Up Till Now: The Autobiography

player chose not to answer it he or she could pick a second letter which he or she also could choose not to answer after I read it, but the player had to answer the third question—but before I revealed if that answer was correct the player selected one of the thirteen gorgeous girls and music started playing and the gorgeous girl started dancing because she was picked and I danced because she was dancing. Have you ever seen me dance? Anyway, the dancer unrolled the scroll she was holding which revealed a certain amount of money and if the answer to the question was correct the contestant had that amount added to his collection but if incorrect it was subtracted from that pot. We continued playing until the player gave six correct answers and won all the money in the pot or had six incorrect answers in which case the player went home with their memories.
    That’s clear so far, right? Now, one of the gorgeous girls was holding a scroll that did not indicate an amount of money; instead this was the... “killerrrrrr card!” If the player answered the regular question incorrectly he or she then had to answer the “killerrrrrr card” question, and if they got it wrong the game ended and theywent home with nothing. And then the gorgeous girls danced. But they changed that rule after our first episode so they didn’t have to miss the regular question and then they...
    You get the idea, right? Tell a few jokes, give away some money, watch the gorgeous girls dance. I had a lot of fun with it. My job was simple: if the player was comfortable, if he were just soaring along and confident, I was to make him uneasy; but if he were uneasy and nervous, I was to make him comfortable. Additionally, all the cues for music and dancing were up to me. I’d say, “Let’s celebrate,” and the music started playing and the gorgeous girls started dancing, or “Let’s not celebrate” and the gorgeous girls did not dance.
    I suggested they put a comedy writer or two in the booth to feed me lines I could ad-lib. No, they decided, that will only get in the way of your rhythm. They were right, the key to the game was the contestant. My job was to find a way for the audience to identify emotionally with the player, to bring out his or her personality. If they rooted for him or her, the game would work.
    There were several problems with our show that turned out to be basically unsolvable—unless they changed the rules, in which case it was another show. The biggest failing was that the player didn’t have the option of taking his winnings and leaving, he had to play the game to the end point. We had eliminated the greed factor, the player had to continue. Second, the rules were too complicated. The best game shows or quiz shows are the simplest. Too much was happening, and then the gorgeous girls danced. Personally, it was much harder to do than I had anticipated. We were taping over the weekend. Theoretically you should be able to tape an hour show in an hour. So if we were taping two shows it would take—with all the changes that had to be done—three hours, four hours.
    Oh, more nice news. I just made a new friend on MySpace. Welcome to my page, the Mad Mountain Man of Montana.
    So, taping: because this was a new show and everything was computerized, all my cues and the questions had to be programmed into the teleprompter. It took twelve hours to do two shows. We ended upworking all weekend and I was on my feet much of that time. Man can only dance so long. By Monday morning when I went to work on Boston Legal, I was exhausted.
    When the show was canceled after a brief run people were very sympathetic. Everyone acted as if there had been a death in my career. It even occurred to me that perhaps we should sit shiva for the show, and then we could have my characters from The Shiva Club come and tell some jokes and cheer up everyone—then sell the rights as a special.
    But honestly, I was not unhappy it was canceled. Much earlier in my career when a show was canceled or finished its run, I always experienced some anxiety as the actor’s what’s-next-is-my-career-over factor kicked in. Obviously I don’t feel that way anymore. I can always get a gig singing at science-fiction award shows.
    When we were making Star Trek Leonard in particular was concerned about being typecast. As he remembers, “People were actually asking me, ‘What are you going to do when this is over?’ I wondered if I was missing something. I guess I