Having 'Big' fun on a hit comedy: A chat with 'Big Bang Theory's' Johnny Galecki

NBC's Gaspin: 'Back to basics'

NBC was perhaps “a little too early” launching its revolution on the broadcast business model. That was the assessment of Jeff Gaspin, NBC Universal’s recently installed chairman of television entertainment, this morning when he unfurled his “back to basics” strategy for healing the wounded peacock network.

For years, his boss, NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, has stressed that the broadcast business model was fundamentally broken and NBC had the smarts and the tools to fix it. But with NBC’s prime-time schedule in smoldering ruins and the network’s confirmed retreat of Jay Leno back to his longtime home at 11:35 p.m. -- leaving gaping holes in the prime-time schedule -- it is up to Gaspin to restore some of the glory, and the profits, that were once associated with NBC.

"For us right now, instead of trying to reinvent, going back to basics is probably the smartest play," Gaspin said.

The more modest Gaspin -- in measured tones -- said maybe the business wasn’t so broken after all. He made it clear that he was in charge now and that, under his watch, NBC would exhibit a dramatically different temperament and mentality from the tumultuous two years that Ben Silverman was at the network, when NBC burn through hundreds of millions of dollars in failed programming while Silverman developed a reputation for a short attention span and missing meetings. There were also the broad proclamations that NBC was less concerned about ratings than profit margins.

In the waning minutes of the 45-minute news conference at the Television Critics Assn. meeting in Pasadena, Gaspin was asked by a veteran reporter: “Whose fault is it that the network is in such sad shape in prime time? Is it Ben Silverman? Is it Jeff Zucker? Does the network as a company regret the arrogant pose that it has had over the years?”

The low-key Gaspin, perhaps only half-kidding, replied: “That’s an awesome question.”

The standing-room-only ballroom filled with reporters -- and nearly as many NBC Universal staffers lined up against the walls -- howled with laughter. It seemed the battle-weary NBC executives enjoyed Gaspin’s lighthearted response even more than the reporters from across the country.

Gaspin also exhibited more candor -- and provided more information -- than NBC executives have in the recent past. He explained the chronology of the decision to move Leno out of prime time. The discontent of affiliate TV station owners was building throughout the fall and reached a crescendo in December when smaller stations received their disappointing ratings from the November sweeps, he said.

“The drumbeat kept getting louder and louder,” said Gaspin, who took over all of NBC programming last summer. “Toward the middle of December, they [the affiliate stations] made it very clear that they were going to be more vocal about their displeasure. It was then when I realized that it was just not going to go well if we kept things in place. ... They are our partners. Even though [10 p.m. Leno show] was doing OK for us, I just made the tough call.”

Gaspin was asked whether Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien were now "damaged goods" and, if so, how NBC was going to recover. Said Gaspin: "I think just time is the answer to your question."

-- Meg James

Related posts:

NBC's Gaspin sets Leno's exit from prime and return to late night

Photo: Jeff Gaspin. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

Having 'Big' fun on a hit comedy: A chat with 'Big Bang Theory's' Johnny Galecki

The feature below on Johnny Galecki and "The Big Bang Theory" does not contain spoilers for the show, which returns with guest star Danica McKellar ("The Wonder Years") Monday. (Also airing Monday: The 100th episode of "How I Met Your Mother." See the video player at right for a clip from that episode.) By the way, there are summaries for the Jan. 11 and Jan. 18 episodes of "Big Bang" at the end of this post. For my previous stories on the CBS show, look here.

An unusual thing started to happen last season during tapings of "The Big Bang Theory," a winning comedy that has become a breakout hit for CBS (8:30 p.m. Central, WBBM-Ch. 2).

One character would do or say something, and the audience would start laughing -- before the second character had reacted or said a line.

"The challenge was to beat their laugh -- but they're already laughing at how Leonard or Penny or Sheldon is going to react," said Johnny Galecki, the Oak Park native who stars as physicist Leonard Hofstadter in the comedy.

The early laughter is just proof that "Big Bang Theory," which is in its third season, is doing many things very right. At this point, the show's audience knows the characters so well that people can predict how Leonard might respond to the latest rant by the fussy Sheldon (Jim Parsons) or what Penny (Kaley Cuoco) will think of the nerdy characters' various obsessions.

As Galecki said during an interview at his small, tastefully decorated home in the hills of Los Angeles, the shorthand description of "The Big Bang Theory" -- which chronicles the lives of four smart but socially awkward male geeks and their attractive female neighbor -- is not anything that would "blow your hair back."

In fact, he genially reminded me of my very negative initial "Big Bang" review, which took the comedy to task for reflexively laughing at the four nerds, rather than with them.

Galecki, who has known "Big Bang" co-creator Chuck Lorre since both worked on "Roseanne" in the mid-90s, said he initially had some reservations about the CBS show as well.

"I thought it might be a show that made fun of smart people. Now I think it's a show that much more often defends smart people," Galecki said.

No one defends the four nerds more strongly than the show's audience, especially the live audience of 300 people that fills the "Big Bang" soundstage every Tuesday night for tapings of the show.

