Shortly after Thanksgiving this year, I realized that people have been able to see little ol' me on TV (either on a network or cable channel) at this time of year every year since 1998, if you knew where to look. How you may ask, did I manage to accomplish that monumental feat?
Easy. Desperate for money, I signed with a couple of casting agencies in L.A. when I lived out there, and eventually ended up with a small part in a made for TV Christmas movie, THE CHRISTMAS WISH, starring Debbie Reynolds, Beverly Archer, a then unknown Naomi Watts and Neil Patrick Harris. When it finally aired for the first time in December of 1998, I was pleasantly surprised and relieved that the story was good and believable, unlike so many of those movies that are built around a disillusioned, disenchanted loser of a character, the phrase “You just have to believe!” and the light tinkly music that’s supposed to evoke a feeling of magic about the whole thing. (For a look at some ideas for made for TV holiday movies that should probably never be shown, you can go here.)
Further, the scene I was in had given me plenty of “face time” as they like to call it. and from what I can recall it was a pleasant experience, but also unique enough that I thought it might be an interesting story to tell about how it all went. So pull up an ice block and lend an ear.
To start with, the agency I signed with seemed to go out of their way to find interesting stuff for me to work on, so when the phone rang on a Friday in March of 1998, and my casting director asked if I’d be interested in playing an office Christmas party guest in a movie with Debbie Reynolds, how could I say no (almost as much out of wanting to do the damn thing just so I could say I was in a move with Debbie Reynolds as because I really wanted to pay my rent that month)?
“OK,” he told me and gave me directions on where to report and what my call time was. “Oh, and by the way,” he added, “wear something that says ‘Christmas!‘”
Great, I thought. I didn’t even have a red pair of socks. And where the hell was I going to get any Christmas-type clothing in March?
Fortunately, I remembered the Salvation Army store that was located about two blocks from my apartment in Canoga Park (we were in the upscale section of town) so I headed over there and looked through their designer seconds and hand-me-downs to see if I could find an article of clothing -- a sweater, a vest, a pair of boxer shorts with reindeer and elves and jingle bells and candy canes on them -- anything that would fulfill the requirement.
I finally found a red necktie with a picture of Santa Claus embroidered into it which made him look like he had been run over by a truck -- maybe the previous owner had been -- and took it to the counter. The clerk took it out of my hands and looked at me kind of funny.
“Little bit late for this ain’t it, pal?” he remarked.
“Uh, it’s for a Christmas movie I’m in,” I stammered.
“Yeah, right. In March,” he replied as he began to ring it up a the $2 price marked on the tag.
“You don’t really know anything about the TV and movie business do you?” I countered. “There’s a lot of work that has to be done between the filming and when a show is broadcast. That’s why there’s such a long lead time.”
“Hey, pal, all I know is if THE SIMPSONS or SEINFELD isn’t on when the TV Guide says they’re supposed to be, I get pissed.”
I could see I was making no headway at all with this guy. Still, I decided to see if I could negotiate with him a little.
“Uh, any chance I might be able to get break on the price?” I asked. “After all, how many people are going to come into the store and buy a Christmas item at this time of year?”
“Hey. look, buddy -- whaddya think, I’m running a charity here or something?”
I was about to remind him of the name of his employer, when I decided it wasn’t worth it to get into a hassle over a $2 tie I was only going to wear once in my life.
He finished ringing the tie up -- for $2, wadded it up into a ball and put it in a bag, then tossed it over at me. “There you go, pal -- Merry Christmas!”
I squeezed the bag tightly in an effort to relieve myself of the desire to want to smack him one, then quietly turned and headed toward the door.
But he wasn’t done. Needing to get one final shot in, I heard him deliver a laugh tinged with sarcasm followed by “Man, what idiot would be stupid enough to make a Christmas movie in the middle of March?” .
I started to turn around and reply “Maybe the same type of idiot that thinks the best way to collect money is to set a red kettle out in front of the local Walmart every December,” but kept my mouth shut, as I left the store and drove out of sight as fast as I could.
With my main requirement for this film out of the way, I waited for the weekend to pass.
Unfortunately, weekends in February and March in Los Angeles are about as chilly and rainy as you can get, and when I had to report for my call time on set the next Monday, I had come down with one of the worst colds in my life -- but I had my damn Christmas tie on!
