THE CRAZY ONES at TCA: Live-Blog

What do you get when you mix Robin Williams, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and James Wolk together in a comedy? You get the new CBS series, THE CRAZY ONES.

I’ll be live-blogging the comedy’s Television Critics Association session, so be sure to follow along!

1:33 PM: Executive producer Jason Winer says the show isn’t about an ad agency, it’s about the father-daughter relationship. (Winer also jokingly — I hope — refers to this as SMG’s return to network television.)

1:35 PM: Will there be gag reels in the episodes? The pilot showed some outtakes and that’ll continue, given that Williams is on the cast.

1:36 PM: “He says my words perfectly and then he does his,” exec producer David E. Kelley says of Williams’ love of improving. They shoot the show, and then let the cast play around a little bit.

“The bottom line is he writes great stuff,” Williams says. (For the record, he’s done three voices already on this panel.)

1:38 PM: “Now that I have a moral GPS on my phone, it’s like, ‘The girl you’re texting is the same age as your daughter, reroute,'” Williams says of the need to constantly be funny.

“For me, it’s great to have a steady gig after so long,” William says, in all seriousness about his new show.

1:40 PM: Williams says his kids are the toughest critics of all. He says SMG’s character is like a combo of his son and his daughter.

1:41 PM: Kelley says the idea came up several years ago from John Montgomery, but the timing wasn’t right for him. Williams was mentioned in the early stages of casting, but Kelley didn’t think it was possible. Williams responded to the material and then the series started falling in place.

“I think we connected on who the character was — not just his comedic sensibilities, but his flaws,” Kelley says.

1:43 PM: “When you’re making up names of products, suddenly the world doesn’t feel real,” Winer says of using real companies versus making up brand names. He says McDonalds didn’t approve anything in the pilot/no money was exchanged, and that was important to them. They want to make sure the brand names can lend credibility and grounding to the series.

1:45 PM: Gellar says that Williams was one of her top 10 icons. (“And Carrot Top,” Williams interrupts.) She jokes she found a way to stalk everyone in the cast and got lucky in order to get cast.

1:47 PM: The new level of technology makes things exciting for Williams. Williams is pitching fake product ideas, and jokes they’ll get ideas based on our reactions to his fake products.

1:48 PM: Gellar compares working with Williams to being a parent, because she has to keep a straight face, even when she’s amused. She notes she didn’t have a relationship with her father, so she’s had to watch her real-life husband with their daughter, and Williams’ relationship with his daughter.

1:50 PM: “They have to not just buy into my character, but the relationship with everyone else,” Williams says of the line of not improvising too much. Winer says the improv is the icing, not the cake.

1:53 PM: The panelists are emphatic in how supportive Williams is as a scene partner.

“Acting with these people is a joy to me,” Williams says.

Wolk jokes that things like “don’t step on my line, kid” are Williams’ way of showing affection.

1:54 PM: “Yeah that was not my smartest day,” Gellar jokes of playing twins on RINGER. She says the comedy schedule is a lot easier on her.

1:55 PM: “I only do ad agencies now,” Wolk jokes of doing this job right after doing MAD MEN. He compares this to working with a band.

1:58 PM: When a reporter asks Williams to talk about being a sad clown, he gets up out of his seat, and loses his mike, which Gellar uses to try and literally reel him back in.

2:00 PM: THE CRAZY ONES has a lot of real-life ad people consulting on the show, but Kelley says “at the end of the day, it’s about the relationships; the characters learning to work with each other…and at the core, it’s about the father and daughter.”