MISFITS OF SCIENCE: An Oral History (Pt. 4 of 4)
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Now go ahead and dive into the conclusion of our story, and remember…
“When the unusual becomes the usual, the impossible becomes possible, the incredible becomes credible, and the weird gets weirder, who do you blame? The Misfits of Science!”
Abyssinia, Misfits
Donald Todd: At the time, there were a lot of viewing choices on Friday nights, and, uh, I think we were up against all of them at one point or another. I do remember that, on the last episode, I didn’t realize that we weren’t going to make anymore, because I was still caught up in the excitement of making the show. It was the 16th episode, which would’ve been “Three Days of the Blender,” an episode which I’m surprised exists anywhere outside of the VHS tape I have of it, because we didn’t complete it. I guess they must’ve finally gone back and completed it, though, because I understand it’s on the German complete-series box set.
It was the last day of shooting, and they’d pulled us from seven days of shooting to six days, which would’ve been my first signal right there, but I was too new to know that they weren’t gonna make any more. And then the last shot, I look around, and there’s the whole studio and several network people, watching our last shot. And even then I didn’t think what that meant. I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting. They’re really interested in our episode!” No, they just came to say goodbye to everybody.
James Parriott: I got the phone call, and then I had to go down to the set and hang around, and then finally say, “Okay, guys, that’s it.” It’s sad. I hate doing that. Pulling the plug is always really hard. Really, really hard. I did a show several years ago called Push, Nevada, and the episode I was shooting was the eighth episode, which usually the episode where plugs get pulled in the fall. I got a call from Sean Bailey, “Hey, I just got the call, we’re pulling the plug, but I don’t want you to tell anybody until I get up there, so I can tell them.” And he was, like, two hours away or something from where we were shooting!
So we had to keep in production, and it was very sad to be shooting and shooting and doing stuff and having to put on a front like you’re still trying to make your day when you know you don’t have to anymore. The saddest thing after cancellation, though, is just walking through your sets. That’s very sad. You just kind of walk through, you’ve worked so hard, and here are the sets you worked so hard to design and build...and they’re empty. It’s a tough walk.
Donald Todd: But then they wouldn’t spend money on the post-production for the last episode! So I begged different people on different shows to get it through the post process, because it was such a good episode. I loved that episode. We tried some things, it was really bizarre, and I think somebody in a post house got me a tape of it years later. It was directed by Michael Switzer, and it was shot documentary-style, or mockumentary, it had flashbacks…it was very ahead of its time. I’m very proud of it. It was Spinal Tap-like. It was really good. Courteney was fantastic in it. I always wanted to get it so I could show it to her.
James Parriott: Don’s opus: “Three Days of the Blender.” That’s funny. But he should be proud of it! It was really good. Really hilarious. Don wrote that show far better than I did.
Mark Thomas Miller: If you talk to anyone in the industry, ask ‘em, “Why does a show that’s in the top 10 or 15, pulling decent numbers in its first year, get cancelled?” I don’t think anybody’s ever answered that question. I mean, I won’t say I was shocked when I heard it was cancelled, because they kept picking us up sporadically. It was, like, “Two more episodes! Four more episodes! Five more episodes! Two more episodes!”
James Parriott: I think Mark’s remembering a little optimistically. I mean, it didn’t tank, but back then you really had to hit. Back then you needed a 30 share, and…I don’t know what we were doing, but I’d bet it was in the mid-20s. And if you didn’t have a 30, you were done. There were only three networks, so you’d better have had a third of the audience. That was always the cut-off. If you were below a 30 share, you were dead.
Mark Thomas Miller: That’s when I learned how corporate Hollywood works. If you’re somebody’s baby and you’ve been very successful, sometimes they want to knock you down a notch and they want to destroy your baby because they think you’re getting too big for your britches. So, y’know, in retrospect...well, again, now that I’ve been in business for years, I know that you’ve gotta be careful when you say, “This is my baby,” because there are enough people there that want to replace you or take your position, so they may do whatever they can to make sure that your baby doesn’t fly. And I think that’s kind of what happened with Misfits of Science. That, and the cost of it, too. But there were shows that were doing far weaker numbers than ours that stayed on much longer than we did.
