Season Finale. Take 50 - Showrunner Bill Lawrence, Scrubs, Ted Lasso

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for sure, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

For every six case, there is means, sometimes even years, this is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

That's the path to be able to persevere. Like everything in our business here, hands get the outfit bounces off you.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

That process takes care, that doesn't matter. I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose, and I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking, like, well, that's it for me. I blew my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. Welcome to our season finale and finally a chance for me to talk to somebody who's vaguely in the same industry as me, because this one isn't just entertainment. There's a little bit of football in there as well. But Noah, do the formal introduction, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

All right. I am, you know, and I say this a lot, but I really mean it tonight. I am beyond excited on the season one finale episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss to introduce Bill Lawrence. Bill is the creator and executive producer of Spin City, Scrubs, Cougar Town, and the little known show called Ted Lasso, amongst many, many others. Welcome, Bill.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm so glad that this isn't about uh failure and rejection in your personal life. Because I that would be a much longer show for me, man. I'm glad we're focusing on professional.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

So I think I'm gonna start with I guess it's a failure question. So the Ted Lasso writing room is lots of writers, many of whom actually appear in the show as actors in a variety of very impressive ways. Are you the worst actor in the room? Is that why you're the only one?

SPEAKER_02 2:13

First of all, how you just start with an insult. I mean, it's so bold. Um, the uh nah, you know, the uh uh by the way, if you want to see me being it's it's almost failure. There's a Bahamas episode of uh Scrubs where we're on such a tiny island um that uh I cast myself as this uh priest that married uh the janitor and his wife. And uh when I did my stuff, the cast was in the pool drunk, just literally in between takes, yelling at what a horrible actor I was. And so that was that was yeah, I've but and I slipped myself into that show a good 72 times. I've always offered free gifts to anybody that finds me all the time, and I will proudly say that I've never stood out. I'm that mediocre.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

But um on a vaguely serious note about that, it's yeah, is it rare to have that many writers do that who are impressive?

SPEAKER_02 3:04

You know what, you know what happened on that show though? It was um circumstance more than anything else, which was Brendan Hunt, who plays Coach Beard, and Jason uh and a guy named Joe Kelly, who's a writer on the show, and also like me, a loser that doesn't get to act. Uh, those three created the character Ted Lasso years before his promotional video for the Premier League, and it was kind of very loud, bombastic, just hysterical sketch. And uh, I didn't get to get involved until I was trying to get Jason to do a different show of mine. And he he's like, nah, but what have you helped us with this one? And it was super, you know, we got to hash it out together. And then in hiring my friends, Jason's friends, British writers, comedians, comedians, we ended up with uh a buddy of mine, Brett Goldstein, who was uh uh had been in one of my shows before and and ran his own show. And he literally got embarrassed, auditioned for Roy via the uh a tape that he left when he went back to London and with a note to Jason that said that if this sucks, let's never speak of it again. And uh Phoebe Walsh is a comedian and a great writer that you know writers aren't dumb, man. When you finally get a job and you're like, hey, some other writers seem to be on the show, maybe I should write something that's named after me and that sounds a lot like me. And so uh I'm so far I'm just the the one that hasn't been asked or isn't savvy enough to do that.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

The uh that that's great. We I I was actually wondering from a distance too. You see how many talented, you know, God man, just your staff is so talented as actors and and writers, but that's not what we're here to talk about. I have a question that takes us actually way back into your career, which is which is which is you create, you know, you you created Spin City, you came up kind of on that show as a as a creator, as a producer, it seems like for you know your IMDb credits might be wrong and you've worked on other things, but that was your first big thing. Then you come out and you do other shows, but you do Scrubs, another massive hit. So my question is, what happens on the in-between when you create a show that that's not a massive hit in between Scrubs and Ted Lasso? Like in your IMDb page, and again, IMDB could be wrong, you've created things like Rush Hour and other shows that didn't do, you know, didn't do the 200 episodes. What is the emotional sort of back? I mean, you you you have hundreds of produced episodes on shows that are hit shows. And when one is not a hit or one is not doing as well as the others, what is that process for you? Do you think you've missed the audience missed the chemistry? Is it just such you know, some things that you just can't put your finger on?

