#gurgs nnc
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punk-sharkz-zero · 6 months ago
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Night Court au where New Night Court gang gets transported back to og Night Court and Dan has to relive the gayest parts of his life, Abby gets to see her dad again, and Olivia, Gurgs & Wyatt have to watch the chaos unfold. do you see my vision night court fandom
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boasamishipper · 3 days ago
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in honor of night court's 41st anniversary i watched the night court pilot and the new night court pilot back to back and finally put my finger on why nc is a thousand times better than nnc is.
nnc has no bite.
here's what i mean.
the nc pilot episode opens in the judge's chambers. in less than five minutes, we are made aware of the situation (there is a new judge and will be here any minute and no one knows anything about him at all). we meet most of our leads: lana (court clerk, stress level maximum, control freak), bull (bailiff, big, cloud cuckoolander), dan (assistant district attorney, smooth and snide), and sheila (public defender, people pleaser). (by the episode's end we will also meet selma, the other bailiff, older and wiser and raunchy.) the judge's office is grimy and full of boxes. the guy sent to paint the walls is too busy watching a couple fuck across the street to do his job. the judge turns out to be harry stone, a young irreverent chaos demon who Also stops what he's doing to watch the couple fuck across the street, and also shoots plastic snakes out of an air rifle at his counselors and court clerk to prove he is who he says he is. he wears jeans and hates barry manilow. he's a scamp. the characters and the audience are in immediate agreement: this guy cannot possibly be fit to be a judge.
but as the episode continues, we (and the characters) learn more about harry and find that he is, in fact, the right man for the job. he tells us himself, and he shows it: he cares about people. he wants to hear people out. he wants to talk to people, get to the bottom of their situation, and have people leave his courtroom a little better than they were when they came in. his methods are unorthodox, and he's still as sarcastic and flippant and irreverent as the day is long, but he is a good man. he asks the characters (and the audience) to give him a chance. and we do.
nc showed right away that it had bite. it's sharp, and intelligent, and grimy, and keeps things moving along quickly - if you don't like one joke, another shows up right away for you to laugh at - while letting the heavier moments (harry's big speech, the kerrs' reconciliation) linger without immediately being undercut by the laugh track or the narrative. but most importantly, by the end of the first episode, nc showed that it had heart to go along with the bite. and that balance is what made nc so great.
now onto nnc.
the nnc pilot opens with a cheerful blonde waiting in line to get into the courthouse. we learn who she is right away: judge abby stone, daughter of judge harry stone - which is nnc's immediate mistake. by introducing her first and foremost as harry's daughter, our perception of her is colored by that, and we the audience don't have any time to view her as a person without that knowledge. but whatever, so in this episode we meet harry's very perky cheerful blonde daughter who gives everyone in court a chance to prove themselves and is interested in the defendants as people. we also meet gurgs (bailiff, sunny and weird), neil (court clerk, doesn't want to be here), olivia (prosecutor, also doesn't want to be here, inconsistent suck up), and dan fielding (ex prosecutor, old friend of abby's father). dan is asked by abby to be her new public defender, but wavers until he returns to night court and gets pranked by harry from beyond the grave. by the end of the episode, the team is assembled.
okay great. so we know from the pilot that nnc has heart.
...but does it?
like most mediocre legacy sequels (and also the current state of the marvel cinematic universe), nnc spends too much time calling back (hey look abby is harry stone's daughter and john larroquette is back in action and we remembered roz and christine and clarence the stuffed armadillo and and and) and not enough time trying to make a name for itself. when writing top gun: maverick, the actual best legacy sequel ever made, christopher mcquarrie said:
“We found ourselves leaning towards recreating moments from the film as opposed to creating new ground and we found time and again that the more we let go of the original movie and went into our own direction the film became more true. And there really was the possibility to make something that stood alone. It was very important to Tom and I when we would talk about ‘Top Gun’ you didn’t have to see the original movie to enjoy this one.”
the nnc writers did not (and have yet to) take a leaf from mcq's book. nnc's heart (especially in the pilot) comes entirely from references to the original show. the constant callbacks to harry and the way he was and the things he did and his ethos. roz's appearances. the invention of katie sullivan, a thin excuse to bring up christine. everything about dan, who by the way we STILL don't know anything about what he did (or the woman he married or why he and harry lost touch) in the interim between both shows. and because nnc is so busy throwing references to a better show at us, the new characters have not had any chance to shine - or be given the same depth (or bite!) that the original show's characters were granted in the first few episodes of the show alone.