So, armed with a duffel bag full of cough drops, cough syrup, Kleenex, decongestant pills and Alka-Seltzer cold medicine, I arrived at the locale, an old warehouse just south of downtown Los Angeles that had an upstairs office paneled in dark stained oak where the scene was going to be filmed, modestly and tastefully decorated for Christmas, including a tree. The office evoked the feeling of being in the old Bailey Building & Loan from IT‘S A WONDERFUL LIFE, which I think was the point, since the story involved the passing of Neil Patrick Harris’ character’s grandfather and the real estate business he had owned for many years.
The area where the extras were going to be kept (gee, it almost sounds like we were animals in a zoo -- Matt Damon, where are you when we need you?) was in a large hallway/foyer off of the office and on one wall a double glass door opened to a rooftop terrace.
After getting my wardrobe approved, navy blue pinstripe suit, white shirt and my Santa Claus tie ("Jeez, where'd you get that tie -- the Salvation Army?"), I went back to the holding area to wait to be called for blocking and rehearsal, and immediately blew my nose, downed four cough drops, three tabs of Sudafed, two Alka-Seltzer tablets, and possibly even a partridge in a pear tree -- I‘m not sure. By that time my head was so stuffed up I barely knew where I was. So I sat there and waited.
At last the assistant director came out and called all the extras in. It was then that I discovered that the production company and the whole crew were Australian. Everywhere I turned I heard people talking like Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. (“Crikey! Oim gowing to approwch this lawge venomous Christmas tree veary keahfully!”) But at least they all spoke English, so even if I didn‘t understand half of what they said I could always respond with “Roight, mate -- that Faustih’s is a hell of a beeah!” and stay on their good side.
The crew went around pairing up people who seemed a good fit as couples, and boy, didn’t I hope that they were going to pair me up with the cute petite redhead I saw on set in the red sweater. But for some reason, the script dictated that they pair Naomi Watts with Neil Patrick Harris (boy, if we only knew then what we all know now!). In actuality, I didn’t even know who Naomi Watts was at that time. Even if you did know who she was, you wouldn't have recognized her with the short red hair and the American accent. This was 1998, and she hadn’t yet made a feature movie in the United States, so here she was doing a made for TV movie (for the same reasons, no doubt, as me -- she needed to pay the rent).
Eventually, I was partnered up with a perfectly lovely lady named Judy, a middle-aged blonde, who towered over me in her three-inch heels. I was 5’7”, and with my cold and medicine exaggerating everything, she looked to me like she was 7’1”. The director and crew blocked out our positions so they could get camera angles, then a rehearsal, then -- they shot the scene!
Well, not really. They just did the opening shot (which I’m in, you can see me taking a a cookie off the tray being offered to me by Judy -- not to be confused with Judy your Time-Life operator, by the way -- remember her?). Following that shot, the director called for a break and we all went back out in the foyer again. Time for more medication.
It was then that I saw Doogie himself, Neil Patrick Harris (or was it a hallucination? My brain wasn’t functioning too well by that point -- I chalked it up to one too many throat-numbing cough drops) as he entered the foyer and, blowing past the extras, headed straight for the set.
When they called us back on set, there he was, as ready as any Shakespearean actor to recite his lines. But first, more blocking and rehearsal. Then, in the film’s critical moment, he jumps up on a desk in the office and gives a speech to the crowd at the party.
I was expecting maybe something on the order of Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech. But what we got was Neil Patrick Harris -- not the HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER “Barney” Neil Patrick Harris, but a young man who was gently explaining an important decision he had made to the guests in the room, all very understated and calm. In my head I’m thinking “Wonder how many years I’d have to work as an extra to make what he just got for jumping up on that desk?”
That part of the scene having been filmed to the satisfaction of the director (“Crikey! That one was a beauty!”), we were sent back to the foyer. I found my chair and duffel bag. And I immediately blew my nose and popped another cough drop into my mouth.
It was then that I saw something that I wished had never passed before my eyes. Yes, my friends -- Hollywood, the town where make-believe becomes real, can be a hard and cruel place sometimes. What I saw was Neil Patrick Harris heading toward the double glass doors, opening them, taking a half-step out onto the terrace -- and lighting up a cigarette! I started to think that I’d taken four or five too many Sudafeds that morning. This couldn’t be! Doogie Howser, M.D., smoking?!
By that point though I felt so lousy that I told myself that I’d do anything to feel better. We’d barely gotten a quarter of the scene filmed yet and I already felt like I was going to pass out -- not to mention the terror I felt about possibly letting out with a humongous sneeze during filming -- and having it land somewhere in a spot that would be very embarrassing for Naomi Watts to have to clean off.
In my overmedicated stupor, I thought to myself “Look, Doogie Howser M.D. is standing right over there. No one is bothering him. Why don’t you just go over and ask him if he’s got any advice for dealing with a cold?”
