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The Other Network
October 25, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
Here's a funny ABC sitcom called the Funkhousers. In this scene, the youngest Funkhouser watches cable television with the neighbor boy.
BOY:
You want to watch something dirty?
BOY:
Sure!
BOY:
Hey, how about that one -- Sex and the City.
BOY:
Yeah, at least half of it's going to be about sex.
BOY:
Yeah! And we can flip around during the city parts!
WO
MAN:
Come on, Sweetie! You know you want it. (And I did, but I'd never done anything so immoral, so deliciously decadent. Did I dare -- spend two months salary on a belt?)
BOY:
Forget it -- let's watch something else.
BOY:
Shhh! Want to see if she buys a belt!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
The thing is, the Funkhousers will never be seen -- at least on television. But it's being shown as part of a live theatre experience called The Other Network. It's a venue for rejected sitcom pilots that plays at the bar Moomba in Los Angeles most Fridays. This week the show moved to The Knitting Factory in New York City. Two former writers and producers for The Simpsons, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein created the Funkhousers and another rejected sitcom, both of which have been featured on The Other Network.
Bill, welcome!
BILL OAKLEY:
Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
And Josh, welcome to you too.
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Hi. Thanks.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
So-- once a network passes on a sitcom you've worked on -- you can't rewrite - you can't re-shoot - you can't recast - you've had your chance, and now you just have to accept it.
BILL OAKLEY:
Bingo. Maybe one or two in the history of television over the last 20 years, one or two pilots have possibly been shot by one network and then picked up by another. The networks -- the 6 networks order about 500 scripts between them. Then they shoot about 90 pilots, and the about 20 make it to air. This is just for comedies. They're -- you know, of those 90 that are shot, 70 never see the light of day.
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
And we in fact had always been saying to ourselves, boy if someone went to every good writer in Hollywood and said give us your best unpicked-up pilot, you would have a great TV network--
[LAUGHTER]
you'd probably have the number one TV network. So we're very grateful that at least people are trying in small--
[BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BILL OAKLEY:
Right. It's not actually a broadcast network but a room of people in a bar is just as fun.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
Do you or your friends who are part of The Other Network see the live show as a chance for vindication -- so you can say: See? It was funny!
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Yeah. In fact, it's a way to give a show a sort of decent burial as opposed to sort of being shuffled off to oblivion--
[LAUGHTER]
BILL OAKLEY:
Being, being lost at sea.
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Right
BILL OAKLEY:
Yes. Now we know where the corpse is, and we get to bury it with a decent funeral.
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Right. And it is - it's very satisfying because we actually in front of - which you don't actually have when you have a TV show on the air - is you're sitting in front of like 200 people and they're actually laughing so it is - it's sort of a very - it's a very sweet death.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
This week The Other Network is coming to The Knitting Factory here in New York and as you mentioned usually it plays at a club called Moomba in Los Angeles. Is anyone hoping for a miracle that the live performance proves so successful that the show has another chance?
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
I think that would be our wildest dream come true -- if some network executive were to walk in and see this and say that show is great --I gotta buy it and put it on. But-- they don't seem to be the type of people who attend these events.
[LAUGHTER]
BILL OAKLEY:
Yes, if, if ever like a 20 year old drunken college student is running a network, then we're--
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Oh, we got 3 or 4 shows on the air immediately.
[LAUGHTER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
Now leaving your two projects out for a moment, have you seen anything on The Other Network that just sent you over the moon? You thought this is my favorite project - my favorite rejected project?
BILL OAKLEY:
There's one show which I believe we'll be showing in New York called Look Well which is a show that Conan O'Brien did with Robert Smigel when - back when we were on The Simpsons with Conan in the early '90s. It stars Adam West who you'll remember as Bat Man and Adam West plays a sort of a washed up detective show actor who sort of thinks he's really a crime fighter. And--
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Meddles in all the police's affairs. [LAUGHS]
BILL OAKLEY:
Yes. And that show is so funny -- I think that may be one of the-- the shows that is the all time great example of an unpicked-up pilot. Unfortunately I can see how -- the show is really - really works in a sort of ironic world, and I think a lot of people don't get that type of humor.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
But you know what's really amazing to me is that when you have names like Conan O'Brien or Robert Smigel or Bob Odenkirk [sp?] or Ben Stiller or Jack Black or you two guys attached to a project that some network executive wouldn't say okay -- I trust you -- you're funny - here, take your chance. But--
[BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BILL OAKLEY:
They d-- you know what - they do do that in ordering the pilot; they just don't put them on the air.
[LAUGHTER]
That's why all these people have, have gotten pilots and they continue to do so including us - we're doing pilots right now for next season. I mean I can, I can expound on my own personal theory -- what, what you've, what you've just said - the, the people you've just listed are all hilarious comedians who sort of work in a sort of alternative type of comedy.
This is a country with nearly 300 million people and-- I think that type of humor doesn't attract more than 20 or 30 percent of the audience in any given time.
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Right.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
And yet The Simpsons is widely regarded as the best and longest-running comedy in the country.
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Right. Cause that sort of hit it on all magical levels -- where it appealed - it appeals to the very small audience that likes, you know, jokes about President Garfield which is about .01 percent of the audience, but it also appeals to people who like to see, you know, Homer get hit on the head with a videotape.
BILL OAKLEY:
Unfortunately the, the nature of television is such that- it - to be a big hit like that, you really have to work on all the levels, whereas these other shows that you're talking about, including our shows and our failed pilots seem to only attract a small portion of the audience.
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
Right. It seems eventually the people who grew up watching The Simpsons will be running the networks, and we can - if we can last that long, we'll be okay.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
I want to thank you both very much.
BILL OAKLEY:
You're welcome, and thank you and-- if any network executives are listening to this, please attend The Other Network in New York or Los Angeles, watch our pilots and pick them up.
JOSH WEINSTEIN:
And you will soon become the head of your corporation.
[LAUGHTER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein are comedy writers and contributors to The Other Network, seen most Fridays at Moomba in Los Angeles and this weekend at The Knitting Factory in New York City.
BOB GARFIELD:
Coming up, a peek inside the campaign bus of candidate George Bush and a look about a public relations whiz kid named Jesse James.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
This is On the Media from NPR.
copyright 2002 WNYC Radio
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