If
you believe Hollywood is all about money, you misunderstand the industry. There
is one thing that trumps cash every time: vendettas. And there are plenty
of them. Some are personal. Many are political.
When I was writing for the NBC sitcom
House Rules, things started out glowing for the show. The network and studio
liked what they were seeing. They were telling executive producer/show runner
Chris Thompson we would be likely be slotted between Friends and Seinfeld on
Thursday nights – the golden spot in all of television.
Then NBC President Warren Littlefield
took time out of his busy day to travel to the studio to watch a run-through
the night before a taping. He appeared to enjoy the script, but asked for
more of “the magic of Casey” in a meeting shortly after. Casey was played
by Maria Pitillo, the star of the show.
Thompson, known for being a bad boy
among bad boys, mocked Littlefield for the “magic of Casey” line in front of
his staff. I don’t remember what Chris said. But I do remember we all laughed.
At the moment, it seemed funny to
everyone in the room. But then we began to wonder: Did Chris just kill
the show?
Turns out, he did. Shortly
after that day, the network announced we would be on Monday nights and they put
our first episode up against the NCAA basketball championship game. It
put another opposite the Academy Awards.
Just like that, we were dead.
The show cost nearly a million dollars an episode to make. And NBC
was willing to dump all of that money in the river after one ill-advised
comment from Chris Thompson. And this wasn’t a public comment, like
Roseanne’s. And it wasn’t racist – the worst of the worst.
I’ve told this story to other writers
who have told me similar stories.
So when I see ABC toss Roseanne over
one incredibly idiotic tweet, I’m reminded that the entertainment industry is
perfectly willing to lose money when pride is on the line. No, I don’t believe
the comedian’s racist comment is the pride issue. Her decision to portray a family
that has a Trump supporter as its matriarch is enough.
They knew Roseanne Barr was trouble
going in. They’ve seen other controversial tweets. They’ve been
shown the Heeb magazine picture of her dressed in a Nazi outfit taking
people-shaped cookies from an oven.
But Roseanne was a liberal. She
didn’t follow all the rules, but she followed the ones they consider sacred.
That ended when she chose to make the main character in their sitcom a
Trump voter.
ABC has other stars whose vitriol is
tolerated to a high degree. They just signed Keith Olbermann to a
contract with ESPN. A quick google of Olbermann tweets and you’ll see he
is one of the most angry, bitter humans on the planet. And he tosses
around the word Nazi like a high school girl might say “like.”
And it’s not that Roseanne Barr is a
conservative. She isn’t. Her politics still run mostly far left.
But that Trump-voter thing is poison in Hollywood.
So, no, I don’t believe that tweet is
what killed Roseanne, vile as it may be. I believe it was simply the
cover the network needed to get rid of a show that caused embarrassment when
executives were hobnobbing at parties in Beverly Hills.
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