Carleton and Gordon immediately dove into a rant on behalf of butts-in-the-movie-theater instead of butts-on-the-couch.

“My perspective is a little different,” I offered. They both looked surprised. Men are always surprised when women differ with them. “I quite love television. Sure, the pay is poor, the prestige is nil, and the hours are brutal, but on behalf of my young, ambitious writers, I am grateful to television. Television, gentlemen, is the great, roaring beast in the basement of the entertainment industry. You just keep throwing chunks of meat at it, and it roars the louder, and wants more.”

“A rather odd way to describe your writers’ work. Meat?” Carleton observed.

“Television doesn’t need deathless dialogue. Just lines to fill up the box.”

Carleton laughed. “You know that the dialogue on Dragnet is so wooden because they’re too cheap to pay for rehearsals and they read it off of the prompter as they’re filming.”

“‘Just the facts, ma’am,’” I said, imitating deadpan Jack Webb.

“But just look at what Disney’s done with Davy Crockett, and all those little buckaroos,” said Gordon, a despairing note in his voice. “Three million annually!”

“Pity the fucking raccoons,” said Carleton.

“I hate it when my kids go around singing Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier,” Gordon grumbled. “Who would have ever dreamed some old frontier tale would make that much money?”

The gods of irony intervened as the orchestra on the gallery broke into a rousing version of the Davy Crockett theme song. Throughout the huge crowd, uncomfortable laughter rippled, and then everyone went back to pretending that they hadn’t noticed that every one of them—from the oldest to the youngest, from the studio mogul to the Negro waiter—could probably sing every verse.

“We’re negotiating now with that man.” Gordon pointed to a slick, handsome man with gleaming hair and a five o’clock shadow. “Ernest Todd from CBS. He came out here from New York last year. CBS is interested in showing some of our old films late on Saturday nights.” Gordon nabbed a shrimp off a passing tray. “Todd bought Max Leslie’s old house on Carolwood Drive.”

Ernest Todd ambled over to us. Gordon introduced us and again told the story of how Irene insisted life come to a halt so everyone could watch I Love Lucy. Only this time he left out the bread-from-our-mouths bit and told it in a bright-eyed, cheerful way intended to elicit the goodwill of this New York guy who had bought Max Leslie’s house.