Executive Meddling/Quotes
"There is no idea so good it can't be ruined by a few well-placed idiots."
—Scott Adams
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"In a master stroke of UPN programming brilliance, Dilbert follows Shasta McNasty, a show geared toward viewers who are... how can I say this... very likely to die in bowling ball cleaning machine accidents. Fortunately, Shasta is a filthy and sophomoric show, so it will corner the market on perverts and unsupervised minors. It's a perfect lead-in audience for an animated Dilbert TV show. If you don't understand that, you will never be a television executive."
—Scott Adams
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"Audiences are fiercely protective because they know that if four TV executives are stranded on an island with a crate of food and a can opener, three will starve to death and the fourth will choke on the can opener."
—This Cracked article.
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"Creative Reasons" has been an Executive Bullshit excuse for DECADES. It IS financial. AJ is a dreamboat. And yes, I am hurt, too.
—Paget Brewster, in a tweet after finding out that her and AJ Cook's parts on Criminal Minds were being eliminated.
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Just as what goes into a game product is specifically listed and detailed beforehand, what appears in novels is too - and our prose is rewritten. TSR book editors can tell you what battles I have with them... I want to write like Guy Gavriel Kay, but I have to put in 'guys fighting and dying every 8 pages.' If I don't change things, editors do. The current aim of FR novels is to introduce and explain things to NEW readers (don't just bring this umber hulk onstage, describe exactly what it looks like; these may be non-gamers who've never seen a Monster Manual), so this leads to a lot of 'look what I'm doing! I'm plotting the ovethrow of the free world! And here, so I don't forget it for myself, is the dastardly plan I've worked on for twenty years' sort of writing. I could go on...but that's unfair to everyone involved; I'm sure both the editors and readers have their own legitimate beefs. For the record, over a third of Spellfire was cut from my original, and all the dialogue rewritten; readers of a first printing can find the "corpse" of a character falling between rocks, only to spring up again, fit as a fiddle, and fight on (an editor combined two characters, removing one throughout the novel), and also find references to scenes now gone from the narrative, etc. The extra dracolich battle at the end was added in, etc. (my take: They're fighting dracoliches AGAIN? Why?). ALL of Manshoon's meetings and plottings scenes were dumped as 'static, not advancing the action' (note, not 'plot,' 'action'). [...] —From Ed Greenwood's answers on the Forgotten Realms Mailing List
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Ed was all about showing off the ENTIRE Realms, so DMs would early on really feel what it was like to have steamy jungles AND howling glaciers, pirates in the tropics and grim northern warriors, etc etc ad infinitum. —The Hooded One, Lady Herald of Realmslore.
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I am the entertainer —Billy Joel, "The Entertainer"
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Guano: But... but you said you'd never tamper with my creative vision. |
I made him a flushed, dishevelled, bedevilled scallawag, with his helmet at the back of his head, and the living fear of death in his eye, and the blood oozing out of a cut over his ankle-bone. He wasn't pretty, but he was all soldier and very much man. [...] —Dick, The Light that Failed by Rudyard Kipling.
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I'm sick to death of being fucked about by men in suits sitting on their fat arses in the City!
—John Lennon, expressing his frustration over The Beatles not legally owning their own songs (long story...)
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Now, in fairness, this storyline was an editorial mandate. In fact, most of these turns to evil were editorial mandates, further proving that editors aren't writers, so they should STOP PRETENDING THEY ARE.
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This attitude continues to baffle me. Editors, if you want to tell your own stupid story, write your own script! It is not your job to write for the writer! If there's a problem with the script, talk to the writer and fix it with them!
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All we ever want is indecision —The Stressed Reprise of "Stitching it Together (Art of the Dress)", My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic
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Crow: Okay, The Final Sacrifice: The Series— —Mystery Science Theater 3000, engaging in some frightfully-accurate roleplay during the credits of The Final Sacrifice
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"It's called 'Show Business,' not 'Show Art." —Maggie O'Connell, Northern Exposure
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So Pinky and The Brain share a new domain. —Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain, the theme song
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"What you have to remember is that in the movies there are two types of people 1) the directors, artists, actors and so on who have to do things and are often quite human and 2) the other lifeforms. Unfortunately you have to deal with the other lifeforms first. It is impossible to exaggerate their baleful stupidity." |
There's something wrong with Gilligan's Island! —Radio Free Vestibule, "Something's Wrong with Gilligan's Island"
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Movie executives do not lead happy lives. If you are an executive, this is your day: a scruffy man in a Hawaiian shirt walks into your office and says, "I need you to be personally responsible for giving me one hundred million dollars so I can go to Ireland and have people who pretend for a living act like they're fighting imaginary dragons." — John Rogers, in one of the screenwriting articles on his blog
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This led to one of my favorite Hollywood moments. After I turned in my next-to-last draft, the executives looked at me, very seriously, hand on knee, low subdued tones: "John, we really like this last draft, but one thing bugs us. The whole idea of the north and south pole switching places -- it's WAY over the top and unbelievable. It just reeks of bullshit." |
One likes to believe in the freedom of music —Rush, The Spirit of Radio
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"I want to thank the studio for sticking to their convictions— and firing me for sticking to mine."' —J. D. Shapiro, on Battlefield Earth.
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"Nothing can ruin a good idea like a roomful of men." —Denise, Trust Me
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One of the things that comes to mind, having made it quite clear what the American office was doing, what their job was. The president of ITC came over, while we were in production.[1] And we put three of the latest finished shows in the theatre, for him to see. He went went off and saw about three hours of our productions. When he came back, I thought he was going to say "Gerry, they're absolutely terrific". Instead of which, he came back absolutely white as a sheet. I remember saying "Abe, what's the problem?" "I've just seen three shows, Gerry. And there's not one monster in any of them." I was completely thrown. I said "Monsters?" He said "Don't you know, in America, it's the thing. Anything that's any good has got monsters in it. People love monsters." So I said "You want us to put monsters in from now on?" He said "absolutely, as quick as you can." —Gerry Anderson, commentary track to the Space: 1999 episode "Dragon's Domain"
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- ↑ of the second season of Space: 1999