Pronoun Problems: A Novel About Friendship, Transgender and (eventually) Ninjas

25 - Nobody Roots For The Overdog

March, 1997

Sadly, despite decent if not spectacular ratings, The Has-Beens was canceled after two seasons. ("'Has-Beens' Now A Has-Been" read the criminally lazy Variety headline.) What happened, as I understand it, was that the network president who had championed the show had been fired and replaced by someone who told Doug and Gabe to their faces, "I hate your show."

So it goes.

All of us who worked on the production were tremendously disappointed, but for Gabe and Doug it was devastating. I remember, a few months after the show went down, Tom and I visited their offices. It was eerily desolate. The desks had all been cleaned out and abandoned, the wall art was gone, but the nails were still there, the only evidence that the show had ever existed. And somewhere nearby there was — I swear to God — a chirping cricket. If a tumbleweed blew through, I would not have been surprised.

Sitting alone, cross-legged on the carpet in the middle of the room was Doug. He was clutching the glowing reviews the show had garnered, reading them aloud to himself like they were magical incantations that could bring his moribund sitcom back to life.

"It was so good," Doug said, a ship lost at sea. He looked up at us. "Wasn't it?" We assured him it was.

And Doug, believe it or not, had actually taken cancellation better than Gabe, who had retreated to his condo, where he spent his days — as he would later describe it — watching movies, eating cookies and masturbating.

Happily for them, they eventually emerged from their post-cancellation depression. While they never even attempted to create another show — neither one wanted to risk reliving that trauma — they did go on to make untold millions running other shows and punching up films. Even better, they started eating healthily and exercising, slimming down to medically acceptable proportions. They wouldn't be competing in any triathlons, but they wouldn't be keeling over on the toilet, either.

And happily for us we were — thanks to the enthusiastic recommendations we received from Gabe and Doug — immediately snapped up by another show, a classic, Emmy-winning family sitcom called Love & Trust. It was a few seasons past its peak, but it still managed to crack the top ten from time to time. The show runners were very talented, but the staff was relatively weak — they only had one white guy from Harvard, if you can imagine — and they relied on Tom and me heavily. In gratitude, they bumped up our title, from Executive Story Editor to Co-Producer with a commensurate salary raise.

At the same time we also launched our movie career. At my urging, we spent our weekends writing a spec. screenplay. It was called The Guy Who Sucks At Everything and it was about a guy who sucked at everything. Or maybe — plot twist! — he only thought he did and just needed to believe in himself. And by "believe in himself" we of course meant, "get laid" because in sophomoric comedies like this one, that was the cure-all.

We wrote it fully aware that it was stupid. But it was so stupid that we were just sure that someone would buy it. And someone did. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

We got our names in The Hollywood Reporter for the first time ("Rubicon and Gilmore Script: 'Sucks'") and then again when Chris Farley was attached to star. Although he ultimately backed out on account of he died. We didn't take it personally.

Tom and I were working our asses off — mornings, weekends, holidays — and it was exhausting (especially for me, with an infant at home keeping me awake at night as visions of shovels danced in my head) but it was also exhilarating. We were indispensable TV writers on a prestigious show and we had a movie career, too.