Aaron Sorkin is more than your average TV writer. So naturally, he’s going to get more than your average amount of scrutiny. Especially if his new show’s chosen milieu is the notoriously persnickety world of comedy. In the nerve center of New York’s underground theater scene, the boards are abuzz: Studio 60, the rumblings rumble, is tone-deaf when it comes to the actual business of making people laugh. (Though I suppose the same could be said of its ur-text, Saturday Night Live.)
Ah, but there’s more: Some of the more gimlet-eyed laughologists have noted certain, um, resonances: For instance, there’s this evidence of a suspected repetition of Sorkin’s Sorkinese (plucked from a private, unlinkable board):
Sports Night, 4/27/1999
Dana Whitaker (Felicity Huffman): [barges in] You are a sleazy, slimy, adolescent, over-sexed, overpaid blowhole!Studio 60, ”Cold Open,” 9/25/2006
Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson, pictured): [barges in] You are an adolescent, over-sexed, whoremonger with the sensitivity of a head of cabbage.
To be fair: First off, ”head of cabbage” is clearly a post-9/11 reference, right? Second, if you’re going to steal from anyone, steal from yourself, says I. Ah, but that’s not the most interesting echo from the past.
You may recall that Sorkin hired Mark McKinney, late of Kids in the Hall and SNL, to oversee the sketch comedy on the show-within-the-show. (He’s listed as a story editor on ”Cold Open.”) Well, last episode featured a repurposing of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘The Major-General’s Song.’ (”I am the very model of a modern Major-General,” etc.) Now it just so happens that SNL did the very same act on January 21, 1995, during McKinney’s stint on the show. The host was David Hyde Pierce. (”I’m hosting Saturday Night Live, I’m nervous, I’ve got shaky knees/I love the show, although I haven’t watched it since the ’70s.”)
Coincidence? Probably not. Nefarious? Hardly. But it’ll be awfully fascinating to track which SNL moments Sorkin and McKinney plunder pay homage to next. No pressure, guys, but there are, like, a million hungry comedians watching you. And they have loooooooong memories.
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See, Sports Night under a different setting. Can’t Sorkin think of a better idea for a show?
Every scene in the control room takes me back to the good ole days of “Sports Night.” However, Amanda Peet is no Felicity Huffman. In fact, she’s quite (to steal from Mr. Cruise) quite “glib” throughout every episode and, therefore, incredibly annoying. Wipe that half-smile off your face, girl!
Honestly, I can’t complain about the similarities between Sports Night and Studio 60. Sports Night was unfairly ripped from the networks, and it’s nice to finally get some more of the rapid fire, behind-the-scenes style comedy on a weekly basis. I just hope that Studio 60 lasts.
Nice catch with the G&S lift. 1995 was the last time that skit would have worked – for the last vestiges of the boomers. Now, it’s embarrassingly out of date.
I wonder if Sorkin has any chance of reaching out to da yutes, or overseeing writing that would make the show-within-a-show feel at all relevant.
I just don’t want to see this thing devolve into a bunch of old, self-referential farts pining for the good old days (of which there were few) and crabbing about bloggers and that newfangled internet.
I wonder if Sorkin’s going to write another episode where a cast member writes a letter to fill time. I’m talking about the Sports Night episode where Jeremy writes a letter to his sister during a prolonged tennis match and where there’s a filibuster in the Senate and everyone writes emails. I liked it the first two times, but maybe three would be a little much…
A little perspective: stealing a joke from your own show seven years ago is still infinitely better than 20 hours of police procedurals every week. Direct the boards to come up with resonances on L&O.
I don’t care if it works. Now talk about Jericho! http://moviemartin.blogspot.com/2006/09/tubealicious-treats-according-to-some.html
I’m just wondering… did Jello pudding pops pay for the endorsement, under the guise of the discussion between a castmember complaining to the director?
And how did Harriet successfully sing a double platinum gospel album if she can’t sing a lick?
If this show is a rip-off or re-run of Sports Night, so much the better. I loved SN and at least Sorkin is stealing from himself!
Oh come on, people seemed surprised, Aaron Sorkin is nefarious for plagiarizing other peoples work, it’s almost like a Hollywood open secret, how many scenes from West Wing were taken directly from blogs, magazine articles, and Salon.com, it is almost embarrasing. Yes, his dialogue is great, pretty much because other writers have written it before. He just takes what works, and gives it a twist. This is not new nor should be surprising. If I were a writer, i’d be careful to keep my words and ideas as far from A.S. as possible.
I’m disapointed that so many people have mentioned Gilbert and Sullivan’s but NOT mentioned the episodes of the West Wing where G&S appereaed. Remeber when Ainsle Hays was hired, Sam Seaborn mentioned he was the Secretary for the G&S club. I would bet anything that Sorkin was the G&S secretary at college.
Forget if it’s already been done: the G&S bit was BORING. Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford’s characters are supposed to rescue TV and make Studio 60 edgy? Why go Broadway? That was about as edgy as Ashlee Simpson.
