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FLORID'OH

Excerpt from my autobiography "Funny is Money" (it's in the works) This is the saga of my going to Florida in January of 2000, at the behest of Sherman Hemsley and his manager Ken Johnston, to write and producer aspeculative TV pilot. 

19.  FLORID’OH!

Anyway by December of 1999, I was kind of wondering what to do about money and things like that. Somebody at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting early in my AA career, the late great Gene Shales, said “Big problem plus big faith equals big miracle.”  I was certainly enduring the first part of that equation when I got a call utterly out of the blue from Ken Johnston, who was Sherman Hemsley’s long time manager.  Kenny was a real character, a big burly guy with white hair pulled back in a pony tail who spoke like one of the Goodfellas crew, and frankly seemed like an idiot but Sherman was extremely loyal to him. It seems he was in Orlando, Florida, with Sherman, and they had come across a Sugar Daddy named David Evans who wanted to finance a pilot for a Sherman sitcom. They had assumed I was still working on City Guys, but I said I hadn’t worked on it for a year, so what took so long?  They were happy about that, (that I was unemployed) because they needed a script like “yesterday”.  Always the case.  There was a premise for the show, which was supposedly cooked up by Kenny’s girlfriend, Flora Bernal, and at whose home in El Paso he and Sherman had been living.  The notion was that Sherman plays his usual “George Jefferson”-type character who runs a funeral home, has a daughter and clashes with an Hispanic neighbor. They wanted to call it “Love Thy Neighbor”.  I’m sure there was far less of a thread to hang a show on, but I could see where there could be some dark humor with Sherman in a funeral home.

The initial thought was to do a presentation video, which is considerably shorter than a full blown pilot, using crew and perhaps some locations at Nickelodeon Studios in Universal City, Orlando.  (Nickelodeon seemed to be bookending this year).

I noodled around on the idea as Kenny talked me up to Evans and his associates in Florida.  They said they would wire me money as a sign of good faith, and sure enough, they quickly sent me four or five thousand dollars.  I couldn’t believe it, but there it was. I immediately went to work on a story outline, enlisting the aid of my stand up comedian friend Beth Sullivan as someone to bounce lines and bits off. I’m not sure why I started working with her, except that we were attending AA meetings together, and I was whining to her about Engel, and she had a couple of terrific ideas for the Sherman premise. But it helped to have another person in this case, and it all went very quickly. I sent Kenny and the Florida people the story outline, and they liked it. Then I sent the script after maybe a couple of weeks, and they loved it.

They were talking about bringing me to Florida as soon as the first week of January (gulp, the year 2000! Would planes stay in the air, would computers crash?).  Early on there were, of course, glitches. I told Ken the price for a pilot was upwards of $50,000. He said fine. And he shared that Evans’ company, Garage Group Productions (so named because he and his cronies would hang out in his garage in the Orlando suburb of Windemere), was signatory to the Writers Guild! (to give themselves legitimacy). I didn’t expect that, but I thought, wow that was fantastic. Then I told Ken here are the requirements of the WGA when hiring a writer: for travel, it’s first class plane fare and accommodations, per diem, and so on.  And part of that “so on” is, of course, minimum writing fees, and all important contributions to the Pension and Health Plan.  Johnston said som

Anyway by December of 1999, I was kind of wondering what to do about money and things like that. Somebody at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting early in my AA career, the late great Gene Shales, said “Big problem plus big faith equals big miracle.”  I was certainly enduring the first part of that equation when I got a call utterly out of the blue from Ken Johnston, who was Sherman Hemsley’s long time manager.  Kenny was a real character, a big burly guy with white hair pulled back in a pony tail who spoke like one of the Goodfellas crew, and frankly seemed like an idiot but Sherman was extremely loyal to him. It seems he was in Orlando, Florida, with Sherman, and they had come across a Sugar Daddy named David Evans who wanted to finance a pilot for a Sherman sitcom. They had assumed I was still working on City Guys, but I said I hadn’t worked on it for a year, so what took so long?  They were happy about that, (that I was unemployed) because they needed a script like “yesterday”.  Always the case.  There was a premise for the show, which was supposedly cooked up by Kenny’s girlfriend, Flora Bernal, and at whose home in El Paso he and Sherman had been living.  The notion was that Sherman plays his usual “George Jefferson”-type character who runs a funeral home, has a daughter and clashes with an Hispanic neighbor. They wanted to call it “Love Thy Neighbor”.  I’m sure there was far less of a thread to hang a show on, but I could see where there could be some dark humor with Sherman in a funeral home.

The initial thought was to do a presentation video, which is considerably shorter than a full blown pilot, using crew and perhaps some locations at Nickelodeon Studios in Universal City, Orlando.  (Nickelodeon seemed to be bookending this year).

I noodled around on the idea as Kenny talked me up to Evans and his associates in Florida.  They said they would wire me money as a sign of good faith, and sure enough, they quickly sent me four or five thousand dollars.  I couldn’t believe it, but there it was. I immediately went to work on a story outline, enlisting the aid of my stand up comedian friend Beth Sullivan as someone to bounce lines and bits off. I’m not sure why I started working with her, except that we were attending AA meetings together, and I was whining to her about Engel, and she had a couple of terrific ideas for the Sherman premise. But it helped to have another person in this case, and it all went very quickly. I sent Kenny and the Florida people the story outline, and they liked it. Then I sent the script after maybe a couple of weeks, and they loved it.

