fuesday, October 1, 1985
i
Daily Nebraskan
Page 9
Me
Arts
UNL.grad finds success in
TV work
By Deb Pederson
Senior Reporter
Gail Rock, who graduated from
UNL in 1961, was one of the
first radio and television stu
dents at the university.
Rock, now a television producer
and freelance writer, came back to
Lincoln Sunday for a presentation of
one of her television works, 'The
House Without A Christmas Tree,"
at Bennett Martin Public Library.
When she was at UNL, radio and
television was in the speech depart
ment, Rock said. Now it's called
Broadcasting and is in the College
of Journalism.
"We had to go work in the field
and build sets for plays and do all
kinds of weird things that had any
thing to do with what we wanted to
do," Rock said. "But we were part of
the speech department so we had to
take phonetics and all kinds of odd
courses in the speech department."
"The only thing I can say it did for
me was teach me how to use a
ratchet, a screwdriver and a power
saw, and it got rid of a lot of my
Nebraska accent," she said.
When she graduated, Rock said
7 : -
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Trudeau book worth
By Bill Allen
Senior Editor
To begin with, Gary Trudeau's latest
paperback is not worth the $9.95 ask
ing price, but I'll say more about that
later, and it might change your mind.
Book Review
Trudeau, as I assume you all know, is
a political satirist who is famous and
infamous for his Doonesbury comic
strip that is published in newspapers
nationwide.
His latest effort, "Check Your Egos
at the Door," follows the same format of
his previous works. Each page is an
enlarged version of a strip that already
appeared in the newspaper.
That's where I have trouble with this
book, and many of his latest ones. I
read the newspapers regularly and so I
nave already seen these cartoons. It
took me only a half hour to go through
the entire book.
So you say, but I haven't seen these
cartoons and I am a Trudeau fan.
Should I buy it?
Well.mavhp it H ononrlc nn hrv hi ft 51
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("uueau ian you are. If you have an
entire collection, sure you're going to
m it. Otherwise, he has done better
.stuff.
J. This book, as a whole is just too
ingle event-topical and doesn't make
Plough sweeping satirical statements
Jibout society to warrant keeping around
a voice for our times, as some of
nideau's other works have.
I J that sense, you would probably be
setter off spending a little more money
m buying one of lis chronicles, like
she went to New York intending to
work in television. She got a job at
NBC working as a secretary for the
"Today" show.
"It was a great experience," Rock
said. "It was a great education. We
traveled all over the world on story
assignments. We did a lot of arts
and entertainment, news events,
current events. So it was like another
four years of college in a way."
After four years with NBC, Rock
joined the writing staff at
Fairchild Publications, which
puts out a number of trade papers
including Women's World Daily, a,
fashion trade journal.
Rock said she worked for one of
the other journals and then went to
Women's World Daily when she
became a television and movie critic.
"Once I became a TV critic and a
movie critic, I really thought, I'm
reviewing all this junk," Rock said.
"I mean, I can write that well. These
people are making thousands and
thousands of dollars. Why am I
working on this newspaper making
$200 a week or whatever I was mak
ing. I should just quit and write
scripts. So I did."
That same year, 1872, she wrote
f
"The Doonesbury Chronicles." That's a
good one for college students. And it
has the longer cartoons, like the ones
in the Sunday papers. The cartoons in
this book are just the little four panel
newspaper ones.
The topics satirized in this book are
the "Jack Garns in space" panels, the
U.S.A. for Africa video, farm problems,
Baby Doc hospital, the homeless, and
father's responsibility in raising child
ren, to name a few.
Good stuff, yeah, but Trudeau just
didn't go far enough with the satire on
many of these. He made good points,
but just as I would get into something
he would switch to the next subject,
leaving me hanging.
The best combination of laughs and
thought in the book involved the issue
of press coverage of the subway vigilante.
A reporter breaks into Michael Doo
nesbury's house and demands an inter
view. Doonesbury is the subway hero.
The reporter asked him if he has a gun
and Doonesbury says, "No, but if you
reporters don't stay out of my house I'm
seriously considering getting one." The
""headline in the next paper then read
"I'll Kill Again," by Subway Hero.
Doonesbury is at his best when he
can tie humor and an issue together
well, and that is strained a bit in this
collection.
But, all the profits of this book go to
the United Support of Artists for Africa
campaign to aid people currently suf
fering from hunger and disease m
Africa and the United States.
