Bruce Vilanch would likely take issue with the prevailing wisdom that there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm. In the unceasingly witty It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time, he shares his experiences as a writer for "what have been called by many critics, bloggers, podcasters, sponsors, and some of my relatives the worst shows in the history of television." For this distinction and for this book, anyone with a soft spot for late-20th-century-Hollywood cheese should say "Thank you."
Vilanch conducts postmortems on a dozen-odd projects spanning 1976 through 1998; they include the occasional theatrical release and Broadway foray. Of all these efforts, the best remembered may be Can't Stop the Music (1980), a movie starring the "iconically gay" disco group the Village People, but Vilanch's most notorious output is surely The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). Explaining Carrie Fisher's uncoerced involvement, Vilanch says that the actor "wanted Leia to sing, specifically something by Joni Mitchell."
For all the dreck on parade herein (see The Brady Bunch Hour), a less mean-spirited book centered on showfolk probably doesn't exist. It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time offers a priceless historical perspective from an industry insider who notes that, while much of his work makes viewers cringe today, this sort of entertainment "didn't bother people too much back then." A co-writer for 25 Oscar telecasts, two of which earned him Emmys, Vilanch has done some fine work, including this book. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer