Damned by Overt Praise
In the last decade of the previous century, I had an overall deal with 20th Century Fox studios. One of the projects I developed was a pilot for an hour dramedy about a typical suburban family in Atlanta, the Kirbys, whose parents were divorcing, all told from the point of view of their snarky 13 year-old son, Spencer. If it sounds Wonder Years-y, that was by design, only my characters would be dealing with contemporary, mature issues as the kids struggled to understand why their family was changing. I loved the draft I delivered to the studio and network, but the first notes meetings went quickly from sublime to absurd in one still unbelievable twist, with a studio exec giving me, out loud mind you, one of the most ridiculous and heartbreaking notes I’ve ever received…
The pilot was called Stuff Happens because it was for broadcast TV and I couldn’t call it Shit Happens. It was the story of Spencer Kirby, a 13-year-old latchkey kid with two older identical twin sisters (he he liked, the other he didn’t–but only when he could tell the difference), his brother who was away at college, and his mom and dad who were in the earliest stages of divorcing.
As a proposed series for the Fox network, the pressure was on to give the show a “hook” so it would fit in with Fox’s “edgier” brand, so I made Spencer a television addict who periodically has fantasies where he sees his family’s struggles reinterpreted as scenes from classic TV shows–comedies, dramas, action–whatever fit the story. In a not so subtle wink to my career alma mater, the very first fantasy was a Wonder Years sequence, and later, he imagined a monochromatic vision of his parents and siblings in a Father Knows Best slash Leave it to Beaver setting, only discussing divorce and teen pregnancy in 1950s sitcom dialog. Laugh track and all.
I poured everything I had into that script, and, as often happens with me, I fell in love with my Kirbys. The fantasies in my head were of seeing Stuff go into production, get featured in the Fall Preview issue of TV Guide, then run until there were no more compelling stories to tell. I was thrilled when my 20th partners said they loved the script and had sent it to the network folks. Maybe my memory is wonky, but I don’t recall getting any notes from the studio. A career first (and last).
When the day of reckoning arrived, the studio team and I walked into the network offices on the Fox lot to get their thoughts. I had my script printed out, a blank legal pad, and a new pen, braced for whatever they might throw at me.
Or so I thought.
We had the usual chit chat, dispensing of waters, musical chairs, and then the Boss (I’m not naming names, friends, it’s a small town). And the meeting went like this:
“So, Mark, you might notice none of us have your script with us.”
I looked around. Sure enough, neither he nor his entourage were holding my teleplay. This couldn’t be good.
“Well, now that you mention it…” I said, trailing off with a nervous laugh.
“That’s because we don’t really have any notes. Your script is…beautiful.”
Okay. I hadn’t seen that coming. Still, it seemed to me a but was waiting in the wings.
The Boss continued. “We love these characters and the way they respond and interact and just…cope with what life is throwing at them. Spencer is a break-out role, and to have it narrated from his point of view is just…genius.”
Genius? Oh man, this but was going to be ginormous.
“I laughed out loud several times,” a junior executive piled on. “Especially how you ended the teaser with Spencer’s V.O. telling the audience to stick around because his sisters were going to get naked in the episode. So meta.”
Heads nodded in warm agreement, the meeting now wandering into the surreal.
“All of that said,” the Boss went on, using a more dressed up variation of but, “we feel there’s only one thing missing. That one singular ingredient that would—”
Wait for it. Here it comes…
“—foxify it enough for our network.”
I honestly don’t recall how I responded to hearing this term for the first time. I will say the dude seemed quite happy with his newly coined take on je ne sais quoi. So happy, in fact, he later dropped a foxification into the conversation. The take away from all the verbiage was, of course, that my television fantasy hook wasn’t foxy enough for Fox. And the man who said they had “no notes” on my beautiful script, had given me the biggest and worst note of all: “Make it…different.”
At the studio’s suggestion, I did a dutiful rewrite and turned the TV fantasies into more edgy animated sequences, but my heart wasn’t in it, I was falling out of love with my Kirbys, so the resulting draft was an exercise in wound licking.
No surprise here. That draft also fell short of Fox’s invisible moving target.