"We can feel how protective they are of these characters," said Galecki, who recounted an example of how "the room turned" when a guest character acted too maliciously toward the four nerds, who also include Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar).

"If there's an iota [of gratuitous meanness] toward these guys, they want blood," Galecki said.

Perhaps "Big Bang" fans feel so protective of the show because it is, despite being a hit show on a big network, something of a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Galecki recalled being slightly uncomfortable when the show premiered in 2007 and photos of the cast members were plastered on hundreds of bus ads and billboards.

"The numbers have doubled since they took the billboards down," he noted.

The fact that the show's ratings have increased so dramatically without a gigantic  advertising campaign from the network is "really exciting for all of us," he said.

"People kind of feel that they found the show themselves, through their friends or whatever," he said.

It's surprising to learn that, before "Big Bang" producers found Jim Parsons and cast him as Sheldon, Lorre talked to Galecki about playing that character. Galecki said he didn't "get" Sheldon, however, until he saw Parsons play the role.

But Galecki added that he's very pleased to be playing Leonard, especially given that his character and Penny begun a romantic relationship, which has played out in a low-key, realistic way this season.

"I rarely get to play those characters and explore relationship things. I usually play the character's best friend or assistant. Or gay assistant," Galecki said.

Though Sheldon has become "Big Bang's" breakout character, thanks to not only the show's solid writing but Parson's detailed, deadpan perfomance, one of the quieter pleasures is Galecki's steady, subtle work as Leonard.

"I don't know if I would characterize Johnny as the 'straight man,' but his character is certainly much more willing than Sheldon to try to conform to social expectations,'" co-creator and executive producer Bill Prady said. "I think the fact that, despite everything, Leonard considers Sheldon his best friend reminds us of Sheldon's essential humanity."

Actually, Galecki was fine with it when I used the words "straight man" in describing his role. 

"There's a very specific responsibility in it," he said. "It's like in hockey -- you get a lot of credit for assists.

Galecki said he wanted to be an actor from the age of four, but his parents didn't quite know how to make that happen. They did finally take him to an audition at Oak Park's Village Players Theatre when he was seven.

"They wanted me to watch open auditions, just to see what was involved in that," he recalled. "I hopped right up on the stage and sang something and got a role. From that point on they didn't try to put me in soccer or T-ball or anything."

"We didn't have a TV because we didn't have a whole lot of money," added Galecki, who came back to Chicago in 1998 to do the play "Pot Mom" with his "Roseanne" castmate Laurie Metcalfe. "My parents would have their friends over -- their friends who thought, 'How can you live without a TV?' By the time they left, they understood why, because I had done the second act of 'West Side Story' and the first act of 'Jesus Christ Superstar,' playing all the parts. In many ways, that's what I'm still doing. I'm just getting paid better."

It's to "Big Bang's" credit that it hasn't put Leonard and Penny's romance front-and-center -- it's just one element of a show that has very much become an ensemble comedy with characters who become more nuanced each week. (Read the excellent essay from NPR's Linda Holmes on how giving more complexity to Penny has improved the show.)

"I feel like Season 2 was very much about the Penny character and giving her more dimension and depth as a young woman who, despite her beauty, has her own debilitating insecurities," Galecki said. "But I think this season, the writers are having a whole lot of fun just mixing [all the characters] up. At some point they realized, 'We can divide them up any way we want.'"

All in all, things are going pretty well for Leonard. But why does he put up with Sheldon, whose demanding ways would drive the most patient person to distraction?

"You've met his mother, I think that explains a lot," Galecki said (Christine Baranski has played Leonard's hypersmart, emotionally distant mother in a couple of episodes.). "Despite all his exasperation" with that kind of rigidity, that kind of behavior is "not foreign to him," Galecki noted.

"Leonard to me has always personified that 'Grass is greener somewhere else' thinking that we're all guilty of," he said. "But I think he knows, on some level, that he's really blessed with these friends."

Photos: Galecki and Cuoco; McKellar and Nayyar; Galecki, Cuoco and Parsons; Helberg and Galecki.

Summaries from CBS for the next two "Big Bangs":

Jan. 11: "The Psychic Vortex": While Sheldon and Koothrappali attend a university mixer, Leonard is upset to discover that Penny believes in psychics. Danica McKellar ("The Wonder Years") guest stars as Abby, the object of Raj's attraction.

Jan. 18: "The Bozeman Reaction": When their apartment is robbed, Leonard and Sheldon turn to their friends to create a state-of-the-art security system,

Review: Deliciously anticipated, Gordon Lee's 'Young Impressions' falls flat in first performance by Symphony Silicon Valley.
Saturday's world premiere by the Cupertino composer didn't deliver. Under-rehearsed, it resembled a cake collapsing in the oven '” though one could still imagine the cake rising in future performances.

Brian Williams: Why Jon Stewart Is Good For News

Many journalists have come to think of the comedian (above) as a kind of external standards-and-practices cop — and one whose nightstick leaves painfully embarrassing welts, says NBC anchor Brian Williams. He explains why no journalist wants to show up on The Daily Show unless he's got a book to promote.