Entry 014 - Sports Night 111 (The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee)

SERIES: Sports Night

EPISODE NUMBER: 111

TITLE: The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee

PREMIERE: 15 Dec 1998

WRITING CREDITS: Aaron Sorkin and Matt Tarses & David Walpert & Bill Wrubel

DIRECTOR: Robert Berlinger

DRAFT SCRIPT: HTML

Hey, look at that, we got a draft script again! This time, it’s another script labelled “final draft” — and boy, is that a lie. There are quite a few sections of dialogue from this draft that got cut for the final product, almost certainly for time if the edits around some of those cuts are any indication. Also, given one of the themes of the episode, it’s quite fitting that writing credit for this episode went to four different people — but we’ll touch on that later as we now dive into the episode.

DAN: We really got nine hockey segments tonight?

About a minute’s worth of dialogue before this line got cut — yes, you read that right. In the cut sequence, Dan and Casey are in their office with Dan fully dressed and Casey still in a white t-shirt when Kim is beckoned:

DRAFT DAN: Kim, what’s going on with Kansas/Missouri?

DRAFT KIM: Missouri’s down by four, with a minute and a half to play, but I think they’re gonna win it?

DRAFT DAN: You think they are?

DRAFT KIM: I have a feeling.

DRAFT CASEY: You have any other feelings you’d like us to report on the news? You think it’s gonna be a long winter?

DRAFT DAN: You think the market’s gonna rebound?

DRAFT CASEY: “This just in, our production associate Kim Cornell has a very strong feeling that tomorrow’s winning lottery number will be —”

To my knowledge, this is the only time Kim’s character is given an explicit surname. Given that, it’s kind of sad that had to be cut — but given one of the throughlines of this episode, it’s technically a necessary cut lest we end up with a logical inconsistency later.

Kim responds to this last bit from Casey with an accusation of his being “persnickety”, which turns into a train of dialogue in which the word “persnickety” is repeated more times than the average human has probably heard the word in their entire life. (Repetition yields music, after all!) In its absence here, we’ll be seeing the word “persnickety” in a later episode instead, though to a lesser degree than in this draft.

After that exchange, Dan finally notices Casey’s state of undress, which Casey explains is due to his spilling coffee. Casey explains as much as, per an explicit stage direction, “Monica enters and puts a new shirt and tie on the chair.” Casey, of course, blithely grabs the shirt and dons it while talking to Dan, without any regard for the young woman who brought the shirt in the first place. It’s a subtle introduction to what will happen later in the episode, but we don’t necessarily miss it as the topic is introduced in another way immediately afterward, anyway:

DAN: Jerome’ll be happy.

CASEY: Who’s Jerome?

DAN: Jerome.

CASEY: Right.

DAN: He’ll be happy.

CASEY: Yeah.

DAN: Sure.

CASEY: Who is he?

DAN: Jerome?

CASEY: Right.

DAN: I’m talking about Jerome.

CASEY: You can say his name as many times as you like, I’m still not gonna know who he is.

DAN: Camera two.

CASEY: What about it?

DAN: He’s the camera operator.

CASEY: Who?

Oh, good lord, Casey — are you even paying attention to the conversation?

DAN: Are you prepared to do a broadcast right now?

What he said.

DANA: Jeremy, tell me what’s happening in Chattanooga. Tell me quickly, tell me succinctly — bullet points. We’re on the air in less than two minutes, so don’t give me a valedictory address. Talk to me as if I’m a small child. Tell me what’s happening in Chattanooga.

JEREMY: I don’t know what’s happening in Chattanooga.

DANA: (beat) Okay, tell me a little more than that.

You gotta love the implication than Dana is used to Jeremy getting preachy about whatever subject he’s been tasked to speak on. Having her specify to treat her like a small child is frankly a little insulting, though — she overheated on that ask big-time.

DAN: I think, as a New Year’s resolution, you should re-dedicate yourself to the idea that this is a team. You play for a team — a team with many players.

CASEY: And you think I should learn their names.

DAN: I think it’d be nice.

CASEY: I agree.