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Or no, it's a good question. I'll tell you, look, so uh the the weird thing about everybody's career at this point, I'm glad you skipped over before I started making shows because I got fired off of like every job I had until uh um Spin City. So it was uh but we'll hit that later. No, but the question's a uh a good one because I think that when you make TV shows for a living, you have to protect yourself uh emotionally. And um, I'm very lucky in that, you know, I have some successful shows. And if anybody tells you that that's not at least partly, you know, lightning striking and timing and and and and and some luck involved, they're crazy. Uh, but most of the shows that are real giant pieces of crap of mine never got on TV, thank goodness. And they're, you know, out there in the floating nether world of either unproduced pilots or pilots that you show to friends to show them how bad they are late at night when nobody believes you. Um, and uh, I guess for me, you know, I've always kind of loved making things. And so the problem was figuring out how to protect yourself emotionally, because if you get super duper invested in every single show you do, so many of them are disasters and don't work for various reasons, some because of you, whether you wrote a crappy ending or miscast it or did a crappy job cutting it or whatever. Uh, so I've gradually tried to turn myself into a bit of a sociopath, which is until um a show gets on TV, I'm so emotionally distant from caring about it that it's almost impossible to get me to engage on an emotional level. You know, I just want to kind of fix it and make it happen. And once it gets on TV, I go the exact opposite side and uh get way in over my skis, you know, of caring so much that it kills me when it goes. So for me personally, the most painful shows are the ones like Undateable or Surviving Jack or shows that I thought were good and I loved the people, and uh, and then I couldn't do anything to make them work. And it just they they plague me to this day.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Well, let's let's talk about that for for a little while longer, because that's what this podcast is about. Like, so let's go back to those shows where you're still, you know, gearing up to be the Bill Orange you are today with the shows you have on the air. Did you think that shows, you know, that you know, was was the emotional effect harder on you? Are you are you were you worried that you were never gonna get to the place you wanted to get to creatively? Or how does that like you know process work in your head?

SPEAKER_02 8:00

You know, I just think that it that a lot of people view this as kind of a constant competition, you know, and I hope at least but the the the chance to succeed or fail, you know, on a year-to-year basis and your own way, you can say cliche, right? We've all only as good as the last thing that you did. Um, and the double-edged sword is if you have any success, and you can't ever complain about this. I'm going through it right now. If you have any success, the most important thing if you do what we all like to talk about is that you for a short window get to make other things, and that's why we're here. Hey, scrubs work, do you get to make something else? And then you go, cool, here's something I really like, and they go, Oh, that's awful. Now you're in jail for a while and you don't get to make anything, and you should feel like a failure and schmuck and retreat to your uh your hole and your one show that works, you know. And uh uh uh I I hope people take solace in the fact that it's still that way for everybody. Um, and that I even joke around sometimes, you know, when people get to you know the stage in their career that they do what I do, you'll often see that a pilot is supervised, you know, by me or supervised by Shauna. And usually it's you know, writers or producers that we've worked with before, and we're supposedly helping them get through the system, but it's also a way to protect yourself emotionally, you know, to go, this is their thing. So if this fails, I don't have to feel like a loser or schmuck for a couple of weeks. They can do that part, and I can just say I was nicely helping you, you know. Um, so uh I I think one of the main reasons I'm still doing it is because it still stings so bad. Like we were joking, you know, about awards and Emmys, and I'm grateful and it's fun and silly fun that Ted Wassell won a bunch of stuff. But for me, it just means there's a short window that people might be dumb enough to let me make things again. And I can tell you right now, we were talking before this started, I'm making something now that I go to bed at night going, oh, this is a really big, expensive, flashy thing, and it could be awful. You know, and I I think I hope that's what keeps people going and keeps people doing it. But that's what it feels like constant state of fear.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

