As I mentioned in the first part of this article some time ago, the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out in 1982 — August of '82 to be more precise. It was a pretty big hit and as some movie studios doubtlessly noticed, it was a pretty big hit on a rather modest budget.
There were no huge, costly movie stars in it. There were no exotic locations or costly special effects. So even before it came out, when the advance word within the industry was promising, there were imitations in every possible pipeline. One of those imitations was a screenplay I'd been commissioned to write. Its commissioner hoped it would have the same feel and appeal as Fast Times…and the same success.
I wrote a script and the outfit that hired me liked it but in the short time they gave me to whip up a First Draft, they changed their minds on one thing. They'd told me to put in nudity and naughty words and a few drug jokes because they were angling for an "R" rating like Fast Times. Once I handed it in, they were very happy with it but they had me do a quick rewrite to lose ten pages and to shoot for a "PG." Just a few weeks later, that suddenly seemed a more commercial way to go.
Among the things they liked: That the script, which I called Sky High, had no similar plot points and the characters were quite different. No one who'd seen Fast Times could say it was a direct copy.
An indirect copy? Yeah, probably. But not many people said that because not many people read my script. Once almost anyone realized it was that kind of movie, they said, "Thank you but we already have quite enough of that kind of movie in development."
I was paid in full for Sky High and then my agent began to use it as a sample of my writing to get me other work…and it did. It brought me a number of jobs from folks who said in effect, "We don't want to produce this but we would like to hire the guy who wrote it to write something else for us." One of the producers he sent it to was the lady who'd recommended me for the job in the first place. I will call this person The Producer Lady. The Producer Lady read it and had a very odd idea.
By now, it was early 1990. Not long before, NBC had begun shaking up its Saturday morning lineup. Once all cartoons, it suddenly contained a live-action situation comedy called Saved by the Bell that aimed at a slightly older audience. It did well in the ratings and brought a whole new flock of advertisers to Saturday morn. Indeed in the next few years, there would be less 'n' less animation on NBC Saturday AM and more shows like Saved by the Bell.
The Producer Lady's idea, inspired in a way by my script, was that her company would procure the TV rights to Fast Times at Ridgemont High and turn it into a series that could run on Saturday morning, maybe even on NBC, right after Saved by the Bell. At the time, Fast Times was still a big hit on cable channels and she had seen some sort of poll or survey that said it was very much beloved by the target audience for the sponsors that Saved by the Bell was now attracting. She said, That plus your Sky High script, which will show you can write funny material for that setting, is all we need!"
I was skeptical. Fast Times on Saturday morning? A lot of it was about teenagers getting laid, and while network TV was getting bolder about sex, that was only with sex between people over the age of 18 who were seen in the evening hours. In fact in prime time, they were getting more timid about minors — kids in high school — "going all the way." So the kind of somewhat-honest boy-girl relations in the movie wouldn't/couldn't be in a TV series. I didn't think they could even put on some of the PG-rated things I'd written in Sky High.
Also, the most interesting character in Fast Times, the one who hands down stole the movie, was Spicoli as played by Sean Penn. Spicoli was a well-fried pothead and if you took that away…well then, he wasn't Spicoli now, was he?
And of course, there'd be no naked people. Call me cynical but I did have the crazy thought that one of the reasons the film had done so well was the scene where Phoebe Cates takes off her bikini top. Just a hunch.
I asked The Producer Lady, "Do you think you can even get the rights?"
She said, "We'll pitch it to the network" — and I knew that basically meant that I would pitch it to the network. "It's a hot property," she continued. "It's too famous for the network to turn it down. They'll at last feel they have to develop it and if they're willing to put up development money, someone at Universal will sell us the rights."
So then I asked the Producer Lady, "Yeah, but don't you think they'll say, 'If we take out the sex, drugs and nudity, it won't be Fast Times at Ridgemont High.'"
She said, "No, the name is what they want." She added that the movie of M*A*S*H had had sex and nudity and a few drug references and that removing all those elements had not prevented it from being turned into a rather successful TV show." Off my reply of "Not on Saturday morning," she scrunched her nose and said, "Let's go in and pitch it. You'll see."
I went along with it, plotting out a pitch for Fast Times: The Kid Show, though I didn't call it that. One sunny afternoon, we went into the executive building at NBC in Burbank for an appointment with the Vice-President of Childrens Programming, who was surrounded by her aides. As is customary in such meeting, we first engaged in the customary pre-pitch banter, telling jokes and swapping gossip.
Then, suddenly, everyone in the room knew it was time. The Producer Lady made a brief speech about how she had this idea and we all thought it was the most super, spectacular, exciting idea ever to be heard within in the executive offices of a major television network." She then nodded to me and, feeling as awkward as I always do in these situations — and more awkward because I was selling something I didn't think had a prayer — I began…
"You're probably familiar with the movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont…"
And I don't think I even got to the High before the Vice-President person said, "We'd have to take out the sex, drugs and nudity and if we take out the sex, drugs and nudity, it won't be Fast Times at Ridgemont High."
I got up and said, "Thank you for your time" and I headed for the door. The Producer Lady scrambled right after me and that was the end of that, forever and ever.
Obviously, it was not the best idea ever for a Saturday morning TV program. I could make the case it was not the worst but that really doesn't matter. What matters is that if you started the clock the moment I began telling them about the project, it was the shortest pitch in the history of network programming. If you'd gone in and said, "How about a wacky sitcom with Paul Lynde as Charles Manson?," you couldn't have been out of that room in less time than I was. I'm kind of proud of that.