DAN: See, a team’s made up of a group of [individuals —]

CASEY: [You’re gonna keep] talking anyway?

DAN: Individuals who forsake their own individual needs to pursue a common goal — the team goal. In our case, the goal’s a nightly national television show.

Cut in the lead-up to Dave’s countdown to air is Dan providing an example of the team of reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh to illustrate his point. The metaphor does go a little sideways, though:

DRAFT DAN: That sled has to move or nobody gets their gifts. It has to move, and it’s not gonna move by magic, Casey.

DRAFT CASEY: It’s gonna be pulled by a team of flying reindeer.

DRAFT DAN: Right, so it is gonna move by magic, but my point is —

That would have been payback for when you sarcastically corrected Casey in the pilot, Dan — mark my words.

RETURNING Topical Signature: Soccer sucks

^{Previous instance: Sports Night 103}

DAN: We’ll bring you the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and because we’ve got soccer highlights… the sheer pointlessness of a zero-zero tie.

What is up with that, by the way? Is it really so hard to implement overtime rules consistently across all soccer outlets? There is an overtime scheme used in Olympic and World Cup soccer, I know that much. Why isn’t that scheme used for regular season play? Good god, I hate soccer…

ISAAC: What’s going on in Chattanooga?

DANA: We don’t know.

ISAAC: We don’t know?

DANA: We don’t know.

ISAAC: We don’t know anything?

DANA: We don’t know much.

ISAAC: But, fundamentally, we’re still a news-gathering organization, right?

DANA: Sure.

All evidence to the contrary…

ISAAC: Then what’s the problem?

DANA: We’re not very good.

ISAAC: That’s what I thought.

Man, come on, did you really have to agree that quickly? Dana was almost certainly being sarcastic there.

DAN: Thank you, Kelly Kirkpatrick in Green Bay. You look cold, put some clothes on.

Eh… that’s toeing the line of harassment there.

DAN: … if you’ve got a play of the year, you can contact us at CSC-slash-SportsNight-dot-com…

Before you ask: yes, that is exactly what it says in our “final draft” script. Mr. Sorkin (or whoever wrote that particular line) saw it fit to give out an explicitly nonsensical address for the contact. If it were intended to be functional, either the slash would be an ‘at’ to make an email address, or the ‘dot-com’ would come before the ‘slash’ for a website address. Whichever was intended then obfuscated is lost to time.

DAN: So what are you planning on cooking tomorrow morning?

CASEY: I’m not cooking, it’s not a cooking show.

DAN: Are you sure?

CASEY: It’s a news show.

DAN: “The View”?

CASEY: Yeah.

DAN: The one with Barbara Walters and the four women who cook?

Um… what the fuck, Danny? Are you seriously casually trotting out an incredibly sexist take on women hosting a talk show? Who are you and what have you done with the real Dan?

DAN: Who’s the other guy?

CASEY: It’s Wolfgang Puck, you want a piece of me?

Is that supposed to be why Dan thinks it’s a cooking show? Nah, I’m sorry, I don’t buy it — I’m gonna need a formal apology for that sequence at some point.

NEW Verbal Tic: Would(n’t) kill you

CASEY: You know, it wouldn’t kill you to get out there and do a little press.

DAN: I’ve been grounded, remember?

CASEY: How long’s the network got you in the penalty box?

DAN: No public statements for six months.

Hey, look at that, continuity from a previous episode! I gotta say, though, that still seems like an overkill punishment, given how Dan ended up apologizing on-air. I suppose Luther Sachs thought the apology was sarcastic? Fuck him, if so.

DAN: I’m perfectly happy just doing my job and keeping my mouth shut. I don’t need to give interviews. I don’t even want to give interviews. I’m happy for the chance to not give interviews.

CASEY: You don’t want me to talk to ‘em?

DAN: No.

CASEY: Okay.

DAN: Talk to ‘em.

CASEY: Danny —

DAN: I need to give interviews. I like to give interviews.

Someone really likes the word ‘interviews’…

RETURNING Verbal Tic: Knock ‘em dead

^{Running count: 3}

DANA: Hey — knock ‘em dead on the cooking show tomorrow.