So the the way this podcast works is when a guest says something like, I got fired a bunch of times before I was on Spin City, I am the one as the nice English person who has to then ask that question. So let's wind back to that part. So tell us sort of how unsuccessful and difficult, well, how unsuccessful you were and how difficult it was at the beginning of your career before you had your first big success.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Uh, I was uh uh all right. So let me tell you a certain series that my first job was on a sitcom called Billy. I was a spinoff ahead of the class starring Bill Connolly. And um the thing I remember most about that job, besides the bosses being lovely, was that the I got in trouble right away at the end of that show because the Cass and Crew gift was a jean jacket that said Billy with a heart over the eye. And I'm like, I can't wear this, man. I mean, nobody's seen this TV show, they just gonna think I'm a dude that wears jean jackets with his name on it, you know. I'm gonna pass on the gift to the uh producer of that show, was like, hey, don't turn down show gifts from now on. And uh uh he hooked me up in my next job, which helped hook me up, which is a writer on Billy, was one of the creators of Boy Meets World. Um uh and if you look in my IMDP page, they'll say I wrote one episode of that. But I was on staff of that show, uh, just got fired. I got fired. Every show I got fired off of, I will say, I can talk about it openly and honestly, that I got fired for good reason, I think. And there are lessons I like to impart now on that show. I would say I was correctly let go for not appreciating a show that found a huge audience, you know, and having a little bit of that guy that's 22, too cool for school. Like I would never write on this show if I didn't need the job and the money and the whatever. And uh um I deserved it. You know, I I remember when I said something snarky, it was because I wrote an episode of that show that uh the younger character said, uh the younger character, sorry about I'm Corey, the uh said, uh uh, I can't believe I hurt my dad because I love him more than anybody in the world, you know. And uh uh one of the showrunner, one of the producers, ended up having that character say that line like five or six times in that episode. And it's fine, it worked, you know. And I wouldn't have been embarrassed about it, but I went home and all the messages I that's back when there's message machines, and I got home when it was on TV and it was like, You have 11 messages. And it was my friends back from Connecticut going, Hey Bill, I just wanted to say I can't believe I hurt my dad because I love him more than anybody in the whole world. Oh, Bill man, I wanted to talk to you because I hurt my dad and I love him more than anyone in the whole world, you know. And just the way that you guys, you know, the guys you grew up with that give you shit. And uh uh I should, you know, the first lesson I would impart to people from that show is um um any show that finds audience has merit. And any show that gives you the opportunity to kind of learn and do what you have to to get to do what you want to. Um, man, the second you enter into uh reigning on a showrunner's parade or a creator's parade for what they're really proud of, disaster. So canned off that. Another producer from the show, Billy, gave me a shot on the nanny. Um, I wrote an episode of that show and uh uh was fired off of that. It was almost immediately after it's bam bam. So it's going it was quick at that point. And that was uh um that's uh let's just say I got fired off the nanny. It's my fault, but it's not a great story for me and not a story I can tell. And the and then uh and then uh I got on, I was able, I got really, really lucky, and I got on the show Friends, the first season of Friends. So I was a staff writer, I didn't just write an episode, I was there. Um, I didn't start in pre-production. I started in pre-production, but not um right at the beginning. Uh Genji Cohan, who went on to create weeds, was on that show and she got let go. And then I took got her spot as a staff writer. Woo! Super psyched. And um uh the hardest thing I remember about that show was man, it was great staff. Uh David Crane was awesome running the writers' room and um um super competitive writers' room because it was really kind of like pop culture joke contests. And I remember at the uh rap party of that show, David Crane um uh uh came up to me. He's like, Hey, I think you did really well this year, and you're gonna be great no matter where you end up. And I remember going like, cool, hey, I'm gonna go call a friend of mine that represents me professionally. Like, I man, I think I got fired again. Um, and uh uh uh in a cool story, David Crane, who I owe a lot to, called Gary David Goldberg and said, This is a young guy who I think would mesh very well with you and your personality. That I think sometimes instead of doing what he should be doing, which writing the show that the showrunner is in the showrunner's head, I sometimes would write the stuff that was in my head, you know. And I think that's the weirdest lesson to learn. I was very young is that you're not writing the show that you want it to be, you're writing the show that the creators want it to be. And Gary luckily hired me, taught me, we worked together for about three months and then created Spin City. I was 26, I was the luckiest guy in the world. So three firings, boom, boom, boom. But for everybody out there, when I got fired from friends, it was immediately on the cover of Rolling Stone and the number one show in the world. And I was in the fetal position on my couch in the valley, uh, just dying a thousand deaths. I thought I had uh ended any opportunity I had to be successful.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

So, what's this uh you've prepped for this show with a quick list of firings? So I guess the question is when you get fired that often, yeah, it's probably them.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

You're gonna you're gonna say it's them, it's not me, right? I feel like you would think it's them.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Maybe you can think that did you at any point, I mean obviously it sounds like people fired you but still weirdly liked you and wanted you to succeed, which I think is a I guess a good way of being fired. But was there a point in this where you thought maybe I need to go and find a different career, you know, go to law school or whatever it is you do instead?

SPEAKER_02 16:16

You know what? Uh man, if you're gonna struggle anywhere, and I always had the sense I was gonna struggle anywhere, you might as well struggle being an artist, you know. Um, and uh the one thing that kept me afloat, though it was supposed to do the other thing, um, my dad kept having his my parents were as supportive as they could be. And my dad, my dad though, kept having his buddies call me and offer me jobs. And uh I still remember it because I was not, I mean, think of your father's friends. None of us when we were 22 were friends with our father's friends, like that we knew from where in high school. And so, you know, I'd get fired and I'd be miserable, and then my phone would ring and it would be like, Hey, Bill Doug Benson, and I'd be like, Hey, hey, Mr. Benson, uh, what's up? And he's like, Doug, you know, um, I just call him to rap, you know, to shoot the breeze. I'd be like, Hey, tell my dad I'm fine. He's like, Your dad, what are you talking about? He's like, I mean, I there is a job open in marketing at PepsiCo, you know, if you're interested. I'm like, nah, man, I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

