True Hollywood Stories: Sad Edition

Posted by Maximum Fun on 4th April 2006

A friend of mine, we’ll call him B, was booked to do a late night TV show, which we’ll call TLLSwCF. This is a big break for B, who’s never really been on TV (outside of a few here and there tiny things, and maybe Premium Blend, I can’t remember).

So anyway, he goes and tapes the show, and to hear him tell it (and he’s not one to misrepresent these things) does very well. Big laughs, a few applause breaks, etc etc etc. This is great news, because he has a very unique style that isn’t what you see from your airplane food type comics, and this very middle-america audience ate it up.

So it was really cool. He was really happy. Wasn’t sure if CF saw it, but the writing staff all came and talked to him about how great he was, and how happy they were to see him on the show. Kudos all around.

The day the bit is scheduled to air, he finds out that an executive at the network (which we will also call by initials: CBS), saw the tape of his performance. She is not offended by the performance, there is no political material in the performance, he did not swear. But she thinks it’s weird. Over the objections of the staff of the show, including the booker who booked B in the first place, she bans it from being shown on the network. In fact, she won’t even allow B’s agent to have tape of it, so he can put it in B’s reel for booking purposes.

B talks to the folks from the show, and they’re all steamed, but they can’t really do anything. In fact, the booker was reprimanded by the exec for booking B in the first place.

B is understandably frustrated, not to mention saddened, that his big break has gone sour because one exec (not nameless, but name’s not really important) banned him from network TV. He can only hope it’ll happen again — and given his talent and commitment, I think it will.

Man, that’s totally fucked.

Here’s the question for me…

TLLSwCF is the last show of the broadcast day. After it goes off the air, we go to Taxi reruns or something. The comedy segment is the last segment of the show. The only thing left after it is the credits. This comedian killed in front of a middle American audience, and he’s built a significant live audience by being a brilliant and unique comedian. Those qualities even earned him a development deal.

When will TV programmers realize that in the 21st century, the business is about putting on something that people will love, not about putting on something that is C+ for everyone? If they can’t do it at 1:30 in the morning, when can they do it?