Hail to the Chin

by Bruce Campbell

  When I left Colombia, I was 200 pounds – the allegedly “perfect” weight according to my height and build. Stepping off the plane in the States, I immediately stuffed my face with as much meat, oil, sugar and flavor as I could find and washed it all down with the finest hooch. That ideal weight lasted about an hour and a half.

  BATTLE-AXE

  The Fall of Sam Axe was scheduled for a four-week shoot. With six days of filming a week, it was an aggressive workload. The upside was that I wouldn’t have to endure the smog or stabbings for too long. The downside was that it was the toughest shoot I’d experienced since the 108 days of filming Army of Darkness. I remember sending texts to friends, grumbling: “You can take this leading man shit and shove it!”

  Sam Axe was a character whose every other line on Burn Notice was: “Hey, buddy, hand me one of those beers.” Now front and center, Sam was suddenly expected to make impassioned speeches and carry every scene. As the primary focus of the plot, my character had more dialogue than I’d seen since my days in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

  Despite having access to a portfolio of cheat sheets developed for Burn Notice, I didn’t want to go down that road on The Fall of Sam Axe. The courtroom scenes had epic amounts of dialogue and I wanted to be ready. I respected Donovan as a director and I didn’t want to piecemeal our way through the material. Long scenes need to get into a groove to work. Thankfully, we were able to do that and by wrap time Donovan and I had established a mutual record – shooting 17 pages in one day.

  “You want another take?”

  The Fall of Sam Axe was born out of an internal, corporate conflict, but despite all the hassles, negotiations, Business Affairs, disputes and obstacles, I’m happy to report that the spinoff was a success. If this TV movie had been an actual pilot, the ratings and reviews would have merited its own episodic series.

  Happy endings are always the best kind.

  THE TURN OF THE BURN

  As always, TV ratings run their course. Burn Notice started strong, jumping to the head of the cable TV pack and staying there for roughly four of its seven seasons. The USA Network was a great partner at the right time and they treated us like the network tent pole that we were.

  Eventually, whether it was viewer fatigue, an increasingly serious and complicated story line, or USA’s repetitive “blue sky” TV show model, viewers began to tune out. I got better insight, anecdotally, a year or so after the show ended when folks would ask, “That ran for six seasons, right?” After correcting them that it was, in fact, seven, I realized that some people thought Burn Notice ran for as many seasons as they watched.

  After committing to seasons five and six concurrently – which was a thrilling vote of confidence – USA decided that season seven would be our last. Mercifully, because everyone was warned in advance, we could all prepare for the end. The story could be wrapped up cleanly and production could plan ahead for the big shutdown.

  It’s a big deal getting rid of seven years of accumulated sets, props, destroyed vehicles and racks of wardrobe that ranged from pimp outfits to SWAT gear. Bob, the head of production for Fox, let us know that we could get first dibs on our wardrobe – but not for free. Fox was running a business and studios are not known for their sentimentality. Basically, everything that could be sold off was – from the bar stools at Carlito’s Restaurant to Michael Westen’s trusty Charger.

  For my part, I took first dibs on the best Hawaiian shirts (patterns matter), some sunglasses, watches, Sam Axe’s jewelry and the most prized possession of all – a prop spiral binder that contained roughly five years of “in-scene” note-taking. It was fun to flip through after-the-fact and review all the diagrams, random notes and actual lines of dialogue scribbled within.

  All in all, Burn Notice had a great run. Seven years on television is nothing to sneeze at. Ultimately we shot 111 episodes – exactly the same as Miami Vice, the first iconic show to put Miami on the map.

  17

  AFTERBURN

  When Burn Notice ended in 2013, Ida and I rented a place in Los Angeles. It was time to find a new gig. We hadn’t lived in southern California for almost twenty years, so it was exciting to reconnect with old friends and business acquaintances and to see what opportunities lay ahead.

  When you live outside of Los Angeles, you can drop in for extended meetings and a few follow-ups, but it’s hard to keep things moving week after week to get a project in gear, like you can do when you actually live in the city.