let me show you what i mean. within the first three episodes of night court, we learned the following about harry:
he was appointed to the bench because he was at home to answer the phone (but he WAS on the shortlist for a reason)
he likes magic tricks and card tricks and pulling pranks
he loves mel torme and hates barry manilow
he wants to understand everyone who comes into his courtroom as individuals, not as statistics
he can be goofy and snide and irreverent but he is not one to be underestimated
he stole a car and crashed it into a liquor store when he was a teenager, went to juvie, and is haunted by the fact that his father died before he could see that harry made something of himself
here's what we learn about abby after the first three episodes of new night court:
she is harry's daughter
she moved to new york city recently from upstate
she is cheerful and peppy and sees the best in people like harry
she is happily engaged to a man who also lives upstate
she is a recovering alcoholic who regrets that her drinking cost her a lot of time with harry (and i would give the show much more credit for this storyline if a) it was a key part of her characterization going forward (which can be done! just look at the first season of the john larroquette show!) b) abby had any bite at all when her personality did a 180 and c) if the writers let this moment belong to abby and abby alone as opposed to - once again - connecting it back to harry)
all this to say: abby and the rest of the nnc gang are characters first and foremost. harry and dan and the rest of the nc gang were people. they snarked at each other and had brutal arguments and laughed together and hugged each other and made mistakes and had idiosyncrasies and tragic backstories and we knew their vices and dislikes and what they loved and why they loved them. their characters had bite. they had feelings; they had dimension. the show had stakes. when things went wrong, we the audience felt the characters' pain in our guts. and when things went right, we were just as happy for the characters as if their victory was ours.
in three seasons the nnc characters have not been given enough breathing room to develop into people. they don't have their own dan's operation, or wheels of justice, or hello, goodbye. nothing sticks to them. and as a result they don't stick to us. (even dan himself, who we love from the original show, has not gotten any chance to prove his own dimension to the new audience without a callback to nc. in three seasons!!! can you believe that!!!)
it's been forty-one years since night court premiered, and the show and its characters (even in the pilot alone) are just as three-dimensional now as they were back then. but until new night court stops being afraid to stand on its own and give its characters the same weight that reinhold weege did so freely - until it has heart and bite in spades - it'll end forgotten.
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#nightcourt
ABBY: Can you read that back, please?
MAGGIE: Oh, did you guys start?
DAN: Your honor, I think we can wrap this up pretty quickly. Now, the prosecution is going to argue that the evidence is incontrovertible. And I will refute it point by point, successfully showing that it’s inadmissible. The bailiff is gonna drop her keys...
GURGS *drops keys*: WITCH!
DAN: And since it is my client’s first offense, you're obviously going to rule...
ABBY: Guilty!
DAN: Damn it!
{More Maggie!}
#nnc #nightcourt22 #nightcourt
#outofcontext
#outofcontext
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boasamishipper · 2 months ago
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notes from the nnc s3e1 taping
so back in july hannah @bornforastorm and i went to the taping of the new night court season 3 premiere!!! to the best of my memory, here's what went down:
[spoilers below the cut]
pre show:
taping was on stage 10 of the warner bros lot
hannah and i got there early (as instructed) and were pretty much the only ones in attendance who had actually seen og night court (majority of ppl knew melissa rauch from big bang theory)
which is also wild to me by the way?? why would you go to a taping of a show you have never watched??
anyway
we chatted with a very nice belgian lady and a nice australian couple who had been traveling across the country for the last few months (they gave us mini kangaroo pins)
we were not allowed to have our phones on us (alas) or i would have taken a million pictures
new night court set looks a lot more grimy in person?? which i was surprised by because on tv the show looks so much cleaner than the original did. guess that's due to lighting and whatever goes down in postproduction
hannah and i were one of the first ones in line to go into the studio (we all but shoved our way to the front) and got to sit in the second row
they had a magician named mark sweet who warmed the crowd up with very delightful magic tricks (iirc he was also the opening act for tbbt tapings which is how he got this gig)
from where hannah and i were sitting we had a great view of the courtroom set. abby's chambers set and the cafeteria set and the hospital set were more difficult to see
they played a Here's What Happened So Far On Night Court recap for us to which hannah and i were like [ron swanson voice] we know more than you
when larroquette came out for the curtain call opening my vision whited out and i screamed like a maniac
larroquette was very tall and waved cutely and did a peace sign and applauded for melissa and no one else
hannah and i were more insane about that old man than anyone in the whole studio audience
abby's dream sequence scene + julianne's arrival scene:
abby's dream sequence was filmed a previous day; we watched that on tv (it already had the laugh track added)
on the first take of this scene when julianne showed up larroquette did a classic Dan Fielding Yelp and Jumped and hid behind flobert and it was magical to see
this would continue for the rest of the night but on every single take larroquette did something different and it was equally hilarious every time. that man knows how to read a crowd
they told us straight up not to applaud when wendie malick came in as not to distract the actors (or something?? can't remember the reason but i knew she was going to be there so i was not surprised)
gurgslivia canon confirmed (gurgs changed clothes in front of her)
flobert in a wig boston legal reference!!!
