Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Madame's Place" in English language version.
Her autobiography, "Madame: The First Hundred Years," is scheduled to be out this Christmas.
I had an idea for a show very much like this one, but I was to live in the house with Madame so we wouldn't have all the problems with me not being seen.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)We did a pilot with Mary and Jiffy, but it's better just with Madame. She's such a strong character, and just having one puppet character in the show makes it different than anything that's been done before.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)The writing has been good. I change some lines right out there on the floor, because we have a computer system instead of cue cards that can type changes in right there.
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MAUPIN: Did it take you long to learn to operate that dolly... that thing you roll around on?
FLOWERS: I kind of devised that. I'd always noticed in movies that are made with puppets, they build their stages up, but the actors can't move much; they have to stand still while the puppets dance around them and all. I just wheel all around the floor.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)I had a stuffed monkey with Velcro hands and feet. It reminded me of Madame, so one day I decided to bring it in to show off to my new friend. "Can I borrow that?" he asked me. A few days later, he brought it back to the set, completely restyled to look like one of his puppets, complete with the little sticks to move the monkey's hands and feet.
I was elated. The great Wayland Flowers had made me a puppet. But when I showed it to my mother, she harrumphed. "Wayland Flowers is gay," she told me. I didn't know what that meant, of course... "How do you know he's gay?" I asked. "Trust me," she said, "I just know."
WAYLAND FLOWERS: We're doing five shows a week, and Solid Gold at night.
ARMISTEAD MAUPIN: You've lost weight. Is that why?
WAYLAND FLOWERS: Yes, of course. I do love to work, but Jesus. I say, call the union; there's got to be something in the slave labor clause.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)Speaking of the audience that Madame's Place will be aimed at [W. Randolph] Reiss [senior vice president of Paramount Television Domestic Distribution] comments, "The show is primarily for young adults. The difference between programming in the late night and programming in the early evening is that, in the late fringe, you lose the kids and many of the teenagers and 50-plus audience. You lose those, and what you have left is 18-49."
Paramount Television Domestic Distribution has sold Madame's Place in more than 110 markets, giving the comedy the largest lineup ever for a first-run syndicated strip, according to Paramount. The show has been sold to all of the top 10 markets, 18 or the top 20, and 41 of the top 50, representing more than 83 per cent of the U.S. households.
At Paramount, a half-hour nighttime comedy/variety strip, Madame's Place, will be one of the centerpieces of the company's new offerings. Developed and produced by PTDD, it stars Wayland Flowers and is being sold as a strip program with availability of a special weekend edition in a one-hour form, according to W. Randolph Reiss, senior vice president.
In recent months, WSBK has been running The Twilight Zone at 11 p.m., followed by Madame's Place, followed by feature films. "We have been getting our best ratings with Twilight Zone," reports Judy Jurisch, programming manager for the station.
I was lucky to meet Wayland in his early days, before he truly became famous, when he was still performing in clubs... Wayland and I became fast friends... I loved Madame so much that I decided to become her in my act. I hired two of his writers to work on my Madame material, and his puppeteer to create a Madame mask. Madame's seamstress designed my sequined gown. I found a small, blond doll to represent Wayland that we dressed in a little suit.
Donna Mills is a guest; Madame runs for city council; the staff competes on "Celebrity Staff Battle". (60 min.)
{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: location (link)It was during this time that Wayland started using drugs. Rumor around the set was that he had to be jacked up on coke just to handle being on a dolly for hours on end while shooting.
Custom-crafted "Madame" full-size ventriloquist figure, personally made by her creator and operator Wayland Flowers for Debbie Reynolds' Las Vegas stage show. Fully dressed and decorated as her original "twin-sister" version that appeared in Flowers' arms for many television and stage appearances before his untimely death at 48 in 1988.
My original idea was to have Madame shot off into space in a rocket. And from there, she would break into TV shows unexpectedly," he said. "But there were compromises, and this is the format we settled on.
Flowers said there were 12 writers working on the series. But he also contributes a lot of his own material.
The writers are writing the material," Flowers said, "But I have to change it a little.
Flowers said Madame has more than 100 custom-designed outfits and nine stand-ins for the TV series.
For Madame's bedroom scenes, Flowers must lie on his stomach, extending his right arm through a crevice between the bed and pillow to operate Madame. He must watch a monitor to orchestrate Madame's movements, as well as a teleprompter.
Owes some of her great shape to the fact that she began gymnastics at age 9 and has remained a devotee to fitness ever since.
Madame's voice was flawless. But when Flowers was speaking in his own Southern drawl, the voice was raspy. "I sound like a frog," he said. "We've done 50 shows in 10 weeks and Madame is in just about every scene."
Two episodes were taped every two weeks over the course of four days and nights.
In the October Neilsen ratings, her Saturday show (a composite of the previous week's episodes) proved to be the highest rated show for Atalanta's Channel 36, one of the 120 stations which had bought the series by its fall debut.
It began airing on USA on June 30, 1986, and had a permanent home on the station until 1991.
The 30-minute version subsequently aired for 5 years on the USA network, but the 15 hour-long weekend edits haven't been seen since their original run in syndication.
