Ever Carradine

Day 2 -- Thursday July 30

Well, this won't go down in history as the greatest role I ever played. The funeral director is suffering from a combination of too few funny lines and too many regular cast members. There are so many people in this show in so many different locations that most of the episode has to be spent taking care of them. There really isn't much room for a guest star at this point in the show's life. And as a result, I have been getting squeezed.

Meanwhile, the set is fun to be on. The cast is an interesting collection of folks, from the accident-prone, bone-breaking lead, Mark Feuerstein, to the attractive, young women that populate all of his worlds, to the colorful squad of characters that pepper his life. As his mother, Linda Lavin is fabulous and a joy to watch work and perform. Steve Landesberg, as the drug-using co-worker, is perfectly sardonic on the set and offered me a congratulatory, "You were very funny yesterday" off the set, so he's won big points from me. Also throwing in a line or two as Conrad's secretary is Victoria Jackson, of Saturday Night Live fame. She changed the script today because she doesn't say the "D-word." So "Damn, damn, damn" became "Bummer, bummer, bummer." And Ted Lange from the old Love Boat is "apprenticing" (for lack of a better word) the director James Burrows, also a huge name in the sitcom world, so we have Isaac Washington on the Lido Deck serving up cocktails.

So it's good times everywhere until I actually have to get up in front of the writers and try to make them laugh. Today I was dropped from two scenes down to one. After we ran it for the writers, it was decided that it needed a major overhaul. Tomorrow morning should bring an intriguing package to my door. It will answer the question, "How much is left of Howard Allen, Funeral Director?"

Go on to Day 3

Day by Day | Conrad Bloom | Ducey on Television