Let’s set the Way Back Machine for Los Angeles’ Griffith Park in late summer 1972. Here we are on the set of the first TV commercial I ever wrote. As you may be able to guess, the client was McDonald’s. I (the scrawny, long-haired, bespectacled and bearded lad third from the left) may look as if I’m in charge, patiently explaining the intricacies of the storyboard to Ronald McDonald, Bob Elen, the ad agency account executive, and Carl Gruener, its broadcast production manager. In reality I was scared to death that one or all of them would figure out that I didn’t have the slightest clue what I was doing. This was back in the days before McDonald’s introduced playgrounds to its restaurants, and this … Continue reading McKinney, Texas: “Ronnie, honey, baby, sweetie, I’m gonna make you a star.”