They were talking about bringing me to Florida as soon as the first week of January (gulp, the year 2000! Would planes stay in the air, would computers crash?).  Early on there were, of course, glitches. I told Ken the price for a pilot was upwards of $50,000. He said fine. And he shared that Evans’ company, Garage Group Productions (so named because he and his cronies would hang out in his garage in the Orlando suburb of Windemere), was signatory to the Writers Guild! (to give themselves legitimacy). I didn’t expect that, but I thought, wow that was fantastic. Then I told Ken here are the requirements of the WGA when hiring a writer: for travel, it’s first class plane fare and accommodations, per diem, and so on.  And part of that “so on” is, of course, minimum writing fees, and all important contributions to the Pension and Health Plan.  Johnston sai

ething like “No problem Bobby”.  (He called me “Bobby” from early on, and thus so did everybody else).  And of course Ken said “no problem”; that’s how he did business.  Meanwhile, in keeping with the way he did business, Ken told Evans not to worry about me, I was broke and out of work and would work for peanuts.  This latter bit of info came not from him but from one of the dumbshits who worked for Evans.  And there were a number of them, I can tell you.  It was startling, actually.  Nevertheless I was loyal to Sherman and Ken, and grateful for the income.  And I could see Johnston was just trying to hold the project together.  But unfortunately what Johnston’s portrayal of me did was undermine my authority; I wasn’t sure why these guys thought they knew as much or more than me till I was told what Johnston had said about me.  There were also a couple of guys who had dipped not even their big toe but perhaps part of a little toe into show business, and wanted to demonstrate their bona fides to the boss, not to mention to do this thing for as little as possible.  As I was to find out, this was more of a money raising scheme along the lines of “The Producers” than seriously trying to get a TV show on the air; how much Sherman and Kenny were in on that, I still don’t know to this day. 

But, backing up, immediately when it came to flying out to Orlando in mid January, “issues” began to surface.  There was some talk of my taking some off-brand airline (like “American Eagle”).  I said no way, and it’s got to be first class, per the WGA. I said I’d get my own plane ticket, but I expected to be reimbursed. I was – but by Kenny himself, eventually, not by the company.  Remember, Evans and the Garage Group signed the WGA agreement just to “look” legitimate, not to actually “be” legitimate.

Regardless of my general suspicion of amateurs with money trying to be in show business, I actually couldn’t have been more thrilled as I winged my way east – getting paid (and I had actually gotten paid), working with Sherman, no network hovering over me, an adventure in Florida… it was rather like a miracle. An imperfect miracle, but close enough.

I figured I was dealing with people unfamiliar with show business, and I was to learn, ones unfamiliarity with show business is not a great concern to one who is unfamiliar with show business.  So I naïvely figured I’d tell them here’s what it is, and they’d accept that I’d been around for 30 years, as had Sherman, and that I knew what I was talking about. That held early on, but it would soon devolve into the usual morass of dealing with amateurs who “know not, and know not that they know not” (the rest of the Biblical quote is “they are fools, shun them”). I didn’t shun, because of my love for Sherman.

Meanwhile, Sherman in this was a sad pawn. If Johnston couldn’t get something out of somebody, he’d send in Sherman.  Sherman was trying to be friends with everybody, but only weakly stood up for me – no doubt Johnston didn’t want him alienating Evans et al.  But of course it was ridiculous, because this was Sherman freaking Hemsley, and Evans and the Garage People were inept crooks (we were to find out).

Flying into Insanity

In the second week of January, I finally took off to Florida by way of St. Louis. In first class, where I belonged. There was a layover in St. Louis, and with my first class ticket I spent the layover in the American Airlines Ambassador Club.  This is what I had grown accustomed to in my personal heyday of the 80’s, going back and forth to New York and Europe. I savored the luxury, and the respect. Or at least the self respect.

I got to Orlando late in the evening, and Johnston picked me up at the airport. I was still getting my bearings on who the hell these people were, and what we were going to do, and all that.  Johnston, as usual, was a bit elusive and incomplete about what I was dealing with, but tried to put the best shine on it.  I was to find out that all the beauty products in the world couldn’t make these turds shine.

Finally after negotiating Florida’s version of California freeways, except with toll roads, we made it to a suburb of Orland called Ocala. That is where the Holiday Inn was located that would be my home for the better part of a month.  It was a nice hotel, big pool surrounded by a big patio, a decent coffee shop, and a block from a giant Wal-Mart.  Yes I was in Wal-Mart country.

So I chatted a bit with Kenny my first night, and the idea was to wait for somebody from The Garage Group to contact me the next day. It was 2000, I was suddenly in Florida, and had no idea how this would play out.

I would soon get a clue.

I had breakfast at the Holiday Inn coffee shop, a “Perkins” which is a plentiful local chain.

I was supposed to get a call from one of the Garage Group people, but I heard nothing till after 11. That would be another clue. Finally I got picked up by one Stan Lipton, a chubby guy in his 60’s whose religion was more cigarettes than Judaism, whose genius, I was to find out, was telling the bald faced lie - sometimes when it wasn't all that necessary. En route to Dave Evans’ home in Windemere, the site of the garage whence came the name "Garage Group", Stan said little about the script, other than how about making Sherman a used car salesman instead of funeral home director? I said no way; funeral home is funny – as demonstrated by an entire script based on it that everybody seemed to sign off on. So he left it alone. Otherwise, seemed like a nice guy. I may have learned at this point that he was their closest liaison to show business – he had been involved with the Morton Downey Show. Of course it was not the classic one we all remember, but a small unseen show produced in Palm Springs, California.  But that gave Stan the imprimatur of show business veteran who managed to convince Dave that he knew what he was talking about.  He was also the nominal “money man” of the group. It was starting to be a little amusing.

At Dave’s house, a nice sized, well appointed home in the tony Windemere suburb of Orlando, always had a number of hangers on wandering about. There I saw Sherman again after a long while, and tried to keep track of the other players. Dave himself was a slob, wearing a Hawaiian type shirt and shorts, strongly reminiscent of Broderick Crawford in “Born Yesterday”. His wife was a 5’11” not-quite-Amazon who was sweet enough, but, I was to find, was one of the many members of the “garage group” who had an opinion – and who had many friends she wanted to cast in this pilot. This was the Motown experience all over again, except crasser, whiter and with infinitely less evident talent.

I also met some middle aged guy named Jim Stanley, who apparently ran Dave’s business, which I never got clear about – something called Fon Digital (“fon” pronounced as in “fawn” not “phone”), which provided cell phone long distance service. Or something like that.  Stanley’s show business “bona fides” lie in the fact that he was the father-in-law of the very talented actor Richard Kind (he married Stanley’s daughter Dana just a couple of months before; best man? George Clooney). Of course, I knew Kind, sort of, as he was part of the Carol (Burnett) and Company comedy troupe for which I wrote in 1989-90. I always heard that Kind had a skin condition which affected pigmentation, so always had to wear makeup.  Again naturally Stanley had “concerns” about the script, which he voiced almost as I was saying “who the hell are you?”  He may have even said he would run it by Kind, or had run it by Kind, thus backing up his amazing opinions.

