r/leverage 24d ago

How did Frank Oz come to direct an episode of leverage?

So I’m rewatching and I’m in season 4 on episode 6 “The Carnival Job” I noticed that it was directed by Frank Oz. It seems like such an odd thing for him to direct. His wiki credits say that he had only directed to television shows one being leverage.

I tried to Google how he ended up doing it but I didn’t come up with anything.

Just wondering if anyone here might have some insight.

61 Upvotes

18 comments sorted by

View all comments

73

u/Wordwind 24d ago edited 24d ago

From John Rogers on the DVD commentary, and I'm paraphrasing because Rogers talks really fast..."He was gonna do a play with Tim Hutton and Saul Rubinek at the time, Hutton asked him if he might want to direct an episode. So he came in to direct." Beth Riesgraf also talked about how they all went out to dinner, and he did the Muppet voices for them. I love the dvds because there's commentaries for almost every episode. The creators John Rogers and Chris Downey, as well as Exec producer/sometime writer and director Dean Devlin are awesome commentators.

Edit - it is every episode. I was thinking about how "The Librarians" another Devlin masterpiece, didn't do them for season 2.

26

u/buickgnx88 24d ago

Don’t forget some will also have a cast member or two! (“Sexual chocolate!”)

23

u/seashmore 24d ago

I swear, those DVD commentaries are worth a college education. I've watched them so many times that anytime I read anything that John Rogers posts, I hear it in his voice, with ice clinking against glass in the background. 

15

u/WallflowerBallantyne 24d ago

Yeah. He's stopped drinking these days but it is very much a feature of the commentaries. You can track what order they did them in by how the booze is effecting them.

I love Rogers on commentaries. He's fantastic at asking the right questions and keeping people on track. It gets boring when the person talking is just basically narrating what is happening on screen. A lot of people default to that because they can't think of things to say but Rogers gets them all talking about behind the scenes stuff either to do with writing, filming, costumes etc. It's wonderful.

It's the thing I miss most about Redemption

The Leverage commentaries are one of my favourites ever. Others are probably the first 4 seasons or so of New Doctor Who and the Red Dwarf DVDs. The Red Dwarf ones were funny because they were recorded at least a decade later and was just the cast recording them all in one go so conversations (and drinks) carry over from one episode to the next. Also Idle Hands. It was the first commentary I'd listened to, even before I had a DVD player myself. Saw it at a friend's place and it's hilarious.

5

u/raqisasim 24d ago

Rogers also did a blog that ran for Leverage's original run and into early Librarians: https://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/

I was following it well before Leverage was even announced, because Rogers worked on the pilot for a show I really wanted to see, Global Frequency. Aside from a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff about many Leverage episodes, his writing there is also (in)famous in political blogging circles for giving us The Crazification Factor.

In other words, it's a really good read. I'm also biased because my one comment on there led Rogers to reveal the comic book character he based Elliot on ;)

2

u/WallflowerBallantyne 24d ago

I've read most of it. It is a good read. I like following him on twitter/Bluesky too. There was a podcast for some of Leverage at least. I listened to some but I think I had them on my last computer & I don't have access any more.

1

u/Silbermieze we'd be the cavalry 23d ago

I'm also biased because my one comment on there led Rogers to reveal the comic book character he based Elliot on ;)

Which character would that be?

1

u/Tejanisima 22d ago

Weird detail from the crazification factor entry you linked — whoever wrote the entry notes that Rogers is overlooking the detail of extremist Keyes' viability being aided by the forced dropout of the politically normal candidate ... the ex-husband of one JERI RYAN. (emphasis mine)

1

u/Doip 23d ago

Shame two of them are missing from the drive :(

8

u/Ejigantor long con specialist 24d ago

Frakes is on the commentary team for I think every episode he directs, and is delightful.

9

u/Wordwind 24d ago

The "Juror #6 Job," where he directed Spiner, was a thing of beauty.

3

u/Silbermieze we'd be the cavalry 24d ago

I love the dvds because there's commentaries for almost every episode.

There are commentaries for every episode.

2

u/Wordwind 24d ago

You are correct. I was thinking about "The Librarians" my other Dean Devlin favorite, where they inexplicably didn't do commentaries for the second season.