  After being back in Los Angeles for about six months, with dozens of exciting meetings and business opportunities, I began to realize a bit of what I had left behind – the wheeling and dealing – and I missed it. Bullshitting with producers and networks can get tiresome after a while, but in just a couple of focused weeks in the same city as dozens of production entities it’s amazing what can happen. The following is a smattering of projects that unfolded – or didn’t – immediately after Burn Notice.

  LAST CALL

  With the completion of Burn Notice I wasn’t interested in “working for the man” – I wanted to “be” the man and have my own show. The opportunity arose when Jeff Wachtel from the USA Network collared me at a promotional event.

  “Let’s take a walk,” he said with an inscrutable smile.

  Jeff explained that he had a show in mind – a fun, late-night genre-centric show where you view a culty, kitschy movie and do skits during the breaks with funny guests. The name they had was Night Cap.

  I was all over it like a cheap suit. In my formative years, I religiously watched local Detroit goofball Ron Swede, aka The Ghoul, host a late-night show on Saturdays that was very similar in concept. Another local wacko was Sir Graves Ghastly. His show was during the day on Saturdays, so I definitely had early influencers in that department.

  I had always wanted to host something, but in reality it’s a bit of an odd gig. Part of it falls on your shoulders to be accessible, charming and able to think fast. The other part – like acting – is scripted and you’re often reading off a teleprompter.

  A host saying, “We’ll be right back after this,” is indicative of the structure of almost anything on television, due to the necessity of commercial interruptions. Skits within a late-night show can be ad-lib-y and freewheeling, but they are still timed and trimmed for length and as witty as a host may be, his or her show is still well plotted.

  A pilot episode for Night Cap was written by Brad Stevens and Boyd Vico (“Brad and Boyd”). I thought the end product, taped very quickly and painlessly, was very “sellable” while knowing that there was always room for improvement.

  USA ended up rejecting it for their late-night – or any – slot. Thankfully, NBC Universal, the parent company of USA, had a large collection of networks under their corporate umbrella, so we pitched Night Cap to them all – including the newly renamed Syfy Channel.

  Still no takers.

  We pitched the show “beyond the corporate veil,” to anyone who would watch it but, like many pilots before it, Night Cap found no suitors. I was surprised and bummed that we laid an egg. I figured the idea was light and funny enough to find a home. Failure is never thrilling to experience, but Night Cap remains a happy memory because at least I got a little “host practice” out of the deal.

  “BAD” SESSION

  Now that I was living in the actual city of Los Angeles, I could follow up on opportunities much more quickly than when I was hiding in the boonies of Oregon. It was also a funny thing with my representatives – I suddenly became more “real” to them, more “tangible.” I could take actual meetings. Whatever the case, it seemed to make a difference and things continued to line up.

  Next on the hit parade was a TV pilot called Good Session, starring James Roday from Psych. I got on his radar guest-starring on his long-running show and he tapped me to play his hippy-dippy father in this “dramedy” about a young couple in therapy.

  A “table read” is a funny thing. It happens before you shoot a give
n show and it can be a nervous affair because all the mucky-mucks are present – as well as a sea of flunkies and assistants to provide the sometimes-needed laughter.

  A good table read crackles with energy and the room beams with possibility. The read-through for Good Session did not crackle – it just kind of sat there. In this case, it was hard to place the blame. The actors were all trying hard, the writing seemed okay, but the magic somehow passed them by. After a good read, participants will often linger about, congratulating one another and making small talk – after this one, the room emptied like someone ripped a nasty fart.

  The pilot episode was shot without incident. It was fun to step back into “whacky supporting mode” type acting, after headlining Night Cap.

  The fate of a project lingers as long as a studio or network needs it to. Legitimately, some networks need to wait for a slot in their lineup to open and they’d rather wait until the last minute, contractually, to decide on a show.