So the bloom was falling off this Florida rose pretty quickly. Dave’s phone company CEO had weighed in.  Perhaps the next door neighbor had a viewpoint? I wasn’t to wait long, as Evans put me on the phone with some guy named Ross Cibella, who ran the production facilities, located on the Universal Studios/Orlando lot – Century III Teleproductions. He had read the script, and didn’t think it was funny.  I pressed him on specifics, or how it might be funnier.  Of course he had no solutions, just “didn’t think it was funny”. Oh man.  Sherman did say “A non professional person can’t read a script and tell whether it’s funny or not. You have to see it on its feet. Bob knows what he’s doing.”  That bought about 15 minutes of time before someone else chimed in.  Meanwhile I was waiting for the specific notes from Richard Kind (which never came).

So, now thoroughly rattled by this “garage group”, I eventually got to vent with Sherman and Ken at some barbecue restaurant nearby, and realized this was already developing into “camps” – who needed to be pleased, who was the actual power, who was just a big mouth who could be ignored.

I was soon to discover that there in fact had been another, earlier script written before I got involved – so some writer had already been sucking off some money.  I’m not sure why, but I think I had specifically asked Johnston about this, and he initially said no.  I think I was more concerned about somebody else also writing a script as well – as happened with the ill fated Sherman CBS pilot a few years before.  Apparently the earlier script was indeed about Sherman being a used car dealer, (a certainly cadre of the garage group just didn’t like the funeral home stuff), and evidently the earlier script sucked, and the writer was an ass. 

Things quickly devolved into political infighting just to keep the project alive, and keeping the script the way Sherman and I wanted it.  And there were periods of cooling my heels at the Holiday Inn while Dave periodically went out to raise, or steal, more money for this thing – and I wasn’t sure what it was going to be. A cheap presentation or a full blown pilot? And meanwhile more opinionators kept cropping up, none with any discernible creativity.

Oralando

Meanwhile, I tried to enjoy myself in Orlando. I met a woman online, Diane, who lived in Los Angeles, ironically, and said she looked like Laura Diaz – the hot young local LA news anchor.  So I invited her to come out to “Oralando” - our little private sexy joke. I was incredibly witty. Of course, she didn’t look a whole lot like Laura Diaz, and as was slowly to be revealed an emotional and psychological wreck.  That visit mercifully lasted only a couple of days, and with the slight upside that there was a bit of sex involved early on.   We went on a little boat ride on one of the lakes, even saw a small alligator. We drove out to Daytona Beach, which was pleasant enough.  But she drove me pretty much crazy, and fortunately she returned to L.A. without much last damage.

On my own, I visited a “telephone museum” in Maitland in the outskirts of Orlando, and spent a day at Walt Disney World’s “Animal Kingdom”. I’m not sure why – it was the first place I got off the highway, I guess. Another time, some of the guys were supposed to go with me down to Vero Beach to see the Dodgers at Spring Training, but they bailed, opting to play golf instead.  I guess it was a little further than I thought.  Another time, thanks to Sherman’s connection, I got tickets to an Orlando Magic game. Of course at first there was no ticket at the box office for me, a scenario I came to half expect by this point.  But I called Sherman, and eventually, a pass actually turned up - a pleasant surprise from the norm.*sigh* I had nice seats to see the Miami Heat play. I saw Dr. J Julius Erving on the sidelines. And I went to movies, lots of movies on those evenings when nothing was going on.

My constant quest in Orlando and environs was to find one of those funky "ma and pa" southern cookin' joints – they don’t exist.  Orlando is pretty much Torrance southeast, almost all shopping malls and chain stores and restaurants. And Walt Disney World, Sea World and a couple of other amusement parks, or manufactured entertainment centers.  It’s not anywhere near an ocean, but has a lot of alligator infested lakes of various sizes, some connected by canals, manmade or not.

Along about the end of my first week in Florida, there was a get together at Dave’s house with “investors” – mainly people from Lynchburg, Virginia for some reason who had been cajoled by a Dave and Sherman dog &pony show to put money into this television production.  And indeed a guy named Wayne Booth from Lynchburg, a middle aged entrepreneur who couldn’t have been nicer, put in the lions’ share of whatever Dave was trying to snare – in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, apparently.  The idea was they’d produce a TV pilot, and when it sold, Wayne would have ownership of some percentage.  “The Producers” quickly came to mind. How many people was Dave promising a piece of the action of this Sherman venture?

At least three women from Lynchburg were also there – and apparently they were business women and investors. One was a very hot woman of Persian ancestry, a chiropractor, who I guess had invested a sizeable sum. She was married with a family, but she was very nice, and we hit it off – on a professional level of course.

The following Sunday, we were invited to Dave’s brunch bacchanal. It was at a local luxury Renaissance Hotel, across from Sea World in the main touristo section of Orlando.  I never saw a brunch like it – every imaginable sort of meal from sushi to steaks to omelets made to order to hundreds of desserts.  It had to be $100 per person, but, of course, Dave now had nothing but money.  He treated the three Lynchburg women and me to a day at Universal studios theme park, which of course was modeled after the one in California. 

I think they all went back to Lynchburg the next day, and I was back to cooling my heels. Eventually I was moved out of the Holiday Inn and installed in a condo in Orlando proper.  That made sense. The first night there – no hot water, no phone, no heat. I was dealing with some real brilliant people.  It was all foreshadowing for the ineptitude to follow. The bed clothes and pillow were so uncomfortable, I had my ex box up my down pillow and some other creature comforts from my place in Santa Monica, and, with Stu Shostak’s help, UPS them to me.  That was a good move.

I also finally got, after entreaties to Dave Evans, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, high speed Internet, cable TV, and a dedicated cell phone.  So I was happily ensconced, rewriting the script, viewing occasional porn which by now was widely available on the young Worldwide Web, writing e-mails, and cruising for dates.  I got happily ensconced.