As my mind let the effects of the medicine take over, I imagined that I boldly stood myself up as best as I was able without keeling over face first, strode over to him and asked him “Pardon me, Dr. Doogie, but I watched you for years. Have you got any advice for someone with a really bad cold?” I started to come back to my senses when I imagined what his answer to me probably would have been -- either “Yeah, sure -- here, have a cigarette,” or “Tell you what. Take two aspirin and call your agent in the morning.”
One more call back to the set and then it was time for lunch. It was then I got to sit with members of the crew and talk about some of the technical aspects of the film.
“Tell me, is this movie being shot in the regular 4:3 aspect ratio, or in letterbox?” I tried to sound as up to date and informed as possible.
“Uh huh,” was the answer I got. Gee, I thought, for Australian, that answer sounded awfully American. I tried another tact.
“ What kind of lights are they using outside the windows to simulate sunlight?”
“”Really broight ones.” Okay, one more try.
“I know that usually movies such as this generally have a fairly long shooting schedule. How long is the one for this? Three months? Six months?”
“Try 18 Days.” One of them, a guy about 6’3” 240 lbs. and wearing a tool belt full of medieval-looking utensils around his waist stood up and glared at me “Hey, what awh yew, a fuckin’ network guy or something?”
I picked up my tray and moved to another table.
The highlight of the afternoon’s shooting was the arrival of the grand lady herself, the legendary Miss Debbie Reynolds. A dynamo full of energy, she stood barely five feet tall, but created enough electricity in the room to light up half the city of Los Angeles.
Now here’s where the fantasy of making a film gets interesting. The director wanted to do a two-shot of Debbie and Neil talking with each other while the other party guests walked back and forth past and around them. The only problem was, we were working on a hard polished wooden floor, and their dialogue would most certainly be drowned out by the clicking and clacking of our shoes as we walked past them.
So before they started shooting, the assistant director told us “Okay, everyone off with your shoes!” Personally, I thought that the scene would have been infinitely more appealing and enjoyable to watch if he had told us “Okay, everyone off with your clothes!” but this was CBS they were filming for, not HBO. We shot that part of the scene with everyone walking -- or sliding in some cases, the floor was that slippery, in our sock feet. The one benefit to me was that my partner Judy had come down from being 7’1”, and she and I were now the same height.
For the final shots of the scene, Judy and I were paired together again and the director placed us where he wanted us to be. We finished the parts of the scene that Debbie Reynolds appeared in and then did one last shot with Naomi and Neil talking to each other (and with yours truly with my back to the camera who you can see just behind and between them.)
“Great!” I thought. “Now I can go home, get to bed and try and sleep this damn cold off.”
Wrong! Now we had to do what is known in the business as a “wild track,” meaning, while they were recording audio only, we all had to make sounds like we were guests at an office Christmas party -- conversation, laughter, general background noise -- so they could add those sounds in under the dialogue in post-production. “God,” I prayed, “don’t let me sneeze now.”
While the crew set up the audio equipment and microphones, Debbie Reynolds was giving us a free performance of her own. She started doing a drunk character which had us all in stitches, and I thought to myself that she’s either suddenly started channeling her daughter Carrie -- or she had seen me toss down a couple of capfuls of Robitussin, because by that point, I was feeling about as loopy as she was acting.
Ultimately, we got the wild track recorded and the director told us we were finished, thanked us for our work and let us go. How I got home, I don’t know. Call it a Christmas miracle in March. I certainly don’t remember driving it -- or what type of carpet I may have flown on.
This year marks the first year that the movie didn’t air on either a network or cable channel since 1998, but fear not, it's still available on DVD through Amazon and EBay (if you really feel the need to see it that badly).
My scene comes about three-quarters of the way through, and you can spot me fairly easily: (1) opening shot where I‘m taking a cookie off a tray held by my partner; (2) standing with my partner behind and to the left of Naomi Watts, reacting to Neil Patrick Harris’ speech; (3) standing with my back to Naomi and Neil as they face each other at the end of the scene -- I’m the guy you see between them.
I never did get to ask NPH for any advice on how to deal with a cold, nor did I personally meet Debbie Reynolds or Naomi Watts that day. But I’ll never forget the experience -- that is, what my overmedicated, infirmity-addled brain can recall of it to start with -- and for me, I’ll always fondly treasure and remember it as “A Very Doogie Christmas.”
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"God Bless us, everyone!"
-- Tiny Tim
"You're fired!'
-- Tiny Trump
-- Tiny Tim
"You're fired!'
-- Tiny Trump
