Why was Carsey - Werner Productions such a magnet for crazy?

I think it's more of a reflection of the time they were popular. Late 80s-early 90s. Decade of decadence.

[Quote] Late 80s-early 90s. Decade of decadence.

Yeah, that's it.

Comedians are generally miserable people. Cosby, Barr, Butler - funny but just horrible people.

I think the common denominator is they were all shows built around stand-up comedians who, as already noted, tend to be sick mofos.

I wonder if Carsey-Werner covered up shit back then for Cosby.

I wonder if Carsey-Werner covered up shit back then for Cosby.

Ironically, none of the 3 people named are particularly good actors. Viewed today, they are often the weakest link in their own series (luckily, surrounded by far more capable actors).

Butler's appeal, in particular is a mystery to me. How many ways can you slice "deadpan"? She's terrible.

I don't know Butler was pretty good as Reese's mom on the Morning Show. I think she had a bit part in The Leftovers where she was good too. Granted both parts were strung out southerners....

They might have been nuts, but these shows were all hits, as were many others, so there’s that.

I was just thinking of Brett Butler last night. Somebody start a thread.

I’m sure Carsey Werner covered up shit for Cosby. Hasn’t Lisa Bonet been rather cryptic about his behavior after he went on trial? I wondered if he pulled that crap on her too.

They also produced Cybill, which was a notoriously horrible set. And Cybill Shepard was not a stand-up comedian.

Their first sitcom was "Oh, Madeline!" with Madeline Kahn. She was very temperamental and hated the actor who played her husband. And the writers. She went to her lawyers to get her out of the show, but it was canceled first.

Apparently, Carsey Werner thought she was worth the trouble, as they brought her back to costar in "Cosby."

[quote]I don't know Butler was pretty good as Reese's mom on the Morning Show. I think she had a bit part in The Leftovers where she was good too. Granted both parts were strung out southerners....

I agree, I liked her on those shows.

[quote]I’m sure Carsey Werner covered up shit for Cosby. Hasn’t Lisa Bonet been rather cryptic about his behavior after he went on trial? I wondered if he pulled that crap on her too.

Bonet said something a few years back that she got bad vibes about Cosby. After some of the Cosby accusers came forward, actress Michelle Hurd posted on Facebook about her experiences as a stand in on The Cosby Show. She said that Cosby started off as being very nice to her and then started acting weird by putting his hands on her body and then inviting her to his house to shower and have her hair straightened. Hurd was freaked out and decline the invite. She mentioned that another stand in went over to Cosby's house and was drugged.

It seemed like it was some kind of open secret about Cosby being a weirdo with stand ins. This makes me wonder if NBC and Carsey-Werner knew and were possibly paying off young women. The actor who played Denise's husband on Cosby Show said it was known Cosby cheated on his wife and had several mistresses. It's possible Bonet either knew about the mistresses or the incidents with the stand-ins and was disgusted by Cosby. But, she was forced by TPTB to keep quiet.

[quote]I’m sure Carsey Werner covered up shit for Cosby. Hasn’t Lisa Bonet been rather cryptic about his behavior after he went on trial? I wondered if he pulled that crap on her too.

Bonet said something a few years back that she got bad vibes about Cosby. After some of the Cosby accusers came forward, actress Michelle Hurd posted on Facebook about her experiences as a stand in on The Cosby Show. She said that Cosby started off as being very nice to her and then started acting weird by putting his hands on her body and then inviting her to his house to shower and have her hair straightened. Hurd was freaked out and decline the invite. She mentioned that another stand in went over to Cosby's house and was drugged.

It seemed like it was some kind of open secret about Cosby being a weirdo with stand ins. This makes me wonder if NBC and Carsey-Werner knew and were possibly paying off young women. The actor who played Denise's husband on Cosby Show said it was known Cosby cheated on his wife and had several mistresses. It's possible Bonet either knew about the mistresses or the incidents with the stand-ins and was disgusted by Cosby. But, she was forced by TPTB to keep quiet.

Stand-up comics have issues, which is why they get into stand-up comedy as a release

Almost all of the Carsey - Werner shows have featured a stand-up comic as their star - so it is natural each and every production would have their share of crazy

Rachel True, who guested on Cosby's show, said that there was basically a line of women outside Cosby's dressing room. True also mentioned that she knew she was outside Cosby's interest as she wouldn't pass the paper bag test.

[quote]she knew she was outside Cosby's interest as she wouldn't pass the paper bag test.

For those of you who don't get this reference, African Americans used to divide society into people who were lighter than a brown paper bag and people who were darker. Those lighter were considered more attractive and entitled to prestige.

Rachel appears to be pretty light-skinned, no?