And I say ensconced because the stay there dragged on and on.  I would buy groceries, and get laundry done – all supposed to be covered by the Writers Guild mandated per diem.  But after a few days, the irascible Dave said no more per diem. And so he continued to blow his nose on the Writers Guild agreement he signed.

“We May need a Page One Re-Write”

To make the long story a little shorter, about two weeks in who should join the “party” but Stan’s old “producer” buddy Art Bergel.  He apparently had been convinced by Stan that he was needed in Orlando to save the day, or perhaps simply be an ally.  I wasn’t cooperating with changing the script (and meanwhile there was no production in sight), and, per Kenny, I was some out of work hack – and so they needed a real professional to come and create some order.  So hence, Art was summoned to drive in from Houston.  Art was an otherwise nice, capable guy – we became friends - but initially, to me, he was a jerk.  He was an enormous guy, who loved his food and cigs – so he was going to fit right in with the Group.  My first meeting with him, he asked about the story line of the script, the characters – fill him in. My first question to him was, who the hell are you? I came down to Florida, and had put a great deal of effort into writing a professional script, for the benefit of my friend Sherman with whom I had worked on numerous productions – network television productions, produced in, like, Hollywood, not Palm Springs.  Now here’s a guy grilling me. I asked what his function was to be on this proposed production.  He said “Oh, producer, director whatever Stan needs me for.” I said something like, there’s one head writer and producer, and that’s me. I wasn’t sure of his capabilities as a “director”, because nobody seemed certain at that point what the nature of the production would be, or what sort of budget there would be.  So I had to tolerate yet another wannabe who obviously had no clue as to my background and expertise, and/or didn’t care about it.  It was downright insulting, but it was how things were going. At one point Art suggested there might have to be a “page one re-write”, a term he must’ve read somewhere, and I basically told him to fuck himself that wasn’t happening. The script is what it is.

A nightmare was brewing, and it certainly came. What exacerbated it all was of course, my long trip to this point… meaning the arc of my career, not merely the 3000 miles or so from Cali to Florida. I was used to working with professionals on all levels. Some were kooks, some weren’t as talented as others, but there’s professionalism in the sense of knowing the rules of the game, how things work properly. In this situation I was not expecting adulation, but I was expecting respect and some acceptance that I know what I’m doing.

Had I fallen that far off the merry go round, now dealing with megalomaniacs like Peter Engel (at least that was a network show, albeit not prime time), or simplistic people who think “whoa, Sanford and Son!?  Will you survive the rigors of a TV season?  Can you make someone under 70 laugh?” It was disheartening.  And now this rather ridiculous situation where there seemed to be plenty of money – and I was grateful for my cut – and a major star in Sherman Hemsley – but I was enduring some sort of punishment for past misdeeds. Or maybe this is what the “real world” is doing while I was frolicking in the giddy heights of Paramount Pictures and NBC.

But my inclination was to try to remain affable, for Sherman’s benefit, despite my fuck yourself thing, and I was just curious to see how this silly thing would progress.

Eventually the project grew in scope, perhaps in proportion to the money Evans managed to raise, and so there were more and more hangers on. And more headaches. There kept being incessant talk that they needed a “show runner” – another term somebody read. I said you have one, me. That’s what I do. Through Kenny I told them my fee was the WGA minimum of around $50,000 for a half hour pilot.  Kenny said he’d make it happen.  But then he relayed Evans’ view of it: they said how about $5,000. I said OK that’s it, get somebody else for this catastrophe.  But Ken and Sherman convinced me to stay with it.  Every worker bee I encountered in this bunch were entirely beholden to Dave, and never ever beholden to the truth, especially when it came to getting paid (checks would invariably bounce), when writers would be flown in, where they would stay and so on.  Upon reflection, this was what it must be like to be in Trump world. A few weeks in, after we had become friendlier, Big Art became nominally in charge of budgeting, and making airline arrangements, etc. I once told him I needed to be paid another $10,000 for my services (needless to say, I never got close to the $50,000 requirement).  He agreed, and said he’d clear it with Dave. So when we met up with Dave in his home, I brought up my money request to Dave.  Dave asked Art what he thought.  The chicken shit responded “It’s up to you, Dave.”  But at any rate Dave, who had some respect for my abilities, agreed.

And the other constant was trying to get (and pay!) someone else to come onboard to either re-write or oversee things. I was constantly on edge to make sure neither thing happened.  I guess my sensitivity started with Richard Kind’s father-in-law saying Richard Kind wasn’t kind about my script. HA. And further, I resented that I wasn’t paid my proper fee (not for writing nor for producing) yet there would be money found for some other shmuck.

We were meandering to a production of this thing, and they kept coming up with ridiculous things on just about every aspect.  One plan was for Art to direct the thing, perhaps in tandem with me. I wanted to bring in a real network director – which we eventually did do.

Another time, about 2 weeks before we actually produced the pilot, I got a bombshell from Art or one of the other lackeys – they wanted to bring in a “network executive” to “give notes” and other expertise. I say oh my freaking god, why on earth is that necessary? And who?  Art said they “got lucky”, because this woman, Amy Barton, who had worked on network shows as a studio executive in L.A., was now back living in Orlando.  My first thought was, NOBODY leaves a lucrative job in Los Angeles to move to Orlando… unless they didn’t make it.  So nevertheless Art set up a meeting between Amy and me, and somehow Kenny Johnston came along.  I think it was Art’s or somebody’s idea of how a production company works; you get an executive who will give notes and such, at this late day in the process.  I could just see the “act two doesn’t work” comments now, and it wasn’t going to happen.

Amy was instantly unlikable, a ballsy tough talking woman who wanted to impress all in ear shot of her expertise. Of course she knew that Dave, Art, Stan and the rest were pretty much rank amateurs so this would be a piece of cake for her – and she’d steal get paid about $5,000 for two weeks work – which of course I saw as money out of my pocket, especially in light of their underpaying me, and screwing me out of per diem. And the other annoying fact was, she hadn’t seemed to have heard of me (not hard to find out online, even in the early Google days).