And was it, you know, marketing jobs, being a carpenter, working construction, is it that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Yeah, you know, it was no man. I tell you this, it's my dad's like, you have a big image, it was always marketing because my dad was in marketing at Pitney Bowes, the big East Coast company his whole career, and he knew other dudes in the uh and and and women in that business. So it was always like, you can write ad copy for us, you know. If if you want to just take your soul out of your body and bury it in your backyard and then come home, you know, and sell snack foods. I'm like, nah, man. So he thought he was trying to help, and it was like if for me, it was literally the one thing that kept me. I cannot, I cannot fucking go back there, man. You know, with my and uh and take a job with one of my dad's friends and all my buddies knowing it, it would be it would be too painful.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

This wasn't gonna be my question, but it's gonna be my question now. No matter how far I go in this business, my parents still seem to think I'm gonna come home at some point and take a job, not in this industry, like a real job doing something else. After you created your first show, did your dad still say, Hey, there's always a job, you know, back for you?

SPEAKER_02 18:22

He was in, yeah, I'll tell you, there's two things that make you make you laugh. One is a full shift from my parents to not understanding what we do. So my mom, as recently as five years ago, would call me up and be like, What are you doing this weekend? And I'd be like, Ah, my wife is out of town with the kids. She's like, Oh, you have Saturday to yourself. Why don't you why don't you write a movie? You know, if you have a free Saturday, why don't you write a movie or write a play? I'm like, What are you crazy? I mean, you ever see me finish a term paper for school in less than three weeks? It's you're an insane person. Um, and my father did the opposite is once that show Spin City worked, uh, it was a great poignant moment for me. He flew out here and we went out to dinner and he's like, Hey, I just want you to know I'm proud of you, and I'm gonna die with nothing. Because if you get into any trouble financially now, it's on you. And we helped you and supported you up until this moment. And he's like, I'm doing this, and uh uh uh good luck. And so he he went the exact opposite route.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Well, my my question then is gonna kind of come off the word of word support, which is you know, you're you're in a situation now where not to put any added pressure on this podcast, but you know, Ted Lasso was a cultural phenomenon. It was the show we needed, it was the show we needed during the pandemic, and then season two was the show was a show we didn't know we needed during the pandemic, and then season two was you know dealing with grief. And there's a lot of people talking about this show, obviously. And how do you block that out? I mean, how do you focus on a season three and be like, I can't listen to this noise, I need to keep on you know doing what I'm doing?

SPEAKER_02 19:57

It's a great question, man. I I truly don't know the answer because you know it is all the way back the clichets. Remember, we've all heard if you're gonna believe the positive reviews, you've got to believe the negative ones and all this stuff. Don't read the press. And but discourse is so loud nowadays, and quite honestly, it's fun to participate, you know. Uh, I engage people all the time. Um, I'm grateful that anybody's talking about the show. Uh, I think the one thing that's keeping us sane is nowadays on streaming shows, uh, and I was my only idea with Jason to kind of combat all the noise was when we knew we were doing this, uh, he committed to doing it for three seasons, and we mapped out the three season story for each character, you know, at the start and where it ended. And for us, when it gets too complicated, we just stay the course, you know, and say, look, let's succeed or fail with what we came up with in a vacuum. Because you know, you know, if you start chasing trends or opinions or um the flavor of the moment or what's working and not working, don't get me wrong, you still lean into what cast members are crushing and um, you know, stories of the moment or what's in the news. But uh, I think for us that all we can do is try to stick to the original story we mapped out and hope for the best.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Obviously, uh Ted Lesso has been an amazing show. Uh the the time it happened. And this has now happened to you a few times. You've had amazing shows that work for the time. What let's talk about I know you took your, I don't know if you can talk about the specific show, but you said you're what you're you know you're working on another show now, um, which is going into production next year. Given the success of Ted Lasso, and actually the success of some of the shows you've had, although of course not all of them, are you now in a position where you feel like you'll be judged against the success of Ted Lasso for everything you uh do now because it was such a

