Marriage has been very good for TV producers Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith.
Their 10 years as writing partners and four years of wedded bliss have inspired (loosely, they emphasize) two comedies in the upcoming season, Fox's 'Til Death and ABC's Big Day. Yuspa and Goldsmith established themselves as writer-producers and later showrunners on CBS's The King of Queens, but fall will mark their first solo flight as series creators.
"It's a lot of coffee, a lot of hours," Goldsmith says of birthing two very different half-hour series. "We have great teams on both shows."
For most of the summer, Yuspa and Goldsmith were even girding for their shows to face off at 8 p.m. Thursdays, the toughest night of the week. ABC gave them a little relief this month by shifting Big Day and its half-hour companion, Notes From the Underbelly, to Tuesday and a later start in the season; 'Til Death bows September 7.
"You go into every season fearing the worst as a writer," Goldsmith says. "It's a happy quirk of something that not only did the scripts turn out well but we put together two great casts. That's huge."
'Til Death, starring Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher, is as traditional a domestic comedy in the Honeymooners vein as exists in prime-time today. Garrett has ample room to show off his slow burn, while Fisher is his able foil.
"If Mad About You is about young marriage, this is a show about old marriage," Yuspa says. "It's about realizing you've been sitting across the table from each other for 20 years and there's nothing left to say," Goldsmith says. "And ultimately why they stay together," Yuspa adds.
Big Day, a sprawling ensemble led by Marla Sokoloff, Josh Cooke, and Wendie Malick, is an inventive, affectionate send up of 24's real-time nail-biting genre, done as a minute-by-minute chronicle of a young couple's over-the-top wedding day. It was inspired by their own nuptials in 2002 (guest list: 150) and their recent experiences with attending what can seem like a wedding a week for friends and relatives. There's high drama, emotional seesaws and impromptu scream-therapy sessions lurking below the surface of the exaggerated smiles on every wedding party.
On Big Day, the alpha-mom, bride, and wedding planner characters "are not arguing about nuclear bombs, they're arguing about what salad to serve, but the stakes are just as high," Yuspa says. "We've encouraged our cast to play everything as if they're talking about nuclear arms."
The shows are shot virtually side by side on the Sony lot, as Yuspa and Goldsmith have been since joining Queens as baby writers in 1998. A few years before that, Yuspa and Goldsmith met through common friends in New York. It was kismet when they realized that both of them were independently headed to the West Coast and the USC School of Cinema-Television that fall.
At this stage of their lives and careers--a mix that includes feature screenwriting successes (What Women Want, 13 Going on 30) and a two-year-old son--Big Day is something Yuspa and Goldsmith know from primal experience. 'Til Death is a hopeful vision of the future. Yuspa looks to the sturdiness of her parents' 40-year (and counting) union as guidance for her characters' motives.
"My mom came home from a business trip once and said to my dad, 'I missed you,' and he said, 'That's ridiculous,'" Yuspa says. "We love that."
Comments (3)
til death and big day dont look that good, but king of queens is funny
Til' Death looks promising but King of Queens never interested me and Big Day sounds boring. O and by the way Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Pugh Martin Davis were writers on one of my favorite shows I Love Lucy!
Who knows? One day, they might become the "Bob Carroll, Jr." and "Madelyn Pugh Martin Davis" of this generation! {And if you don't know who THEY are, you haven't watched enough TV! ;) }