What the fuck?! It’s not a cooking show! Why is everyone thinking it is? Also, no, they’re not shooting a snuff film either, Dana.

JOY BEHAR: Before we went to commercial, you were saying that you and Dan write together.

CASEY: Yes.

STAR JONES: How does that work?

CASEY: Well, I take the nouns and verbs, Danny handles the adjectives and prepositions, and, uh, anything with an umlaut, we toss a coin.

What if the word has a circumflex, Casey? Does that call for Roshambo?

DEBBIE MATENOPOULOS: Now, Casey, you know we can’t let you go without asking you about those ties.

CASEY: Ah, the ties.

STAR JONES: The famous neckties. Now, listen up ladies, you’re single right?

If you listen halfway carefully, you’ll probably notice the sound in the middle of Star Jones’s line there has something of a jump in the middle. That’s because it’s actually two lines stitched together — in between the two sentences was a small section in which Meredith Vieira has an exchange with Casey on how she tells her husband every night about his neckties. No one misses the exchange, I assure you…

STAR JONES: Well, I think you should know that a man who knows how to dress himself is a very sexy thing.

CASEY: Which is why so many of us are drawn to Carrot Top.

I gotta stop here for a moment and give a shout-out to the Sports Night Transcripts site, because that site has made my life easier in being able to reference lines in these entries without having to have a video player open through the entire process. Not everything that’s written for these transcripts is 100% accurate, unfortunately, so I do have to do a proofreading play-through afterward, but nonetheless the time it takes to write one of these entries is considerably lesser thanks to that site. The reason I’m bringing it up now? The person who wrote the transcripts didn’t bother to look up the names of the hosts for The View present in this episode, instead opting to refer to them as “Annoying Woman 1/2/3/4”.

On the one hand: yikes. On the other hand: I can see why they would think that, but probably not for the reason they think. The writing for the women in this segment is frankly extremely bad by any reasonable standard, reducing an honest show hosted by professionally-accomplished women into a gaggle of quasi-horny gossipers. That Casey responds to the over-the-top endearment by brushing it off with a Carrot Top reference is not something anyone being interviewed should ever expect to have to do — and while I’ve never personally watched The View, I’m quite confident it’s not something any actual guest for the show has felt the need to do.

DANA: By the way, in the memos that are circulating, we’re spelling Chattanooga about fourteen different ways…

FOURTEEN!

DANA: … now what do we know?

JEREMY: Two o’s, three a’s.

DANA: That’s it?

JEREMY: No, there are other letters, too. (at DANA’s stare) But surely that’s not what you meant.

I don’t know, Jeremy, I don’t think you’re to blame on that one. Dana didn’t really make it clear she was voicing two separate thoughts there.

JEREMY: Roland Shepard is a tailback from a small town in western Tennessee called Tipolo — one t, one l. He rode the bench for two years and then two weeks ago he won the starting job when Lillias went down with a torn ACL. He rushed for 218 yards in his first game, 273 yards in his second.

NATALIE: That two game total’s a conference record, by the way.

No way that’s an actual stat that’s tracked, right? Surely rushing yard records are only kept at the single game level rather than two-game totals? To put those rushing yard numbers in perspective, by the way: the NFL record at the time for rushing yards in a single game was 275 yards by Walter Payton in 1977, which would be broken two years after this episode aired by three yards. That second rushing yard number therefore stretches believability for a college running back…

JEREMY: He scored four touchdowns on the ground, two of them against the third-ranked defense in the nation.

NATALIE: He also caught a pass for a touchdown and ran a punt back for a touchdown.

JEREMY: He’s carrying a 3.3 GPA with a major in chemical engineering, and the Engineering Department at Tennessee Western is for real.

Man, I can see what Dana meant by the “valedictory speech” crack she made last night — and if that’s not enough, a couple of lines were even cut from this sequence! Jeremy inserts a mention of watching film of Shepard, stating that “he can play”, to which Natalie follows up with a note that “the guy came to get smart” before Jeremy continues with the GPA recitation.

