Season 7, Episode 12: "You Have the Right to Remain Jolly" - December 6, 2011

100 episodes of any television show is cause for celebration and celebrate we did, a fabulous party at the iconic Universal Sheraton, great food, great open bar and great company and NO ELVES!!!!! This episode, You Have the Right to Remain Jolly, caused The Closer Costume Department to live in ELF HELL for over 2 weeks. I was so excited to read the script -- a Christmas story, that means pull out Provenza's Christmas ties -- a Santa stunt!!! and Elves! I started sketching my dream Elf costume per the script -- "sexy elves", but then I went on line and found the perfect elf costumes and guess what? they existed in LA at Ursula's Costumes in Santa Monica. The AD department told us we needed "about 30 elves" which really means about 50 because of the stunts and elf/cat fight involved. The 50 costumes were delivered and they were fab-u-lous, green stretch velvet, clusters of holly and candy canes at the decollatage, bells and bows and they all looked sooooo tiny??? We luckily had a pre-fit with all of the girls and NONE of the elf costumes fit! Too small, too tight, the skirt rode way up past cooterville, it was horrendous! OMG! So as Tracey buying every single pair of over the knee boots and big wide cinch belts at JC Penny, I called her in a panic. "Abort the boot and belt buying and speed downtown to the garment district and find this green stretch velvet!" Sounds simple enough. HA! Tracey went to every single high to low end fabric shop in LA and finally in a basement under bolts of polyester and fake fur she spied a distinctive elf green stretch velvet and bought the whole bolt, industrial sized like 400 yards!!! Maria in the tailor shop was so swamped with Santa Suits that we brought in a second stitcher who put new backs on all of the elf dresses which of course were on camera the next day! No rest for the wicked. All of this sounds very run of the mill, but remember that we shot this "Christmas" episode NOT in December but in the heat of August! However, the elf green that Tracey found was more like grass green and didn't match, but we reasoned that the scene is shot outdoors, lots of light; the lighting department will set up some key lights, lots of light ... uhhh, no. The difference in color was obvious even to the un-designer eye, but it was either lots of CG special effects to cover cooterville, or have two different colors of green on the darn sexy elves.

Kyra was Christmas couture in a red suede and leather vintage coat from the 1960's sold in the day at Neusteters in Denver and bought on eBay. She had on a Pure Collection cashmere twin set and Kors pants. In my wardrobe show and tell, which comes after our wardrobe concept meeting by about a week, I showed what Buzz would be wearing, and the writer Michael Alaimo said that he'd like a Christmas sweater on Buzz. Well, so would I but we shoot the episode the next day, it's 7 p.m. and it's August...now mind you I didn't say this, I thought it and instead said, "well gentlemen, I think this is the first time in 7 years that I'm going to let you down," there were sad faces staring back at me. The group left and I realized I had an extra set of Reindeer sweaters in Clay Johnson's section, I grabbed them, showed them to James Duff and the writer and Maria set about transforming an XL sweater into a S/M sweater for El Buzzo. God, talk about pulling it out of somewhere near cooterville. Santa (Fred Willard) was resplendent in a deep cranberry red velvet and faux fur jolly old suit and the Elves were removed from Hell and transported to Alpine Village in Torrance. It was a fun romp of an episode but, and here's a spoiler alert -- the next 3 episodes are Christmas episodes...I am writing this in December...I just had to re-light the perfect pre-lit fake Christmas tree that I bought a couple years ago. Last year I assembled the tree, plugged it in all the lights lit, I decorated the tree beautifully sipping spiced Christmas tea, as I carefully placed each heirloom ornament on the glowing branches. The tree topper, a hand beaded Christmas Star that my mom made in the '60's was placed on top...I stood back and proudly let out a glorious sigh...what happened to the bottom tier of lights, the section was dark? I wiggled the plug; I jiggered the bulbs ... nothing! Thus the re-lighting this year. Point of this story -- after Elf Hell I thought there was no way I was going to deal with Christmas after 3 weeks of the Holiday on The Closer in late summer ... ahhhhh what a short memory.