MSCL.com News Archive

W.G. Snuffy Walden about MSCL

Part II of the interview

*M.E. Any speculation on what would have happened in an Episode 20?* W.G. (pause) No. No, I mean I never asked Winnie or Scott what they would have done. Nineteen episodes, we were devastated. It took us two and a half years to make those nineteen. When she [Claire Danes] did the pilot, she was thirteen, and she was fifteen and a half when we had done all nineteen.

*M.E. Is that so?* W.G. Oh yeah. ABC didn't pick it up when we first did it, they held off on that pilot and waited a year until it actually got picked up and went to production and then we did the nineteen. So from the time, from the March that we did the Pilot 'till the May where we?(pause) I don't think we made it 'till May. Um, I guess we finished probably in April, the nineteen episodes, or maybe even March. Two and a half years had passed from the time that the show had all been started, which was in like, January; well Scott had called me in January 1992? '91? I don't know. And it just took so long to get that show made. And ABC really didn't understand the show, they didn't even market it. And yet then you see today all the "Felecity"'s and the "Dawson Creek"'s and all these young shows. It was just ahead of it's time.

*M.E. You know someone from ABC programming said a little while back to TV Guide I think, that of all the shows he's pulled the plug on over the years, "My So-Called Life" was the one he regretted ending the most.* W.G. Yeah. You know Ted Harbert (?) who was a huge supporter of the show, he's over at NBC Productions, and he told me the same thing. He said, you know, it was the biggest mistake ABC could have made. And he loved the show, he was a huge fan. And I've worked with him on other shows too.

--------------- *NOTE: Snuffy refers several times to something called a "temp" or "temp track". A temp track is the temporary music filmmakers will often put up against early rough cuts of their project before a composer is hired, or before it is actually scored. It is to give them a sense of what will work and what won't work musically when the composer is brought in.

The Snuffy Walden program aired on March 21st.

Thanks to Mike Enright for the transcript! discuss in our forum