'Dharma'-logues live longer on the Web
USA Today; Arlington; Feb 1, 2000; Kevin V. Johnson;
'Dharma'-logues live longer on the Web
USA
Today; Arlington; Feb 1, 2000; Kevin V. Johnson;
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Sub Title: |
[FINAL Edition] |
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04D |
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07347456 |
ENTERTAINMENT
Hard-core fans have long known that the best way to watch Dharma & Greg is to tape it.
That's because a screenful of tiny, disclaimer-like type flashes across the TV for two seconds during the end credits of every episode (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. ET/PT, ABC). And the only way to read it is to freeze the frame.
It's a little extra work, but the payoff is a peek into an alternate universe. The lines of type are an unpredictable weekly message from the show's creator, Chuck Lorre.
A brief sampler: "I believe that the guy who invented those speed bumps in the freeway that snap you back into consciousness when you're drifting into a nearby semi should be given a big hug."
Regular viewers love it. "I just think it's a cool idea," says Henry Herman, 26, a Washington, D.C., Web site designer. The messages, which Lorre calls "vanity cards," are posted on Web sites, and fans e-mail them back and forth.
Herman also sends them out to the almost 900 members of his free e-mail list (subscribe here). "I figured that if he was going to do it, I could make it more permanent," he says.
Now Lorre is giving his words an official repository. The vanity card at the end of last week's Dharma cryptically announced that all 49 cards had been made more widely available. Where? "Use your imagination," Lorre advised.
As savvy Web users might have guessed, the location is Lorre's site, www.chucklorre.com. He says he created his site because he wanted to register his name as an Internet domain before someone else did.
Why do vanity cards at all? When Dharma & Greg premiered 2 1/2 years ago, Lorre says, he asked ABC if he could replace two seconds of end credits with two more seconds of show time. "They said, 'No. If you give up those two seconds, we'll use them for advertising,' " Lorre says. "So I said, 'Well, if you're going to use the time for advertising, why shouldn't I?' "
The first season, he wrote 11 cards for 23 episodes. When some viewers clamored for more, he began writing a card for each new episode.
He has had feelers from publishers interested in collecting the cards in book form, but he says he "just can't believe somebody would pony up real American money for a book."
What are the cards about? Not even Lorre knows before he starts writing.
He has used his roughly 200-word space to state his beliefs about everything from vodka to the Three Stooges, to praise his father, to recollect a horrific car accident he encountered and to speculate on the nature of the universe.
"Sometimes it's cathartic," he says. But mostly "it's just an opportunity to sit down and write. I feel truly blessed that people are reading it, frankly." He earns no money from the exercise.
And most of the time, "it's a labor" to do each card. Still, he knows the subject of the final card, whenever that time comes.
"I'll try to find a way to weep on a two-second card. That will be a sad moment."
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