James Parriott: I knew we were dead. I knew we were only there because of Brandon, because he was trying in hopes that we’d nudge the number up. I also think he kept the show on a little bit because he was trying to make up for what happened on Voyagers!, which was really sort of tragic. Well, okay, not tragic, but…
Voyagers! was struggling, but we were still doing fairly well in that Sunday-at-7 slot. I think we were doing a 21 or something, which in that slot was okay. But 60 Minutes was clobbering us. Clobbering everything. But we had an episode with Babe Ruth and Cleopatra, and Brandon was programming it right after the World Series again. I can’t remember which game of the World Series it was, I can’t even remember who was playing, but it was gonna air right after the game, and he promoted the hell out of it. He promoted it constantly.
But then the series was tied, and it went into extra innings, and it just kept going on and on and on. And then I get this call from Brandon, and he’s, like, “Jim, I’m sorry, but we’re gonna have to pull Voyagers! tonight. We don’t have enough time in our schedule. We’re going to have to move on to the next hour.” I could tell by the tone in his voice that he was really serious, and I said, “Okay, thanks, Brandon,” but what I realized later is that he’d blown the entire advertising budget for Voyagers! on that one episode. He’d made a big play for it. So we really didn’t get any more on-air promo for the series from that point on.
And then the NBC news division… 60 Minutes looked vulnerable at that point, because Mike Wallace and the team were being accused of yellow journalism that year, and the news division thought they had an opening for their own news magazine there, called Monitor. So they lobbied…I think it was General Electric management at that time, and they got the slot from us. And while we were doing a 21, they premiered to a 7. A 7! It was a big mistake. And I think Brandon felt really bad about that. So with Misfits, I think he wanted to do everything he could do to boost it. And he really gave it his best shot. Brandon was a good guy.
Getting Misfits of Science on DVD in the States
Mark Thomas Miller: I have no idea what the business end of the show is, but I do know that I just dug out every episode on one-inch tape. Kevin and I paid…I think it was…well, it was a lot of money back then, but I think it was something like $200 or $400 per episode to have it recorded on oneinch. And I’ve still got those.
Donald Todd: You know, the issues, of course, are music-related. There was a lot of music in our show. Nowadays, everybody has to go back and replace all their music, so that’s really where the labor is. That’s why people don’t do it a whole lot. But I remember a Dire Straits song called “Walk of Life,” and it was an early episode where we had a young homeless girl living down in the tunnels, and Johnny B had to go find her down in the tunnel. And there’s a line about “down in the tunnels,” and then, “Here comes Johnny…” It was dead-on perfect. It was, like, “Are you kidding me?” So we got a Dire Straits song that went on to be this huge hit. It’s full of really good songs. So you can see how much work would have to be done to release it.
Looking Back at the Legacy
Mark Thomas Miller: I don’t really talk to anybody about Misfits of Science, but…we’re moving warehouses (at my company), and last week I found a box, and in it was my old Misfits jacket. It had some mold on it, it was pretty beat up, but I thought, “Geez, I’ve got two little boys now, they may want to play around with this when they get older.” So I just got it back from the leather cleaners, and it’s hanging right up here in my office. I can’t even get one arm in it! I, uh, think I’ve gotten a little bigger…
Donald Todd: It’s amazing how much I remember. I really didn’t think I remembered much. But, y’know, it’s a show that develops a larger following the farther you get from it. Unfortunately, my Misfits jacket doesn’t quite fit anymore, either—I’ve decided that it’s not me, that it’s that the styles were tighter back then and were supposed to be snug—but it fits my wife, so she wears it on occasion, and people go, “Oh, my God,” and they claim to remember the show. But I still get a lot more mileage out of ALF, frankly.
