You know where I am and what I'm doing and why I'm posting reruns here. This one first saw the light of this blog on 11/20/16…
Back in '83, I wrote the pilot and bible for the animated Saturday morning series, Dungeons & Dragons, then wrote one more episode. After that, I declined further involvement. I had other commitments at the time and other offers so I didn't stay with the show. It was a modest success and the mere fact that I'd help sell it got me more offers and inquiries for my services. I also got a few calls of congratulations and/or praise from other writers I knew.
Never take those seriously. I mean it. They may well be sincere in what they say but they may just be buttering you up because…well, why not? Getting on your good side might benefit them in some way down the line. More immediately, at least a few who called were hoping I could help them get an assignment on the series, which I couldn't. I was able to recommend a few writers early in the process before I'd stepped away from the show but not after.
One writer I'll call Zachary called and could not have been gushier: "You did a great job, Mark…really solid work there…just terrific…" Knowing this guy, I felt for a moment like he was Sgt. Bilko and I was Colonel Hall being set up for the big con but he didn't push me to do anything in particular for him so I was cordial and I thanked him and that was that.
Before I get to this next part, you should know this: I had no opinion of Zachary as a writer. Didn't know if he was good, didn't know if he was bad, didn't particularly care. To this day, I don't think I've seen or read anything he's written. I almost never see myself as being in competition with other writers and even when I do, it doesn't matter what I think of them. What matters is what the people doing the hiring think of each of us.
Okay. So a year or two after Dungeons & Dragons went on the air, my agent got a call from some producers who were doing a live-action kids' show for syndication. The pilot had been sold — or so they said — and they were soon to go into production on 25 more episodes for which a story editor was needed. "They want to meet with you," Bernie the Agent said, "but I need to warn you. This sounds like it could be the lowest-paying job you'll ever be offered." Having been offered some gigs that starving homeless folks would have passed on, that sounded pretty dismal.
I asked him, "Is it WGA?" If a show is covered by the Writers Guild of America, there are certain minimums that must be paid. And now that I think of it, that was a dumb question because Bernie and his agency would never have anything to do with a non-Guild live-action show, nor would I, nor should you.
"It's WGA," Bernie said. "But they're doing this show on a micro-budget and they seem to have found some sort of loophole in the WGA contract that allows them to pay you in beads and trinkets. Do you want to go in and meet them or not? It's your call."
Back then, I went in for every interview, even for jobs I knew I wouldn't want. Even when meetings didn't result in employment, I always found them interesting and educational. I learned a lot from some of those meetings and, of course, there's always the slim chance I'll make a good impression and the slimmer chance that those producers will someday be producing something with real money. So I told him, yeah, I'd go in and meet with them.
At the appointed time, I drove to a tiny movie lot in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles — a lot that I didn't even know existed and today does not. It was not easy to find and I was about ten minutes late…which turned out to not be a problem because everyone else they'd been seeing all day was twenty minutes late. The meeting was in a teensy bungalow — the kind of building in which the Seven Dwarfs would have gotten claustrophobia. Just seeing it made me think I wouldn't be working on this show.
The bungalow had been cheaply-partitioned into two rooms. One was the receptionist's space and a little waiting area. The rest was the office wherein I could hear the producers interviewing someone else. "Just have a seat," the receptionist said…and I didn't intend to peek at it but there was a list on her desk of writers who were coming in today. You couldn't miss it and the name just above mine was Zachary's, plus I also recognized his voice.
I took a seat and I couldn't not hear every word that was being uttered in the next office. Clearly, I could hear him say…
"You know, a lot of shows just collapse in the development stage. The guy who writes the pilot…all he cares about is selling the thing and getting his sales bonus. He doesn't give a damn about what Episode 2 and Episode 3 or Episode 12 are going to be like because he's just going to grab his money and run. He doesn't set things up to make for a good series because that's not his problem…"
An interesting point of view on Zachary's part. That has never been my experience or observation but it's certainly possible that a pilot might be able to sell the series but push it in the wrong direction. That, however, was not what was really on my mind at the moment. What was on my mind was, "I shouldn't be hearing this." I shouldn't be eavesdropping, even unintentionally on his meeting, just as I wouldn't want someone listening in on mine.
