McMurray, who did not become a full-fledged cast member until the sixth episode, did not find himself feeling terribly comfortable at first with the show. McMurray: "[T]he social dynamic of the show is an odd one. I spoke with (executive producer) Jim Brooks about this later and I said, 'You know, it's like we're all square pegs, aren't we?' And he said, 'Yeah,' and that the same thing occurred on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Everybody was from a different discipline on that show, – somebody had been from sitcoms, somebody came from the stage, and somebody had been a stand-up comic, and yet whatever the dynamic that was forged from it, it's singular and it works." [31]
The last to be cast was dancer Joseph Malone. He was originally hired for a guest shot– acting as a cop who also danced with a possible jumper on a ledge, which led to him becoming a series regular. He had worked with Michael Jackson, Lily Tomlin, and Barbara Mandrell. [27] The show now had its cast. During the 1987–1988 season (the show's 2nd season), Julie Kavner asked to be let out of her contract to be able to concentrate on making movies; Kavner had been living in New York while The Tracey Ullman Show taped in Los Angeles. Actress Anna Levine was subsequently cast, with Kavner putting in special appearances. Though by the start of season 3, Kavner had returned to the cast permanently, with Levine staying on albeit in a diminished role. [32]
Writing
James L. Brooks knew the importance of good writers, and quickly assembled a team for the show, most notably, Heide Perlman and Ken Estin of Cheers fame. [33] Estin also worked on Brooks's Taxi. The pair would also act as executive producers. Also joining the team was Jerry Belson; he also acted as executive producer. Belson had written for such television comedies as The Dick Van Dyke Show . Belson was the writer to whom Ullman warmed immediately; he was always in her corner. In an interview with The Nerdist Podcast , she recalled Belson saying, "'Leave her alone, Jim, she's tired.' [...] He was one of those funny writers [who] if you said that you didn't like a joke in the room, he'd say, 'What is this, Nazi, Russia?'" When they won an Emmy, Belson's response was, "This is my first Emmy in color." [34] Sam Simon, like Estin, wrote for Taxi, as well as executive produced the show. Brooks discovered writer Marc Flanagan after watching a piece performed by Meryl Streep and Kevin Klein at a benefit. He asked to speak to the writer and kept him in mind when he worked on the Ullman show as writer and producer. [35] SCTV writers Dick Blasucci and Paul Flaherty wrote and co-produced as well.
For each show, a table read would take place on Monday mornings in the presence of writers and producers. Not unusually, rewrites could go past midnight. What worked in the writers room would sometimes fall flat once in the hands of the actors. The best readings were the result of numerous rewrites. "I love cracking a run-through," said Ullman in 1989. "It's like a drug. If I can get them looking at me and respecting me, and thinking, 'She's done it!' – it's the best feeling.'" But she knew that the only performance that truly counted was the final one recorded in front of a live studio audience. "You just gotta pray you hit that happy, energetic mood on Friday." The cast rehearsals would take place into lunch and dinner hours, usually under the tutelage of director Ted Bessell. Around 3:30 pm each day, writers and producers, led by Brooks and Belson, would arrive for a run-through. They would observe, shout out suggestions, make additions and subtractions, and work out any kinks in the production. [23] The show would then be ready to tape by Friday at 7:00 pm. One "writer" frequently credited on the show, Bonita Carlisle, was actually a nom de plume chosen by the writers' room indicating that the sketch had been a group effort. Guest stars such as Steve Martin and Mel Brooks also got heavily involved in their sketch's writing, as well.
While the Fox network was liberal when it came to the material it would allow the show to put on, by 1989, after controversy stemming from Married... with Children , the network's standards and practices department began monitoring the scripts and kowtowing to advocating groups. A sketch consisting of a nun (played by Ullman), a priest, and last rites was pulled midproduction. Producers were given the option of either watering down the skit or not doing it at all. Ullman had no problem with the piece. Brooks responded: "They're smart enough to know that they can't have a bland network that responds to every pressure and be successful ... If we really believe a piece should be broadcast, then we will take a stand. We do care about doing characters accurately and in them taking a comic view of life, but when censorship interferes with that, we've got to scream." [37]
A typical episode of The Tracey Ullman Show consists of two or three sketches (or playlets) featuring Tracey Ullman playing an array of characters, along with her supporting cast of Julie Kavner, Dan Castellaneta, Sam McMurray, Joseph Malone, and in season three, Anna Levine. The final sketch of the night usually includes a musical or dance number featuring Ullman either solo or with other members of the cast. Paula Abdul was responsible for choreographing all of the show's dance routines. Interstitial cartoon shorts ("Dr. N!Godatu", "The Simpsons") were featured before and after each commercial break.
The show's producers toyed with the format during the show's first season. A variety act was added and then scrapped by the third episode. Ullman began opening the show as herself by episode five; this was dropped altogether by season three in favor of an elaborate opening title sequence.
The final segment of all four seasons has Ullman, clad in a pink robe, delivering a closing monologue to the studio audience before ending the show with her signature catchphrase, "Go home! Go home!" and dancing as the credits roll. She chose the phrase "Go home," because she could not think of anything clever for the ending. Her closing monologue is, "Oh, you got sore bums. Go home!"
Opening title sequence
George Clinton was hired to write and perform the show's funk-infused theme song, "You're Thinking Right". Brooks hired animation and graphic-design company Klasky Csupo to design the show's title sequence. It would become the studio's big break. In addition to handing the show's opening, they also produced the show's animated bumpers. The opening title sequence in seasons one and two followed a brief introduction by Ullman to the studio audience. For season three, however, the opening was scrapped, and in its place, a live-action farce was used; Ullman pulls up to the 20th Century Fox lot in her car and hits a pedestrian. She attempts CPR in front of onlookers and revives her victim. She then rushes into the studio and meets George Clinton; a person tries to get her opinion on a costume; Paula Abdul attempts to go over choreography with her. Next, she visits the makeup room and greets her fellow castmates – this includes the Simpson family. She then looks at a pushpin board, and stills of that week's sketches are posted. Season four featured a title sequence similar to the first two seasons.
Ending
After four seasons, Ullman decided to end the show, stating that she was "constantly challenged and happily tortured by a unique group of people." She also thanked Fox "for letting somebody no one ever heard of do a show on a network that didn't exist." Brooks stated that The Tracey Ullman Show was "the hardest work any of us ever did, and we would have continued forever if she had wanted us to [...] I'm just glad I appreciated it as it was happening and not just in retrospect ... Tracey is one of the most talented people alive." The show earned Fox its first Emmy Award, racking up a total of 13 nominations, and garnering four wins, by the end of its run. [38]
Brooks did not mince words when Fox chairman Barry Diller was announced to be stepping down in 1992. "I thought The Tracey Ullman Show should have stayed on as long as she wanted to do it." [39] Diller had been dragging his feet in renewing the show. Tired of waiting, Ullman decided to pull the plug herself. When Ullman and the show won at the 1990 Emmy Awards, The Los Angeles Times remarked, "Tracey Ullman gets last laugh." [40] Later, Ullman admitted that she would have liked an additional year to try out all the characters she wanted to play. She was proud, though, of what they achieved: "no compromises, no giving up, always wanting the best." [41]
