Situation: Comedy, Episode 3 – It’s Only Going to Get Worse

Welcome to episode three of Situation: Comedy, the show that follows the trials and tribulations of several young writers attempting to create their own sitcom pilot. In episode two, the writers were told to reduce their scripts to fifteen minutes, each team picked a producer and director, and Stephen’s Team put up a valiant, but losing, fight to film the show in single-camera format.

And so let’s start tonight’s bonanza. We find Team Sperm (Mark and Shoe) rewriting their script. At the end of the previous show, their work was deemed inadequate to move onto the next step, casting. Mort, the producer for Team Sperm, is pushing them because he wants to get casting done as soon as possible. Previously, snippets of the script were sent out to the casting director and he was finding that struggling actors, who you might think would take any part that comes along, were passing on the acting job because the jokes weren’t funny. They pretty much work through the night.

Meanwhile, Stephen’s Team (Andrew, David, and producer Elaine) are being brought over to casting to supervise the actors who will be reading the script, hoping for a part. We meet the two casting directors who will be presenting the actors. The first is Brett Greenstein, who has cast actors for Frasier, According to Jim, and Miss Match. We also meet Collin Daniel, who helped cast those same shows.

First, Andrew and David explain their characters to Brett and Collin. Stephen, the main character is to be a chubby kid. Brett explains that specifying the boy as chubby may severely limit their choices. Andrew mentions that he has close ties with George Wendt (of Cheers fame) and would like to see if he can be cast in the show. They actually wrote a part specifically for him. The casting directors doubt they can get George on such a tight budget.

What is it with the budget here? It seems like this show is a great idea, but they are crippling the writers with such a limited budget. First they can’t use a single-camera format because of the budget. Then they can’t get known actors because of the budget. Then they only have six weeks to write and film the thing instead of six months because of the budget. Then the winning team gets a whopping big prize of $25,000 – far less than I’ve seen on any reality show (and I’ll bet the team has to split the $25,000). I thought NBC wanted the next great sitcom. But if are going to take the cheap way out, they aren’t going to get a good product at the end.

Anyway, the next morning dawns and we find Stephen’s Team getting ready to meet some actors to play the part of eleven-year-old Stephen and his family. First up are several actors (note that Hollywood prefers the term “actor” to mean male or female person – the term “actress” is no longer used) reading for the part of Stephen’s mother. We see a short montage of the women generally overacting. Deborah Theaker seems to be a good choice and is invited for a callback. Also, Yeardley Smith (Lisa’s voice on The Simpsons) is given a callback. Next, several men read for the part of Stephen’s dad. Veteran character actor Patrick Kerr (appeared on Seinfeld and Frasier) gets a callback. Veteran character actor Tim Bagley (appeared on Will & Grace and Friends and a short-lived pseudo-reality show that I reviewed for Reality News Online called Wanda Does It) gets a callback.

Finally, the part of Stephen is cast. Several young men come in and audition. The writers and directors aren’t particularly impressed with any of the actors. None of them get a callback and another audition will have to be held.

Meanwhile, Team Sperm is struggling. According to Mort, they’ve been working all day and not getting any better. So, a meeting with Stan and Maxx (this is the preferred spelling of her nickname, I am told) is called to see if they can be kick-started. Stan speaks bluntly to them. They were brought to the finals because of the premise of the show, not because the script was well written. The boys promise to get their script together. They vow to work late into the night again.

Over at Stephen’s Team, the second day of casting begins. The first part is for Stephen’s babysitter. Several actors try out. It turns out one of the actors is David’s sister, Joanna, but none of the casting people know that fact. Let’s see who gets picked. The actors do their thing and the directors discuss them. As they discuss, David is practically giggling the whole time. The directors want to know what’s going on and David spills the beans. Joanna gets the part without a callback.

Then we get more actors to try out for Stephen’s part. I recognize a couple of them. But, once again, none of the boys seem right for the part and more auditions will be needed.