Unknown April Stevens scene - need help

[Piggyrella Sanderson]

Oh, quite the contrary -- Katzman listened to the ideas from Howard Lakin, and that's why the last couple of seasons were what they were...

And Season 12 too!! (Except for this guy below!)

​

 

[Sea - Boo! - Er]

Lakin bragged about getting to write JR and Cally's wedding episode as a "screwball comedy" and cites that episode as his personal favorite.

I'm just getting to that in my rewatch but it seems to me that one screwball episode might be a nice idea - Knots experimented with the occasional episode, too. Turning the whole show into a parody of itself clearly was not. But how much of that is hindsight? How much can we reasonably expect them to have foreseen was going too far?

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

And Howard Lakin said Katzman, who had an autobiographical approach to the show

the last few years of the show make perfect sense when you realize that JR’s Haleyville ordeal was lifted verbatim from Lenny’s nightmarish post-season-11 hunting trip to the Texas/Louisiana border, all the way down to the names Japhet and Boaz.

 

[Frankenstein Underworld]

I'm just getting to that in my rewatch but it seems to me that one screwball episode might be a nice idea - Knots experimented with the occasional episode, too. Turning the whole show into a parody of itself clearly was not. But how much of that is hindsight? How much can we reasonably expect them to have foreseen was going too far?

Knots was more experimental in general, so they could get away with that more easily.

Personally, I don't think they cared about the show's reputation. Do you really need hindsight to know that sending JR to a hillbilly prison farm, hooking him to a horse to plow a field, and having him end up in a sanitarium by his own doing is going too far? That's a complete 180 in tone from how the show started. Katzman is the same guy who wiped away an entire season by turning it into a dream. He had absolutely no regard for the audience whatsoever, and the show only worked when people like Phil Capice and David Paulsen were there to temper his zanier impulses. Howard Lakin, on the other hand, enjoyed taking Dallas out in left field. Thus, we ended up with Dallas: The Hee Haw years.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Knots was more experimental in general, so they could get away with that more easily.

Personally, I don't think they cared about the show's reputation. Do you really need hindsight to know that sending JR to a hillbilly prison farm, hooking him to a horse to plow a field, and having him end up in a sanitarium by his own doing is going too far? That's a complete 180 in tone from how the show started. Katzman is the same guy who wiped away an entire season by turning it into a dream. He had absolutely no regard for the audience whatsoever, and the show only worked when people like Phil Capice and David Paulsen were there to temper his zanier impulses. Howard Lakin, on the other hand, enjoyed taking Dallas out in left field. Thus, we ended up with Dallas: The Hee Haw years.

Although Capice alone brought us Peter Dunne (not as bad as Lakin's tenure, of course).

 

[Frankenstein Underworld]

Although Capice alone brought us Peter Dunne (not as bad as Lakin's tenure, of course).

Yes, that was flawed in a different way.

When it comes to Capice and Katzman, I can't help but think of a quote from Digger Barnes: "We was partners. One needed the other."

Of course, Paulsen could have run the whole damn thing by himself (but they wouldn't allow that.)

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Yes, that was flawed in a different way.

When it comes to Capice and Katzman, I can't help but think of a quote from Digger Barnes: "We was partners. One needed the other."

Of course, Paulsen could have run the whole damn thing by himself (but they wouldn't allow that.)

And JR's line that he'll cut Bobby out "even if I have to destroy Ewing Oil to do it!"