But it was a great delight and opportunity for me to tell a network executive that their existence is a joke among TV writers and producers, and any notes that are accepted are strictly for political reasons. I think she did get into specifics on how the script wasn’t going to work or parts that didn’t work, and that was her biggest undoing.  She might’ve mentioned the “concerns” of the Garage Group people, and I said something to the effect that they are rank amateurs, and didn’t know how to produce a show.

And then Ken Johnston chimed in as “the bad cop”, as if I wasn’t giving her enough hell.  He really didn’t want her around, in no uncertain terms, and was quite supportive of me.

And so Amy went away, but not before sending word back to Art et al. that I had told her he and the others “didn’t know fuck”.  I said I never said any such thing, and that she was an awful character they did not want around.

So happily that episode ended before it began. Of course I regretted being so emphatic, but my defenses were on overdrive by this time, I’m not sure whether it be protecting my position or the show.  But it was just on exasperation after another with these guys mainly because they simply would not respect my experience, but instead were roaring off, spending tons of money, on their idea of producing a show. And invariably the money would be ill spent (like spending $5,000 on her and not on me).

I endured several other battles to fight along these lines, such as my wanting to bring in writers for “punch up” and audience warm up guy, Stu, and the functionality of the set, audience bleachers, etc.

But the biggest headache was the casting, because of course don’t you know, everybody had somebody they wanted to put into the cast.  So was this a serious production, or a hobby?  Mary Ann, Dave’s wife, insisted on inserting a “friend” into the show… for a nonexistent character that would have to be specially written, jammed into an already tight script.  Then Dave was sucking up to the Back Street Boys’ crooked manager, Lou Pearlman.  Pearlman went on to concoct several “boy bands” in the Orlando Area. One was called “O-Town” which one evening he brought to Dave’s house to serenade Dave’s teenage daughter. OMG. I remember on City Guys a couple of years earlier, one of the guests was yet another new boy band called Take 5.  Pearlman moved on to perpetrate a bunch of enormous frauds, finally getting imprisoned for a bigger Ponzi Scheme than Madoff’s. But of course he was pals with Dave, who no doubt looked up to him for pointers on scamming investors. Again, it was Trumpism: “only the best people.” The only difference was, Dave was a nicer guy.

But I was talking about casting. A sister of one of the Back Street Boys (yet another Pearlman group) no longer famous members, Howie Dorough, was to be cast in the show in the pivotal role of Sherman’s secretary.  This was, again, part of the suck-up to Pearlman. Of course, Kenny Johnston and I objected, but in any case she (Pollyanna was her name) was sweet, cute and humble, and we had her read for the part.  She was fine.  But miracle of miracles, she had some scheduling conflict.  Perhaps she realized this was out of her talent grade.  I was relieved, because we certainly had some good candidates, locals even who had come into read.  Nevertheless, the local casting guy, who was a good guy, quit – it was just way too unprofessional for him.

But no sooner had Pollyanna been dispatched, Johnston said he wanted to cast HIS daughter in the part. So now I was in a tough position, especially because Sherman was chiming in with his support.  I knew his daughter and she was not exactly a capable actress. I think we had cast her, or at least tried her out, for a small role on Goode Behavior, meaning like a couple of lines.  In this pilot, she would have a lot to do, and have to be funny. AND the show starts with a scene with Sherman and her in his funeral home office.  I was about ready to hang myself.  I voiced some opposition, but he said “Your son is in the show!” And of course, my older son, Nate, was cast – as a drummer in Sherman’s daughter’s band. He had one line like “let’s go” or something; indeed he was my son, but at least he was a professional drummer, so it wasn’t exactly a quid pro quo.

So what could we do but just sign off on it? I managed to talk Dave out of having to cast Mary Ann’s friend, from the stand point there was just no room in the episode.

Then there was Jason Lively, who happened to be Stan’s son-in-law, and the brother of Blake Lively (she never came around), cast as Sherman’s dweeb assistant. Jason actually did a good job but again, we had a reading for that part and there were some good prospects.  We wanted to see Jason on tape, and either by accident, or by another clever scheme, the tape of Jason’s audition we received from Stan had no audio!  How did Stan think of these things?  In any case, Jason who actually had some small bona fides as appearing in one of the National Lampoon Vacation films was fine whereas I got a repeated head explosion every time I’d look at the finished pilot, watching Ken Johnston’s less than talented daughter in the opening scene. The term “cringe worthy” well applies to her performance. It was like Liza Minelli in Arthur. I’m sure I can think of others but you get the point.

We were able to cast some excellent actors, however. Lark Voorhies, who had played Lisa Turtle in Saved by the Bell (Engel again!) would be flown in to play Sherman’s daughter. A delightful, cute woman she was.  And she brought along her then husband who was basically a clone of her – a slight, nice looking guy.  We had the comedian Thea Vidale to play Sherman’s sister – a sort of road company Jackée.  Very funny. A very hot and talented Latina woman from Miami, Debra Magdalena, was cast to play the neighbor’s wife. And Billy Hufsey, who had been a regular on Fame the TV series, was hired to play the key role of the annoying (to Sherman) neighbor. And believe me, that was type casting (the annoying part).  He was kind of a reincarnation of Clifton Davis, in the sense of being persistent and vigilant, but he ended up doing a good job. 

A fun bit of casting for me was one of Sherman’s daughter’s friends and band members was played by Sean O’Neal, who lived in Orlando, and who played “Sam” the friend who would climb into Clarissa’s bedroom window on “Clarissa Explains it All”, a show I used to watch with my younger son. Clarissa had been shot at Nickelodeon studios at Universal Orlando, when they still had studios there. 

And that’s another fly in the ointment. There was no more Nickelodeon Studios at Universal.  There was a big barren stage, but no lighting grid, and worse, no technicians, no camera men, no nothing.  And Disney, which would presumably produce shows at their complex, wasn’t allowing us to use any of them.  So ALL those pertinent people had to be imported.  Luckily Gary Shimokawa was wired into the network of technical folks, and we imported a superb lighting guy from Los Angeles and put the whole lighting scheme together.  And from New York we brought in four female camera operators from the Michael J. Fox show.  There were some local stage people we found – an excellent prop master for example.

And then there was the set.

