February, 2002

We got the call in early February telling us that King Of The Jungle had been ordered to pilot. Tom and I raised our fists in the air and let out a triumphant war cry.

I called Samantha who said, "See! I told you it would work out!" It was both a show of support and an admonishment for me not to be so negative all the time. Then she put the girls on the phone and I told them the news, which they only sort of absorbed, but they mirrored my excitement.

"Tell Daddy you're proud of him," Samantha said in the background.

"We're proud of you, Daddy!" my daughters said in adorable unison. I knew it was coerced, but it still made me unspeakably happy.

Then I called my parents, who had, incredibly, been even more impatient than I was to hear the news, calling several times a day to see if the network had made its decision. "Believe me," I told them, "if I know anything, I'll call you." Which is the same exact thing my agent kept telling me. They were ecstatic.

Everything after that was a blur. A blur that consisted almost entirely of Tom and me making decisions we were in no way qualified to make.

You see, when you write a pilot script, all are you is a writer. But when that script is ordered to pilot, you are suddenly the CEO — or co-CEO's in our case — of a small company. The cast and crew of a sitcom can be anywhere from a hundred to a hundred-fifty people — electricians, painters, carpenters, camera operators, boom operators, script supervisors, line producers, makeup artists, hair stylists, composers, editors, production assistants and on and on — all of them looking to you for guidance.

It was, if nothing else (and it was very much else) a master class in perspectives. Everyone involved in the production read the exact same script, but they all analyzed it from the specialized viewpoints of their own expertise.

Consider: On page one, the character of Rex was shaving and singing "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles.

The prop master had questions: Is Rex using a disposable razor? A cartridge? An electric razor? Is the shaving cream a gel? A foam? Does it come from a can? A tube? A jar?

The Costume Designer noted that Rex was wearing a robe and underwear. Is the robe cotton? Silk? Terry? Hooded? Shawl collar? Kimono style? Old? New? What about the underwear? Boxers? Briefs? Thong? Do we want colors? Patterns? Stains?

Hair and makeup wanted to know how disheveled Rex's hair should be and how much stubble we want him to have at the beginning of the scene. Also, should they give him some bags under his eyes since the script says he's tired?

The line producer informs us that we can't afford to license "Yellow Submarine" (or any Beatles song) so we'll have to choose something else.

And by the way, is Rex planning to turn on the water? Because right now, the sink is not practical. ("Practical" in show biz parlance means that it actually works. For instance, a practical stove is something you can cook on.)

We decided: Disposable razor, gel from a can, old hooded terry cloth robe, boxers, stained, hair extremely disheveled, no bags under eyes, replace "Yellow Submarine" with "Damn, Wish I Was Your Lover" by Sophie B. Hawkins and yes, the sink needs to work.

Then we moved onto page two. Of fifty-five.

(And, by the way, the scene was eventually cut so none of this mattered anyway.)

Unsurprisingly, these sessions could become mind-numbingly tedious, but to me, this was where the real magic happened, watching the combined talents of so many people who are genuine artists in their fields breathe life into the world that Tom and I had imagined. They were the ones who made it substantial, made it real, and we always solicited their ideas and opinions. When you're surrounded by brilliant craftspeople, it pays to listen.

But as much as we cherished our crew, it was the actors who would actually make or break our show. This was the first piece of advice that Sharon had given to us when she called to congratulate us on our pick-up. "It's all about casting, fellas. Your writing is only as good as your actors."

The second piece of advice was, "Always carry a hip flask full of vodka. You know, just in case."

It quickly became clear, when we held our auditions, that she was right. Not about the the vodka so much and definitely not the flask — which is never appropriate unless you're the town drunk in a Western — but about how it's the actor who makes the writer. Because we would hear our lines read by dozens, sometimes hundreds of times and they would sound terrible. To the point where we began to question our own talent.

But then, someone would show up who would make our words transcendent, someone who would get a laugh on every joke, someone who would make me want to take the revolver out of my mouth and embrace life. Someone who, generally speaking, would pass on our show, or had a better offer, or was rejected by the network who always had the final say.

Still, though, it was tremendously encouraging to know that it could work. And eventually we managed to find an amazing actress to play Claire — a brilliantly funny comedienne named Lydia Bargain who Tom and I had actually been a huge fan of growing up. This, by the way, was a bit of a mixed blessing because in addition to being hilarious, she was batshit crazy.

