I'm sad to hear that they didn't cast Alan Arkin as the dad. The question is: what happens when a smart, pithy collection of short statements uttered by an old

I'm sad to hear that they didn't cast Alan Arkin as the dad. The question is: what happens when a smart, pithy collection of short statements uttered by an old man and documented by his loving son gets taken over by the writers' guild and turned into sitcom boilerplate?