Jimbo had built a set that was incredibly deep and huge… and had archways under which no booms could reach, so they had to be dismantled.  And most of the set was unshootable.  One could actually live in it, but not shoot in it.  He then made the tactical error, or his set decorator did, of using dark brown colored furniture – which would serve to make black actors disappear.  And worst of all, there was a critical scene of the first meeting between Sherman and his neighbor – an alley scene where the two are taking out their trash.  Sherman’s take during this scene would get the single largest laugh of the show, when the neighbor assumes he’s “the help”.

The set designer had failed to include this scene in his plans, and had no place to build it. The easiest thought by the genii wannabes was to simply eliminate the scene. I and Gary and other actual professionals around said that was out of the question.  So we devised a plan to put the small set on a “wagon” so it could be wheeled in, and played out before the audience. Amazing.

The bleachers were built low, instead of high – of course they had no sense of how things are done.  But the audience was enthusiastic, aided by the imported warm up of my friend Stu Shostak.  Naturally, Stan and the Garage Group figured a real money saver would be to just use some local comedian. I and Gary again prevailed upon him – you need to have a professional in that job.  Stu very nearly balked as they were giving him a hard time about his fee, his flight, his accommodations, all that.

“Lost in the Mail”

And then there was the time about 10 days before taping night that Dave pulled the plug.

It seems Dave would send Sherman funds – thousands of dollars in cash - via FedEx (which they’ll tell you is a no-no) to his home in El Paso, where his assistant, Ralph (a nice guy who for a time worked for me as a runner on Silver Spoons several years before), and Ken’s girlfriend, Flora resided.  On this particular day, Ralph claims the FedEx envelope arrived – but it was empty.  Now of course Dave immediately assumed embezzlement on the part of Johnston&co, and got so furious about the whole thing he decided to pull the plug on the project.  I wasn’t surprised, robbery or not, as it was getting close to looking like a real show that could possibly sell, and that could not be part of any “Producers”-type scheme. But in any case, he ordered all incoming plane tickets canceled (the director, writers, a couple of actors, my sons, etc.).  Stan and Art dutifully complied.  I figured well, there’s a big set being built but whatever I’ll just go on home.

But the apoplexy lasted a day, and the next day, Dave, perhaps satisfied the money had not been stolen by Johnston&co. decided it was all back on. Well, of course poor Stan was beside himself because now he lost all the “super saver” savings on the airline tickets, as the production would begin within about a week.  Dave had shot himself in the foot for no reason, it appears.  Who knows what happened to the money supposedly en route to El Paso, and I honestly could not tell you if I thought it was somehow “lost” (or stolen) by FedEx, or it was actually stolen by the Sherman camp so they’d get a double payment. Or that Evans (or Stan the money man) deliberately sent an empty envelope, triggering the theft scenario. Neither side was above such shenanigans. Ken was generally desperate enough to do such a thing, but it seemed rather crazy even for him.

Then there was, just a week or so before the production was to start (reading, rehearsals, etc.), a little side trip to New York I had to take with Ken, Flora and Sherman.  Sherman agreed to host a late night comedy show at Caroline’s on Broadway in New York. He wanted me to write up some material for him. So I did. I spent a great deal of time writing up jokes for him.

He was to use none of them, but instead used some stale old stuff he would fall back on.  Nightmare continued.

Stern, Conan and Rick Ludwin!?

Upon arrival in New York, there were supposedly rooms paid for by Garage Group. Not the case. I used my credit card, and we got two rooms. One for me, and one for Sherman and Ken to share, at rather decent hotel off Broadway.   But wow it was great to be in New York City again after several years. Not only did we go to the Caroline’s for a very late show, but Sherman was also booked for the Howard Stern Show, the Isaac Hayes Show and Conan O’Brien.  The Stern appearance necessitated a very early trip to Stern’s broadcast studios. I was hoping to get in on the show. I never saw Stern himself; he remained in his studio the whole time.  I was a huge fan of Stern, so that was disappointing. But I asked Sherman to specifically mention working with me on his pilot in Florida, which he was ostensibly there to pitch, along with Fon Digital.  But instead, Sherman said “Hey I used to work with Jim Stein” – (my ex partner, who was at that time working on a terrible Howard Stern produced show called “Son of the Beach”, a takeoff on “Baywatch”). UGH!!! The whole point was to make Stein jealous, and Sherman couldn’t deliver that. Of course when we then moved on to the Isaac Hayes Show (good guy!), Sherman couldn’t mention my name enough. I think I even chimed in on the show. Finally later that evening we went to 40 Rock where Sherman appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, then on NBC.  And in the hallway who should I meet but my old friend and long time NBC executive, Rick Ludwin, who I guess was in town hovering around Conan.   We exchanged some jokes.  And again, I never got to meet Conan. So I just kind of hung around the hallway.  But it did feel like I was back in big time show business.

Later that evening we went to Caroline’s comedy club again, and met up with Billy Hufsey, who was cast as Sherman’s neighbor in the show. He was a handsome, glib guy. And Flora took a definite shine to him. Hmmm.

I returned alone to Orlando by way of Newark Airport, which I’d never done before… in fact we had arrived in town via Newark, and via limo actually went through the Holland Tunnel to get into Manhattan. Never did that before either.

I got back to Orlando and drove back to my condo in Ken’s car, and couldn’t imagine what crazy stuff awaited. It was production week! My sons Nick and Nate arrived the next morning very early – they had taken the redeye and were brought to my place by Dave’s limo driver.  We had breakfast at yet another Perkins coffee shop. I believe later that day Gary Shimokawa arrived.

Nate, Nick and I shared the condo. Eventually we got access to the hot tub, which may have been common to the condo complex. In any case we had a nice soak in the tub one evening, and that’s when I learned of some of Nate’s quasi delinquency, such as “borrowing” his mother’s car, at age 14, to drive up to Big Bear with friends. Holy crap. His mother and I had separated when he was about 8, so it was rough on him – even though I saw him pretty regularly every other weekend. We also took a couple of trips to New York (along with my daughter Angela), and Nate and I had a memorable plane trip to San Francisco to see the Giants play the Cardinals in a couple of league championship games.  Angela and Nathan were also cast for significant “extra” roles in Silver Spoons, as members of an all kid jury.  So I tried to be as present as possible given the divorce and the long, weird hours of show business.

