A fan stepped up to the microphone in the middle of the crowded convention hall.
She was holding a worn-out DVD box set of the show.
She asked a question I’ve heard a hundred times before, but one that always brings a smile to my face.
“Mr. Farrell,” she said, leaning into the mic. “Who was the hardest person to make laugh on set, and did you ever succeed?”
I leaned back in my chair, looking out at the sea of faces in the auditorium.
The memory came rushing back immediately.
I didn’t even have to think about it.
It was David Ogden Stiers.
David played Charles Emerson Winchester III, and in real life, he was just as distinguished, classically trained, and incredibly poised.
He had this booming, theatrical voice and a sense of absolute dignity.
Alan Alda and I made it our personal mission to break that dignity.
We were shooting a particularly dialogue-heavy scene inside the Swamp.
It was late on a Friday afternoon, the exact time when the crew is exhausted and the actors start getting a little stir-crazy.
The scene called for David to deliver a pompous, highly articulate monologue about his beloved Boston.
Alan and I didn’t have any lines in this specific shot.
The camera was set up for a tight close-up directly on David’s face.
Alan and I were standing just off-camera to provide his eyelines.
We knew this was our golden opportunity.
We communicated the entire plan using only our eyebrows and silent nods.
The director called for quiet on the soundstage.
The heavy camera rolled into position.
The slate clapped.
David took a deep, majestic breath, preparing to launch into his Shakespearean-level delivery.
He looked right at us, fully in character, expecting to see his fellow surgeons.
And that’s when it happened.
I reached down, grabbed the belt of my army-issue trousers, and dropped them straight to my ankles.
A split second later, Alan did the exact same thing.
We were standing there in the middle of a major Hollywood soundstage, wearing our olive drab t-shirts, our army boots, and absolutely nothing else on our lower halves.
We kept our upper bodies perfectly stiff, arms crossed, matching David’s serious energy.
David opened his mouth to deliver his first line.
His eyes tracked down for a fraction of a second.
His brain registered the completely absurd visual of his two co-stars standing there in their boxers.
You could actually see the classical training fighting a losing battle against pure, unadulterated shock.
He tried so hard to hold it together.
His cheeks puffed out, turning a violent shade of crimson.
He managed to get out one single syllable.
And then, Charles Emerson Winchester III let out the most un-aristocratic, high-pitched snort I have ever heard in my life.
It sounded like a startled piglet.
That single sound broke the tension in the room instantly.
Alan and I completely lost it, doubling over in silent laughter.
David dropped his head into his hands, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably, entirely unable to breathe.
The director, who was staring at the black-and-white monitor, had absolutely no idea what was going on.
The camera angle was tight on David’s face, so the monitor only showed David suddenly bursting into tears of laughter.
The director yelled out from the darkness, asking what was so funny.
David couldn’t even speak to explain it.
He just pointed a trembling finger in our general direction.
The camera operator leaned out from behind his viewfinder, looked down at our ankles, and immediately started laughing too.
The problem was, we still had to get the shot.
The network didn’t care about our practical jokes; they cared about the filming schedule.
The director sighed heavily and told us to pull our pants up and act like professionals.
We did.
We apologized, reset our positions, and the director yelled action for take two.
David took another deep breath, looking completely composed again.
But the moment he looked at us, the phantom image of us in our underwear flashed in his mind.
Before he even opened his mouth, he burst into a booming, uncontrollable laugh.
He waved his hands in the air, apologizing profusely, tears streaming down his face.
We tried for a third take.
This time, Alan and I were actively trying to help him.
We stared at the floor.
We looked at the ceiling.
We tried giving him the most blank, boring expressions humanly possible.
It made it worse.
Take three ended with David walking out of the Swamp entirely, needing to stand in the fresh air to compose himself.
We failed four consecutive retakes because everyone on the crew had caught the giggles.
Every time David broke, the camera operator would start shaking the rig with laughter.
The sound guy had to take his headphones off because David’s booming laughter was blowing out the microphones.
It became a chaotic, beautiful disaster.
Eventually, the director realized there was no recovering the moment.
He actually had to reposition the camera and shoot David from a completely different angle, just so David wouldn’t have to look at us.
We had to stand behind a canvas wall and deliver our eyeline marks to a blank piece of tape.
That was the only way we finally got the scene in the can.
But that moment became legendary among the cast.
From that day forward, whenever David was getting a little too serious about a scene, or whenever the tension on set was too high, Alan or I would just quietly reach for our belts.
We wouldn’t even have to unbuckle them.
Just the simple sound of leather shifting was enough to make David’s eye twitch with the memory.
It was a brilliant reminder that no matter how dramatic the material got, we were still just a bunch of grown men playing pretend in the mud.
Humor was the only way we survived the sheer exhaustion of that production.
What is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done to make a friend laugh at the worst possible time?