Did Cosby prefer abusing darker-skinned victims?

They wanted to build TV shows around stand-up comics, who as a group are unusually prone to mental illness. It was a recipe both for high success (many of the shows were enormous hits, because they were good at figuring out which comedians would make for good TV shows), and for disaster (because of the mental illness problems).

I know someone who worked for Carsey who had nothing but good things to say about her. Said she was as normal a person could be when thy were worth about a billion dollars. Also said that most actors are huge cases of arrested development, whether they did stand-up or not, and required lots of hand-holding, which Carsey was good at. She started out as Johnny Carson's secretary.

Brett was on The Walking Dead last season - she was beheaded on the last ep of the season.

Bill Cosby and Roseanne Barr also feuded for awhile. Cosby didn't like some of the content of Roseanne's show and she shot back that her show was more realistic than his. As a kid, I liked Roseanne more than The Cosby Show. I found most of the Cosby Show characters to be smug and arrogant. The Roseanne characters were flawed, but I could relate more to the show as I was growing up in a blue collar family in the 90s.

I always thought Cosby was a smug asshole after he upbraided Wanda Sykes on live TV by answering her, "Well, at least I speak with proper English."

Yeah, you're also America's most notorious serial rapist.

[Quote] Rachel appears to be pretty light-skinned, no?

That 70's Show: Danny Masterson is a serial rapist, and Wilmer Valderrama digs very young girls

R26 I would say she has a medium skin tone.

I worked with them in the late 90s on an advertising project. Super nice, super normal. The most decent people I encountered in the entertainment industry. Now the talent around them...

Have you worked with Marta Kaufmann?

Would Camille count as high yella?

Cybill's problem was that she brought the issues she had to deal with on Moonlighting (a lot of which weren't her fault) to her own show.

It was supposedly an easy going set for that first half season until Baranski won the Emmy, then the shit hit the fan.

I have friends who had important behind the camera jobs on Moonlighting.

Most of the problems on that set were caused by Bruce Willis, who let sudden fame go to his head. He was insufferable.

He would make crazy demands. Example: He refused to return to the set until the studio sent a private plane to bring him from where he was skiing. So they did. The next call the producers got: "Send a bigger one." (Which also happens to be my catchphrase.)

Bruce is alleged to be the one responsible for Demi Moore's transformation from a likeable party girl to the mega-nightmare known as "Gimme Moore" once they were together.

r25, I wish she had responded, "At least I don't need to drug women to get into their cunts."

And wasn't naming Marcy's second husband on "Married With Children" Jefferson D'Arcy a slam on Marcy Carsey? Marcy Rhoades became Marcy D'Arcy.

[quote]And wasn't naming Marcy's second husband on "Married With Children" Jefferson D'Arcy a slam on Marcy Carsey? Marcy Rhoades became Marcy D'Arcy.

Was there some rivalry between Married With Children and Carsey-Werner shows?

IIRC, Married With Children was originally written with Roseanne and Sam Kinnison for the lead roles.

I never liked Roseanne. Her house was filty, everything looked like it was picked up on the side of the road; I would check every few months, to see if they moved. The house on The Middle gave me the same feeling.

Whoa, did not know that about "Oh, Madeline." It's funny because if the show had premiered a season or two later, post-Cosby, it would have easily be a big hit.

Didn't Kahn have a cute little coke problem in the 1970s and 1980s?

Dave Thomas was a notorious pussy hound on the set of Grace Under Fire. All the female crew were afraid of him.

Regarding Carsey-Werner and Cosby, you guys are overestimating the amount of involvement that producers have over a project. I have no idea how involved they were on these specific projects but a producer is a person who first sells the pitch to the network, then everything that comes after that--casting, writers, it's the network that signs off on that stuff....once the first season is over, they are often irrelevant. When a big star is at the center, they often take over the major decisions in terms of keeping specific writers and the creative direction of the show. At that point, most "producers" credited are the writers.....The network has a LOT of say in this stuff as well.

The original producers are credited in perpetuity and paid for each episode, but if they fell off a cliff after the pilot was shot, they still technically produce the show dead or alive. they wouldnt have been involved in payoffs....and often they're happy to be cut loose to start up new shows.

[quote]Didn't Kahn have a cute little coke problem in the 1970s and 1980s?

That was the rumor when she was fired from "On the Twentieth Century."

But in the biography I read about her, the author said that he could find no evidence to back up that rumor. In fact, people who worked with Madeline at the time said there were no signs of her being an addict of anything. She was just very insecure and emotionally unstable.

Brett Butler was a crazy druggie, we had a thread on her not too long ago. She was batshit insane even by Hollywood standards.