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361st out of 470 books
—
812 voters
Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV
by
Warren Littlefield,
T.R. Pearson (Goodreads Author)
Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, ER, Cheers, Law & Order, Will & Grace…Here is the funny, splashy, irresistible insiders’ account of the greatest era in television history -- told by the actors, writers, directors, producers, and the network executives who made it happen…and watched it all fall apart.
Warren Littlefield was the NBC President of Entertainment who oversaw...more
Warren Littlefield was the NBC President of Entertainment who oversaw...more
Hardcover, 325 pages
Published
May 1st 2012
by Doubleday
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This oral history literary format interests me. The first book I remember reading in the “brief bits of interviews cut together to tell a story” format was Please Kill Me. Next came the west coast version of the same, We Got The Neutron Bomb. A while back I read The Replacements history, all interviews, if my memory serves me well, then earlier this spring the extensive ESPN history. Last week I read another oral history, this one from the “Must See TV” era.
Okay, first, background knowledge. If...more
Okay, first, background knowledge. If...more
An oral history of NBC's prime years in the mid-late 90s, told by various execs and creative folk. I'd give it three and a half stars, if I could. It's interesting for sure -- I am a huge television nerd with a mean nostalgic streak, so this is right up my alley. It read quickly and I definitely enjoyed it, though the oral history format doesn't offer any form of critical analysis to place the events in a larger framework. Something like that probably would have required an additional couple hun...more
For this type of book--an entertainment industry oral history--this is pretty good. The behind the scenes sections about the origins of some of NBC's--and network television's--best shows (Friends, Seinfeld, ER, Will & Grace, Mad About You, etc.) are fascinating. The section of Friends was excerpted in Vanity Fair, which is what brought the book to my attention.
The insights into how network executives make decisions are interesting, although I can't help but suspect that they they are airbru...more
The insights into how network executives make decisions are interesting, although I can't help but suspect that they they are airbru...more
In this age of TiVo, reality TV, and a seemingly infinite diversity of cable channels catering to every taste no matter how distinct, two things seem lost to the sands of time: appointment television and the water-cooler moment. I suppose in this era we have quality cable television and moments like the final episode of Lost or the beheading of Ned Stark, but these experiences are now shared by fewer and fewer of us. The era of true zeitgeist may be behind us.
This idea is what drew me to Top of...more
This idea is what drew me to Top of...more
This book is a series of interviews with various executives and creative types who helmed NBC through broadcast television's last hurrah, before cable and the web lessened the impact of the big networks -- and before the advent of cheap-o "reality" TV. Basically, the story is this: In 1980, NBC was consistently in last place, the idiot cousin of the broadcast family. Then Cheers became a phenomenon, along with The Cosby Show and (to some degree) The Golden Girls. After that, NBC went on to domin...more
I really wish we could do half stars as I'd give this one 3.5. First off, it is a VERY quick read. Secondly, unless you liked most of the shows that were on Must See TV you won't like this book. I watched a lot of them but there were some I've still never seen (ER, Will & Grace others). But for the ones that I did watch (Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, etc..) the stories that are told in the book are interesting. Discussions on how the shows were pitched and eventually bought are fascinating to...more
I like oral histories, but this was pretty disappointing because most of the commentators were NBC executives patting themselves on the back for how great they were at their job. Business types are fine in small doses, but they tend to be a little more restrained when they talk, more used to trying to guard their own back, so this book feels a lot more controlled and PC than say the Saturday Night Live oral history. For example, there wasn't any discussion of shows they tried that didn't work, w...more
***Nothing is really real unless it happens on television.
Daniel J. Boorstin***
Warren Littlefield was in charge of programming during NBC's Golden Years. Even non-televisin watchers know "Seinfeld," "Friends" and "ER" -- which gave us George Clooney, Julianna Margulies and Denzel Washington and a plethora of stars who went on to become major Bold Face Names. This book is a compendium of self-congratulations to, for and by the people who made it happen. (Added note, 5/2/12: Oops, as pointed out b...more
Daniel J. Boorstin***
Warren Littlefield was in charge of programming during NBC's Golden Years. Even non-televisin watchers know "Seinfeld," "Friends" and "ER" -- which gave us George Clooney, Julianna Margulies and Denzel Washington and a plethora of stars who went on to become major Bold Face Names. This book is a compendium of self-congratulations to, for and by the people who made it happen. (Added note, 5/2/12: Oops, as pointed out b...more
I love me a good tv anthology book. Give me a tomb about any time in TV history (in my lifetime) and I'll gobble it up. This one was about the height of Must-See-TV on NBC back in the 90's. Even though "technically" it was written by Warren Littlefield, it was definitely more like the SNL and Second City anthologies that came out a while back, but Warren probably wrote the most and it was about his time on the network, but there were loads of peoples opinions in it.
