Trying to keep up with the goings on of MEGAN MULLALLY!
 | Daytime Mullally Show a Go |
| LOS ANGELES - Life after "Will & Grace" is starting to shape up for Megan Mullally, as a daytime show she's developing has been sold in the country's biggest markets. The Emmy winner's talk-variety show, set to launch in fall 2006, has been picked up by NBC-owned stations in four of the country's largest markets -- New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. Typically syndicated shows have to secure a run in at least New York and Los Angeles, the top two markets, to have a chance at success. Chicago is the nation's third-biggest market, while San Francisco, which also encompasses Oakland and San Jose, is sixth. |
| |
| "Television programmers from coast to coast have recognized Megan's unique talents as a host, singer and Emmy Award-winning comedic actress," says Barry Wallach, president of NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution, which is syndicating the show. "The feedback we have received from the advertising and broadcasting communities is one of excitement, as they clearly recognize Megan as a fresh new personality for daytime." The exact format for Mullally's show hasn't been set in stone. It's expected to combine some traditional talk-show elements with segments that will allow Mullally, who's earned six straight Emmy nominations for her work on "Will & Grace," to show off her comedic and musical talents. So far, Mullally's series and a King World show starring ubiquitous Food Network star Rachael Ray are the two daytime shows announced for next fall. The three big launches this year -- "Martha," "The Tyra Banks Show" and "Judge Alex" -- are all performing reasonably well in their first weeks on the air. |
NBC Universal Sells Mullally Talker |
| By Ben Grossman |
| Abstract: NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution has sold its new syndicated talk show hosted by Will & Grace star Megan Mullally for fall 2006 in the NBC O&Os in the top three markets, as well as San Francisco. The show, being sold for daytime time periods, will be aired on WNBC New York, KNBC Los Angeles, WMAQ Chicago and KNTV in San Francisco. |
No one fell down. No fire alarm went off in the middle of a punch line. Too bad.
Sure, Debra Messing and Sean Hayes did have fleeting attacks of the giggles. In the first of the night's two live performances (this one staged for the eastern United States), Messing, who plays Grace, got tickled by Hayes, who plays Grace's flamboyantly gay pal, Jack.
"When an opportunity comes," Jack declared on the subject of his dating married men, "I don't question it! I grab it, drop its ring on the nightstand, and swing on it till dawn!"
Hearing that, Messing snickered a bit too long before coaxing out her response.
And in a later scene, when Hayes removed the eye patch he had been wearing to reveal a singed-off eyebrow (it looked funnier than it sounds), he and Messing nearly lost control.
Perhaps the night's biggest surprise — presumably scripted — was a juicy lip-lock between Eric McCormack (who stars as Will) and guest star Alec Baldwin (playing Will's peculiar boss). Not bad.
The zany half-hour centered on the discovery that the long-lost husband of Karen (Megan Mullally) isn't dead, after all, but alive and well and hiding from the mob.
"But we were at the funeral. We scattered a trash bag full of his ashes!" said a shocked Grace when she heard the news from Will.
"Apparently that was just dirt and Rice Krispies," he explained.
Thus did the NBC sitcom begin its eighth and final season on a fun, and attention-grabbing, note.
Live "stunt" telecasts aren't unknown for established TV series, of course.
In November 1999, The Drew Carey Show staged a live improv-laced episode. Two years before that, ER produced an ambitious live hour of that medical drama. And for the entire 1992-93 season, the Fox sitcom Roc, which starred Charles S. Dutton as a city garbage collector, produced all of its weekly half-hours live.
Next week, Will & Grace returns to its usual filmed format. And Jack's eye patch should be gone.
Why, you may ask, was he wearing it?
He told his friends he had suffered a mishap the night before on the set of his new talk show: "I tripped making my entrance, knocked over the light and caught the set on fire."
Just for laughs, why couldn't that have happened on Thursday's Will & Grace ?
 |
 | 'Will & Grace,' Without a Net |
| LOS ANGELES When "Will & Grace" begins its eighth and final season Thursday (Sept. 29) with a live episode, the show's famously giggly cast will try to keep things running smoothly and avoid a "Carol Burnett Show"-esque meltdown. If Eric McCormack (Will) starts to go too far off-script, though, Debra Messing (Grace) has a plan. "I just intend on saying, 'Eric, stop f***ing up!'" she deadpans. |
|
|
| She's kidding, of course (although maybe it's a good thing that the show will be on a seven-second delay). But like her castmates, Messing is both excited and a little apprehensive about doing a show without the luxury of a second take. "When we first started and found out we were doing a live premiere, I was like, 'Yeah! That's fantastic, that's so exciting,'" Messing says during an interview session on Monday. "Now, officially about two hours ago, I realized I'm absolutely petrified." The episode picks up shortly after the events of last May's finale, when Grace dallied with a married man (guest star Eric Stoltz) and Will spotted Karen's (Megan Mullally) presumed-dead ex, Stan. Stoltz and Alec Baldwin, who also appeared in the season finale, will reprise their roles. The cast will do two live shows for NBC Thursday, one at 8:30 p.m. ET for viewers in the eastern half of the country and another at 8:30 PT for West Coast. In between, the writers will make some changes to jokes that don't go over that well with the live audience -- something that usually happens during breaks in filming of a normal episode. "I think both shows will be good," Mullally says. "The script we're working with right now is very funny. But that's what the writers do anyway, they punch up [jokes] after the first pass. So it's kind of the same theory." What's out of their control, though, is the audience. By showtime Thursday, the cast will have done as many as 10 run-throughs of the episode, including several in front of invited audiences, to nail down its timing. But if the audience is especially jovial, the cast may have to wait out some long laugh breaks. "My biggest fear is, with all the jokes you have to hear the first four words. You have to hear the setup," McCormack says. "Sometimes [at tapings] our director makes us go back because the audience is still laughing at the previous thing and misses the setup. And that's the thing -- we'll have to really override the laughter." Sean Hayes, whose Jack McFarland is embarking on a new career as a talk-show host, acknowledges that working live might invite a gaffe (so does NBC, for that matter; its promos for the episode feature Hayes getting bonked in the head by a boom mike). But he says he won't try to make his fellow actors slip up. "I think it's probably corny to give them something that looks like a mistake," he says. "To force it is kind of like -- I won't reference the show, but to force, 'Oh, I'm breaking myself up,' I'm not a big fan of that." |
TRUMP TO SING AGAIN - ON CHRISTMAS ALBUM | |
|
MULLALLY INJURED DURING 'SILLY DANCING' SESSION |
|
|
HUFFMAN STAYS IN HER PYJAMAS FOR DeGENERES MEETING | |
|
TRUMP AND MULLALLY WIN FIRST EMMY IDOL | |
|
Bravenet Blog 
Blog Community
Get a Free Blog
Manage your Blog
bravenet.com