From Greg Butera…
I love when you write up a story which prompts questions and you then give a deeper answer about the inner workings of showbiz. Here's my contribution. Reading your answers today about the Bay City Rollers Show got me wondering about this part: "I worked on several TV shows on Stage 6 there and it was amazing how it could be a dense jungle in there on Tuesday and on Wednesday, they were taping Solid Gold or a game show in there. A lot of the 'magic' of television is made by set designers, the tech crew and super-heroes who are referred to as 'grips.'"
Do you know anything about where all that stuff goes between set tear down and put up? Are set materials tossed into a huge dumpster or reused? Are there huge warehouses on those studio lots where stuff from the Dean Martin variety show still sits? Is there some wunderkind who remembers it all so when he hears "Hey Jim, we need a stuffed llama for a John Oliver segment for HBO next week, we had one of those on the Smothers Brothers episode 6 in back in 1969 is it still in warehouse B"? That kind of detail just fascinates me.
Where sets go has a lot to do with someone — usually someone who deals in budgets — making a decision about how likely a given set is to be needed again. A decision is made before a set is built as to whether this will be or could be a permanent set that will be reused. Your favorite series probably has several rooms or locations that could turn up in every episode or many of them. When they build those sets, they make them extra-sturdy and they figure out where to store them…preferably close by in a warehouse on the studio grounds.
On the other hand, when a set is ordered and it's likely to only be used once for an hour or two and never again, that set might be built to last an hour or two and not much more. Parts of it might then be discarded. Parts of it might be cannibalized for other sets. You can always use living room walls, doorways, windows, etc. In fact, I worked on shows where we'd finish all the scenes on the living room set and then the crew would dismantle it, repaint parts of it and set those pieces up as part of a bedroom in another scene.
And if a set is simple enough and there's no immediate plans for it, that budget guy might decide it would be cheaper to not store the set. He'll consider the cost of warehousing it, the value of its components if it's recycled, the cost of refurbishing it if it's stored and then brought out of storage to be used, the availability of storage space and other factors. He might decide it would be cost-effective to let it be stripped down for its parts and then if it is needed again, rebuilt. The plans are always saved but not always the actual walls, especially if they're not built to last.
One of the responsibilities of a show runner on a series is to repeatedly answer questions like, "Do you think we'll ever have a scene again in Harry's garage?" And when a show is nearing its completion, someone has to decide when and if to preserve its key sets, just in case. I believe there's a story about Fawlty Towers where they'd done the first series and it didn't seem likely there'd be a second. Someone decided to throw away or recycle parts of the sets…and right after half of them were burned and the rest recycled into sets for other shows, contracts were signed to do Season #2.
The sets for The Dean Martin Show are long gone unless someone, as with some of Johnny Carson's sets, put them in a museum for historical purposes. If there was a stuffed llama on a Smothers Brothers show, it was probably rented from a prop house and it went back there after it was no longer needed. If John Oliver's show needs a stuffed llama, they'll go searching prop houses and other facilities for one. It's highly unlikely the same stuffed llama would be rented since the Smothers Brothers did all their shows in Los Angeles and John Oliver shoots in New York. (Well, actually, he shoots in a blank void these days but I know what you mean.)
Back when we did The Bay City Rollers Show, the Kroffts had a building out in the valley that made sets and costumes for all their shows and also for non-Krofft shows. Sets were stored there until (a) they were needed again or (b) someone was reasonably certain they wouldn't be. On some shows I wrote for Sid & Marty, the backs of the sets showed the names of earlier shows I'd written. Set designers are real clever about turning the inside of the mad scientist's lab into a wedding chapel…or whatever.
