Balancing Act
Writer Richard Whitley juggles comedy and drama with ease.
      by Linda Najera

The alienated-youth sound.

Writer Richard Whitley has a resume that encompasses the 3 R's: The Ramones, Roseanne, and Roswell. In the late 70's he helped pen Rock 'n' Roll High School, a teen-comedy about a bunch of high school kids who identified with the alienated-youth sound of The Ramones. Then just last year he co-wrote an episode of Roswell, a teen-drama about a bunch of high school kids who live in fear of being identified as alien youths.

Coincidence? I think n-- Okay, so it probably is a coincidence, considering that in between his forays into the hell that is high school he wrote feature scripts, served as a writer/producer on Michael Moore's TV Nation and contributed to National Lampoon magazine.

11th Hour readers, however, are probably more familiar with his work on genre series like Space: Above and Beyond ("Dear Earth" and "Pearly"), Millennium ("Goodbye Charlie") and The Others ("$4.95 a Minute"). Although light years apart in terms of plot, each of the episodes had what can be considered a particular Whitley touch: they all contained instances of both intense grief and laugh out loud humor, sometimes within moments of one another.

The Roseanne/Glenn Quinn Connection

"I love humor and comedy," Whitley says. "The first things I started to write professionally and even when I was much younger was always comedy. I love Jerry Lewis, particularly Woody Allen and Buster Keaton and all that kind of stuff. And I've always loved humor, but the more I've written [of drama] I realize that I like to combine the two. And I think that sometimes in drama you can say more with comedy than you can with completely humorless things."

And while his abilities seem to blend in perfectly with the genre, he admits, "Basically I had never really written sci fi or fantasy until working with Glen [Morgan] and Jim [Wong]."

But that's not to say he was anti-sci fi. Like everyone else, he just had his preferences.

"I know I'm in the minority, but in 1977 I was a bigger fan of Close Encounters than of Star Wars because it was a regular guy who kinda flipped out. He had a wife and these kids and he kinda was grounded in Indiana. I was just ready to root for this guy from second one. And I just loved that movie. I loved Close Encounters. And even though I know that Star Wars was really cool I felt much more emotionally involved with Close Encounters for that very reason. I identified with that guy."

Space: Above and Beyond

We'll take characters over "cool effects." Especially when the characters look like James Morrison and Rodney Rowland.

"When they [Glen Morgan and James Wong] called me about Space: Above and Beyond, they knew that I was really into World War II. In fact I had written a screenplay based on my parents' experiences during World War II so they knew how much I loved that era."

Although Space: Above and Beyond didn't mark the first time Whitley worked with Morgan and Wong -- that dubious honor goes to the short lived 1991 series Disney Presents The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage -- it was his first foray into writing for a genre television show. But the transition wasn't as hard as one might expect.

"I must admit that I never really thought about working in that sci fi genre before dealing with Glen and Jim because a lot of times sci fi doesn't have any human quality to it. It's more technology. I like the elements of character and things and that's what Glen and Jim always stress. And so that's what's always made it interesting in everything I've always written for them. They always stress the character first and then we come up with the cool effects later."

Major Cyril McKendrick (Martin Jarvis), one of Whitley's signature tragic-comic characters, in "Pearly".

This focus on character versus technology isn't the only reason Whitley has agreed to work with them over and over again.

"Glen and Jim just treat everyone with so much respect, everyone from the guy gettin' the coffee all the way up to the director and the DP. They kind of spoil everyone. Cause it's just such a great creative working atmosphere."

And he wasn't the only one who noticed.

"My wife came to the offices and the set of Space: Above and Beyond and she goes, 'God, everyone is so nice. It's so unlike where you usually work.'"

The Notorious 7

"Glen [Morgan] and Jim [Wong] had done a pilot a few years earlier with Stephen Cannell, but then they got it back and they did it [and it was] called The Notorious 7."

This series never made the air: more proof that Fox sucks.

Back in the summer of 1997, Fox asked Morgan and Wong to come up with something different. And boy, did they ever. Set in an unnamed metropolis, the protagonist, one Eddie Alighieri, son to the leader of the crime syndicate that holds the city in its grip, must seek revenge after he is framed for the murder of his father. Using disguises and slight of hand, Eddie takes on the crime underbosses, who represent the seven mortal sins: pride, wrath, sloth, greed, envy, gluttony, and lust. The pilot was a highly stylized mix that incorporated all of the best elements of comic books, mobster flicks, and film noir.

"That time working on it was really one of the best ever because Jim was directing the pilot, Glen and Jim had written it, and of course with the order for other scripts during that time of pre-production and shooting, we had a kind of mini writing staff which was Darin Morgan, myself and Bob Rabinowitz and Glen and Jim. We just all sat around and kind of plotted this arc of where Eddie was gonna go. Bob was doing for Eddie to go undercover in the garbage business and I had him undercover in the funeral business."

With a dream team of a writing staff like that nothing could go wrong, right?

Wrong.

"It would have been great. It was kind of right there at that time when everyone was into that Rat Pack cool-lounge stuff and it would have been right there. It would have been a hit. I know it would have. But, oh well."

And Fox strikes yet again.

"It's a shame that it didn't get picked up."

A crying shame.

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