DECEMBER 7, 2007
MR. MONK AND THE MAN WHO SHOT SANTA

It's always a little hard to imagine feeling Christmas-y in August. Which is just what happened when I returned to work after our summer hiatus. We resumed working in late August to shoot the back half of Season 6, which we like to call Season 6.5 (sort of makes me feel like I am part of the newest version of software or something...)

It is usually blazing hot in late August in LA, and of course this year was no exception. So there we were prepping an episode to appear in December and not one of us had that Christmas-y feeling. I spent most of the prep in my office (with AC) trying to find toy companies that would let us show their toys being tossed off of a rooftop by a not-so-nice Santa Claus. Not too many toy manufacturers wanted to be associated with a bad Santa chucking toys at kids as a distraction for more sinister intentions. Let's just say that in the end there were a lot of non-descript toys flying from the roof. And of course Frisbees...Wham-O, as expected, came through for us!

I have to say, it was really something to see all those toys flying from the sky.

Now I guess I can tell you about the original ending we had scripted for this episode. It was a tag unlike any other we'd ever done on the show. The original idea was to have the children's holiday choir in the tag begin to sing our theme song "It's A Jungle Out There" in a Christmas-y arrangement as the camera would slowly reveal in a wide shot the entire cast and crew of the show. As we began to prep the scene, the concept began to grow. We decided to invite the network execs, studio execs, former guest stars, former guest directors, and Randy Newman to perform "It's A Jungle Out There" to be part of the tag. We put calls out to everyone we could think of that had been involved with the show over the last six seasons to invite them.

I'll admit that I was a little excited to be able to be not just part of, but also in an episode. I was not planning to tell my folks about it. They are avid watchers of the show (and not just because their daughter works on it, either!) - that way they would have a little holiday surprise when they watched the episode! My mom always asks me when I am planning to become an actress and my answer is always the same: NEVER! So I was a secretly a little bit pleased that I might be able to wave to my folks from inside their TV screen as they watched the ending of "Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa." But as it turned out, it was not as easy as we thought to pull this off!

We really liked the idea of getting Randy Newman involved with the tag. We wanted to reveal him on the piano leading the choir, cast and crew in a festive rendition of his wonderful theme song for the show. We also wanted to reveal Traylor Howard holding her adorable baby son Sabu as the centerpiece of the group to wish all a Happy Holiday Season. Unfortunately, we were not able to coordinate everyone's schedules to make this happen. In this business you have to remember to roll with the punches and expect the unexpected every day. Sometimes what seems like the greatest idea turns out not to be so feasible after all. This was the case with our "Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa" episode in Season 6.5. Maybe next year?

That leaves me with one thing left to say:

Happy Holidays to you all!