The Dumpster Brigade

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The Dumpster Brigade is a term used in Beauty and the Beast (TV) fandom.

It refers to the leak of information that informed fans that the character of Charles Chandler was to die.

Some fans, specifically Stephanie Wiltse (editor of Pipeline) blamed this leak on fans and admonished them.

George R.R. Martin seemed to think it was a leak on the set.

Related Topic

Another example of a single BNF creating a name for a group of fans they disagreed with is Alexis Fegan Black's use of the term The Kinko's Crowd.

Was It Fans?

Wiltse scolded fans:

Speculating [on the show] is half of the fun for most — but a few like having dessert before dinner and reading the last page of a novel first. It's come to this editor's attention that a few Beauty and the Beast fans are of the latter persuasion, and have since turned healthy curiosity into ill-gotten gain. Some person or persons unknown have actually been raiding the production office's dumpster on a regular basis!

OK, I can hear you laughing from here. It seems common knowledge that that this is how some Hollywood shops obtain the television scripts they sell (mind you, it is a fair guess that no writer has ever gotten royalties from these enterprises). But I was downright aghast to find out that photocopies of hand written notes and/or interoffice memos have also surfaced! How would you like it if someone rummaged through your trash, found a private correspondence and published it? Even your grocery list wouldn't be sacred!

The production staff might feel flattered that there are fans who so love B&B that they will brave the odd banana peel and coffee grounds to find out more about the show. But it is this editor's opinion that the culprits are old hands at being fanatics, fans more used to an adversarial relationship with the objects of their affections.

Their actions have violated the privacy of people who have gone out of their way to be open and accessible to us. It is hard work and takes more than a little courage to treat 20 million fans as friends. It is a rare gift. One that I hope the cast, crew, and production staff will never regret giving. In our hearts we have made B&B our own, and by our very natures we want to know more about something that we love, the people who make it happen. It is natural to conjecture, even as it is to gripe about this or that that mightn't be true to our own private imaginings. If I am angered, it is out of concern that all of B&B's viewers might be penalized by the actions of a thoughtless few.

It is my hope that future dumpster raids find nothing but very long, very thin shreds. And the next time, dear reader, someone comes up to you and says, "Isn't it terrible what they're going to do in episode #31?" or, "Would you like read about EVERYTHING that's going to" happen in next week's show?" you will Just -- Say -- NO. Let's not spoil the surprise... or the friendship.

Another scold from Wiltse, from the essay I have wrestled long and hard with my conscience whether to reveal what went on behind the scenes of fandom itself during the last several months.. In it she lightly suggests it could have been an internal leak, but ends again with the blame on fans. She includes a disingenuous statement by one of the producers:

One 'branch' of the grapevine/rumor mill dealt in a 'black market' of information. Their main 'source' was the production office dumpster (See Vol.2#1 of Pipeline) or a less-than-circumspect location guard or crew member. By way of an example: One memo regarding the demise of the character of "Charles Chandler" (a hand-written scrap made before the script itself was even set down on paper) went from the office waste paper basket to being a fan "campaign" to "SAVE" the character. The writers went ahead anyway and produced the episode "Orphans. " A favorite even with those who campaigned against it. One producer said of the 'dumpster brigade' at the time, "If they wanted stuff that badly why didn't they just come around to the front door and ask?"

Or an Internal Leak?

From a 1992 interview with George R.R. Martin:

[Beth Blighton]: Some of us weren't prepared either. I mean, as together as the fandom was before that, it blew apart. I was really surprised. The openness that was between the B&B production office and the fans, I've heard was rather unprecedented. Do you think that was ultimately what kind of blew up in people's faces, or was that openness maybe a bad idea?

[George R.R. Martin]: Well, I don't know that it was a bad idea. I don't know that we were that open but I haven't been on other shows to really compare it to. The fans have amazing resources, which to tell you the truth, alarmed us at times. Actually, there was one thing in the middle of second season, where we got a foretaste of what the third season would be like. We started getting a series of letters about the decision to kill Charles Chandler. Angry and upset letters about the show "Orphans." What was startling about this is not only had "Orphans" not been broadcast yet, it hadn't been filmed yet and it had not been written yet! It was a concept that we were discussing in-house, and Alex and Howard were planning to write it later in the season, and suddenly, somehow, somebody gets hold of it and there's this, like, letter writing campaign, where we're getting these letters about how could we do this to Catherine, and how could we kill Charles Chandler, he's so crucial, and the other thing, these fans are so incredibly attached to Charles Chandler here and this character's appeared twice in the two years of the show! That was a little strange. It makes you a little paranoid, where you say, (laughs) what have we got here, is there a bug in our staff?