SPEAKER_02 22:00

phenomenon and how does that how does that make you feel as you prep another show which will be completely different of course that's uh it's it's a good question you know it um uh I haven't really had the panic inducing terror attack that comes with that question until you asked it so you know I mean I want to start by saying thanks I guess you're welcome um no no but uh uh uh uh look I I I got a lot of weaknesses but the worrying about the the the future and that stuff isn't one of them you know I'll even joke with you right now of um uh look I I can't take sole credit for Ted Lasso so as a precursor to this joke you know Brendan Joe Kelly Jason I mean Jason is Ted you know um and I think part of the connection for us is that you know we kind of dig on the same comedy with um an undercurrent of uh heart and emotion beneath it and and you know that's why we initially bonded was he wanted to turn this into a show like that. But uh so the this is a long-winded thing to say if I'm in the mood to shit on myself, I'll tell you I've been making different versions of the same show for years and years. And uh um in terms of uh and sometimes it's in vogue and then it's out of vogue and then it's in it scrubs scrubs had a lot of great friendships and kindness and people really trying to help each other and stuff you know and uh uh and so I guess for me that is a long-winded to say way to say I'm probably just gonna try and keep doing you know what I do and uh um uh worst case man I'll uh um change my name to Bill or Willie or something hip and hope that no one notices no one ever knows who writers are you know so I'm actually gonna ask a question that's not actually to do with rejection failure adversity just for a change so and this is a problem Noah comes up against quite a lot in your room there are British people and there are American people and it's a comedy and British people are normally much funnier than Americans how do you how do you cope with that? You know what it's just I think uh it would be a tilted scale towards the Brits in the room but I mean just off the cuff I'm so sharp and funny guys you know I kind of equalize rooms that way you know I mean I I just even now just I mean on some level you gotta go Bill's surprisingly uh quick and banter driven and uh relevant for a guy his age you know I mean on some level it's a little intimidating and stunning yeah I I I think what helps you is that a lot of Brits are obliviously arrogant too right they oh yeah by the way but but they're actually something else so that that's deprecating thing the way we do when we say it but we don't really mean it. You know what I mean? Because for them it just comes off as the you know either a humble brag or they never believed it in the first place. I'm with you.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Oh actually I will ask a question about this because we've we've had a few comedy writers on before talking about the writers' rooms for comedy which can be in some ways brutal places because you're meant to be saying things that are funny and if they don't land you've just sort of shown that you're not funny. Now obviously you've been working in comedy rooms a long time.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

How have you actually I guess because Ted Lasso changed quite a lot from season one to season two in terms of how much was comedy did the room change in terms of not so much how much fun you were having in the room but in terms of sort of what rejecting an idea looked like it went from a joke not being funny to maybe you know a serious moment not working and how did that dynamic change the writer I've been around so many comedy writers and writers you know it's uh it's a heartless business in terms of uh uh once you're comfortable around people in in an environment of kind of mutual support and um and and really liking and loving each other it's ruthless man it's never stopped you know I can tell you um my favorite joke on uh the first job I ever had you guys heard me talk about Billy Rich Eustace who was a mentor of mine uh I was nervous to talk the first three days of work and on the third day I finally pitched a joke and no one and it was pretty funny and everybody went stone faced and Rich looked at me he's like Bill we're trying to do a comedy in here and I was so horrified and then they all started laughing and then he goes we planned to do that on your first day and this is the first time you fucking spoke took like three days to do that joke. You know that was so mean and uh uh on Spin City you know when we did that at Chelsea Pierce where the right below us was the Law and Order writers room so we used to always pretend you know whenever the young writers pitched a joke that sucked we'd do them falling through the floor and landing down in law and order what are we doing down here? Some kind of assault some kind of murder thing you know just immediately being jettisoned from the comedy to the drama down below. So uh no even Ted Lasso is uh good naturedly ruthless and that's part of the fun.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Excellent I I want I want to follow up and just stay on Dan's question for a second because and this is again not failure rejection and adversity but it's fascinating and you did something I've never seen or you you and your team did something that I've never seen done before which is you went from a comedy uh a dramatic comedy uh comedy filled with heart obviously to more of what felt like a drama even in the length of the episodes and what what did um Apple or or the studio or or was there any conversations about this show is changing in a way that shows almost have never changed before and only can happen on streaming because obviously network would be like you're turning in an hour long cut what like we have 22 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Yeah you know it's really interesting I think that the coolest thing when you're doing one of these streaming shows now it look I I love network television and the weird thing about network television was you would get the opposite notes of no one liked their characters to change too much. You know and I I found myself you know after we had done like 140 episodes of scrubs or whatever it ended up being like 180 or something and someone would say you know like what's Dr. Cox mad about this week I'd be like who cares honestly I mean who cares what he's made he's just mad he's always mad you know and it it and it it's crazy making you know you did we did a hundred episodes of that show in the first four years you know um and now you know if you don't mix it up I think people I do as a viewer there's so many I've never I love TV so much there's never been a time there's like six or seven great shows that I haven't gotten to yet that you better hold people's interest and you better tell kind of a new story um or uh people are going to move on to something else. And I think um it was really Jason driving it because as the world building on that show got you know bigger and bigger and more and more characters that you hopefully gave a crap about, you know, we'd write all these moments and have these longer episodes and you know normally when the process where you'd go now we cut it down to what the lengths were last year we were like nah let's just you know let's just see if people stick with it. And uh uh I mean don't get me wrong we're still editing this stuff and they did you know and um uh it made a really interesting beast you know in a in a way that like I would I would argue that there's more jokes the second year but the shows are longer there's more drama too you know what I mean and so it's uh uh it's definitely a weird beast man uh if I told you I knew why it worked I'd be talking out my butt.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

