Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star (22 page)

“Fred, stop obsessing and find your little part and reassure yourself it’s in so you can fall back asleep,” I told myself.

I was a little sleepy, a little out of it as I skimmed the pages looking for the character “Fred” I was portraying.

“Ok, don’t freak out,” I told myself after the first time scanning the script and not seeing my character’s name. I looked again and still didn’t see it. Not again. Oh well, what can you do? I’ll get paid for the week. There are bigger injustices than this I suppose. But then I came to the scene in the kitchen and I realized that for some reason my character’s name was changed from Fred to Stu. That was it. The next day I asked someone about it and they said that they realized that my name was not established the first time I was on. I was so relieved to be back. I didn’t ask why the name was changed.

I was so excited about returning and staying the week at
Friends
I didn’t even care that I didn’t get the great dressing room with the phone and bathroom I had the first time. I got a flimsy little room outside the stage that was bare and shook each time someone walked past it. I found out that all the choice rooms for the guests were torn down to make room for a private gym for the stars of the show.

Joel, being the great friend, was utterly incensed they did that to me. He suggested I complain to someone on the show about what they did to our rooms. “Our rooms?” Those guys had the right to do whatever they wanted to fix up their place. That’s like if a friend complained that instead of me spending money to buy a new couch for him to sleep on when he stays at my place, I used that money to buy myself a stereo.

27

NORM STOLE MY JACKET

I
said to myself, “I’ve got to stop being so afraid all the time. I’ve got to change my strategy. Maybe I’ve been this visiting guy who’s always afraid of making waves for too long, and maybe I should be more ballsy.”

All of those self-examining thoughts raced through my mind after getting a week’s worth of taunting on Norm Macdonald’s first self-titled sitcom
Norm
. I was playing a pathologically shy guy and Norm played a social worker. I hoped I could be one of the recurring nuts that come by for counseling.

Norm was a ball-buster who preyed on my vulnerability. I told him how much I liked his impression of Quentin Tarantino on
Saturday Night Live
and he harshly remarked, “That’s a great thing to bring up. That was the last show I did on
SNL
before I was fired. That’s real nice of you!”

Luckily I realized quickly most of his bullying was for comic relief and after a while, it was sort of fun, I had to admit. True to when I was a kid, I actually preferred a certain degree of taunting to feeling invisible. And maybe I unwittingly helped set up that dynamic. Even though Norm was a pain in the ass, I felt connected to the show. I opened up and told him I had written a movie called
Ski Potty
because I thought I had a contact with a producer of cheesy ski comedies. I never had any pretense about it. I knew it was silly and lowbrow. It was a story about a pathetic guy who buys a port-a-potty, attaches it to a snowmobile, and charges people to use his mobile bathroom at a ski resort.

I’d be standing with a group of people, and Norm would say “Hey, tell everyone about your movie
Ski Potty
.”

He never missed an opportunity to embarrass me. “I heard Al Pacino is really interested in this new hot script
Ski Potty
.”

If I mentioned a woman I had a date with, or if he saw me talking to a woman on the set, he’d say, “Look at you. You are a sexual predator! Look at Fred!” Other people’s suffering seemed to ignite Norm. He’d often pull together a group just to have me repeat stories he liked.

“Tell them what your mother says when she calls you up.”

So I’d tell how she asks, “Anything good happening, or the same?”

He’d make me retell the story about humiliating myself with Billy Crystal. Norm played another ball-busting game where he’d purposely misinterpret something you’d say and fake unbelievable shock. For example, I’d say, “I have an audition next week for this other show.”

“What!? You’re quitting this show midweek to work somewhere else?! That’s terrible. That’s so unprofessional!”

Still, Norm could be fun. There wasn’t pressure about messing up because the set had such a loose feel to it. We’d talk about everything but the show. It was almost an afterthought to him. When I mentioned that I had gotten into tennis lately, Norm joined a court right by the studios. He soon seemed in a rush to get through rehearsals so we could get more time on the court. It was a stuffy place, so they weren’t crazy about Norm’s playing style, which involved cursing, throwing racquets, and taunting me when he scored a point. When I’d miss a shot, he’d run right up to me, laugh in my face, and raise his fist in the air, screaming, “Yes! Sweet! Yes!”

