ABOUT THIS BOOK

In the early 1950s writers were leaving radio en masse to try their hand at another promising medium—television. William Froug was in the thick of that exodus, a young man full of ideas in a Hollywood bursting with opportunities. In his forty-year career Froug would write and/or produce many of the shows that America has grown up with. From the drama of Playhouse 90 and the mind-bending premises of The Twilight Zone to the escapist scenarios of Adventures in Paradise, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, and Charlie’s Angels, Froug played a role in shaping his trade. He crossed paths with some of the memorable personalities in the industry, including Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Agnes Moorehead, Elizabeth Montgomery, Robert Blake, Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, Aaron Spelling, and Sherwood Schwartz.

Froug reveals a post-WWII America giddy with the success of its newest medium—yet sobered at moments by strikes and union politics, McCarthyism and anti-Semitism. It was a world of hastily written scripts, sudden firings, thwarted creativity, and fickle tastes. And yet, while clearly exasperated with many aspects of Hollywood, Froug was a man utterly in his element, his frustration with the industry ultimately eclipsed by his dedication to his craft.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Emmy-winning William Froug is professor emeritus and former chair of the School of Theater Arts, Film, and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written five popular books on screenwriting, including The Screenwriter Looks at the Screenwriter, Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade, and Zen and the Art of Screenwriting.

REVIEWS

“Bill Froug is a born storyteller with a rich treasury of stories to tell about a career that led him to the highest reaches of television production, where his sense of humor remained gloriously intact.”—Roger Ebert

“If you really want to know what it’s like behind the scenes of network television, this book is not to be missed. Bill Froug was there from the start. He was not a fly on the wall; he was at the head of the table when decisions were made and battles were fought. But what makes this book stand out among the other memoirs is Froug’s honesty and lack of an agenda. He tells the true story even when he is hurt by it, and the story he tells is fascinating—not only for television fans and scholars but for anyone who has turned the dial on a television set or pressed that power button on the remote.”— Stuart M. Kaminsky, Northwestern University, author of Writing for Television

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
Illustrations 000
Acknowledgements 000
<LINE SPACE>
Introduction 000
1. Welcome to Hollywood 000
2. Hello, I Must Be Going 000
3. Going, Going, Gone 000
4. Volcano Man 000
5. The King of Game Shows or "Shoot Her in the Stomach" 000
6. Paradise Found, Paradise Lost 000
7. Skinny Knows 000
8. Bombs on the Left, Cannon on the Right 000
9. Chew Vass Expectun Mebbe Too Loose Latrek? 000
10. The Sunset of The Twilight Zone [AM1]000
11. Banished to Gilligan's Island 000
12. Bewitched . . . Plenty Bothered and Bewildered 000
13. One Subchaser Missing In Action 000
14. So You Want To Be In Pictures? 000
15. One Last Fling 000
16. Free At Last 000
17. Hollywood, UCLA 000
18. Perks 000
19. Jack Webb Widens His Dragnet 000
20. Only Sometimes A Happy Ending 000
21. Fresh Blood 000
<LINE SPACE>
Index 000

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