It makes a good comment about
Trudeau, too. Even though he satirized
the "We Are The World Video" in this
book, he is contributing to its purpose.
For that reason you may want to buy the
book.
"The House Without a Christmas
Tree," which was turned into a CBS
holiday special and became a
success.
The story was based in the 1940s
in a small Nebraska town and cen
tered around the relationship be
tween a 10-year-old girl named Addie
and her father, Rock said. The
father didn't want to have a Christ
mas tree because it reminded him
of his wife who died one Christmas.
But Addie wanted to have a tree.
"The House Without A Christmas
Tree," which she also wrote as a
book, and three subsequent shows
and books, "The Thanksgiving Trea
sure," "The Easter Promise" and
"Addie and the King of Hearts," are
all based on her childhood in Valley,
Rock said. Valley is between Fre
mont and Omaha.
Rock said she worried about
whether "The House Without
a Christmas Tree" would bother
the people in her hometown. But
she fictionalized the story and wrote
it anyway.
Since writing the holiday spe
cials, which have been bought by
the Disney Channel, Rock said she
has developed a lot of half-hour
television situation-comedies and
1
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Rock
reading, not buying
m y zr
""St-
dramas.
She said she sometimes works
with her partner, Dick Arlett, who
she met while working for the
"Today" show.
Rock said they just finished a
thirteen part series on windsurfing
that will appear in syndication in
January.
Her current projects include a
couple of situation comedies that
Rock and Arlett have presented to
Ted Turner's SuperStation and a
possible men's pageant called "Man
of the 80s," which would feature
tuxedo, talent and athletic compe
titions, Rock said.
Rock compared freelance writing
to throwing paper airplanes out of a
window.
"You just throw a bunch out and
someone will pick up one of them,"
she said.
Freelancing takes a great deal of
self-discipline, she said.
"It's very hard, very scary and
very uncertain," she said. "You have
to save your money because there
are long dry spells between working."
B
eing single makes it easier
because one doesn't have to
worry about providing for a
Kd
V
Courtesy Holt, RInehart and Winston
$,h
family, she said.
"You have to be sure of yourself,"
Rock said. "You have to be able to
accept rejection constantly. About
99 percent of your stuff is rejected
and it's nothing personal. It's just
that you didn't have exactly what
was needed."
Rock said she found living in New
York to be a necessity in order to
make the connections and learn the
ropes.
While she loved living and work
ing in New York, she said she found
her work taking her to Los Angeles
for long periods of time. So she
finally moved to Los Angeles and
she said she loves the lifestyle
there.
Her advice to aspiring freelancers
is "train yourself to look at things."
She also suggested watching a
series on television for a while and
then trying to write some episodes
for it.
Her rule-of-thumb for developing
a series is that she has to have at
least 12 episodes. If she can't think
up 1 2 story lines, there isn't a series,
Rock said.
"I think everyone has the abil
ity," Rock said. "You just have to
open the creative channel."
V"
David CreamerDaily Nebraskan
International wars
topic ofNETV
series on tonight
"War: A Commentary by Gwynne
Dyer," premiering tonight at 8 p.m. on
NETV, takes viewers on a trek through
two centuries of world military history.
From the Napoleonic Wars to the
Falkland Islands War and the ongoing
Middle East conflict, Canadian journal
ist Gwynne Dyer charts the political
ideals, military strategies, methods of
conquest and price that has been paid
for the spoils of war.
Shot on location in 10 different
countries including the United
States and the Soviet Union the
series features interviews with both
the obscure and the famous fro.n
young recruits to eminent military
generals, historians and philosophers
who provide first-hand perspectives
on the nature of and rationale for wrr.
In the first episode, "The Road . i.
Total War," Dyer begins his survey .f
the history of conflict with the Na r
leonic era, following the escalation of
warfare through the decades to one of
history's most horrifying moments, when
the first atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima.
In later episodes, Dyer profiles the
men who compose the hierarchy of war:
from green recruits transformed into
competent soldiers, to career officers
nurturing the attitudes and organiza
tion that make battle possible, to
government officials acting on behalf
of their citizens.
The series also documents NATO's
war games in central Europe, where the
players recognize how quickly a con
ventional war could transform into an
all-out nuclear exchange. Dyer then
traces the development of the arms
race, from Hiroshima to the nuclear
stalemate that exists today.