… Actually, now that I’m going through this, I need to look something up:

Okay, what the heck is “Tennessee Western University” doing in southeastern Tennessee?

ISAAC: Danny, I need to talk to you.

DAN: Good, ‘cause I need to talk to you, too. Who should go first?

ISAAC: Since I don’t really care what you have to say, I think it should be me.

Ouch — looks like Dan’s choice of public domain song for Isaac didn’t do him any good.

ISAAC: Luther Sachs has taken a special interest in that situation in Chattanooga.

DAN: He’s an alumnus.

ISAAC: He’s got a couple of buildings named after him.

A couple? Surely one is enough.

ISAAC: He’s a Southerner.

DAN: Luther Sachs is German.

ISAAC: He’s a Southerner for three generations.

DAN: Faulkner was a Southerner.

ISAAC: Faulkner was a Southern Gentleman.

DAN: There’s a difference?

ISAAC: The difference, Danny, is all the difference.

Do you suppose Isaac knows Robert Frost was being sarcastic in “The Road Not Taken”? Or did he actually mean to imply that Luther Sachs wasn’t a gentleman? I don’t know if Luther himself would be able to tell either way.

DAN: So what does Luther want?

ISAAC: A piece on Southern Gentlemen, the Southern tradition — the Southern tradition in sports, in culture, in history…

DAN: All symbolized by the Confederate flag.

ISAAC: You learn fast.

Oh, good lord — if Luther Sachs actually believes that, then he’s a fucking idiot. Someone out there is probably holding onto a picture of his Kappa Alpha group photo from college and waiting for the right moment to release it.

RETURNING Plot Bunny: Black faux pas

^{Previous instance: Sports Night 102}

ISAAC: There are days, Danny, when I’m just too tired to fight that man.

DAN: Well, you gotta let us know when it’s one of those days and we’ll fight him for you.

ISAAC: You’ve gotta stop thinking of me as the champion of all things Black.

The episode fades to black into commercial after a stunned silence, but the “final draft” script actually continues from here:

DRAFT DAN: If I do his frat boy piece, does he let me out of the penalty box?

DRAFT ISAAC: Danny —

DRAFT DAN: I want to do interviews. I like talking to people.

DRAFT ISAAC: It was a six month suspension. You’ve got three months left.

DRAFT DAN: I want time off for good behavior. Tell him I’ll whistle Dixie if he lets me do my thing.

DRAFT ISAAC: I’ll tell him.

DRAFT DAN: I never think of you as the champion of all things Black, Isaac. I think of you as the champion of all things good. But what do you say we drop it.

DRAFT ISAAC: That’s fine.

DRAFT DAN: Anything else?

DRAFT ISAAC: That’s all.

Again, I’m fairly certain most cuts in this episode were made for time, but at the same time I suspect the cut here was also to have the last line before commercial be a weightier one. If I’m correct on that front, though, I would have much preferred that the final line be Dan’s note on Isaac’s being “the champion of all things good”, thus lending further weight to how highly the staff of Sports Night thinks of Isaac Jaffee. This cut is also coupled with a similar cut later that causes that elevated sense of respect to get lost in post — but more on that when we get to that moment.

NEW Sorkin Player: Janel Moloney

^{Character: Monica Brazelton}

MONICA: I’d like to ask you a question, but if you’re preparing the show, if this is a bad time, I-I can come back.

CASEY: What’s your question?

MONICA: What’s my name?

CASEY: (beat) What’s your name?

MONICA: Yes.

“Uhhh… Donna, right? Wait, no, too soon.”

CASEY: I’m sorry, I’m not very good at remembering names.

MONICA: Who was the number two man on the Boston Red Sox staff in 1977?

CASEY: (beat) It was Ferguson Jenkins.

For what it’s worth: if you look up the Red Sox roster for the 1977 season, Ferguson Jenkins actually had the most innings pitched on the roster, and the number of games he pitched was the third highest amongst the roster’s starting pitchers. I suppose the two stats average out to make him the “number two man”? I’m not sure how else the roster of starting pitchers is supposed to be ranked otherwise. Technically, he also had the second best ERA of the starters, but the best ERA came from a guy who pitched not even half as many innings, so I don’t think that’s it.

