The Tracey Ullman Show

The show is also known for producing a series of shorts featuring the Simpson family, which was later adapted into the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, The Simpsons. The Tracey Ullman Show was the first Fox primetime show to win an Emmy Award, winning a total of 10 over its run.


Rolling Stone ranked The Tracey Ullman Show as the 25th-best sketch comedy show in its "40 Greatest Sketch-Comedy TV Shows of All Time" list.^[2]

Development[edit]

British actress, comedian, singer, and former dancer Tracey Ullman was encouraged to try to break into American television by her husband, British producer Allan McKeown, who was looking to station himself in the United States.^[3] Ullman, who was already a household name in her native England, had already been making the rounds in the US promoting her film and music career in the early 1980s. Unlike in England, Americans were not aware of her comedy background outside of humorous appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman. Ullman already had three British comedies under her belt, garnering her awards and accolades. "I didn't believe there was anything above Webster standard [in America]. I was wrong."^[4] Her British agent put together a compilation of her work and began circulating it around Hollywood. Her tape landed in the lap of Craig Kellem, vice president of comedy at Universal Television. "I could not believe my eyes. It was just about the most extraordinary piece of material I'd seen in a long time." He wanted production on a series to begin immediately for her.^[5] Saturday Night Live scribe and creator of CBS's Square Pegs, Anne Beatts was hired to write the pilot. Universal liked the script; Ullman reportedly threw her hands up in the air, hating it. Recalling the project: "We'd just hit on an idea, then some white-haired executive – very, very important – would come in from the race track and say, 'I don't like that idea. I think Tracey should be a caring person. I think there should be a kid in this. Now, I'm just pitching here. I don't know if this is funny. But I think Tracey should love this kid and maybe there's a moment where she tells the kid something about life.' And I'd say, "Look – I don't want to work with little kids being cute who I eventually adopt'."^[4]


Ullman's new agent, Martha Luttrell sent her tape to James L. Brooks, who had a deal with Fox. Fox, dubbed America's "fourth network", was looking to create its own brand of original primetime programming.^[4] Brooks was bowled over by Ullman's material. "I saw original talent, and how often does that happen to you?"^[6] "I started showing [her work] to people like you'd show home movies."^[7] "I was just startled by the size of the talent. I got chills."^[8] Ullman explained to Brooks her situation at CBS and the fact that she was now pregnant. Brooks convinced her to get out of the CBS deal, and after she had her baby, they would do a show together. Brooks felt that a sketch show would best suit her assets (acting, singing, and dancing). "Why would you do something with Tracey playing a single character on TV when her talent requires variety? You can't categorize Tracey, so it's silly to come up with a show that attempted to."^[7]


To ensure that she was well-versed in American comedy, Brooks began sending her tapes of American sitcoms and variety shows to watch and study.^[9] Ullman also began visiting and spending time at the Museum of Television & Radio.^[10]


"After I made [the 1985 film] Plenty, I thought it was sad that everyone left London to go home to Hollywood. Thought I'd join 'em. [...] I thought of myself as a Peter Sellers type. No one does American accents better than him. Look at Dr. Strangelove and Lolita". As one critic noted, Sellers had American director Stanley Kubrick as his visionary and Ullman would get American television and film director James L. Brooks, the man behind such hit television shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, and Rhoda, and the films Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News. "I came to America in 1985 and James made me stay. If I had a mentor like him in Great Britain, I would've stayed there."^[11]


"Variety hadn't been done for sometime and we wanted to do a show that would allow me to do the things I like to do and can do," stated Ullman in 1987. "I think, literally, the word unique and mean it," said Brooks in regards to Ullman's talent. "We're so obsessed with comparisons. The only one I could even think of that comparing her to is Peter Sellers – he's the only one you can mention. He could do a variety of Americans. And then you have to add that Tracey sings and dances."^[12]


The key to getting Ullman ready for primetime was "assembling the right people" according to Brooks. Brooks, along with co-executive Jerry Belson, Ken Estin, and Heide Perlman, went on a retreat in Northern California to think through the show. "We wanted to tell a story, to be involved in character. We did not want to do spoofs or takeoffs. You define a show by what you don't want want to do as well as by what you do. We rushed on the air and have been finding the show while we're on the air. You lose a lot of sleep that way, but it's great. Now, we have five or six characters that we repeat from time to time, and new ones are candidates for repetition." When it came to Fox, Brooks stated, "It was helpful for us to do the show without any preconceived context. Not only were we new, but so was Fox. There was no notion of something to fit into."^[12] Fox was reportedly backing the show with nearly $1,000,000 per broadcast.^[13] The series landed an initial 26-episode commitment deal, unheard of for a television comedy; Fox ordered a further 30 episodes in October 1987.^[14] Describing the show proved difficult; creator Ken Estin dubbed it a "skitcom".^[8]


An array of original and diverse characters was created for Ullman to perform. Extensive makeup, wigs, teeth, and body padding were used, sometimes rendering her completely unrecognizable. One original character created solely by Ullman back in Britain was uprooted for the show: long-suffering British spinster Kay Clark. Kay was based on a real woman who worked in a Midlands bank that Ullman kept in touch with long after leaving Britain for the United States.^[15] "Kay" would ask her about Hollywood on the telephone; Ullman would subsequently do the voice she heard on the other line to her dog.^[a] She had been obsessed with spinsters ever since she was a small child, and kept a mental file on them.^[b] She never saw "Kay" and imagined what she looked like. Tracey Ullman Show costume designer Jame Ruhm suggested a drooping bust and cellulite-covered hips for the character. Ruhm created a costume complete with "hydraulic pistons".^[16] "Tracey is really, really interested in what her characters look like," revealed Ruhm. "She is constantly going around collecting pictures of people and coming to me and saying, 'I want to do a character dressed like this!' I file that in my memory, and then we'll get a script and I'll say, 'That character that you wanted to do, can we use it on this?' She'll say, 'Yeah!' And we'll go." "It's a real thrill to me that someone like Kay can be famous in America."^[17]


