I hadn't read that Joss quote about producing or directing before

garda39 | July 04, 17:33 CET

Did she used to go out with Jerry O' Connell?

Spangel | July 04, 19:11 CET

Yeah, i seem to remember that she dated ole "Quinn Mallory" for a while. Considering that his main claim to fame is Sliders it's a real pity that he is still ten times the actor that her husband is ;)

Disciple of Spike | July 04, 19:16 CET

Followed a link from the SMG page to an old (2001) "Discover Your Inner Scooby" personality test.

I rated as Xander:

Sure, it was only 10 questions, but we know the dim lighting in your parents' basement can make you sleepy. Even though you're not exactly a model for hard-core career motivation, your friends and loved ones adore you just the same for your charming personality and comic wit. (Your significant other even adored you four times in one night--and that's a job to be proud of.)

Ubqtous | July 04, 20:51 CET

Also found this interesting article:

Gellar: I'm Gone If "Buffy" Leaves WB (Jan 22 2001)

This was long before I started keeping up with the behind the scenes stuff... wonder what made her change her mind?$?

Ubqtous | July 04, 20:55 CET

What made Sarah change her mind? I heard angry notes from Fox. According to another article there were a lot of fiscal concerns involved in the switch. Fox wanted UPN to have Buffy because it improved the bottom line of it's assets.

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,8150,00.html

Check out this link from the site for interviews with all of the Scoobies and Joss on the 100th episode.

http://www.eonline.com/Features/Features/Buffy/?newsrellink

[ edited by Anne 5_by_5 on 2004-07-04 19:46 ]

Anne 5_by_5 | July 04, 21:44 CET

There's a link about Freddie suing his manager for making him use an unqualified accountant (who was a friend of the manager) who screwed up his accounts and cost him a fortune. I would have sued the manager for getting him signed up for such crap movies!

zz9 | July 04, 23:17 CET

Btw thanks for that Buffy test thing. I know it's silly, especially when you can already tell which answer leads to which character, but I was honest and....I'm Buffy.....Unexpected....But then my wife was Willow and she's so not a Willow..

And I remember at the time Sarah was threatening to quit if the show went to UPN. I also remember thinking 'why?' and 'not smart to say that since you may have to eat your own words if I know how businesses work'....and well she kinda had to do just that. Didn't she say later that UPN had been good to them? I think with everything, she sill probably enjoyed her WB years more.

EdDantes | July 05, 11:58 CET

Gellar's: I'm gone if Buffy Leaves WB comment has a lot to do with the way the WB network treated it's group of young actors. The WB network behaved like it was part of the old studio system. You work for us and we help you to get your foot into the movies. The movies you do help to promote your television series. Sarah likes to work and this system proved advantageous to her and her career. During her WB days, Sarah appeared in no fewer than seven films (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, Small Soldiers (voice) Cruel Intentions, Simply Irresistable, Harvard Man, and Scooby Doo 1.) Not to mention numberous small television roles like the WB's Grosse Point and SNL appearances. Verses the two voice work projects she did during the UPN years. Alyson Hannigan did five movies during the WB years (Dead Man on Campus, American Pie 1 and 2, Boys and Girls, and Beyond City Limits). Nicholas Brendon did a couple of movies (Pyscho Beach Party and Pinata) during the WB years and, at one point, was in contention for the Spiderman role.

This didn't just apply to Buffy actors. The same occurred for Dawson's Creek. Joshua Jackson, James Van der Beek and Katie Holmes all landed plum roles in films. Today's hot actors Chad Michael Murray and Jessica Biel are receiving the big WB studio promotional support.

Back then, UPN was hardly a network; post-Buffy it is hardly a network. Buffy put UPN in the viewer's spotlight, briefly. Most of the deal to bring Buffy over to the UPN network had a lot to do with financial concerns at Fox. They were trying to merger a group of television stations together and the addition of Buffy to the line-up of these stations made them look more profitable. UPN put a major promotional push into Buffy in their first season and then ignored it through season seven.

I know a lot of fans who were cheesed off because the UPN were too cheap to shoot new promotional pics for S7. If you look at the promotional trailers for S1-S5, they are very well and even artfully done. The UPN trailers look like a dog's breakfast and are full of spoilers.

Twenty-twenty hindsight, would seem to indicate that Buffy would have received more critical acclaim if it stayed with the WB. Season four had Joss receive his one and only Emmy writing nod. Season five saw Sarah get her Golden Globe nomination. Joss had to put in his own money, in vain, in order to promote a nomination attempt for The Body. I'm not sure the WB would have let Whedon play with Buffy the way he did with the darkness of S6. Their standards and practices department were truly a pain when it came to artistic license. But, somehow, I'm sure Whedon and Co would have pulled it off. Most importantly, Angel would never have been treated as the ugly step-brother. Jamie Kellner killed Angel during his last months in office as the head of the WB (May, 2004).

IMHO

Anne 5_by_5 | July 05, 21:47 CET

Thanks Anne 5by5 that's a lot of interesting info. But was there even a choice in staying with the WB? I thought they were not going to agree to a new (and more expensive) contract? I seem to recall something like that.

And yeah UPN sucked on the promotional end. And really how expensive can it be to shoot a couple of decent promo pictures? You're a tv network for pete's sake. Now the DVD sets of 6 and 7 all have pics of the same photoshoots. Cheap...

But about Angel...he DID stay at the WB and he was treated as the ugly step brother. I'm afraid I"m not familiar with Mr. Kellner, Was he Levin's predecessor?