Mark Thomas Miller: Occasionally I’ll bump into somebody who’ll make mention of Misfits of Science, but I don’t think I’ve bumped into anyone like that in about ten years, mainly because I don’t look anything like I used to. There’s really only one person who, after about a year and a half, I started responding to her website because it was such an incredible collection of my work. I don’t have anything. I don’t even have a copy of Ski School! But her site, The Science of Misfits… I don’t know where she gets this stuff, but I’m, like, “I don’t even remember doing some of these jobs!” But she finds ‘em. So I finally communicated with her, and she’s out somewhere in Mojave, I’ve never met her, but I’m just very grateful that she’s helping keep my Alzheimer’s at bay. I’m, like, “Wow, thanks for reminding me that I did that job!” and every now and then I’ll fire off a picture to her or something. Generally, though, I just don’t have time for it.
In a way, I’m kind of glad that I didn’t get sucked into the business. I absolutely love what I do now, and I had some really great experiences, but to have Misfits of Science be my first real show, and to have worked with such generous, fun people… I truly loved these people, so I can kind of end it there and go, “Hey, that was a great experience.” In fact, the truth is, it was such a short-lived series and a short period of time in my life, and everything was so good, that…it’s kind of a boring story, y’know? The stories kind of came afterwards, when people started passing away too soon, and things like that, which is why when some people want to talk about it, I tend to be, like, “Well, half the cast is gone, and you know what Courteney’s doing, because you can see her walk down the street every day on TMZ, so…”
But the show was full of just the nicest, most terrific people. I’ve stayed friends with Parriott. I just never see him anymore. I think it was five or six years that I had lunch with him. But if I saw him tomorrow… And his wife, Diane (Cary), is fabulous. So beautiful and talented and funny. Jim’s so prolific, and, man, he just keeps going. He’s a survivor. And Don Todd, he’s great. We didn’t stay in touch, ‘cause he was a writer/producer I think kind of halfway through the season, and he moved on quickly and had other jobs and all that. But I know he’s gone on to do so much stuff. He was a shitload of fun. He was great. I’d love to talk to him, to all of them, and see their smiling faces and hear what they’re doing now. But I’m just happy that all the rest of us are alive, happy, and doing well, especially in this town, where it’s pretty rough. Any of these guys who are still working and raising a family or whatever they’re doing, God bless ‘em. That’s fantastic.
Christopher Murray: I’m just glad the show has a cult following. It seems like every show or movie I’ve worked on either has a cult following or no following at all, so I really appreciate the fact that it’s one of those that has one. I also did one of the Leprechaun movies, so I get it from that, too, and it’s amazing the circle of people who love these things and how much they love them. I was in Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood, and lemme tell ya, the brothers love that movie. I went to see it in one of the big old art-house theaters downtown, and everyone was just howling at the screen. It was hysterical. When people fall in love these with things, they do it in a big way.
James Parriott: Most people, when they bring it up don’t go, “Oh, that stinker…” They go, “Oh, I watched that when I was a kid! I loved it!” And you go, “Oh, okay, good!”
Donald Todd: I love it when people are obsessive about a show I’ve worked on, so I don’t have to be. My first two shows were Twilight Zone and Misfits of Science, and you can imagine the cult followings that both of those have. Everything’s been researched about Twilight Zone. And then I got into ALF. I didn’t think about that: the first three shows I did were very science-fiction-y cult things. But I like that. That’s what I thought I was going to be doing with my career. But Misfits was a great second experience for me, and a great first staff experience, and I mention it every time I talk to anybody. I say if you can find yourself an underfunded show that no one cares about, that’s gonna be a lot better for you as a writer and a producer than being on a big hit show, because you’ll get more freedom than you ever wanted…to mess up. But messing up is how you learn.