For other characters, she drew upon people she either knew or celebrities for inspiration. "I based one character on Maggie Smith, which the script supervisor suggested. I remember her in California Suite saying, 'Well, I don't care if I didn't win the fucking Oscar.'... It sounded good. It made me laugh, and then I felt that I could do the character."^[17] She based the character Francesca on a neighbor, an awkward teenaged girl, who would come to visit her in her kitchen and would sheepishly stand in the corner. "I wanted to portray painful adolescence, but not an adolescent that was spoiled. I'd seen so many that were just, 'Like I really want to go to the movies, and you're totally stupid.' I didn't want to play a horrible kid."^[c] Ullman believed in progressing the characters, adamant that they didn't stagnate. "You have to advance the characters [...] you have to find new situations for them [...] They have to do something or say something or grow as people. And they have to be unusual."^[d] Like Kay, another character created and performed by Ullman first for British television (Three of a Kind) and then adapted for the Fox show was impoverished housewife Betty Tomlinson.


Producers decided to add animated segments when they had trouble figuring out a way to end one sketch and go into the next. They had considered talking animals, specifically a talking bear. "I don't know why we were so into a bear," explained Ken Estin. "Nobody was in love with that idea, but we just couldn't think of how else to do it. In most variety shows, it was just sketches that were so short that they didn't have to worry about from going from one to the next. Nobody had ever really done this before." Estin was given with a drawing of Life in Hell by Matt Groening from Richard Sakai. "It was very different. It was smart. It was unusual. It was drawn poorly, which I thought added the charm [...] I said, 'What if we have this guy do these little cartoons in between the scenes? Is that possible? Does anybody like that idea?' They all said they liked the idea. This is how Matt ended up being our guy." James L. Brooks was also familiar with Groening's work. Polly Platt, producer of his film Terms of Endearment had given him a cartoon called "Success and Failure in Hollywood" drawn by Groening as a gift. Platt suggested that he do a special on the characters.


Heide Perlman found another artist to do animated segments – M.K. Brown, who worked for National Lampoon. She agreed to do a cartoon based around a female psychiatrist, Dr. N!Godatu. Producers stopped hearing from Groening when Fox wanted to take over Life in Hell merchandising as part of his deal, resulting in his passing on the project. Estin asked Sakai to ask Groening if he had any characters that he would be willing to allow Fox to merchandise. Groening said that he did have other characters and would send them over for consideration. "Well, two, maybe three days after I spoke to Richard, Matt sends us a drawing of the Simpsons exactly as–well, not exactly–almost exactly as they are. Anyhow, everybody said, 'Fine. That's fine. We like them.' And Matt made his deal with Fox." Eventually, producers found that Groening's work suited the show better than Brown's and her segments were no longer used. Tracey Ullman was approached to do one of the voices of the Simpsons, but with her already spending up to three hours in the makeup chair, adding voice-over work was not feasible. Fellow cast member Julie Kavner then agreed to do it.^[18] Groening approached Ullman sporadically about doing a guest voice for the shorts, but with her heavy workload, she never had the time.^[19]


Early reports regarding the show's premise were: The focal point would be Ullman starring in one, 12-minute-long "playlet", a shorter sketch, some music, and a weekly lecture from Harry Shearer. The show would start with no pilot and a 26-episode commitment, and would be produced by Brooks along with some of the top writers from Cheers.^[20] Shearer's weekly lecture never materialized.


When the time came to go out and promote the show, Fox only allowed Ullman to tour Los Angeles and New York. In 1988, she insisted that she be allowed to tour Middle America. Never a fan of dialect coaches, this promotional tour would allow her to have ample opportunity to do some character study. "I want to see America a bit, I really do. I've only been to LA and New York, and they make very disparaging remarks about Middle America there. I mean, Des Moines, Iowa, is the place network executives always talk about, like, "Would they like this in Des Moines?' They think you just want Facts of Life and She's the Sheriff, that you really want that type of television, and I don't really believe that you do. There's no intelligence, no truth in anything like that. I think you want something a bit smarter. [...] We take pictures everywhere [on this promotional tour]; we're taping people's voices. I'm taking it all in, and it's great. Some journalist once said that I was a 'social satirist,' and I thought, 'That sounds quite intelligent, doesn't?' So that's what I'm doing, I'm meeting people from a social satirist's point of view."^[21] Whenever she was stuck on particular voice or accent, she would open a phone directory. "If I wanted to do somebody from Brooklyn, I would call the library in Brooklyn and listen to their voice and tape them surreptitiously so they didn't know."^[22]


Also helping her in her quest for accents was the show's staff. When she had to find a Brooklyn accent distinctive from the Queens accent she used for her character, United States postal worker Tina, she had the show's staff make a long compilation tape of genuine Brooklyn accents (recordings from radio stations and even randomly placed phone calls placed to random Brooklynites).^[23] Ullman would also call car dealerships in different parts of the country pretending to be interested in buying a car just to hear how the people there spoke.^[24]