I liked the episode, but the G&S open they came up with, the open that would have to clear the bar, sucked. Nobody would find that edgy or funny. Maybe they will deal with that in the next episode. I don’t think they should show much of the skits if they are going to continue to pretend that these guys are as clever as Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
The preview for this weeks episode says it’s about what happens when the power goes out, like that Sports Night episode where ummm…. the power went out
Also, Sorkin cast his ex-girlfriend Kristin Chenowith on West Wing. Kristin Chenowith, who is a Christian and released an album of inspirational music. Wonder if she thinks the current storyline sounds familiar?
The only Gilbert and Sullivan tributes worth their weight in salt have all been animated. The Simpsons did a fantastic tribute to G&S in their send up of Cape Fear, and Dangermouse (the british cartoon about a mouse who immitates 007) had a cool timetravel episode where he and Penfold bump into the actual Pirates of Penzance. Them scenes with the plank and the acapella version of “for he is the Pirate King” can’t be topped by anyone!
Actually, Sorkin didn’t cast Kristen Chenowith on The West Wing. She was cast in Season 6, and Sorkin left the show after Season 4. I love all the “uproar” over the fact Studio 60 is similar to Sports Night and The West Wing. Last I checked, those shows were created by Sorkin and were fantastic. Since this is his show too, who cares if he uses some ideas and plot devices that he used on those earlier shows? As long as it makes for good TV, I don’t understand why people care. Lighten up and enjoy it! The writing is still good and it’s still different and better than anything else on TV. I wonder why no one seems to mind that all of Jerry Bruckheimer and Dick Wolf’s shows seem the same…
Who Cares?? Talk about Jericho!!
Um, why would they talk about Jericho in a Studio 60 post…
Sports Night will FOREVER be the best show in the history of television…SHAME on ABC for unceremoniously dropping it…..and Paula Marshall had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH IT (she was great, as always, in her role as a ”choreo-animator”
Quo Vadimus?
does this suprise anyone? he also used a bunch of cast members, and a bunch of the same names on the west wing that he originally used in the american president. he utilizes good material in different situations. he’s a bloody genious and can do whatever the hell he wants.
Sorkin also recycled a lot of dialogue and jokes from Sports Night and used them in the first few seasons of the West Wing, so I am not suprised. But since only avid DVD totin’ fans of all of both series will notice anyway.
I couldn’t agree more.
“Everyone” loves to say Sorkin shows are so “cerebal” and if you critcize it, “you just don’t get it”. Well,
I do get it. It’s not cerebral, it’s formulaic. Even picking on Christians. The first episode of the West Wing did the same thing.
Maybe instead of offering their audience an “intellectual reach around”, they should have offered an…oh well, never mind…
Let’s talk about Jericho…man, it really got worse last night, didn’t it? Poor Skeet.
Const, Sorkin did take on the evangelicals in the first episode of the West Wing, but the difference here is that he portrays one, namely Harry, in a positive light. Too often in WW, Sorkin had any group affiliated with the Right as eeeeevil. Wells made it a little more objective. On either side of the aisle, some were good and some were bad, which is closer to real life.
If Sorkin’s cribbing from Sports Night, so much the better. The first season of that show stands up to any classic comedy (second season not as much, but still pretty great – there were signs that Sorkin was devoting too much attention to “The West Wing” and cocaine). I’d like him to go a step further and show the characters on Studio 60 watching Sports Night, just so I know everyone’s doing OK. Heck, I’d rather have seen Felicity Huffman in that first episode as Dana rather than as herself.
Oscar Wilde also ripped himself off. If I remember English 206 correctly, there is some dialogue in The Picture of Dorian Grey that is identical to an exchange in The Importance of Being Earnest. As for Sorkin, I can’t remember the specific example, but I know there was a line from The West Wing that was identical to one in The American President.
Also have to agree with a previous post that Sorkin is not the only one who is guilty of having a slew of similar shows. Unlike Dick and Jerry, at least his aren’t all on at the same time!
As for the whole “Christian” thing, as I see it, both this show and The West Wing (which I admit I stopped watching around season 3) are not taking on all Christians -just the over zealous judgemental ones who are all up in everyone’s business all the time. I can recall several episodes of the West Wing (the one where the President could choose to stop and execution and the one with the Chinese refugees claiming religious persecution come to mind) where Christianity and religion in general were treated very reverentially and respectfully.
One more thing, on The West Wing, Christianity was not always associated with being right wing and therefore evil. The President was Catholic for goodness sake!
Homage or rip-off? Who cares! I still wanna know… if Harriet is a ‘devout Christian,” what is she doing fornicating with Matt?
That’s why I love this show.. it makes us ask the tough questions…
I adored Sports Night the early West Wing years. I was disappointed when storylines from Sports Night appeared on the West Wing. Then I saw The American President and saw some parallels between the movie and both shows. More disappointment! Nobody writes dialogue better than Sorkin, but he does need to branch out his story ideas. He even likes to use the same names!
I could careless if Sorkin recycles his material a little bit. I’m entertained for an hour – and have been for years with his shows – so I can take it. Ya, I notice it but so what? You can’t plagiarize something YOU wrote.
As for ‘Sports Night’ – like many people posting, I really enjoyed it. But now that I am anchoring on a two-person sports show myself – I see how friggin brilliant it was!
Like many good things on TV (Freaks & Geeks, Firefly, Undeclared) it got yanked too soon by the typical network idiots.
And ‘Jericho’ is absolute crap – I didn’t need to see the second show to know that.