VALUABLE LESSONS - Nicholls + Vickers

Valuable Lessons 279
Could we have changed Super Cooper to a show in which a twelveyear-old
girl fights evildoers using different super powers every day? Yes
Ma’am. Is that the way children’s television works? No it isn’t. They buy
it, they “fix” it, you make it, and then the testing needle writes and, having
writ, moves on. Fifty adults birth a show then toss it to young Billy Mumy
and cringe while they wait to see who’s going to be sent to the cornfield.
A lot of money could be saved if some children were brought into the
meetings when the story was being written. “Hey kids, do you want a
Message here, or something funny?” Will they ever do it that way? No they
will not. Because that would bypass all the bullshit, and that’s all that some
people have to sell. Am I bitter? No I am not. As I write this, Steve,
Darrell and I have begun re-developing this pilot for a live-action series in
the Sabrina mold, also at Disney. From the ashes of the old the wheat
springs high. ($24,333.26)
Did I mention I loathe reality shows? In 2004 we pitched around a
show called Employee Of The Month. When UPN exec Chris Sloane liked
the idea it was called Take This Job And Shove It. He indicated to us and
reality guru Bruce Nash that his boss, Doug Herzog, was keen on the idea.
We all filed into Herzog’s office one day – me, Darrell, Bruce, Doug, Chris
and various other execs from UPN and from Nash Entertainment – and the
meeting began thusly:
DOUG HERZOG
First off, this idea, Take This
Job And Shove It... I’ve gotta
tell you, I still don’t like it.
Three-second pause. Andrew claps his hands together.
ME
Well! That’s all we had, so...
goodbye!
Darrell and I got up and left. The pitch had lasted ten seconds. God, I wish more
of them were like that.
Lone Eagle Entertainment’s Michael Geddes, who produced Canada’s
Popstars, liked the idea, changed it to The Temp, and when we received the
contracts – twenty signatures on twelve documents; literally a hundred times
the thickness of the show proposal – it had become pluralized. (Several
months later it popped up on Global’s website as The Office Temps, possibly
re-renamed to trade on the popularity of BBC’s The Office. I suppose I