NEW Plot Bunny: Television neckties

MONICA: (holds up a necktie) Do you know what color this is?

CASEY: Wh— it’s grey.

MONICA: It’s called gunmetal. Grey has more ivory in it, gunmetal has more blue. Can you tell me which of these shirts you should wear with it?

CASEY: I-I don’t know.

MONICA: No, you don’t. There’s no reason why you should. You’re not expected to know what shirt goes with what suit or how a color in a necktie can pick up your eyes.

I’m sorry? We’re talking about a nationally televised news program and not a dating show, right? What possible reason could there be for it to be considered necessary to emphasize the color of a caster’s eyes?

MONICA: You’re not expected to know what’s going to clash with what Dan’s wearing or what pattern’s going to bleed when Dave changes the lighting.

That, I do buy — the clothes of the casters definitely shouldn’t distract from the broadcast. In my mind, though, looking to emphasize a caster’s eyes would be enforcing a distraction. (Disclaimer: remember that I’m aro/ace and have no fucking clue what I’m talking about.)

MONICA: Mr. McCall, you get so much attention and so much praise for what you actually do, and all of it’s deserved. When you go on a talk show and get complimented on something you didn’t, how hard would it be to say, “That’s not me. That’s a woman named Maureen who’s been working for us since the first day. It’s Maureen who dresses me every night, and without Maureen, I wouldn’t know gunmetal from a hole in the ground.” Do you have any idea what that would’ve meant to her? Do you have any idea how many times she would’ve played that tape for her husband and her kids?

(golf clap) Damn, I can see why Mr. Sorkin wanted her back.

MONICA: Please don’t tell Maureen I spoke to you, she’d be pretty mad at me.

Wait, really? Why? You just stood up for her, why would she be mad at you for that?

NEW Plot Bunny: Making a list to check things off

NATALIE: Here’s what we’re going to do — we’re gonna make a list of all the sports moments that are potential plays of the year, then we’re gonna list the pros, and then we’re gonna list the cons.

JEREMY: Why do women like making lists?

NATALIE: Women don’t like making lists.

JEREMY: Yes, they do — they’re never quite so happy as when they’re making themselves a little list. You ever think about why you make lists?

NATALIE: It’s so I can cross things off it.

“Besides which, ‘tis the season, is it not? I’ll be checking it twice and everything.”

KIM: Women’s ice hockey.

JEREMY: You’re kidding.

KIM: The U.S. women’s team won the first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey and there were over 4000 fans in the arena to see ‘em do it.

JEREMY: They beat a bunch of Slovakian cocktail waitresses and there were over 4000 people at my cousin Jacob’s bar mitzvah.

Swing and a miss, Jeremy — the women’s ice hockey silver medal in the 1998 Winter Olympics went to Canada, not to Slovakia. Your borderline sexism is not doing you well here.

JEREMY: Jeff Gordon.

KIM: No.

JEREMY: Why?

KIM: ‘Cause it’s NASCAR and who gives a damn.

JEREMY: Who gives a damn?

KIM: How many people give a good damn?

JEREMY: Well, it’s the world’s most popular sport, so probably more than 4000.

Swing and a miss again, Jeremy — car racing is definitely quite popular particularly in America, but worldwide it cannot hold a candle to soccer in popularity. You’re really off your game today, man.

JEREMY: Austrian skier Hermann Maier.

NATALIE: Pros.

JEREMY: He got up from one of the most horrific accidents in Olympic history and won the Gold Medal two days later.

NATALIE: Cons.

KIM: It’s downhill skiing.

JEREMY: And?

KIM: Who gives a damn?

Present in the draft script but not the final product is Jeremy responding, “You’re just orange juice and sunshine today, aren’t you, Kim?” Thank you for cutting that, editor, that really would have made Jeremy unbearable.

