You can always reason with a German. You can always reason with a barnyard animal, too, for all the good it does.
The first reaction is, get defensive. Second reaction is, what are we going to do about it?
This sounds crazy, I know, but you can make a billion dollars - very few people do - but you can make a billion dollars on a product. It can be "Lion King," it can be "Simpsons," it can be "Family Guy," who knows what it is. Or you can make zero. But you can't make a billion dollars if you don't own it.
Television is like the movie business. It's not the least-objectionable program - it's the best program that gets positioned. Same in the movie business. It's not just everything automatically gets done by the "in" crowd.
The content defines the platform, so whereas when I was working at ABC from '66 to '76, people said it was the "great wasteland. " It was the least-objectionable program that succeeded. It was, if you could get behind "All in the Family," you were successful.
Almost any show that has reviewers behind it, Rotten Tomatoes behind it, will find a way to survive.
Television is not hurting. Television is in fantastic shape. It's just a golden age for other people.
You know when you tell a self-deprecating story at a dinner party, everyone's laughing along with you? But then when someone else repeats that same story at another dinner party you feel they're all laughing at you?
There is nothing that one can say about acting, writing, producing or directing that cannot be revoked in the next breath. Nothing is immutable. The logic of one year is a folly of the next.
I grew up around jazz. I love jazz.
The little I am exposed to hurts my feelings. The only things I can really control are my songs and my behavior. The rest? If I focused on it, that would lead to insanity.