  Good Session suffered no such long, dreary waiting period. The decision to not take the show to series came just a couple weeks after shooting.

  Wow. That was fast. Okay, next!

  MISSION (OUT OF) CONTROL

  Because Good Session never got past the pilot, I did what every other actor does that time of year – jump from project to project, hoping to land in a show that “sticks.”

  I was convinced that Mission Control would be that show. This particular TV pilot was the brainchild of Will Ferrell’s company, Gary Sanchez Productions – a creative nut I wanted to crack for a while. I was a huge fan of Will and the stuff coming out of Funny or Die, so I jumped at the chance to play Bob Korman, idiot administrator of a band of misfits in the middle of the NASA space race. Conceptually, it was basically Mad Men with jokes.

  I love the sixties time period – close-cropped hair, skinny ties, the chauvinistic bravado of the guys and the coifs of the women’s hair. Some time periods suck for an actor – I never dug the sword and sandal stuff or WWI wool uniforms – but the sixties were cool. Pipes and Zippo lighters and dial telephones heavy enough to kill someone were bizarre reminders of distant childhood memories.

  I still love going to the backlots of major studios. It never gets old. Going to the Edith Head building (named after one of the great costume designers of the golden era) on the Universal lot for a costume fitting was awesome, because they made a custom sixties jacket that fit me to a T. Call me snooty, but every so often it’s really nice to work on something with a budget.

  The main set constructed was an almost-as-big mission control, duplicated with great detail – including overflowing ashtrays at every console.

  Control freaks.

  The cast – an assembly of young, talented comedians – really gave me hope that this show was going to “go.” I also really appreciated how these guys worked, creatively. Don Scardino was the director. We worked together on a pilot called Missing Links about fifteen years before and he had since become one of the “go-to” guys for directing comedy pilots. His style was light and breezy and he kept our energy up. The cool thing would be that after virtually every take Don and the writers would come in and pitch completely new material. I like things fast and loose, where you collectively look for the best way to play out a scene – especially if you want it to have punch or be funny. I enjoyed going to work every day on that. I envisioned years and years of working with this talented ensemble and basically laughing our asses off.

  No such luck.

  After a bit of recasting, the pilot came to a halt and then sat on the shelf for the better part of a year, while Universal tried to find a slot for it. Eventually, time expired and the network had to shit or get off the pot. Farewell, Mission Control. I hope the pilot leaks somewhere so people can actually see it.

  Every actor I know has a dozen of these strange projects under their belt that nobody will ever see – some of it really good stuff that just didn’t catch on for whatever reason.

  LOOSE BRUCE

  “Operation Gainful Employment” continued with a little indie called The Escort. I was enjoying just being an actor for hire again. Living in Los Angeles, you are way more likely to do small projects, just because you are already here. Living on an Oregon mountaintop, I might as well have said, “No thanks – too much hassle to haul my carcass down there for some little bit.”

  Hippie dad redux.

  Indies are fun, but it usually means that the budgets are low and the personnel are less experienced. As an actor, you have to put that all aside and participate because the role is good. Again playing a hippy-dippy father (maybe the feature on me in High Times had an influence on casting), I enjoyed the efforts of its star, Michael Doneger, who was also producing. I always respect when actors get fully behind what they are doing. More and more are producing these days and it makes total sense. If you want control, you need to be a producer and you need to be good at finding money.

  Like so many flicks these days, The Escort dropped on pay-per-view and Video on Demand (VOD). The film business is adopting a whole slew of new terms for distribution in the digital age. Presumably, the film did okay for what it cost.

  No harm, no foul – on to the next venture.

  GAME OFF

  I had agreed to host a charity game show for troops at the Sam Houston base in San Antonio, Texas. I hate war to the core of my being, but I have no issue with the soldier willing to put it all on the line.

  For some reason, I didn’t want to go. I was tired, I wanted to kick back and do nothing after a busy year or so, but a commitment is a commitment. So, I donned the silliest red, white and blue outfit I could find and hosted Quest for the Best, a military-themed trivia game show where everyone in the audience gets to compete until one soldier wins it all.

