Craig McNamara writes

In early 2025, I saw a competition for 10-minute plays that took place anywhere within an airport.    I assumed most people would naturally gravitate to scenarios around the most obvious settings – TSA lines, airport gates and baggage claims. So it seemed one way to stand out was to set my script in none of those.   Instead, I’d feature a family of four as they arrived at the airport with their bags. No interactions with airport personnel, no social or political commentary – just an all-out comedy about their inter-family conflicts, triggered by the stresses of traveling together.    I thought of it as writing a scene for the cast of a family sitcom –  All in the Family  in particular, not that I was trying to use their characters. But like that show, and other well-crafted sitcoms, I wanted every cast member to have a distinctive relationship to each of the other characters, that would guide their responses. In fact, I (sloppily) diagrammed out how ea...

Although Santa Claus has been around in different forms for centuries, much of how we think of that Jolly Old Elf today was established in 1822 by Clement Clark Moore’s poem, “’Twas The Night Before Christmas.”   But what would Santa Claus be like if he was created today?  How would today’s culture shape his personality and modus operandi?   First, let’s consider Santa himself: an older, whiskered, rotund fellow.  This is never going to fly (so to speak). After all, ours is a society that worships youth and is obsessed with fitness. As for the facial hair, well, maybe if you’re Paul Bunyan, okay, but not for someone on whose lap we’re going to place little Dylan and Brittany. He’ll have to lose the beard, a few pounds and a lot of years.   And isn’t Santa just a little too much of goody two-shoes for today’s tastes?  Sure, we still want heroes, but we like them a bit less than pure. Makes them easier to relate to. So let’s give him a rough ex...

Authentic. Genuine. Truthful. These are the qualities above all that modern advertising aspires to – or claims to aspire to. Consumers today are too savvy, too cynical, the thinking goes, to be beguiled by unrealistic depictions and unattainable expectations. Yet despite this emphasis on realism, advertising largely remains an aspirational medium. Even the earthiest, unadorned people you see in ads still tend to be stylishly photographed and romanticized, still appealing to how we wish to see ourselves, even if that wish is a bit less lofty.  So unlike the scrubbed, idealized images Madison Avenue sold us during the ‘50s and ‘60s. And that’s largely true – but when it comes to authenticity, nothing I’ve seen in recent years comes close to this mid-1960s campaign for Sony’s new concept of “portable” televisions. Created by the celebrated “Think small”/”When you’re number two, you try harder” ad agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach , these 1965 ads present something that's largely vanished fr...

Recently, I was re-reading  Wake Me When It’s Funny , 1  the 1995 memoir by Garry Marshall , famed sitcom creator/producer ( Happy Days ,  The Odd Couple ,  Mork & Mindy ) and movie director ( Pretty Woman ,  The Flamingo Kid ,  Beaches ). Along with anecdotes from shows and films throughout his career, Marshall dispenses little bits of pragmatic advice on working – and surviving – in show business.  But I’ve found his advice often applicable to working – and surviving – in advertising, too. Especially when it comes to recording voices for commercials and videos.   Tip #1:  "Host" the recording session “I want everyone to get along while they're working because I hate tension while I'm working,” Marshall wrote. “One way to do this is to make each person feel as if he's one of the most important players on the team.” That’s why Michael Eisner, former Paramount and Disney CEO, said that "Garry Marshall doesn't direct a movie. He hosts a mov...

We all have someone we look up to, someone who inspires and awes you, who motivates and challenges you by their example.   Mine was my best friend.   I met Jeff Vlaming when we both worked in the advertising department of our college newspaper. We hit it off right from the start, and for the next 40 years, we kept each other laughing and endlessly discussing movies, TV shows, books, comics, and music.   I’ve never known anyone else like him, his talent bursting out in all directions at once.    Jeff sold his first TV script while still living in Minneapolis. When he and his wife, Kathy, made the move to California, he beat the odds by getting his first staff writer position on the critical favorite,  Northern Exposure . From there, he moved to  The X-Files  and began a long career writing and producing for many popular sci-fi and horror genre shows, including  Weird Science ;  Xena, Warrior Princess ;  Battlestar Galactica ;  R...

What’s your favorite song by The Carpenters? That would seem to be a simple enough question – but when it comes to the ‘70s sister-and-brother duo, it can be a little more complicated. Because often, you don’t just have to choose a song, you have a choose a version. Richard Carpenter didn’t just sing harmony to his Karen’s lead vocals. As producer,  arranger, lyricist, and composer, he was deeply involved in the production of the tracks – and a bit of a perfectionist. So over the years, as their hits have been re-released, he’s used the opportunity to remix many tracks  to improve sound quality and add new instrumentation and flourishes – on songs like  Ticket to Ride ,  Top of the World , and  Superstar . And it hasn't been just Richard Carpenter re-doing works long after they’ve been completed. Think of Neil Sedaka, re-recording his 1962 bubblegum hit,  Breaking Up is Hard To Do  as a soulful piano ballad in 1975. Or the group Chicago, re-arranging t...

I grew up in the WJM newsroom. I had dinners with the Bunkers. I hung out with the wacky doctors of the 4077 th .     Yes, I was a kid raised on  The Mary Tyler Moore Show ,  All in the Family ,  M*A*S*H , and so many, many other classic sitcoms of the era. I knew their characters and their dreams, their homes and their workplaces. I knew them like you know family. Which, in a way, they were.    So during college, when my friend, Jeff, who’d written a movie screenplay, pushed me to try writing one too, I didn’t attempt a movie. Writing a movie from scratch – creating characters and a plotline that could sustain 120 pages of story – seemed intimidating. But being a longtime fan of sitcoms, I had both an affinity for and inherent understanding of the form.    And I knew which show I would choose.  At the time, I was drawn to the nightly reruns of Barney Miller . Set in New York City’s 12 th  Precinct, the show involved a squad room of...

