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Saturday, September 18, 2004

The Tale of the Weekend Upcoming



The life of this script begins, again, in the "Seinfeld" script that Mike and I wrote in 1993. There was a part of a scene in that script that involved the huge number of items that George was taking along on their purported trip, and I used that as my jumping off point. We had also, back then, discussed a possible second episode, and it was those discussions that I used in building the outline (even though I don't really outline) of the script that would become "The Tale of the Weekend Upcoming."

This again was a very easy script to write. I just typed the characters names and let them do the talking. I was able to develop the character of Jerry's girlfriend, June, who we met as a receptionist in "References on Request." I also added a character named Floyd, who is an acquaintance of both Jerry and George and is the closest thing that George can dig up as a date for a weekend at the beach.

Once, many years ago, I read an interview with George C. Scott in which he said that when an actor plays Shakespeare, that he should just "get on the train and ride." I have the same experience with writing for these characters. (Not to confuse my stuff with Shakespeare's, which I don't think is possible.) There's no struggling, no fighting. And, believe me, that's not always the case.

A footnote on this has to do with the title. Originally, I was going to call it "The Problem of Making Time." Then, while I was at work on the script, one of my wife's co-workers coined the phrase "the weekend upcoming" while in conversation with her. And what I considered to be the perfect title was born.

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