Also, our good friend Carol McKechnie evidently didn’t care to ensure Hermann Maier was spelled correctly in the draft script — one n and the a in the surname replaced with an e, as written. Oopsies.

DAN: I wrote the piece.

ISAAC: I’ll tell Luther to watch it.

DAN: It takes the position the Confederate flag is a symbol of culture — a culture with a great tradition of literature and art, music and architecture, great statesmen…

ISAAC: That’s crap.

DAN: So why are you telling me to write it?

This exchange got truncated from how it was in the “final draft” script (yes, I’m still laughing at the use of the word ‘final’). Included in what got cut is the following of interest to me:

DRAFT DAN: What do you say to the First Amendment?

DRAFT ISAAC: I’m not suggesting it should be illegal. It’s still wrong, though.

DRAFT DAN: You ready to join the thought police?

DRAFT ISAAC: Don’t give me that, Danny, this is serious.

DRAFT DAN: I know it’s serious, so what’re you doin’? Why are you telling me to write this garbage?

The “thought police” crack touches on a subject that will be revisited in a different capacity for another television series (three guesses as to which). Suffice it to say, Dan is quite clearly being sarcastic, and while it’s not necessarily clear as written I think Isaac recognizes as much. Hard to say whether the lines here actually got cut or if someone decided the exchange was too clunky to keep — I’d believe either one.

ISAAC: Luther’s been looking for an opportunity to fire me. He has been for about six months.

DAN: Are you sure?

ISAAC: No.

DAN: ‘Cause I think you’re wrong.

ISAAC: I’m not.

DAN: He has a lot of respect for you, Isaac, and while I may not like the guy, he’s sure no idiot.

I don’t know, his asking you to be a KA apologist begs to differ, Dan.

ISAAC: I like my life right now, I’ve never been happier. I used to pick fights with management twice a day, just like you. They wanted to fire me, that was fine, there was always someone who wanted to hire me. That’s not the way it is now. Luther can hire someone half my age to do my job. I like my life right now, and I’m proud of this show.

DAN: I can’t believe it. I come in here with you talkin’ about those six players who stood by Roland Shepard, and you don’t have the same respect for the people who work for you? You don’t think if Luther ever showed you the door there wouldn’t be about a hundred people lined up right behind you?

We’ve seen it for Natalie and we see it now for Isaac — everyone in the work family is willing to stand behind anyone else in that family without hesitation. The parallel to the situation in Tennessee serves as a nice touch in this instance. Will Isaac be as accepting as Natalie?

RETURNING Verbal Tic: And you know it

^{Running count: 2}

DAN: There’s something real bad goin’ on in Chattanooga, Isaac — and Luther can fix it, and you know it. Tell Dana to throw this one out of the rundown. Tell her you’re gonna do a two minute editorial.

ISAAC: Not this time.

DAN: (beat) Okay.

ISAAC: Yeah. Uh, Danny? (beat) Don’t tell anyone about what I said.

DAN: Sure.

Cut from the “final draft” script (man, did they shoot themselves in the foot using that word) is Dan stopping at the door and turning back to deliver this line:

DRAFT DAN: You know Isaac, I’ve never been to your house. I was just wondering. (beat) Where do you keep your Pulitzer Prize?

Holy hell, would I have liked for that line to stay in — not only does it give Dan an opportunity to verbalize his disappointment with the situation, it also serves to provide some color to what Isaac does next, as we’ll see in just a few moments.

DANA: What do you guys think?

DAVE: Us?

DANA: Yeah, what do you think?

DAVE: About what?

JEREMY: Play of the Year.

…

WILL: We’re studio technicians.

DANA: Yes, we know.

CHRIS: These are editorial questions.

DANA: Yes, we want to hear what you have to say.

…

DAVE: Mark O’Meara winning two majors.

CHRIS: Cal Ripken ending the streak.

WILL: Peyton Manning.

DANA: (beat) Well, that was a colossal waste of time.

No kidding.

ISAAC: Dana, I hate to do this to you on such short notice, but I’d like a couple of minutes of air-time tonight.

DANA: Really?