I’ve been known to sum up my past co-dependent relationship with television by telling others that my parents used to say, “It’s such a nice day, Craig – why don’t you take the TV outdoors?”   Yes, I’m exaggerating – but only a little. I freely admit, I watched way too much TV growing up. Given that, you might think our modern era of “Peak TV, with streaming services multiplying like rabbits on Spanish Fly, would be a dream come true for me, right?    Let’s press pause and think about that for a second.   Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the freedom to consume entertainment programs on my own schedule without having to wait a week between installments or broken up by commercials. And I won’t argue the point that we’re in a Second Golden Age of Television, with more shows than ever before of high quality, diverse subject matter, and involving storytelling – The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, et al.   But here’s the thing: If you’ve ever own...

My years in college coincided with the comedy boom of the early 1980s.  Back then, every kid who was a former class clown, or used laughter to deflect their insecurities, thought about spinning their jokes into gold. And I was one of them (the insecure ones).   Spurred on by the then-revolutionary countercultural satire of Saturday Night Live and the rise of comedy clubs and the stars they nurtured (Steve Martin, Rosanne Barr, Sam Kinison, Robin Williams, et al); suddenly every two-bit bar with a brick wall was laying a sheet of plywood over a base of plastic milk crates and hosting “standup nights.”    One of the first venues in Minneapolis to feature standups was Mickey Finn’s (now The Union), a dive bar in Northeast Minneapolis, probably best remembered (if at all) as the stage where Louie Anderson got started.    Eventually, the ubiquity of standup comedy (thanks, cable TV!) and way too many “open mike” comedy nights and their cattle calls of uncom...

Running alongside an article on Mr. Sheen and his recent...happenings, I noticed this promotional image for his CBS sitcom. Look familiar: Yes, it's another example of that popular comedic image we were discussing just a couple weeks back, Bickering-Parties-On-Either-Side-Of-A-Door . I also stumbled on this other example recently... More proof that what the exposed brick wall is to comedians, the multi-paneled door is to comedies.

Hawkeye Pierce is so last millennium. Back in 2008, I posited that Alan Alda's portrayal on the M*A*S*H series was the idealized image of how creative people in advertising view themselves: witty, irreverent, iconoclastic, hedonistic, slovenly and eccentric, but also capable and confident, dedicated and dependable, principled, tenacious, and when the chips were down, absolutely brilliant. But really, that was an image taken from an earlier era, when even flawed characters were always primarily defined by their inherent decency. The richer, more complex characters of television today provides an ever better template for those anguished souls battling for creative integrity in ad agencies: Meet Dr. House : Yes, another doctor (because don't we all view the creative process as a matter of life and death?) -- but while Hugh Laurie's Dr. House is as undeniably brilliant, intuitive and typically unshaven as Dr. Pierce, the similarities end there. Dr. Gregory House is impatien...

Yes, hard liquor is most respectably consumed in the evening hours, but is there something more behind this 1972 Smirnoff ad's imploring headline? Is it a reference to the 1967 racially charged drama, " Hurry Sundown "? Or perhaps the spiritual made popular by folkies Peter, Paul and Mary in 1966? Actually, I'm guessing it's neither, and instead was just a clever intro into the ad's recipe for the "Vampire Gimlet," so dubbed, I suppose, for its eerie green hue and black olive. But that raises a new question, doesn't it? Why a vampire? This was, after all, decades before the romantic vampire imagery of '80s and '90s cinema and television. In fact, Ah, but the clue is in the ad's photo, the modern-but-still-vaguely-gothic appearance of the woman in the window. The drink, as well as the ad, seems calculated to appeal to the youth-adult audience that had helped catapult this unique ABC soap opera -- and its vampiric leading man, Barna...

Here's an early-1970s ad that seems to have sparked a lot of "outrageously outrageous outrage" on some sites around the web: "It's rude/it's sexist/it's unhealthy" goes the shocked, shocked criticism of this ad -- which, seen in the context of the times, seems as about as pointless as sneering at it for its pro-smoking advocacy. What I found interesting was reference point for the headline. "Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere" wasn't just referring to the fruit-flavored tobacco (which, the ad presumes, she'll find aromatic). It's a paraphrasing of a catchy come-on -- "Blow in my ear and I'll follow you anywhere" -- that was popularized by 1969's and 1970's #1 TV show, " Laugh-In ." Used as both a pickup line and a punchline, I seem to recall even Dick Martin using it in his routines with partner Dan Rowan. Finally, before we leave this Tipalet ad behind, in its defense, may I...

This one's too easy. A 1974 ad from paper manufacturer Crown Zellerbach: "Promise her anything," the ad begins, assuring the reader that "behind every promise made with a credit card...there's a modern system of paper forms to make sure the promise is a guarantee." (This is pre-analog and pre-digital transmission of data.) All well and good, I suppose, but what, you're wondering, is the point with the photo and headline? Actually, if you were watching TV back in the early '70s, you already know what the point is. The photo is a clumsily staged knock-off of a popular " Laugh-In " skit featuring series regulars Ruth Buzzi and Arte Johnson: Here's how Wikipedia explains it: ...dowdy spinster Gladys Ormphby, clad in drab brown with her bun hairdo covered by a visible hairnet knotted in the middle of her forehead. In most sketches, she used her lethal purse, with which she would flail away vigorously at anyone who incurred her wrath. On ...