I mean I mean speaking though of like why things work and the ever changing industry I mean you came into the industry at age 22 and obviously a comedy room has changed the world has changed everything has changed and I'm curious like what keeps you up at night worrying about not probably your day to day you're not going to go back and and work in marketing anymore right this is this is it for you but like like is there is the does the industry worry you does just like the way you tell stories worry you uh you know what's interesting man is that it's still look the thing that never goes away and and here's something that you you don't often you know talk about I would imagine on this podcast but it is a rejection thing which is you know it never goes away for creators of wanting your show to be on and let's be honest wanting people to like it you know and and uh wanting it to work and wanting everybody to have great jobs and wanting it to be successful.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

Um and so you constantly live in a world still I think that you're panicked about making compromises you know to uh in what you have in your head to uh get the opportunity to make something great. I used to tell everybody, you know, the joke of it all was you know you can go and say I'm gonna do a TV show about a cool young married couple like in their 20s and what it's really like to get married that young and how messed up it is and how your other friends don't know what to do with you like you're aliens. And then when you come out that you know people be like how'd it go? They bought it so I get to make it which is cool. They have a little kid now he's got superpowers but otherwise it's like the same show you know uh I mean he shoots lasers out of his eyes it's very funny it's gonna be cool. Um and uh I say that because one of the weird things in my career is that even the successes had tremendous rejection and I'll tell you what I mean by that is uh Ted Lasso, you know, um there's no sour grapes and this is just the business. Jason and I went around and pitched it everywhere. And Apple we didn't choose Apple they're the only ones that bought it it was rejected across the board you know and there's no nanny nanny boo-boo now you know I mean and I sometimes go I'm so lucky I had a partner in Jason with such conviction because I found myself back in the old mode you know of going what's missing from this pitch? What aren't they getting you know and he's like man this is what we're doing someone's gonna let us do it you know and uh uh Scrubs was before there was a lot of single camera comedies out there you know and I had done a lot of multi-cams and uh uh the first place I pitched it uh the network president had just traveled in a red eye which is fine the part that was not fine I was he fell asleep and started sawing wood and uh in the middle of the meeting I'm like how you guys think this meeting's going because we all are snoring you know and uh uh the only bite I got on that show because I worked at a uh after that I worked at ABC at Disney on the time and Dizzy's like hey if you get if you do this as a multi-camera sitcom where you're like with that Dr. Cox character at work and then at home we'll do it and I I had to go like nah you know what I think it's cool and I'll just sit around for a year and do nothing. And um I got lucky that NBC that's why it's a show that's owned by ABC that was on NBC which never happens anymore you know um and so and even clone high which we're getting to make again right now was so resoundingly rejected and canceled due to social reasons and MTV and politics and stuff. You know the weirdest thing is some of my favorite work experiences started in this place of massive overall rejection where you get into this weird tightrope of going maybe if I made changes I'd get to do this and it would still be great. And the one thing I'd put out you there on your show is that the ones that worked, you know, and it was never just my own conviction they stayed true to what they were supposed to be either because of laziness or dumb luck you know so Noah always tells me that he's got a lot in common with these incredibly successful showrunners who come on our show.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

And actually I think we finally found that he has because somebody fell asleep during one of his pitches as well. So I think that's uh that's it's good to know it can happen to anybody.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