ISAAC: If you need to make some room, I believe you can dump that piece that Danny was planning on doing. I don’t think he’ll mind.

You see? Isaac changed his mind, but the impetus for why he changed his mind isn’t shown to the audience as a result of cutting Dan’s line out the door. It almost makes me wonder if Dana’s out-of-nowhere change of heart six episodes earlier (“Mary Pat Shelby”) was prefaced by a line or exchange that got cut as well, since that change of heart is arguably even more abrupt than this one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely behind Isaac’s pivot, but that the pivot ostensibly isn’t given sufficient motivation makes for a somewhat disconnected story beat.

ISAAC: Exaudio, Comperio, Conloquor. That’s a Latin phrase that translates — To Listen, To Learn, To Speak.

Hold on…

Hmm… this is my first time using this tool, so take what I have to say on this matter with a grain of salt. To start with, it appears the words in question have all been conjugated into first person singular rather than presented as infinitives, so it would be more precise to say, “I listen, I learn, I speak.” Also, the word used for “listen” appears to mean something closer to “hear” instead, and, at least in the English language, the two words have distinct meanings (just ask Simon and Garfunkel). Furthermore, the word used for “speak” is a transitive verb rather than an active verb like the others, which means it would probably be more accurately translated as “I discuss” if we want to match the tone of the other translated words. “I hear, I learn, I discuss” doesn’t have the same ring to it, of course — besides which, that tool also has some things to say about my own alma mater’s motto, so I think picking nits here is a bit of a fool’s errand. I’ll shut up now.

ISAAC: Those words are carved into the stone arches that form the entrance to the undergraduate library at Tennessee Western University.

Cut after this line is a brief tangent into the stone arches’ origins as a post-war restoration project shepherded by the Tennessee Volunteers. I can understand why that got cut, considering it doesn’t add much in the way of relevance.

ISAAC: This afternoon, an extraordinary young man named Roland Shepard made what had to have been an excrutiating decision — he said he wasn’t playing football under a Confederate flag. Six of his teammates then chose not to let Shepard stand alone — and I choose to join them at this moment.

Another couple of sentences cut, this time Isaac prefacing his choice to join them with a note on the spectacle of seven men under 21 “knowing full well the potential consequence of their actions”. It would have been a nice touch to keep that in, in my opinion, since it would have underscored more the parallel with what Dan indicated Isaac’s staff was willing to do for him if he were ever fired.

ISAAC: In the history of the South, there’s much to celebrate — and that flag is a desecration of all of it.

Yes! He says what we’re all thinking! Fucking listen up, KAs!

ISAAC: Luther Sachs is a generous alumni contributor to Tennessee Western with a considerable influence over its chancellor, Davis Blake, and its Board of Trustees. Luther, you’ve got a phone call to make. You’ve got to call Chancellor Blake and tell him to take down that flag or he can stop looking for your checks in the mail. You’ve got to put these young men back in a classroom, and I mean pronto. These boys are gonna make you proud one day, Luther. I challenge you to do the right thing… not an unreasonable request to make of a man whose alma mater declares Exaudio, Comperio, Conloquor — To Listen, To Learn, To Speak.

And certainly if anyone believed money is speech, it would be Luther Sachs.

ISAAC: In the meantime, God go with you, Roland Shepard and you six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee. God’s not done with any of you yet.

My atheist ass: “I’ll allow it.”

NEW Dialogue Motif: Bring it, boss

CASEY: You can bring it, boss.

NEW Dialogue Motif: Kiss you on the mouth

DAN: You know I could kiss you on the mouth right now, right?

ISAAC: Then stay over there.

Coward.

JEREMY: Isaac?

ISAAC: Yes?

JEREMY: No kidding — Play of the Year.

Hot damn, Jeremy, way to land a line — that certainly makes up for all that sexist crap you said earlier.

KIM: Isaac?

ISAAC: Showtime?

KIM: Luther Sachs on line four.

“Come on, Luther, that’s not the correct call to make!”