It was an okay read. Like some...more
It was an okay read. Like some...more
Published by Doubleday in 2012
If you remember the giant television shows of NBC's heyday in the 1980s and 1990s this book will be fascinating. Shows like Cheers, Cosby, Law & Order, ER, Will & Grace, Friends, Frazier, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Mad About You and Seinfeld ruled the airwaves. Thursday nights were dominated by NBC and NBC usually made more money on that night than the other six nights combined - literally billions of dollars.
Warren Littlefield was directly involved in the creat...more
If you remember the giant television shows of NBC's heyday in the 1980s and 1990s this book will be fascinating. Shows like Cheers, Cosby, Law & Order, ER, Will & Grace, Friends, Frazier, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Mad About You and Seinfeld ruled the airwaves. Thursday nights were dominated by NBC and NBC usually made more money on that night than the other six nights combined - literally billions of dollars.
Warren Littlefield was directly involved in the creat...more
Warren Littlefield was NBC President of Entertainment during the network's most profitable period, aided mostly by its Thursday night "Must See TV," which included megahits like "Seinfeld," "Friends," and "ER." Through interviews from executives, writers, directors, and actors, this tells of Littlefeld and the network's ascension and eventual fall and how free-reign creativity and taking chances can be good for business.
This format of piecing interviews into a cohesive narrative always makes for...more
This format of piecing interviews into a cohesive narrative always makes for...more
Although I've spent a lot of years as TV writer/producer, I'm still a TV nut who buys just about any behind-the-scenes book written about an individual series or about a network or studio. So I was eager to read Top of The Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV, NBC entertainment president Warren Littlefield's memoir of his days building the network's iconic 1990s Thursday night schedule, which included hits like Seinfeld, Frasier, and ER. Unfortunately, the book was a disappointment.
The...more
The...more
I bought this book because I love TV and NBC (even though most of the programming sucks these days), but mostly because it talks about Will & Grace. There wasn't much in the W&G sections that I didn't already know, but as a fangirl I still enjoyed it. Overall, I loved hearing about this whole new layer to television that I didn't know much about. It is "by" Warren Littlefield, but it is really a compilation of commentary from Littlefield, other NBC executives, and the cast/crew/writers/p...more
An interesting, somewhat lacking book in the vein of oral histories like Please Kill Me or Live from New York. I've always felt one of the most interesting things about using that format to retell a story is how, occasionally, there will be conflict in the way people remember events occurring. No such thing happens here- all parties interviewed are effusive in their praise of NBC's long-lived "Must See TV" era and by extension, Littlefield himself.
I thought this was a shame, as Top of the Rock d...more
I thought this was a shame, as Top of the Rock d...more
Pretty good quick read, if you're into the history of television and/or any of the shows that made up the Must See TV era of NBC. Even though I'd argue that television as a whole is better right now, I was surprised how nostalgic this book made me for that era, when it felt like everyone in America was watching the same shows as you, at the same time. There's some truth to that, too - as this book points out, even the #1 shows today only have about a third or less of the audience that shows like...more
This is really two books in one. On the one hand, you have a fascinating oral history of the "Must See TV" era on NBC. It's a bit jumpy, and you don't get all the voices (only half the cast of Friends, no George Clooney talking about ER), but it's still chock full of insights on casting, development, and filming of the shows. One of those behind-the-scenes books that I pick up, can't put down, and incessantly tell my wife stories from. I would like to see a more in-depth work covering these show...more
as someone who can remember watching nbc's thursday night line-up for as long as i can remember, i found this book to be a lot of fun. while it tells the story of must see tv, it isn't in narrative format; instead, it's a collection of transcribed interviews, put together to form the stories around the biggest hits of those years. i found out a lot of trivia - like the initial failure of seinfeld and how many of the actors who later became stars on an nbc show auditioned for roles on other nbc s...more
This book felt like it was written just for me. I used to watch entirely too many hours of TV, especially back in the 90s. Must See TV on NBC was a staple in my house. I was hooked on Friends, Seinfeld, and ER. So for me, this book hit exactly the right spot.