EdDantes | July 05, 23:34 CET

Jamie Kellner was the founder and CEO of the WB network. He only officially retired from the WB in May of 2004. He'd been gradually scaling down his involvement with the network over the last couple of years, assuming a co-president's position with Jordan Levin. Mr. Levin as of his termination served only a couple of months as soul president of the WB. Prior to that, he served as the person in charge of program development at the network. He was infact the person who helped bring Buffy and Angel to life. As a result, Joss looks upon Jordan Levin in a very favorable light and as one of his principle supporters at the network even at the end of Angel.

Jamie Kellner is the man who ordered the delayed viewing of Earshot and Graduation Day, Part 2. He also decried that no WB star would cut their hair without prior network approval (Re: Felicity). Joss and Kellner clashed over Kellner's continued belittling of the Buffy series. He basically called it nothing more than a "teen soap". As the negotiations drew on for S5, the level of animosity increased and apparently they got to the point where Joss came close to hitting Kellner at a WB function.

The choice to switch Buffy to UPN was probably Fox's to make. At the end of negotiation for S5 the WB had offered 1.8 million per episode, while UPN offered 2.2 million with an option to pick-up Angel should the WB cancel it within the next two years. At the end Joss still had to work with Kellner when it came to Angel's affairs. I don't think either man ever forgot the animosity over the contract negotiations for Buffy. Kellner stepped down as CEO to pursue the network head of TNT, but he kept a role as co-president at WB until May of 2004. Incidently, TNT was the network that picked up Angel's syndication rights for the first 100 episodes. It was a lost cause to petition TNT to save Angel with Kellner as their president.

Somewhere in there an entertainment journalist would have a field day covering the behind the scenes antics of network executives involved in Buffy and Angel. There is certainly lots of drama and interesting personalities. EdDantes if you are looking for more info check out the E! Online website under Jordan Levin, Joss Whedon, and Jamie Kellner. I think Joyce Millman's column over at Salon.com may also have lots of juicy tidbits as well.

Anne 5_by_5 | July 06, 02:35 CET

EdDantes: Btw thanks for that Buffy test thing. I know it's silly, especially when you can already tell which answer leads to which character, but I was honest and....I'm Buffy.....Unexpected....But then my wife was Willow and she's so not a Willow..

I thought this test was a little more tongue-in-cheek than the recent FireFly test, but still fun. Seems like every question in the Buffy test had sex as an answer in some form or another :)

EdDantes: And I remember at the time Sarah was threatening to quit if the show went to UPN. I also remember thinking 'why?' and 'not smart to say that since you may have to eat your own words if I know how businesses work'....and well she kinda had to do just that. Didn't she say later that UPN had been good to them? I think with everything, she sill probably enjoyed her WB years more.

Could chalk that up to the ignorance of youth, I guess. Almost seems like SMG was siding with the WB. If she was willing to quit rather than change networks, the real loser would have been ME/20th, not the WB; heeded, her ulitimatum would have forced ME/20th to compromise at the bargining table, not the WB. You don't have much bargining power if your show's star is threatening to leave!

I don't know of any SMG comments of this nature since then, so maybe she learned her lesson :)

[Bracing myself for proof of further prima donna-like qualities from SMG-h8ers]

Anne 5_by_5: I'm gone if Buffy Leaves WB comment has a lot to do with the way the WB network treated it's group of young actors. The WB network behaved like it was part of the old studio system. You work for us and we help you to get your foot into the movies. The movies you do help to promote your television series.

This is a very interesting take. It makes sense that the WB can offer many in-roads for its actors; but UPN is owned by Viacom (was it back then?), which is no small entertainment conglomerate.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall...

Ubqtous | July 06, 03:01 CET

"This is a very interesting take. It makes sense that the WB can offer many in-roads for its actors; but UPN is owned by Viacom (was it back then?), which is no small entertainment conglomerate."

It's not so much an issue of how large a company Fox or Viacom was back then. It was more to do with how supportive the company is to an actor's outside endeavours. I seem to recall Emma Caulfield having difficulty getting time off from Fox, in Buffy S6, to do Darkness Falls. Sarah's projects during the WB years were for several different studios. She only did Scooby Doo 1 for Warner Brothers. The only film that Fox put Sarah in was Simply Irresistable.


Sarah's comment about not leaving the WB, probably wasn't a smart one. But, I think, she was just expressing a sentiment that some members of the show were feeling. Marti Noxon says in either TVography or Sarah Michelle Gellar Revealed that they were all hurt by the WB rejection of the show. The WB was like home.

Btw, Sarah thought that Kellner's decission to pull Earshot and Graduation Day, Part 2 was "stupid and lame."

Anne 5_by_5 | July 06, 10:02 CET

It's not so much an issue of how large a company Fox or Viacom was back then. It was more to do with how supportive the company is to an actor's outside endeavours.

Forgot about that angle. I can see actors feeling strongly for a network that lets them work in their off time.

Sarah thought that Kellner's decission to pull Earshot and Graduation Day, Part 2 was "stupid and lame."

Between the two, Earshot seemed to be the tougher call given the eerie synchronicity of its theme and real life, though I thought it had a great message and wasn't the least bit sensationalistic. The comparison of Graduation Day, Part 2 to real life events, on the other hand, was tenuous at best.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the network's decisions to postpone stupid or lame, but neither episode would have offended me had they aired as scheduled.

Ubqtous | July 07, 09:01 CET