So just on the Ted Lasso being rejected part yeah yeah without going into detail that you probably can't like what sort of uh notes were you getting were they how dismissive were some of the people I don't think they're dismissive you know what I think was weird is um the TV business has changed especially on the comedy side there's big uh everybody's into IP you know it's like hey it's a TV version of this movie hey um you got you guys get you've seen it uh a billion times you know and there's a lot of success stories karate kid whatever uh is when we went around pitching we showed people the original video and uh and then in the uh and then we said and what we're gonna do with this is make kind of a a really heartfelt show with pathos and you know and uh um longing and forgiveness and and uh focusing on kindness and optimism at a time that there's not and the mistake we made is once you show people that you're trying to sell something to uh something they can watch and judge they aren't able to see the thing that you have in your head and the Ted Lasso videos were very very funny but they were like a loud Saturday night live sketch if you go back and watch them that Jason as Ted was screaming at people and not knowing the rules of the game and was a buffoon you know and you know and then we go that's really funny because they'd be laughing really hard and then we go but here's the show and then we'd hear like yeah what that afterwards we love that video but that can't sustain a series it's like the naked gun or airplane and then we go no no you didn't listen to us so I think you know um uh it was a little flawed in the pitch in that nobody once you let them watch something they can continue to watch whatever blah blah you said for the next five minutes. I mean my voice is starting to drone on drone on right now they just check out a little bit and couldn't hear it you know what when you pitched to Apple had you modified your pitch and took it out or did T Dog as you call him did he just hear you this time this is Jason's uh T Dog this is Jason's conviction is we talked about it and um we didn't change it at all. What we did was got way too intense after we watched the video and we go we we want you to hear us here. Okay. The show's not gonna be anything like that piece of crap you know and uh uh uh so we are just lucky that they took a shot, you know uh and I you know and Zach and Jamie you know the guys that run Apple will be you know quick to admit that I don't think even they were ready for like oh and the end of the pilot is you know a really sad concerto plays while you realize his wife doesn't love him you know and uh uh so we just got really lucky but that's part of the television game man is you gotta take the it's why your podcast really intrigued me if you can't take those lumps and come through and keep you know trying to sell it trying to get it on then it doesn't matter how talented you are you got to get out of here because there is nobody that has not gotten their butt handed to them time and time again with this stuff. It's constant. And how grown up were you afterwards once Ted Lasso became a success did you send believe signs in the post to all of the in the mail to all of the studio execs who rejected you no I mean there's a tiny bulletin board in my head no the uh you know the only good story I heard about that was and it it it made me love them to this day was uh uh a great story for your thing is that Mike Fox used to love to talk about this because when they um did family ties you know he and Gary Gary wanted Mike Fox and um Brandon Tardicoff who was a great guy you know passed away uh didn't let him cast Mike Fox and he said the problem with Mike Fox is he's funny but his face uh will never be on a lunchbox which was a big deal back then and so when Family Ties became the number one show and there was a Mike Fox lunchbox Mike set it to Brandon with a note inside that said thanks for always believing and it was received with great humor you know I mean just because uh uh but see that's what I mean man you have you I'm sure you all haven't you haven't met anybody that hasn't just loaded out all of their just getting absolutely beat down type stories on this show. I mean this is this started as sort of a a treatise on failure and kind of loneliness where people we we could people would listen to us and they they realized that other people were failing and therefore they weren't so lonely in this business but as we do more interviews I'm realizing that how important failure is to the process oh right of of becoming you and you you said in this podcast that you the power of of sticking to your convictions and did that come from being right or did that come from being wrong sometimes or does that come from both and that's kind of what I'm beginning to mow it's both you know there's a negative side to it which I'll tell you uh uh uh everybody's revenge fantasy at the end of this story so the uh um is it on a show Scrubs uh you know the it wasn't owned by NBC and um um it was on after friends and they had to decide whether or not to you know put all their money behind a show that was going to make some other studio network a whole lot of money and at the time on that show they wanted me to change it up creatively and I remember having one of my first adult moments uh of going all right if I do what this network president says and make a major creative change it was an actress that they wanted to add to the cast uh and make a major creative change then they're gonna keep it on after friends and the odds will be uh very high that it'll be worth a bazillion dollars but it's not the show I really want to do. And I remember thinking in that office going I think it did well enough and it's good that if I do what I want, I I think I'll be happier just getting to do the show I want, you know, even if it um uh disappears and was it was just a great fun ride. And that was the first grown up decision I ever made and I'm very lucky that it worked out you know and just so I add to um um you know this story just to note let everybody know that that's not always the way it works out. The the only revenge rejection story I have is with uh I don't even name names not a big deal because he was right I was wrong so um I wrote a pilot um called Field the Force that I really liked and I translated um it was a British format um written by Georgia Pritchett who's so talented and won Emmys on Veep and Succession and all these other great shows she gave it to me and I kind of made an American pilot of it and I got so into it I storyboarded shit and and I handed in and I was at a hot time in my career when you get to make things you know and so uh a lot of networks were bidding on it and ABC the president you know guy named Paul Lee it's a Brit and uh lovely guy and he called me up he's like you should do it here you know your deals at Disney you should do the show here we love it and we blah blah we this we that we the other and I'm like all right you know I get it and uh I I think it's great it's home team it would probably be a cell phone and sold it there and if I had listened to Paul and I know the business well enough he's not doing anything wrong he was told by his comedy team to call me up and say to sell it to them and not other places. And then later when it got time to you know go through the development stage even though I'd already written it I got you know from Paul but maybe not from him just relayed by some creative people a a showchanging note you know I mean of like what instead of it was one of those notes like what instead of these two women it was a guy and a girl who were married you know one of those annoying things of being oh you mean what if I just threw it away and started over and I was so annoyed that I could have sold it to anybody and made it and they had convinced me to sell it here and then the first time I got a note was to make monster changes that I decided that it would be very satisfying to call uh his office up and pass on them. It was good and so I ended up doing an email because they didn't take my call right away and I was heated and I'm like hey you know obviously there's a disconnect but I could have made this anywhere and blah blah blah and and you guys obviously want a different thing than what I wrote. So I think I'm gonna go ahead and pass on making this for you guys. And uh um um you know no big deal and I'm sure we'll work together again in the future and I like press send and I was like you know I was like whoo that felt good and literally like eight seconds later my business partner walked in he's like hey do you just email the president of the network passing on making your show I'm like yeah and he's like oh cool congrats it's over you can't do it anywhere else and it's dead and I was literally like you have you're not a writer man you have no idea how satisfying that was for like 25 seconds it was fucking awesome uh and now it's just really upsetting we we we we we we've had we've had we've had 50 guests on the show and I think this takes the cake I think Dan's gonna Dan will admit that this story is the pinnacle of of maybe not failures but rejection uh I've never heard anything like that I was literally like I for the I was sitting in my office before my business partner came in like oh this is delicious see how he feels see how he feels with a little rejection and by the way my buddy was like oh he feels fine he feels like he doesn't have to give you any more notes extraordinary I'm not quite sure what to say um that's good it's um sometimes British people need to be told by Americans that they're wrong in uh the strongest possible term and then they'll never work with you again that's good he didn't take it he didn't take the rejection as hard as me that's for sure do we get the response did he ever you know he was lovely he was lovely you get he got you know he was lovely he's like oh cool understood you know we had a you know wish we could have had a process and wish we could have whatever but uh uh uh we'll talk more next year and I'm like next year That wasn't how this went in my head at all. I I this is where you call up and say that you want to do it exactly the way that I want it.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

