Last week four weary, bleary men sat at Art's Deli, resting from their rewrites of Rhoda. James Brooks turned to his fellow writer-producers, Allan Burns, David Davis and Lorenzo Mu sic. "Why open with the fruit salad?" he asked, blue-penciling the menu. "Let's get to the zinger we move the pastrami up, segue to the coleslaw, go for the laugh with the knockwurst."
His colleagues saw nothing unusual about the revisions; they had simply forgotten to turn off their brains. It is an occupational disease of the group. Ever since the creation of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, they have been...
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