Nick, who was 13 at the time, was going through a rough patch as we were trying to manage his hyper activity medication… and Nate gave him the old big brother teasing. So it was kind of rough. We would go to Stan’s house, which fronted one of the alligator infested lakes, complete with a little pier and a wave runner. That was a lot of fun, flying around the lake on the wave runner. And Nick took to it himself, and could go out by himself.  But one time during the weekend before production week – perhaps it was Easter Sunday - Nick went out on the lake for a little ride around on the wave runner. But then, to the horror of all of us on shore, he came roaring toward the little beach – and wasn’t stopping! He was seemed to be screaming, and wouldn’t let go of the hand operated accelerator.  All of us were yelling for him to let go of the throttle.  Finally, he basically ran up onto the sand of the little beach, parallel to the wooden pier, and the wave runner stopped. I was absolutely terrified – what the hell was going on with him? Would the thing flip over? He could’ve crashed headlong into the pier.  But he survived.  We were all relieved he wasn’t seriously hurt… but, of course, I was intensely concerned about what the heck happened to him.  He had no ready explanation.  Then the concern was – did he wreck the wave runner paddles which are of course on the bottom of the vehicle.  They seemed to be okay… I could just see that coming out of my paycheck.  It was a freak out I didn’t want to call his mother about… but of course was better than any call that he was seriously injured.

It was quite an adventure, that time in Florida.

Shimokawa somehow immediately got the respect and bows that I never received as he kind of quickly took charge of things.  So that was good, I guess, because, since he couldn’t write, he’d have to defer to me.  He quickly wised the guys up to the need for the lighting guy, and other various crew. We had a pretty decent production office at Universal Studios, and some competent production assistants to distribute the script and so forth. It was evolving into a smooth production that at long last Art and the rest more or less backed off from, to watch and learn or at least not muck up.

About a week before production, Tom Kramer and Sharon Johnson, my writer friends, arrived.  I was to meet with them and Art, and one of Dave’s production assistants, Greg, was to drive me to the hotel coffee shop, but somehow he got “lost”, and we were driving around in circles.  Yes, of course Art’s transparent silly scheme was to give him time to talk to these guys before I got there. OMG it was exasperating yet ridiculous.  Tom and Sharon would never ever be swayed by these guys in any fashion, so if that was the scam I’m not sure what the purpose was. I eventually arrived there, and we had a nice get together.  Of course, their hotel sucked – there were leaks and rats, so I got them moved to more reasonable place. They idea was to go cheap, and it didn’t work.  Gary meanwhile was given nice accommodations, possibly at that same Renaissance Hotel where the silly over the top brunch was held.

On the Thursday before the first Friday reading, we had a “meet and greet” of cast and crew et al. at the Keene Point country club, where Dave managed to have a membership, allowing Art to play golf a lot. I met Lark for the first time, and other members of the cast. It was a nice shindig – which usually happens AFTER the first reading, but whatever, I was straddling hobby and show business here.  But driving back, with Tom, Sharon and my sons, I was amazingly pulled over by the local cops. I’m not sure what I did – too fast, a stop sign? I don’t remember. I explained I was Dave’s friend (hence his car and registration), that we had just came from the Country Club, and we were doing the Sherman TV pilot… something perhaps worked, or maybe it was just mercy, and he let me go.  Maybe Dave DID have some good juice.

On Friday we had the table reading, and naturally some of Dave’s loud mouthed hangers on yakked and cajoled on the stage as we tried to hear what worked and what didn’t.  This is where the would-be “executive” Amy would’ve been able to shine with notes or other useless commentary. Sorry about that.

Triumph and the Opposite Thereof

It was at this point that it was clear Gary and I were large and in charge, and this was looking like a real show.  And a good show.  Sherman was on, he was ready for this, and it was funny.  What was hilarious was when we went around the table to introduce ourselves, Flora introduced herself as “creator”.  That became an enormous bone of contention – should she receive sole “created by” credit on the pilot. Of course I wanted a piece of that action, as potential royalties and such rested upon that.  Also, technically, “created by” is a credit that the Writers Guild determines, based on materials used for the writing of the show, not the least of which is the script itself. They were getting beside themselves in the Sherman camp, so I relented eventually and said fine. I’ll take “developed by”.  It was a joke, after all, but never know.

So Easter Sunday fell in the middle of all this, and Dave had a fabulous brunch for all – including my two sons and myself. So that was sweet.

At the taping itself Gary and I and the assistant director he had brought in sat at the available chairs in the video booth, as usual. Art realized there was no room for him so he excused himself. The taping went incredibly well.  The audience was eager and laughed – everybody loves Sherman.  It was a huge triumph.  I believe we indeed did two tapings (“dress” and “air”).

But one more bit of insanity, or inanity, was thrown into the mix. Between tapings (I think), Ken Johnston’s son, little Kenny, aged about 10, performed a little scene on camera with Sherman – he had been promised a part in the show.  I had to write a whole goddamn little scene for him, and camera men and sound men had to record it. Of course it was never put in the show.

But there were highlights – the prop master was a true master; I had written in a coffin shaped cigarette ashtray with pop up lid, and by god he built one. The hot receptionist, Christina, who had been hired during one of my trips to Los Angeles was cast – by edict of Dave – as a hot, bikini clad girl in one of Sherman’s fantasies.

One of the most memorable things that happened after the taping was that at least Ross, the head of Century III, and perhaps some others, apologized to me about their initial views on the script, since the show went so well.

We finally had our official, all comped trip to Universal Studios theme park. Nick was having troubles with his meds, but he enjoyed several of the rides, as did Nate. We had a guide who put us right onto the rides. This was real show business! I eschewed most of the rides. On one of the 360 degree rides (the roller coaster goes completely upside down); I lost my Houston Astros spring training Norman Lear tennis-type hat… and probably some loose change. My brain was also jolted so much I got a big headache. I’ve outgrown the crazy roller coasters!

Thereafter, the editing took place at Century III – a pretty competent editor, actually, and it went fairly smoothly despite the long hours, which is always the case.