This is why whenever people asked me about their favorite celebrities, I told them, "The less you know about them, the better." I said this not because all celebrities were horrible people — I worked with plenty who were delightful — but because some of them are genuine monsters and you don't want their real-life persona to overshadow their performance.

An example: One of my favorite all-time comedic actors did a guest spot on Cool, Man! This was someone who inspired both Tom and me to want to pursue comedy in the first place. And he was such an asshole. Racist, misogynist, mean to the crew, temper tantrum-y. And he loved to use the C-word...to refer to his own nine-year old daughter. It's been twenty years and I still can't watch his movies. So do yourselves a favor: Enjoy their work and leave it at that.

Anyway.

In the role of Rex, the center of our show, we hired beloved character actor Danny Weaver. Tom and I didn't want him. He was a nice enough guy — and technically a "get" — but even if we thought he was funny (which we didn't) he seemed to us like the guy you'd cast as the wacky neighbor, not the lead of a show. But the network president loved him and cast him over our screaming objections. I mean that literally. Tom and I were not screamers, or even yellers, but we dug in on this one. Already, the lead character of the show had gone from Joan to John to Rex... was it really too much to have a Rex we actually liked?

Yes, apparently.

So. With our parental roles filled, we turned our attention to the children. And let me say this: If you want to get a taste of what it feels like to be involved in Human Trafficking — and admit it, you do — spend a little time casting kids in a primetime network sitcom.

We had four major roles for children, ages eight to twelve. In the writing of the script, it seemed utterly innocuous: TONY (12) — REX'S SMART ALEC SON ENTERS...

But then one day, these stopped being mere words on paper and started being real live children that our Casting Director paraded in front of us. She made them dance for our amusement and then sent them away, after which all but a lucky few were cruelly rejected.

But even the lucky few weren't necessarily that lucky. Tom and I knew full well what had happened to the child stars of our youth. And while we would listen attentively to the kids' auditions, we were also trying to guess which of them would wind up robbing a liquor store or hooked on cocaine at age thirteen, and whether we'd bear any moral culpability if they did.

Here's an actual conversation our casting director had with a twelve-year old actor named Dylan Dean. She pointed to a middle-aged guy sitting in our reception area. "Who's that, Dylan? Your father?

"No," said Dylan. "That's Jesse, my manager's roommate. He's my best friend."

Christ.

Show business seems glamorous and fun, but it's still a business. At its core, no different than General Motors or Microsoft. Broadly speaking, we are nice people who want to have the kids' best interests at heart, but these are productions that cost millions of dollars and kid or no kid, we need to get that shot. This is an adult world with adult pressures.

Once, we were doing a shoot in which some kids were in their bathing suits, frolicking in a plastic swimming pool. But here's the thing: In the script it took place in July, but in reality we shot it in March. And it was freezing. Our director was running behind schedule and he was screaming at the kids: "Stop shivering! It's July! It's warm! I said stop fucking shivering! Asian kid — I'm sorry, but I don't know your name — can you stop your teeth from chattering?"

What was most amazing about that was that their parents were ten feet away, watching as their kids got hypothermia and saying nothing.

Anyway, we cast our four young actors and I'm relieved to say that, as of this writing, three of them are still doing OK.

The show was cast, the sets were built and we were finally in the home stretch: Production Week. Structurally, this was pretty much identical to what we had become used to on established TV shows. Table read, rehearsals, rewrites and notes, culminating in show night. But the thing about a pilot was that until it's actually shot, nothing about it was set in stone. Not the cast, not the sets, not the wardrobe and certainly not the script. Even though Tom and I had already written dozens of drafts over five months, to the network it was still very much wet clay.

In response to network notes that week we wrote a new cold open, a new ending, we cut Claire's B-story to give more screen time to Rex, who — the network president told us — should be more sarcastic to his wife and children. John, who was supposed to be the smart one, became the dumb one, one of the child actors was fired, but not replaced, her lines divvied among the other kids. There was more, but if I keep thinking about this, I'm going to get a migraine.

At this point, Tom and I were in the If rape is inevitable... part of the process. We didn't fight the notes anymore, we just did what we could to be accommodating. The show we set out to create was long gone and we just wanted to get through it. We still hoped it would be good, but honestly, we just wanted it to be done.