when talking about the new prosecutor larroquette did a take where he made an explicit reference to the OG night court pilot (alas i did not write down what it was)
larroquette had to bend down so the makeup people could touch his face up and spritz his hair
larroquette does this little shimmy every time before he gets into character as dan and it's great
great is not a strong enough word actually. seeing him transform into dan fielding before my very eyes was a spiritual experience. i heard colors and smelled sounds.
actors who flubbed the most lines: wendie malick
actors having the most fun with different line readings: larroquette and lacretta and also gary anthony williams
abby's chambers scene:
alternate dan lines: ‘Juicy little mouse’ ‘Juicy little spring lamb’
alternate dan lines: ‘crocheting a shank’ with hand gesture
fantastic line reading: ‘macrame net’
alternate dan lines: ‘chicken feet’ ‘cat brains’ ‘wrestling alligators’ (then that again but in a more southern accent so it was like 'wrasslin gators')
the cheeto bag julianne was holding exploded on the first take but larroquette went with it like a pro
larroquette did extremely hilarious line readings of That’s A Lie every single time
again wendie malick flubbed a lot of lines but she was a champ and got through it
melissa rauch had a lot of fun with the physical comedy in this scene
hospital scene:
julia duffy had soooo much fun slapping melissa rauch
hannah and i SCREAMED when julia duffy implied harry was the father (which i predicted IN MARCH AHAHAHA)
literally i was CLUTCHING hannah's hand. we were losing it
the nice australian couple behind us: .......glad you two are......having fun
melissa rauch once again had fun with the physical comedy
final courtroom scene:
took the longest to film
solid line reading of ‘a scarf with metaphorical strings attached’
some lines were not working during this scene so the writers rewrote them on the spot (and they did not notice my attempt to subliminally get them to hire me for the writers room)
lacretta and nyambi had so much fun during the julianne 'reveal'
when gary anthony williams was dumping the flobert pics out of the bag on one take they got stuck and wouldn't come out and his reaction was very funny
misc:
taping was about four hours long and we were given pizza around the midpoint
saw larroquette chatting with wendie during the breaks very cutely
larroquette swore ‘god damn it’ when he flubbed a line (very rare, he was the best of everyone)
larroquette didn't mix much with the cast other than wendie and melissa
larroquette has a book that he carries his scripts in and it looks leather bound and has a ribbon he uses to mark pages (possibly he has this for every script??)
when larroquette reads dan’s lines while he's rehearsing, he reads them with dan’s scrunched up facial expressions and does dan’s mannerisms (dannerisms??)
phill lewis (director of the ep) came up to the audience at one point and asked if there were any fans of suite life and did the ‘no running in my lobby!!!’ line in moseby’s voice and i shrieked about it
melissa rauch also came up to the audience and said hello and she was very charming
ren bell dialogue coach is hot as fuck
dan rubin was apparently there but we couldn’t see him
larroquette left immediately after curtain call (he does his job gets that paycheck and goes home god bless)
larroquette looked sooooo good in that suit
they filmed some scenes the day before our taping (dream sequence + cafeteria scene) and added a laugh track to them?? but then played them for us so our laughs would be dubbed over the laugh track?? no clue how that works
from what we saw the writers seem to be all relatively young, 20s and 30s (we gotta get more older writers in there for john’s sake)
the best non larroquette actors are easily lacretta and gary anthony williams (who is so funny and needs to be a series regular asap)
wendie malick flubbed a lot of her lines but she is apparently new to filming in front of an audience and she seemed very charming and funny; there were vips in the audience who were friends of hers and she came up and said hi to them
speaking of vips the perks they get include getting to keep their phones on them, being more likely to win prizes from the opening act magician (more on that below), and getting to hang with the actors after the show
melissa rauch impressed me, i think she is really settling into this role and i am excited to see what she does with abby this season
after they had to stop a take bc someone flubbed a line larroquette said something bitchy-funny (‘this is what happens when you-‘) but we couldn’t hear the rest of it
larroquette was doing all the physical comedy his 76 year old self was willing to do and he was amazing
overall seems to be a tight crew and cast god bless
in between takes mark sweet the magician would entertain us and also offered us the chance to win night court merch in exchange for us doing silly things. and at one point mark sweet was giving away signed copies of the script to anyone who had a special talent. so i came up and he had someone from the front row be my assistant. so i said to my assistant okay close your eyes. now reach your left hand out and grab the folder with the scripts out of mark sweet's hand.
i was shameless and got what i wanted :)
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anyway overall incredible experience. i came out of there beaming like the joker and with enough energy to pick up a car and throw it five hundred yards. were it not for the laws of this land (aka me living in wisconsin) i would go to tapings every single week.
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