There followed a triumphant brunch the following Sunday, but Nate and Nick flew home earlier that day.

And later that night, my friend Zhvanni – another woman I had met on line – arrived, and she was a much better match up than Diane had been. In between editing sessions, she and I had dinner, toured around Orlando and sexed it up a lot. So a good time was had by all. AND Greg the assistant had made sure her flights were paid for.

And there was incessant belief that this was a democracy.  Once I made an absurd “scouting trip” to Tampa Bay with Art, Jimbo screwball they hired as an art director, and a woman from Century III.  Part of the conversation, perhaps stemming from my “why are we doing this again?” was that we’d find locations for exteriors and if we all agreed, we'd use them.  I said no not if “we all agree”, it’s I who have the final decision.  “What part of that is confusing? This is not a democracy”. That quieted down things in the car, but we proceeded. It, for me, was a nice sightseeing tour to see Tampa Bay – which is quite spectacular.  We had lunch, saw some interesting looking houses to act as Sherman’s house in the script, and took photos.  Of course, it was just another waste of money as we ended up using the exterior of Dave’s house for use in the pilot. Never mind that it didn’t really match the set that the art director designed.

And that was another thing.  We had another meeting wherein the art director came up with plans for a set that would cost $300,000. Of course I and a few of the others thought this was crazy.  But then Dave came in, was told this figure, and said “that’s about what I expected”.  Well, that pulled the rug out from everything, and the art director went ahead with constructing the set… and probably socking away the underage. Crazy.

The set was a ridiculous monstrosity, and my admonition all along was to wait until we got a real director to direct the thing… I recommended Gary Shimokawa to be flown in, but he didn’t arrive until after the set was built.  And of course it was not TV practical.  Bigger problem was Jimbo left out a set, for which he would have had plenty of room had he build the set to proper size.

In the end, I was heroic, having silenced the doubters. And “Love Thy Neighbor” became a rather big deal, locally… was TV production returning to Orlando? The doubters were now non doubters.  “Executive producer” and lions share Lynchburg investor Wayne Booth was giddy.

Mary Ann even blurted out that they wanted to do four more episodes, and that grew into an order.

The only slightly silent one was Dave, who said he wanted to sell the show for $1.5 million or something like that… and he’d have Stan and Art handle the sale to a network or whoever – I shouldn’t do or say anything.  As if Stan or Art could wrangle a network meeting.

That’s when I knew this was not like a The Producers -type scheme, wherein they had collected a lot of money knowing this thing would go nowhere (as the likely odds dictated anyway)… it in fact was a “The Producers” –type scheme. And, like The Producers, the show turned out to be rather attractive – well produced, with a pretty big star attached.  What was the new Max Bielenstock of central Florida to do?

Well the four episode order went forward, as far as I could tell, and I was given the go ahead to hire some writers to write these episodes.  They would set up some sort of production schedule. Idiotic Gary Shimokawa kept saying “Dave, it’s no use doing more episodes! Either the pilot will sell or it won’t!”  Um, shut up! I swear, everybody sooner or later had lost their minds around this thing - even my own soldat! Let them spend their money!

I flew back home to get the writers going, break stories, and so on – promising them righteous payment for their efforts.  Righteous payment we kept waiting for.  Meanwhile, the “created by” credit for Flora was still festering.  I finally got a call from Sherman while sitting, holding court with writers at Jerry’s Deli in Studio City. “Work or war! You choose!” I guess Kenny had decided to unleash the bad Sherman.  Of course I said “work”, and that settled the goddamn “created by” issue.

We continued to work, in good faith proffered by Art… and meanwhile my brother was getting married, and I was the best man! I was working our would-be production schedule around that event.

Eventually, I got word through Gary Shimokawa’s wife – somehow, she was in some loop that I wasn’t – that the Florida people were “pulling the plug”.  Of course I got on the phone or e-mail with Art… who eventually confirmed that was the case.  I said that was great, except writers are owed for their work.  I duly sent story outlines to him and Stan. 

That is when the Garage Groupers did their final backstabbing dishonest backpedaling – claiming they never ordered scripts.

But since I had been responsible for several writers doing this work, not to mention myself, I had no choice but to file a grievance with the Writers Guild (insofar as they were signatories).  That hearing was a bit one sided – nobody from the Garage Group showed up.  I was awarded a judgment that included back pay of over $150,000 and the requirement for Garage Group to make a contribution to the WGA Pension and Health Plan based on that salary.  My pension plan was credited with that amount.  I was hoping it would afford Tom and Sharon health care benefits, but that was not to be the case.  The Writers Guild made some pursuit of Dave and the rest of the Garage Group in Florida courts, but to no avail.  We never saw any money.

A final long distance “fuck you” was that, after arriving back home in L.A., while I quickly mailed their cellphone back to Florida, I waited weeks for them to ship the belongings I left behind (which could fit into one big box). When I finally received the box, the contents were covered in oregano – they had throw the container (along with uncooked spaghetti and unused toilet paper, etc.) into the box and it broke open, either accidentally - or on purpose out of some psycho resentment. I forget what they had returned to me, probably nothing vital… some clothes perhaps. 

In another postscript, I ran into Gary, the Garage Group’s young lawyer who I knew lived in Santa Monica, and we agreed to hook up for lunch one day.  We set a time, and I waited.  But, in true Garage Group fashion, Gary never showed up.

The Comedy Murderer

In a few intervening years, Dave and Stan died.  I assumed ownership of the pilot tape, and managed to get an audience at Warner Brothers with head of development Peter Roth around 2007.  I think he expected Sherman to show up (of course he didn’t; Sherman was back in El Paso).  Roth viewed the pilot with his staff, but it was passed on as if it was a relic (“3 camera video tape? Please”). A comedy murderer, this guy, but then there are a lot of them. That was the last hurrah for “Love Thy Neighbor”, other than a brief flirtation with some Dave Evans-like entrepreneurs in Atlanta who liked the pilot and wanted to do it.  But they had no money, and apparently none to steal, that could afford to produce a decent series with Sherman, even in Atlanta, I guess. And with the passing of Sherman Hemsley in 2012, so passed the show.