I got up and told the receptionist that I was going to wait outside. She said that would be fine but before I made it out the door, I heard —
"I'll give you an example. There's this show on Saturday morning called Dungeons & Dragons. It was a good idea for a show but the development on it was horrendous. I don't know who wrote it…it may have been the producer's nephew or someone because it definitely wasn't a professional job. It set the direction of the show all wrong and…"
That was all I heard but it was enough.
I came to a number of immediate conclusions. One was that Zachary knew darn well I was the next interview. That list of writers on the receptionist's desk was unmissable. Another was that he did not realize he could be heard in the waiting area. Yet another was that Zachary was a weasel of the first, second and third order.
Also, I decided I wasn't going to say anything about it or even let him know that I'd heard him. I waited until he departed the bungalow, went back in and then the receptionist escorted me about 2.5 feet into the inner office. I no longer recall the names of the husband/wife producing team I met with so let's call them Buddy and Sally.
I also don't remember the name of their show so let's call it The Fun Show. You never saw The Fun Show. That day I went in for the meeting, Buddy and Sally were certain it was a "go" project with many more episodes to be written and filmed and none of us knew it would never make it onto television. I do not believe anything beyond the pilot was ever produced.
Exactly what happened, I can't say for certain but after I tell you a little more, we'll all have a pretty good guess. And by the way, I'm calling it The Fun Show because Sally was incapable of formulating a sentence about it without using the word "fun," as in "We want this show to be fun" or "The story editor we hire must know how to inject a lot of fun into things" or "Do you think you can give us the proper quotient of fun?"
At one point, she asked me, "What is your definition of fun?" I started to say "Not sitting here, answering these questions" but instead, I said something utterly meaningless like, "Fun is the antithesis of any condition or situation in which people, alone or in a group, are not having fun."
Sally turned to Buddy and said, "See? He gets it!"
They then showed me a 10-minute hunk of their pilot — "the best moments," they said. I managed to stop myself from saying something that began with "If these are the best moments…" but trust me. What I saw was incoherent, amateurish, badly-staged and about as much fun as a root canal with a Craftsman 19HP 42 in. Turn Tight® Automatic Riding Mower.
When it was mercifully over, Buddy pulled the cassette out of the Betamax® and asked me, "What do you think you can do with this?" I was going to name some good TV shows you could record by reusing the tape but I thought, "What's the point? I need to just get the hell outta here." I gave him some sort of answer, thanked them for having me in and got the hell outta there. As I headed for my car, I thought, "Boy, that show would not be the antithesis of any condition or situation in which people, alone or in a group, are not having fun."
The next day, Bernie phoned. "They called but not to offer you the job. They want to know what kind of salary you'd want so if it's too high, they won't have to spend the time deciding if they want you."
I said, "Price me out of it."
He said, "I can probably do that by quoting them the starting hourly rate at McDonald's" — and off my agent went to try and not get me a job. He called back ten minutes later and told me that just to see what would happen, he quoted them basic WGA scale — in other words, the absolute minimum they could pay me.
"I think you're the first one they asked about this," he said. "They apparently have no idea about the WGA contract that they're working under. The man gasped and I heard him repeat the number to the woman and she was aghast. I think they really were thinking they could get a professional story editor for McDonald's pay." Scale wasn't that much money.
An hour later, the phone rang again. It was Zachary, calling to ask me a computer question of no import. After we got through the bogus reason for his call, he said, "Hey, while I've got you here, I heard you were up for the story editor job on that Fun Show thing that's looking for a story editor."
I told him I'd been in to see them (as if he didn't already know that) and that I'd decided the show was not for me. He said, "Well, you know what's best for you. Say, just out of curiosity, if you did want to do that show, what kind of a salary would you ask for?"
I thought a second and said, "I'd start at triple Writers Guild scale and maybe be prepared to come down to double or a little more. They're looking for someone real good and if you quote them anything less, they're going to figure you're on the bottom of the business. Have you talked to them? Because you'd be real good for it."
"Thanks, Mark," he said. "I knew I could count on you. I always tell people you're truly one of the best guys in this industry."