In any case, all of the network-mandated changes required rewrites deep into the morning. Luckily, we had help. During production week it was customary for comedy writers to offer their services, gratis, to friends and colleagues. (Tellingly, pilot budgets never had money for a writing staff.) It was as close to altruism as we ever saw in Hollywood.

We had some heavy hitters. Gabe and Doug showed up one night and, on another night, Sharon graced us with her smokey presence. Half the staff of The Has-Beens, the two talented writers from Ditz, our friends at Cool, Man! The energy of The Room was invigorating and the contributions of our fellow writers invaluable. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that they saved our ass.

By the time show night rolled around I was beyond exhausted. It took me three cups of coffee to wake up and two more to become appropriately terrified. (For Tom, who had a newborn boy at home, it was even worse. I had no idea how he was still standing.) Having a successful taping didn't guarantee that your show would be picked up, but if it fell flat in front of the audience it wouldn't matter how good the script was, or how talented the cast was, or how hard you worked, your show was basically dead.

As the audience was shown to their seats I paced back and forth on the stage floor in my black cashmere jacket, button-down white shirt and prismatic Dark Side Of The Moon tie, scrutinizing their faces, trying to gauge their mood. I did not like what I saw. Too sullen or too angry or too old or too young or too stupid or too tired. Plus, a few of them seemed like Mormons.

Tom appeared next to me in a blue blazer and Bart Simpson tie. "How do they look?"

I shook my head. "Bunch of assholes," I said.

"Do they have the ability to hear?" he asked, which wasn't as odd as it sounds. Tom was referring to one night during the Dark Times when we worked on Ditz and our studio audience consisted entirely of deaf people. (They couldn't be turned away because of the Americans With Disabilities Act.) There would be a joke, their ASL interpreter would sign it for them and then there would be weird, discordant sounds — presumably laughter — that confused the actors.

"I think so," I said.

"Well," Tom said. "That's something, at least."

It was at that moment when our Costume Designer ran over. She was wearing some weird outfit that looked like a green pantsuit and a blue pantsuit had both been torn apart by angry Rottweilers and stitched back together with twine. She had impeccable taste when it came to the cast, but the stuff she wore herself was absolutely bizarre, a trait she shared with pretty much every Costume Designer we ever worked with.

"Um... Lydia wants to see you."

"Why?"

"Because she's having a meltdown."

We found Lydia in her dressing room, sitting on the floor. She was in wardrobe for the first scene — a floral dress and an apron — and she was crying. Hysterically.

"What's wrong, Lydia?"

"I don't know which to wear. These..." She held up a pair of silver button drop earrings. "Or these." She held up a nearly identical pair.

I pointed at the first pair. "I like those," I said confidently. That was one of the things I had learned: Whatever decision you make you should make with authority.

"But... why?"

Honestly, I was not expecting a follow-up question. So you'll stop fucking crying, you lunatic! is what I was thinking, but I obviously didn't say that.

Tom to the rescue, with an impressively nuanced explanation as to why the one I had chosen was clearly more flattering, given her skin tone and bone structure. And with that, Lydia was cheerful again.

——————————————————

And finally, the moment of truth. The audience was warmed up, the cast had been introduced, the cameras were on their opening marks and the A.D. had just finished slating .

I turned to Tom. "However this goes," I said, "I'm glad we got to do this together."

"Me, too," agreed Tom. We man-hugged, patting each other on the back with closed fists, and then we took a moment to ponder where we were, and how we had gotten there.

We took our places in our canvas chairs, the words EXECUTIVE PRODUCER stenciled on their backs. The director called action and we focused intently on the quad split — the monitor that showed what was on each of the four cameras filming the show — and held our breath, waiting to see if the audience would, or would not, fuck us.

They did not.

The word I would use to describe the audience reaction is explosive. We didn't just get laughs, we got roars. We got gales. We got shrieks. And in the heartfelt moments, I looked into the stands and I saw people wiping tears out of their eyes.

They loved everything that came out of Rex's mouth, the banter between him and Lydia, the rat-a-tat patter of the kids. It all worked. All of it.

When it was all over: A spontaneous standing ovation. And this one we could definitely see.