CASEY: That’s all for tonight, but before we sign off, we felt that with Christmas only a few days off and with people making up lists and checking them twice, it was as good a time as any to mention some people who are important to us here at the show. It seems that quite a few of you, for instance, like the way Dan and I dress on the air, and you should know that we’re dressed by Maureen Gates and Joseph Roveto. Maureen and Joseph are assisted by a young woman named Monica Brazelton, and Monica is not to be trifled with.

IMDB evidently isn’t fully up-to-date on crediting crew for this show, as the real-life Monica Brazelton isn’t credited until seven episodes later.

DAN: Our camera operators are Ray, Wayne, Bruce, John, and Jerome, who wishes we’d do more features on hockey.

CASEY: Not gonna happen, Jerome.

Same appears to be true for Jerome Fauci — IMDB doesn’t credit him until seven episodes later as well.

CASEY: Every time I pick up a pencil or put down a coffee mug, that’s Jode Mann and her trusty aide John Frantz…

John Frantz doesn’t have a credit on any episode of Sports Night per IMDB — if that’s to be believed, which is not necessarily a given considering what we’ve already seen above, then his inclusion here appears to be due to his working with Jode Mann on The Larry Sanders Show.

CASEY: This is a script. Dan and I write it and then two people come along and put it together so that we can also read it. Their names are Joan and Chris, and they, us [sic], and everyone else here are pretty much at the mercy of the script supervisor, Carol McKechnie, who’s got a little thing for me, and I think it’s time she admits it.

Uhhhhhh… please tell me that last bit wasn’t informed by real life in some capacity.

DAN: Keri McIntyre —

CASEY: Nicole Burke —

DAN: Shawn Hanley —

CASEY: Jeff Wheat —

DAN: Mark Johnson —

CASEY: Cajun.

DAN: Cajun!

“Cajun” was reportedly the name for the craft services person serving the cast and crew of the actual show — there doesn’t appear to be any credits for such a role on IMDB, though, so I don’t have a link to the actual person to provide.

CASEY: How ‘bout Skip Cook?

Uncredited!

DAN: How ‘bout Phil Heath?

Credited, though at the series level rather than the episode level — what the hell, IMDB?

CASEY: How ‘bout Karen, Julie, and Angela in makeup?

DAN: How ‘bout Brenda, Cammy, and Jody in hair? We’ve got film on this show. You know who cuts it?

CASEY: Janet Ashikaga — you know who her assistant is?

DAN: Laura the Wonderful.

That’s once again more than IMDB knows.

Interestingly, another pair of credits before Janet was either dropped or cut from the final product — a shoutout to the music of Snuffy Walden and Stuart Goetz, the latter of which goes uncredited for Sports Night but received credit for The West Wing on IMDB.

CASEY: I’m Casey McCall, alongside Dan Rydell, wishing everyone in your home, along with everyone here at my home a very happy Christmas.

“Cut! Come on, Peter, you’re supposed to wish for a happy Chanukah first!”

Alright, I think it’s fair to say I like this episode. It’s definitely not perfect by any means, however, as both the women of The View and the character of Jeremy got some real stinkers in terms of characterizing dialogue. Nonetheless, the plotline leading to Isaac’s certified moment of awesome coupled with both Dan’s and Casey’s (staggered) expressions of appreciation for the team and its people rightfully serves to make those flaws an afterthought for viewers. That some lines from those stories got cut does make me wonder some how much better they could potentially have been, though, particularly the loss of the motivation for Isaac to change his mind on appearing on-air. Despite those losses, it’s still clear the show has a strong backbone of people — both in-universe and in real life.

If you haven’t already, you should seriously take on a subscription to this blog to be directly notified when entries are published. I stated up front in my first post that keeping the entries on a schedule was unlikely — the only reason that has seemed like a lie so far is because I started out with a backlog of entries that I’ve spaced out on publishing so that I can get a feel for how well I can keep that backlog up. So far I’ve been ahead of schedule, but once we’re out of the realm of half-hour television I still don’t know how long that will last. Subscribing is prophylaxis against the possibility it won’t. Coming up next: … fuck me, it’s Revenge of the Laugh Track.