One of the best loved sitcom stars ever, for his roles on Three's Company and Heart's Afire, John Ritter also starred in such films as Skin Problem, Problem Child, and Sling Blade.
In the episode 'Ted', he plays Buffy's mother's new boyfriend, a man who isn't what he appears to be.
It afforded him an opportunity to play against his image, and it gave Buffy one of the best ratings it had received up to that point, not to mention an opportunity for the show to explore the series' mother/daughter relationship in more detail.
As for John, he had a great time.
Even better because he was already a fan of the show.
"It was so much fun," he says. "And it was interesting because my agent said, 'Do you want to do Buffy The Vampire Slayer?' I had really liked the movie, but when the TV show came on, I liked the TV show so much better because there was a quality to it that I haven't seen on TV before. It was stylized and so funny and hip. They were creating teen jargon that I hadn't heard before. Very sarcastic and intelligent dialogue, as opposed to that kind of Beavis and Butt-Head Thing.
"And there was a real sexiness to it, and it was scary and action packed. The fights were thrilling and creative. Not just exchanging punches but using the environment around the combatants. I took a couple of years of karate - I'm so old it was when Bruce Lee was still alive. These guys have come up with so many creative things. The way the vampires explode, and the makeup .. I would say, they can't possibly do that every week. I sat down with my three kids to watch the first episode and we were hooked.
So when my agent called and said, 'They want you for Buffy The Vampire Slayer,' I said 'Absolutely, I'd love to see the script.' Well when I called my agent and said, 'What happened to that script?' they said, 'Oh the Sabrina The Teenage Witch?' I said wait a minute, I thought it was Buffy.' Then I got the script. Usually you have a suggestion, but I just thought it was really well written and well worked out. It was a really fun turn."
Doing the show also scored John points with his children.
"My kids visited me as much as they could," he says with a chuckle. "I've always said, 'I'm going to do this and this and this. Do you want to come down to the set? Do you want to come to the theatre?' 'No, that's okay dad.' Then it was, 'I'm doing
Buffy.' 'All right, we'll be there at lunch, and then we get out of school. That was the one thing that really impressed them."
But John's appearance on the series impressed a lot of people besides his kids.
"Garth Ancier from Warner Brothers said, 'John, it was the highest-rated Buffy we ever had.' So many people have come up to me and said, 'Do that thing with your head.'"
"Aside from the adventure and everything else, it's a girl and her friends going through all the teenage angst that normal kids go through, except there are vampires and monsters and creepy things. It's such a metaphor," John observes. "Some of the worst times you can have - at least it feels that way - are when you are a teenager. The greatest upsets, the highest highs, [then] you can't get out of bed. You're so sad because of a heartbreak or something.
"Ted fed on the fear of being somewhat abandoned by your mother for a stepdad or a step-parent. It turned out that I was reaaally bad. Everybody else really liked Ted, as long as they kept eating the cookies and the brownies with drugs in them."
And, as Ted, John was very effective, very disturbing, even for Buffy's creator.
"Joss's one note to me every day was, 'John, that was just a little too creepy.' He said, 'Be as normal as possible. You've go to really take the audience by surprise.' I was just looking, starting with too much subtext. He asked me to lighten it up a little bit," John says, amused.
The other thing that made this a very unique experience for John was working with the series' talented young actors.
"I'm really knocked out by the cast," he says. "They're really good. There's a technique for acting for camera. A lot of people treat every line like it was handed out by your professor in college and you've got to say every word clearly or Homer,
who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, will come out of his grave and tear you apart. There's a way of throwing away dialogue, like people do in real life. There's a kind of nonchalance, or planned casualness, that is really appealing
sometimes. Those kids Nicholas Brendon and Alyson Hannigan just really knocked me out. They're all so good.
"Sarah is such a professional. She's just adorable, but you assume someone that young can do one or two things, but she can do it all. She's been around since she was a zygote. I think she started acting as a foetus. She was really fun to act with.
At the dinner table, which was done the first day, I think that's were I went, 'This little girl is a major talent.' You see a whole lot of subtext in her eyes. She's always thinking. The camera is the one invention by man that can record thought as it's taking place. Actors who know that are off to a great start.
"Then she went of and did Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer and then she comes right back to the TV series with nary a break in between. I think that's very smart of her. When I did Three's Company and it started to be a hit in the first year, I got very busy during my hiatuses because I knew that I didn't want to just sit on my laurels. That introduced me to different casts and crews, and the idea that I could do things other than sitcoms. I thought that was really smart, when I was young enough to do three things at once."
Unfortunately, though he persevered, it wasn't all good times for John.
"It turned out that Sarah and I both had the stomach flu on the last day," he remembers. "We were both saying 'excuse me' and visiting our respective toilets in our trailers. I was in really bad shape. Then we had to do the fight scene. The most convincing thing I did that day was be dead, 'cause that's how I felt. But the thing is, I've been around and I know there are some days you feel good and some days you feel bad. If you're freezing cold, you can't show the audience. I have a way of shutting down."
Conversation comes around, almost inevitably, to some of the films John has done, including the average-joe turned superhero flick, Hero At Large.
"That was the first major film that I did," he says. "I think that was released in late '79 or early '80. That was one of the things I did during hiatus from Three's Company. The author was this guy, A.J. Carruthers, this sweet guy, a real optimist. He wanted it to be a Capra film. The film was so sweet."
Though many readers might not remember that film, John went on to make the Problem Child films, as well as a film that combined drama and comedy called Skin Deep.
"That was a dream of mine - to work with Blake Edwards. I just love him. He and I became really good friends after Skin Deep. I don't remember how we got through some of those days. I've never worked with a director who encourages you to break up, and might do something in the middle of a scene to make you laugh. Like tell another actor to give you a false line to see how you'll respond. Many, many times I've ruined takes with my laughing out loud or his laughing out loud. To me that was helpful, because I felt there was an underlying sadness to that film."
