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Introduction

I GREW UP in the Golden Age of Television. I remember nightly and weekly exuberance and excellence: “Your Show of Shows,” “Gun- smoke,” “Medic,” “Have Gun Will Travel,” “Twilight Zone,” “The Jackie Gleason Show,” et cetera. Reviewing these shows after twenty or thirty years is instructive and sobering—they stand the test of time—not that each show is a comic or dramatic masterpiece, but many are, and the bulk of the entertainment is well designed, and executed with spirit.

These shows of the fifties and many of the sixties are, and it is in this that they differ from today's television, honestly done. They are, in the main, honest attempts to dramatize, to cheer, to divert, to entertain. It was inevitable that the Bad Money drive out the good, that a drama broken every eight minutes by an advertisement the revenue from which funded the drama should eventually become a teaser for that upcoming advertisement. It was inevitable that the primacy of the ad revenues would bring about a whorehouse mentality in the Television Industry: “Give em as little as you can, and get em out of here as soon as possible” and that the pimps and hucksters would not only achieve dominance over, but eventually eliminate those drawn to television as a new theatrical form.

Television executives are the worst people I have ever met in my life. Their conversations with me over the years have always started, “Mr. Mamet, we are so honored that you would even consider writing for television” for which unsolicited and totally false asseveration they then proceeded to make me pay at length.

I would love to write for television. I love the form. I grew up with it. As a child I watched television ten hours a day. It was my dramatic training. I can imagine no greater fun than having my own television show and writing and directing for the same actors and characters every week. I was in at the conclusion of the “Hill Street Blues” series and had the time of my life. The “Hill Street” script, A Wasted Weekend, here included, is the only piece of television writing I ever did which got made.

Lovely exciting medium. What a shame.

Sour grapes? Most certainly. As I said, I love the form, and I wish I could have played along.

David Mamet

1988