Designing a Legacy

If you’ve watched television in the past four decades, chances are you’ve seen — and loved — sets dreamed up by Carnegie Mellon University alumni couple John Shaffner and Joe Stewart.

From insisting creators include a hallway between apartments on “Friends” and selecting the infamous rattan and floral couch on “The Golden Girls” to making David Copperfield’s magic specials must-watch TV and securing Taylor Swift an ottoman for her very first performance on the American Music Awards — the six-time Emmy Award-winning production designers have done it all.

But none of it would’ve been possible without a chance meeting in the College of Fine Arts in the 1970s.

In a scene design class, their professor, William Matthews, asked if anyone had worked on computers. John and Joe were the only two people to raise their hands. Together, they started working on the computer-aided entertainment design project — a technology that didn’t take hold in their industry until decades later.

“We sat in a small, dark room for many nights typing long, complicated code to draw four rectangles,” Joe says. “One thing led to another, and we became friends.”

Gradually, their friendship grew into a half-century love story as personal and professional partners.

Now, they’re showing their love of Carnegie Mellon and for future generations of Tartans with a planned estate gift through their will that will support myriad personal and educational needs of School of Drama students, in addition to their previous gift of the Shaffner Stewart Graduate Design Studio in the College of Fine Arts and the initiation of The Anderson Fund in honor of Cletus and Barbara Anderson.

“All the things we learned, all the people we met, all the professors we had — CMU was indispensable in developing our careers and our success. We knew we had to give back,” John says.

John graduated in 1976 with a master’s degree in scenery and costume design, and Joe followed in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in drama, scenery and costume design. Both were named honorary degree recipients by the university in 2019.

After graduation, they took their skills to New York City for a few years working in theater productions and television before making a cross-country drive in a 1965 Ford Thunderbird convertible. They journeyed to see what opportunities Los Angeles had to offer with College of Fine Arts Class of 1976 alumnus, future roommate and noted costume designer Daniel Orlandi along for the ride.

They secured an apartment in Beverly Hills for $450 a month and began knocking on doors.

Joe soon became an assistant art director on “Days of Our Lives” and game shows.

Early on, John took a job art-directing a Perry Como Christmas special in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia where he met Bob Banner, who was expanding into creating original content for syndication, a growing new branch of television entertainment. They were developing a new show, “Star Search.” John designed, named and conceptualized the scoring on the long-running hit.

This meeting led to multiple music shows and specials and, eventually, to the couple’s big break — David Copperfield.

“Since I was tied up with finishing ‘Star Search,’ I told David there was one stipulation, my partner Joe Stewart would be co-designing this with me,” John says. “Very quickly, David fell in love with Joe. We ended up designing 10 television specials for David, and that really put us on the map as production designers.”

And the rest was history.

“All of a sudden, we took off,” Joe says. “We were going in so many directions with more musical variety shows, events, award shows and then, with ‘Friends,’ to sitcoms.”

Television hits like “Dharma & Greg,” “The Drew Carey Show,” “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Mike and Molly,” “Mom” and “The Connors” fill their resume alongside the American Music Awards, ESPY Awards, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” and “Conan.” Food Network cooking competitions like “Holiday Baking Championship,” 23 cycles of Miss Universe, and specials for Carol Burnett, Celine Dion and Michael Bublé  are just some of the hundreds of multi-camera shows designed by the duo. 

In total, they’ve earned 43 Primetime and Daytime Emmy nominations and won six Emmys including a three-year run for Music Variety Design. They’ve designed more than 156 TV show pilots — 62 that went to series — for a total of more than 3,010 episodes.

Both thank CMU for all they’ve been able to accomplish — and they want to ensure others can achieve the same heights of success, too.

“Our time on campus really became the beginnings of something that I don't think either one of us ever imagined,” John says. “Carnegie Mellon is like Hogwarts that way. It is a place of magical thinking.”

“We had the greatest faculty that made us feel that anything was possible. Of course, we were critiqued. Of course, things didn't always work out right. But for whatever reason, at CMU, you always knew you’d pick yourself up and do it again. And that mindset has served us very well.”

John and Joe’s generosity helps to ensure students will benefit from the same lessons far into the future, says Robert Ramirez, head of CMU’s School of Drama.

“Thanks to their support, our young people will be equipped to create inspiring theater and performance works that share their diverse voices and engage the world in thought-provoking conversations.”

The couple also encourages fellow Tartans to not wait to give back.

“It’s never too soon,” Joe says. “When we supported the studio space, we spaced it out over an installment plan. It made us feel so good. We knew it was the right thing to do because without Carnegie Mellon, our career and our life together wouldn’t have happened.”