She was a premier gymnast who conquered all comers at the New York State Championships at the age of 16.
While working on Madame's Place, she'd usually order Japanese shushi or a California combination of avocado and crabmeat wrapped in seaweed and topped with white rice. "Besides being low in, calories and high in protein, it's simply great with a little horseradish to give it that added zip," she says.
Over the years, Wayland developed a heavy cocaine habit. His drug habit worsened and, to make things even worse, he was diagnosed with HIV.
Her autobiography, "Madame: The First Hundred Years," is scheduled to be out this Christmas.
I'm not appearing on the show at all," said Flowers. "That wasn't the way I wanted it at first, but now I think it's good. My mouth moves -- I'm not a ventriloquist -- and the producers didn't want that.
Wayland Flowers is no dummy. He and his favorite puppet, Madame, have been signed to head a new half-hour comedy series for Paramount Television called Madame's Place.
The show will feature Madame's... friends Jiffy, Crazy Mary, Baby Smedley, and Mr. Mackelhoney.... There'll be some "real" people, including Madame's houseboy and her friend, the nightclub bouncer, plus others.
The pilot, which featured the star and a number of Flowers' other inananimate creations, just didn't work. "The strength of Madame is that she's highly adult," explained [Paramount senior Vice-President of Programming, John] Goldhammer. "She relates better to humans than to puppets. This is not a puppet show, but it has a puppet as its star. The pilot was too cartoonish."
Flowers is nowhere to be seen on the elaborate sets at KTLA studios, where Madame is taped for TV.
Said Flowers, "We had 30 (episodes) shot and in the can before it ever ran."
Touted to be the most expensive syndicated comedy show in history, the sets seem to bear that out. With a complete bedroom, living room, office, courtroom, and ornate bathroom, Madame really seems to have it made.
Each week's product -- five half-hour shows plus a one-hour weekend episodes that combines two already shown segments with extra material -- is costing Paramount $250,000, which makes it the most expensive comedy ever produced for syndication.
"When I'm writing, I like to be in a room with writers. You start with an idea and it bounces around the room like a pingpong ball," said Flowers.
Madame's Place has 12 writers, Flowers says, but he does a lot of instant rewriting as they shoot.
Today, he has Madame who, physically, is one of some eight or nine puppets, all virtually the same. But there are differences. Flowers has painted them all, and he can tell them apart. "They have different looks," he said. "The is one that even has an evil look."
For this show, she has 33 costumes so far, a lot of mix-and-match," he said. He and designer Minta Manning go through magazines, searching for the right "look" for the over-sexed octogenarian.
For Madame's Place, Flowers has designed a low-slung black vinyl stool with wheels. He crouches on the stool, propelling himself with his legs as he moves Madame about, keeping himself out of the camera's range.
Flowers operates Madame by sitting below her, 4 inches off the ground on a board that has wheels to allow him to move her around the room when necessary.
I just couldn't get used to playing to the dummy, or the puppet, or whatever you call her. I just kept talking down toward the floor at Wayland, 'cause that's where the noise was coming from. But gradually, I got accustomed to the notion that the puppet really is Madame, and now I'm playing right to her, and very comfortable with it.
He explained that guests do sometimes fail to pay attention to the host. "Some will look down at me and I'll look up and say, 'Keep the eyes on the doll.'"
My agent wanted me to do dramatic roles instead of comedy, but I enjoy comedy and when this role in Madame's Place came along I couldn't resist.
Doing a five-day-a-week comedy is not an easy assignment. "It's like an asylum, not unlike my home. I call it Casa Tastrophe," said Flowers, adding, "I would rather not have done a strip show."
Although Madame proved to be a consistent ratings performer for Atlanta independent station WATL, more stations nationwide carried the hour-long weekend programs than carried the weeknight strips from which the weekend composites were edited. However, the interest in the weekend programs was not high enough to make Paramount want to spend the money necessary to keep producing them.
Madame lost her own place in the television world when she was not renewed by two RKO stations carrying her (one of them was New York "superstation" WOR).
Madame's Place, a situation comedy about an aging show business veteran who hosts a television talk show from her Hollywood mansion, will join the USA Network at 11:30 a.m. EST daily, beginning Monday.
The "Spin City" supporting players present an episode of "Madame's Place"... Later in the month, Jenny Jones also serves up a "Madame's Place" episode.
Madame's Place [was taped] on a furious schedule [of] 75 half-hour shows in 26 weeks.
The difficulties started when he began doing the television show five days a week. He had so much money so quickly, he was working so hard and it was just too much for him. He was taking cocaine just to keep going.
Madame's Place lasted only half the season.
We originally tried to get George Burns and Ethel Merman to sing the theme, but they both were already booked when we needed them.
USA reran this at 11:30 in the morning, back around 1986. And amazingly enough, this reran on USA as late as 1990. It reran at 2 in the morning, but it was still airing on USA.
There were 54 episodes, of which, 53 are available online thanks to the incredible preservation powers of Tav's Television.
Every episode, presumably, is on YouTube, because some intrepid viewer, around 1989-90, recorded almost every episode of Madame's Place. There appear to be two episodes this person didn't record.
