In an interview today, NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt says his network is looking at three possible musicals to do live for Christmas of 2014, the way they did The Sound of Music. He didn't name them but did say, "We're looking for another show, a well-known title, something that people already know and love that can interest kids and adults and can be produced live, which is no small feat." I'm guessing it'll be something like The King and I, Oliver!, Annie, Guys and Dolls, Camelot, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, Mame or Hello, Dolly.
Grease and The Music Man have probably been performed too recently on television. Fiddler on the Roof might evoke some charge of trying to crowd Christianity out of a month that belongs to Christmas. One thing seems likely: Whatever show they pick is probably going to involve a lot more dancing than The Sound of Music.
Mame would be an interesting choice. It's not as well known as the others but it does have a kid in it, a strong "family" theme and some of it's about Christmas. Best of all, it has a couple of songs in it that are rather well-known. Greenblatt does note that there may be rights problems with some of the shows they want to do.
By the way: I wasn't that serious about A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It's not really for kids, it doesn't have songs the whole world knows and loves and it isn't a family/Christmas thing. And I forgot to mention the biggest argument against doing it on TV like that: It would be harmed a lot by commercial breaks. The whole show plays pretty much in real time with no change of setting, no dissolves to later the same day or the following weeks, etc. There's no room for a word or ten from our sponsor.
Meanwhile, Mr. Greenblatt was also asked about the situation with Jay Leno and he said…
I've made it clear to him and all of his reps that we'd love him to stay. He's been very focused on the final months of the show and has said he's not going to make any decisions about his post-Tonight Show life until after the show. But nothing would make me happier than to find ways to keep him involved with this network. That's really up to him.
I would translate that as follows: There's nothing we can offer him that he really wants. If there were, we'd have made a deal by now. Jay's going to wait until his contract with us permits him to accept offers from other seekers of his services and see where he is then. If and only if he can't find a deal he wants to take elsewhere will he come back and accept some sort of contract with us.
Or at least, it means something like that. I have heard that the buzz about The Tonight Show is that Jay has received if not other offers then at least communications from parties that have said the equivalent of, "Don't sign with anyone else until you hear what we have in mind for you!" He is saying nothing. Two interesting aspects of this are…
- Not only is Leno being paid by NBC through September but much of his staff is, as well. So a lot of them are not rushing off to line up other jobs. They can afford to wait a bit and see if Jay comes up with something that they can work on.
- Since the days he guest-hosted for Johnny, Leno has been on the NBC Burbank lot. He was in Stage 1 (Johnny's stage) for a while. Then he moved to Stage 3, across the hall. Since he started his 10 PM show, he's been in another, newer stage on the other side of the lot…but it's no longer NBC Burbank there. NBC sold the facility off and now it's a private rental lot. If he made a deal to do a new talk show — say, for Fox — when his current contract is up, they might be able to rent the same studio and offices for him so he wouldn't have to move.
In other words, he could work in the same place with a lot of the same folks. In Bill Carter's last book on the Late Night skirmishes, he said that one of the reasons Leno opted for that 10 PM deal on NBC over, say, going to ABC at 11:30 was that he liked the idea of staying on the NBC lot and keeping the same crew and the same offices and the same parking space. Just a point of interest for the folks following this story.