'Monk' Pays Tribute to Summit

For local fans of the detective show Monk, the real payoff in the recent series finale may not have been the satisfaction of finally knowing who killed Monk's wife, but rather the surprise appointment of quirky Homicide Detective Randy Disher as Summit's new Chief of Police.

The show's depiction of Summit Police Headquarters, straight out of Andy Griffith's Mayberry, looked nothing like the real thing and gave many locals a chuckle. But the idea of the show's writers sending Disher from San Francisco to Summit wasn't so odd, considering that the show had been written in downtown Summit for its whole eight-year run.

"Summit was so nice to us," says executive producer Andy Breckman, "that we decided to bring (Disher) there at the end of the show, sort of tipping our hat to the town."

Breckman, a Haddonfield native who has lived in Madison for more than 25 years, is the reason why the Monk writing staff was based in Summit. When creator David Hoberman invited him to write the show, part of the arrangement was that Breckman could set up his staff in the North Jersey area, a rare thing for a Hollywood-produced show.

But, then, Breckman is a show-biz rarity who has managed to live on the East Coast throughout his career as a successful television and film writer (his credits include Saturday Night Live and the screenplays for I.Q. and Rat Race). Breckman positions himself as more lucky than demanding: "I always said I'd move to Hollywood if I had to, but so far I haven't had to."

Breckman chose Summit for his team's office because of the city's frequent train service from New York, where many of the writers lived, and because it was close to his home.

"I was working until 3 and 4 in the morning, rewriting, and just couldn't afford a long commute," he said.

So the staff of about 10 writers and office workers, plus occasional guest writers, ended up amid the physicians' offices at 475 Springfield Ave., and for eight years the directory in front of the building bore the listing "Universal Network Television/Adrian Monk, P.I."

Among Breckman's staff from the beginning was Tom Scharpling, a colleague at community station WFMU-FM in Jersey City. For the past 17 years, Breckman has co-hosted Seven Second Delay, a hilariously off-beat conceptual radio call-in show. Scharpling hosts a cult-fave weekly music/comedy/call-in show titled The Best Show on WFMU. Breckman had become a friend and mentor to the younger comedy writer, hiring him as a writing assistant for about a year before Monk was sold as a series. For Scharpling, who eventually became an executive producer of Monk, working at the Summit office was a bit of a homecoming. He had started working at the now closed World of Music on Summit Ave. while still a high school student in Dunellen and had left the shop only three years earlier to concentrate on his writing career.

Besides being an easy commute, Summit had other interesting advantages for the writing team.

"Being so far from California, we could just focus on the writing and not worry about anything else," observes Breckman. Scharpling recalls how the office space unofficially extended to several downtown restaurants. "We were out and about. We'd write the show in the office, then go out to lunch and keep working through lunch. I can remember storylines breaking in particular restaurants. Every one of those restaurants shaped the show somehow."

Asked which eateries were regular haunts, Scharpling mentions Brix 67, La  Pastaria and Dabbawalla. Breckman's favorite meal was a Cobb salad from the erstwhile Broadway Grill. Unfortunately, not every dining establishment made the cut; the Summit Diner, for example, was too small to accommodate the writers' large party.

Although Monk was set in San Francisco, the writers managed to infuse a bit of the Garden State in the scripts well before sending Detective Disher to Summit. One of the major characters, Sharona, was a nurse from New Jersey hired as an assistant by the neurotic Monk (and Disher's love interest, it turns out).

Scharpling explains, "We wanted an East Coast character and it would have been obvious to say she was from New York, but we decided she'd be from New Jersey. You sometimes want characters to be where you're from because you know the reference points, and it's a nice little tribute to your home."

The show's final nod to Summit came from a similar sentiment; the writers wanted to show their appreciation for the town and to give viewers a little hint that the show was written in New Jersey.

Monk's super-quaint version of Summit Police Headquarters was not the writers' choice, according to Scharpling. The storefront was already there on the Paramount back lot, where many of the show's outdoor scenes were shot, "right across from the school from Everybody Hates Chris."

It was the Hollywood-based set designer's decision to make that police station represent Summit, based partly on the fact that Summit is a suburban community, and partly on the convenience of using a pre-existing set.

Whatever the reasons for using that particular set, Scharpling feels that "it does capture the town in a weird way. It's a nice small town with an actual downtown with nice restaurants. Summit's still very personal even though it has more interesting things going on than most small towns, and some interesting people live there. I liked it there and I like our little nod to it."

Patch learned that Summit's real Police Chief, Robert Lucid, had gone to the Monk office after hearing about the show finale and left a note asking when they were going to discuss his severance package and transition protocol.Asked about the note, Breckman thought it was funny but hadn't seen it. "Unfortunately, we moved out a couple of months ago. Tell him it's nothing personal."

Also not to be taken too seriously is the Summit Police Chief Randall Disher FaceBook page, which presents a surreal alternate-universe view of what Summit would be like under Chief Disher's earnest and rather self-delusional protection. The site is not-so-secretly run by Irwin Chusid, another WFMU friend of Breckman, and Breckman himself regularly shows up to poke holes in Disher's blustery proclamations about how he will save Summit from sneaker-tossing hooligans and parking violators. For Monk fans, especially local ones, the site is a fun way to keep the show alive until, perhaps, a TV movie comes out.