  The theater where this event took place was beautiful – a fully restored thirties-era showplace, seating six hundred. It was fun performing in front of soldiers who were mandated to be in attendance – they had to be there. Nothing like a captive audience. The game and its design unfolded really well and the soldiers were getting quite verbally engaged as the game went on, down to the last four contestants. In a real nail-biting fight to the finish, the soldiers erupted in joy when the final contestant, a woman, took the prize.

  This format works, I told myself. This sucker could be adapted to be done live at conventions – just make it all fan-based, pop culture trivia. A game show for geeks!

  I pitched the idea of Last Fan Standing (new name) to Steve Sellery, the developer of the game, and he bit right away. I then pitched it to John Macaluso, the CEO of Wizard World Entertainment, one of the biggest convention promoters, whom I was doing a lot of business with and he jumped on board.

  Eventually, the show wound up in the hands of CONtv, an Internet-based network that specialized in movies and TV shows for genre fans. On paper it all sounded great and we made a preliminary deal. The only problem was that CONtv was in no position to finance the actual ten episodes they’d just negotiated to get, so myself and three other partners formed a company and put up the money. That was a neat trick – get the people who make the show to pay for it, too! What a great business model!

  The ten episodes of Last Fan Standing were filmed live at a couple different conventions and it was a lot of fun. Staging shows at an actual convention, packed to the gills with geeks, made for great contestants. As the episodes played out, there were dramatic upsets, come-from-behind wins, total humiliation – the whole gamut of emotions on display. Generally speaking, the format “worked” and seemed worth the effort.

  To this day, I couldn’t tell you what the “ratings” were for Last Fan Standing. Honestly, I wonder if CONtv even knew. Gone are the Nielsen boxes of the old days. Now we’re counting clicks or subscriptions or hits. I hope they figure it all out one day.

  Needless to say, CONtv and Last Fan Standing had reached the end of the line. It’s actually fine, because it freed Steve and me to take the game to various cities and do it live, which
is always the most fun anyway.

  KICKING THE BUCKET

  As an actor, you want to touch all the bases – drama, comedy, action, genre, musicals (okay, maybe not those) – you want to do it all and you want to pepper your résumé with as many portrayals of iconic characters as you can. What else is the point of being an actor?

  I was contacted by my Burn Notice alumni Marc Roskin and Jonathan Frakes about coming up to Portland to play Santa Claus in the new show The Librarians. Every actor has a bucket list. Santa Claus was on mine – and how nice to actually work in the state where I live.

  “Where do I sign?”

  Even if Christmas isn’t your bag, everyone has heard of Santa Claus. He’s a worldwide phenomenon. What was nice about this particular Santa was that the writers spun him to be a little edgy, sometimes naughty – but a hero in the end.

  Portland, Oregon, is one of my favorite cities on the planet. It’s big enough to provide anything you’re looking for but small enough to give a shit. The town is run by soul patch–wearing twentysomethings who don’t really care what they do for a living. In Los Angeles bartenders can be a snotty, self-important bunch, but in Portland they dig the craft cocktails and really get into the history of adult beverages. I back that approach to life.

  Jonathan Frakes, directing this episode, was one of our favorites on Burn Notice. We could only get him for one or two episodes a year, because Miami got too hot for him. Frakey-Pants, as I came to call him, was always a delight to work with.

  Some directors don’t get it. Some don’t know how to talk to actors. Frakes was an actor, so he knew all of our foibles and our tricks and could see trouble coming.

  Some directors get buried under the workload. The joke on set about such directors is “Gone with the Wind in the morning, Dukes of Hazzard after lunch” – meaning that they got a little too self-important out of the gate and fell behind during the course of the day. Television is a train that needs to run on time. Frakes was a brilliant conductor. He was very happy to print a first take or a partial take and move on to the next. He never simmered or doubted – he just plodded ahead. In television, that’s exactly the temperament you need.