So um I think it's it it saddens me enormously that I think we're gonna have to ask the final question of this series of our podcast. Um and you've actually been the last question we always ask every guest is around giving advice to somebody entering the industry. Now, you've sort of been doing bits of this all the way along, but the formal question is if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody wanting to have a career like yours, what would that advice be?

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Uh only because it's the theme of your industry, and I've really been obsessing about this, is that the rejection and the answer no only means no for now. And uh people don't realize that. I'm still stunned by how many people um once they they had a good pilot or a good script or a good idea and it gets no traction, and um um, you know, they go, ah, I thought it was great, but it's just dead. We've all heard it, it's dead. And there's an added thing to it of like, and I don't want to revisit it because it just looks desperate, like you're not doing anything, and sad, like you haven't moved on from it. And I tell everybody like, fuck that, okay, is is uh Ted Lasso. Uh the video is like seven years old, and Jason tried to come up with a show of it after that, and then we went and sold it. The show I told you guys I'm making my favorite author is this guy, Carl Hyacon. And I'm turning uh one of his books that I love called Bad Monkey into this, it's a cool kind of out-of-sight almost type thing and and shoots all in Florida, starring Vince Fawn in January. And I got rejected for four straight years on that thing and just kept going. How about now? How about if this guy's in it? How about if I won a goofy award so that you won't lose your job if you let me try and make this? But if it's awesome, you get all the credit. You the point is um, scrubs, like I told you guys, knowed by everybody. I sat on my ass. I was lucky that we had just had a baby. I'm like, maybe I'll see what changing diapers and stuff is like. Um, and waited a uh year and a half from when I wrote that script to when someone's like, Hey, yeah, we'll let you make this. Um, it's the coolest thing of once you can say your Teflon and that rejection bounces off you, no becomes no for now. And you could even go, I'm gonna circle back and I'm gonna eventually make this with you or somebody, and you wait, you know, and we're gonna talk about it. And that's the the the coolest thing I can tell you about someone that's just eaten a ton of rejection over the years. And I imagine we'll do it. I got a meeting tomorrow morning that I know I'm getting to know on with uh uh actor that I want to do something, but I'm gonna go in there and swing away. And uh uh when I take the lumps afterwards, um, because I told you guys it's good to be a sociopath, I'll pretend that I don't care, but then I'll go to work and I'll die a little and then um uh gear up and start the day over again, man. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

An excellent answer to a fantastic to end a fantastic interview. So, Lawrence, thank you very much for being part of a podcast. I mean, obviously, a small point I feel like I must make, and I think it's an adversity thing, is as an AFC Wimbledon fan, I'm very disappointed that so much of AFC Richmond is based around Crystal Palace. But that aside, thank you very much for our Genemy. I like it. Thank you very much for being part of well, bringing Ted Lasso to us, but thank you very much more importantly for being part of this podcast. It's been an extraordinary interview. Thank you very much indeed.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

I'm glad to do it. I really appreciate you guys for what you're doing for the creative community with this thing, man. Uh, everybody knows that we're all taking our lumps. It makes it easier to take your lumps, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Thank you so much, Bob.

SPEAKER_02 47:56

See you guys.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

So that's it for the first season of Screaming In 2D Hollywood Abyss. Thank you very much for listening, and most importantly, thank you very much to all of our guests. It's been an extraordinary 50 episodes. So we're done with the guests, but as a bonus, tune in next week for a special rap episode on the first season where Noah drops a bombshell and you hear just how mean Dan can really be. Thanks for listening.