The book is a history of NBC’s hit shows, particularly in the Warren Littlefield (the former NBC president of entertainment) era. What this means is that shows like Cheers, The Cosby Show, Friends, Seinfeld, Will & Grace, and ER (among o...more
The book is a history of NBC’s hit shows, particularly in the Warren Littlefield (the former NBC president of entertainment) era. What this means is that shows like Cheers, The Cosby Show, Friends, Seinfeld, Will & Grace, and ER (among o...more
Top of the Rock is written by Warren Littlefield, who was the NBC President of Entertainment during it's stint at the top of network television during the 1990s and early 2000s. It's a behind the scenes look at how all of NBC's Must See TV shows came into being. It was written in a way I have never seen a book put together before. It was if Littlefield (or his coauthor) interviewed a bunch of people involved and then pulled chunks out of the transcripts and stitched them together to tell the sto...more
I absolutely enjoyed this book as a journalistic look at the rise of Must-See TV on NBC ... until I realized that the author was one of the players. Which meant that the quotations and vignettes chosen for the book were there to make Warren Littlefield look good. Suddenly, the descriptions of some competing executives and the lack of conversation about the shows that didn't turn out so well on Thursday night TV (A Different World, Boston Common, Veronica's Closet, Hope and Gloria, The Single Guy...more
Let me start by saying that I love books about the business of Hollywood and television. Perhaps the best ever was Bill Carter's The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night http://amzn.to/NHduck. So I was probably predestined to like Warren Littlefield's book, Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV http://amzn.to/LcOHPR, about the making of 'Must See TV.' It is an unusual type of books -- essentially interviews from the people involved. There are many...more
An oral history about NBC programming in the late 80s and 90s during the Warren Littlefield period (he must have been the model for Russell Dalyrimple, no?), before they let Jeff Zucker in to wreck everything and change NBC's lineup to nothing but reality crap and a lot of crummy shows with bad writing. I liked reading what the people involved felt about the whole matter, especially the sections on Seinfeld and Friends, shows I am more familiar with than some of the other (even really big) hits...more
This is "sort of" an oral history of the rise (and fall) of the "Must See TV" era on NBC by the former head of NBC entertainment.
If you're interested in how tv shows are conceived, pitched, developed and made, then this book will be of interest to you. HOWEVER, rather than be a straight oral history (like the MTV or ESPN oral histories), this also is a vehicle for Warren Littlefield to throw people under the bus left and right.
Don Ohlmeyer and Jeff Zucker especially get the heavy treatment (per...more
If you're interested in how tv shows are conceived, pitched, developed and made, then this book will be of interest to you. HOWEVER, rather than be a straight oral history (like the MTV or ESPN oral histories), this also is a vehicle for Warren Littlefield to throw people under the bus left and right.
Don Ohlmeyer and Jeff Zucker especially get the heavy treatment (per...more
This is a fascinating look into the world of TV. It was interesting to hear more about the creative process of how shows get started, and what keeps them going. Each of the shows highlighted has such a different feel, and most of them were groundbreaking at the time they were launched. The interviews from different people involved in the shows are pieced together in a very fluid and clever way, much like a well-edited show. It was uplifting to hear from the "non-creatives" who none the less beli...more
I wasn't expecting this to be as fast and fun to read as it was. I zipped through it in a few hours, and I imagine I am the #1 demographic for this book: I watched and mostly loved every single one of the shows it discusses: Cheers, The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Friends, Mad About You, Frasier, Will & Grace, Third Rock from the Sun and ER.
The way the book is "written" as a series of interviews with all the major players (including many of the actors) cut together so it reads as though they are...more
The way the book is "written" as a series of interviews with all the major players (including many of the actors) cut together so it reads as though they are...more
Mowed through this 'oral history' of MUST SEE TV .... And if you don't know what that is, this isn't the book for you. Backstories about casting and controversies sent me to you tube to see the original opening of 'Friends Like Us' when it had an REM theme song, and before it became just Friends..... While a lot of the stories were entertaining, the author (former NBC big wig Warren Littlefield) is patently confident in his contributions to NBC, which apparently went straight to heck when he was...more
If you watched "Must See TV" on NBC on Thursday nights, you'll find this book pretty interesting. Made up of interviews and pulled together by Warren Littlefield, the former NBC President of Entertainment, you'll learn the back story of the end of Cheers, and how Seinfeld, Frasier, Mad About You, ER, Will & Grace, Third Rock from the Sun, Law and Order, all got on the air. You'll learn why Jeff Zucker and Don Ohlmeyer appear to be universally disliked and why Jimmy Burrows is universally rev...more
This is an interesting book written by the former head of entertainment of NBC. it details the sitcoms from the "must See TV" era of Thursday nights. Cheers, Seinfeld, Mad About You, Friends, Frasier, Will and Grace. IT was interesting to hear the inside story of these shows - i wanted to hear more about the actual SHOWS and less on the business side but alas, TV is just a giant business. It did make me think about how different TV is now. If you new show isn't top rated in the first 4 episodes,...more
Who wants to read a book by a former TV executive? Not me really, but it discussed some of my all-time favorite TV shows: Cheers, Fraiser, Friends, ER, Will and Grace, and Seinfeld. This book isn’t going to become a classic or anything. However, it was actually a fast easy read. It was nice to turn back the dial and get all of the goods from behind the scenes with some of my favorite actors and learn how these shows came to be on our TV screens each week. I don’t watch reality TV shows except fo...more
This book was interesting in the way it presented so many different people's perspectives on events. It was like reading a documentary, and I ended every chapter wanting to know more about the running of each show highlighted. While I do believe that NBC and network TV in general have been less willing to take risks in recent years, to their detriment, the network has (maybe despite itself) produced some good and risky shows: The Office, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, Community. So I don't quite buy th...more
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Jun 19, 2012 01:27pm
Jun 19, 2012 02:34pm