Special Report From Rhett Wickham: Honing the Range (Part One)
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RW
Thats painful!
SANFORD
And its very revealing. And then there are things that we got huge laughs on that
never occurred to us.
We would think it was something funny/okay, but man -
FINN
Huge waves of laughter. Dave Reynolds chicken jokes, both chicken jokes always got
big laughs.
RW
The gag where they lay eggs in response to shocking news?
FINN
No (laughing) thats a visual. Mark Kennedy came up with that. But Dave has a line
where the Goat is teasing them about how theyre all going to be eaten and the
chickens say "Oh, who would eat chicken?" We thought it was cute, but every
time
HUGE laughs.
SANFORD
Shirley wrote a line that Grace says
FINN
Oh yeah
"We dont eat meat -
SANFORD
"Kind of like a professional courtesy?"
FINN
Every time, huge laughs, waves and waves of laughs. Again, we found it funny but it
didnt have us rolling in the aisles.
RW
Is part of that something that Alice pointed to, which is that Shirley knew how to write
for that actress, for Rosanne?
FINN
Yes, yes. And that was something that as we went through casting we tried to do for all of
the characters. With Rosanne we always came in with a ton of material to record and
because she not only is a genius at stand up but shes done sitcoms - constantly in
revision. She was very, very amenable to doing different versions of a joke and very, very
quick to express what didnt work for her and if we had alternates on the line she
would say Well I dont think this ones funny, Im not going to do
that one. And if we couldnt come up with one shed improvise.
SANFORD
She was great with that. One of the things that I thought was really great about her was
that she will tell you thats not funny, thats not funny, this is really
funny, lets do this one! She was very frank about what works and what
doesnt, which is really refreshing.
FINN
Shed come in and we saw the script covered with coffee stains and barbeque sauce and
dog eared and shed made notes all over it
and so we knew we were in really good
shape because she was really interested in the story right away, and she asked a lot of
questions, which is really good. We always tried to write for her, and for everybody.
Its
its
always easier once you have the actors cast.
RW
And its she, and Judy Dench and Jennifer?
FINN
Jennifer Tilly.
RW
When did Sarah Jessica step off, was it before you came on?
FINN
No she was on for about six months, but we reconceived the character.
SANFORD
Jennifer Tillys name was suggested by Tom Schumacher and we thought "Okay.
Shes funny, and shes been funny in just about everything shes ever been
in."
RW
And a great voice just begging to be animated.
FINN
A terrific voice. And
shes also, you know, you know her voice is very distinct
but her characterizations are very subtle, and whats always amazing with somebody
like her and Randy Quaid that they come in months apart and just sort of pick up and just
spontaneously get into these characters.
You know John was talking earlier about how smart the audiences are, and weve found it consistently in every preview. The set up on the farm which we thought really needed a lot of screen time, we kept on getting the note get off the farm!
SANFORD
They wanted the story to start.
FINN
The story starts when they head to town, and so we wound up
first we sort of pared
stuff down, and then I think by the third time we heard it we were
like pulling stuff
out, throwing stuff overboard - huge, huge chunks of screen time because the audience got
it. (Laughing) Theres a terrific song that sets the farm up that k.d.lange sings
called "Patch of Heaven." Carol Cook does the voice of the Pearl, the famer
lady, and all the farm characters are really great and warm and wonderfully animated by
James Lopez who did a terrific job. And you get that right away.
SANFORD
Yeah, its interesting you always hear people say - the animation folks - we
dont get to spend time with characters, we like this one or that one and we really
want to spend more time with them. Well if thats appropriate to the story,
great, but when people get everything right away, if people understand your character in
ten minutes then youd better get moving!
FINN
Get things going, get things active. Thats something that Tom was always pushing on,
to get active. You know we learned to get there ultimately, and the quicker we could get
there the better it was for the move.