The first time I did Cake Boss or Ice-T or Andrew Lloyd Webber was on 'Best Week Ever.'
Let me say this: I have said, any time, if it's Martin Mull, I will say yes. If it's Christopher Guest, I will say yes.
I would say that one of the things that we are proud of is that we are attracting very interesting guest stars. One is Tyne Daly, who has done a wonderful job.
Jerry Lewis played on the very first season of Mad About You, and he played basically himself, but he was called some other name. He said he's never done it; he'd never done a half-hour of [sitcom] television. This was 1992 or '93. And I said, "Well how is that?" And he goes, "Nobody ever asked me." It's like the pretty girl at the dance; everybody's too afraid to ask.
So many people say they went to school on 'The Larry Sanders Show.'
You know, what 'New Girl' is doing is they're bringing in really cool people. These are home-run people who aren't your typical guest-star-type people.
I've been a hip hop head forever. So when it turned out that we were gonna start getting celebrity guests for every show, I wanted rap guys from the get-go.
Still, on 'Friends', we had some guest-stars who were less than spectacular, not the stunt-casting, but just regular guest-stars, and they weren't particularly great actors, but the material was so good that they scored. It's the writing.
One of the great things about doing series television is the guest actors that you can have come on and play around with.
There is a tendency for the New Gods to work best as guest stars.
'Game of Thrones' has kind of got the Midas touch, certainly for the lead actors and those recurring guest stars. It's the show that can do no wrong because it's so well produced. My contribution is short, but I think, in my mind, it was sweet because it involved such elaborate scenes.
I don't know if Jared Leto or Leo [DiCaprio] would ever do Fuller House, but you never know.
One of the tricky things about running a TV show is that you just never know how good the guest stars you cast on a weekly basis, how good they're going to be in the episode. Sometimes they surprise you in good ways and sometimes they surprise you in disappointing ways.
Macauley Culkin was on the show a lot. Or Haley Joe Osment.
Although we are being presented in Carnegie Hall, we have to furnish a budget for our guest stars, and for the music writing - which is a huge budget in any orchestra that plays popular music.
In TV you have to open a show the subject, you deal with an idea. Then you deal with a sponsor - but fast. Then you have to announce the guest stars. As a result, you have a big fat 30, 40 seconds - 50 if they really lose their heads - to put together an unbelievable mishmash.
When I signed onto 'Superman,' editors Matt Idelson and Wil Moss gave me a rough outline that JMS had turned in for the remaining issues of the 'Grounded' arc, which amounted to a couple of sentences for each issue, spelling out in general terms where the issue would take place geographically, specific guest stars, things like that.
But the calibre of actors that they attract to come and do the guest leads on 'Doctor Who' is fantastic. You weigh it up, and in this series alone, there's Hugh Bonneville, Frances Barber, David Walliams. Toby Jones has done it.
I think one of the great bits of The Muppet show is that it was set in a 19th century British theater and they live so nicely amongst that lovely old theater.
Doing that, then doing a lot of theater, which I love. Doing guest stars, did two independent films that are going around to all these festivals. Both of them are going to be at the Lake Tahoe Film Festival.
I remember the guest stars who came, they were always trying to find a new plot for their characters because they wanted to stay. It was really a great working environment.
It's always cool when somebody from a football team or baseball team comes to your show.