On Friday’s tape night, until just before taping started, I was playing tennis with Norm and Artie Lange, who played Norm’s brother. We were getting all sweated up. I asked Norm, “Shouldn’t we get back and get ready for the show?” It was obvious he didn’t care. It was his show, so I thought, “What the hell.” I didn’t really have any lines to memorize anyway; because of my character’s acute shyness, all I had to do was mumble inaudibly. We made it back to the set with moments to spare.

Hanging out during a break, Norm managed to indirectly taunt me some more. Laurie Metcalf was a regular on his show also. She had co-starred for ten seasons on the hit series
Roseanne
.

“In your ten seasons on
Roseanne
, did any of the guest actors end up becoming famous?” he asked her.

She thought about it a few moments. “No, none that I can think of.”

On ten seasons of
Roseanne
, hundreds of guest actors must have passed through, and she could think of none who had hit it big. There, of course, were the special guest stars on
Roseanne
, Martin Mull, Fred Willard, Sandra Bernhard, but that was different. They were already famous.

If Norm had meant to throw me into career despair, he’d done a great job. Were the actors doing these guest star parts stuck in a cycle from which it was impossible to ascend? Was I one of them? I had always figured that all these guest star parts would accumulate and snowball into something big. I thought about it some more and figured I was overreacting.
Roseanne
was just one show. There had to be other shows with dozens of guests who rose higher than that.

My thoughts then turned to an overcompensating “I am going to conquer the world” pep talk. I will be the first multi-year guest star actor who hits it really big. From then on in, others will try to emulate my career. They will push their agents for any delivery-guy parts or any peripheral cousin parts that they could find! And if that doesn’t happen, I told myself that there were scores of actors on the same route I was on that ended up having very respectable careers. Okay, not everyone was meant to be a star like Mike Myers or Steve Martin. And then I asked myself, “Why
can’t
I be big like Mike Myers or Steve Martin?” Just because they hit it big right away and I didn’t shouldn’t mean the big dream is over for me. Then I wished Norm had never asked Laurie Metcalf that question in the first place. He knew that would mess me up.

But as with a lot of Norm’s comedy, he had struck an uncomfortable truth.

I’m pretty sure taking our tennis matches outside my appearances on Norm’s show may have cost me thousands of dollars. After appearing twice as a pathologically shy guy who worked where Norm played a social worker, I was told I was going be a recurring character until I spoke up for myself.

A week after my second appearance, Norm and his assistant showed up at my apartment. He wanted to play some more tennis. I got in his assistant’s car and after we played a few hours and Norm defeated me, I forgot my nice new denim jacket in his car. For days after, I asked him to return it, and he’d wave his hand dismissively, “Oh, that jacket. You and that jacket.”

Then I made a mistake one night and vented to a date about the jacket. At the end of the night, she got a little upset when I made a pass at her. “All you men with your urges!” she said as she stormed out of my apartment. Since this woman was the only one I told about the incident, I’m certain she was the one who went on Norm’s fan site pretending to be me, cursing Norm out, saying he stole my jacket. Norm’s right-hand woman found out and called me up asking why I was belittling Norm on his website. I tried explaining I wouldn’t do such a thing, and if I did, would I use my real name? It made no sense. The damage was done though. For the next two seasons I didn’t return until the very last episode of the series. Eventually I bumped into Norm’s assistant who was nice enough to run to Norm’s house and bring me back my jacket.

28

MY REAL GOOD DEMO REEL

I
stood outside the guard gate at Warner Brothers Studios. A production assistant for the recently canceled
The
Brian Benben Show
was doing me a favor. She was coming out to give me a video duplication of the episode I had appeared on. That was my only way of getting a copy of it because the show was axed before all the episodes were aired.

I played Bernie, the ultimate sports collector. I owned a sports bar and some great sports legends were at the opening of my restaurant. Sadly it was the last appearance of Olympic track star Florence Griffith Joyner. Shortly after appearing on the show, she tragically died of an epileptic seizure. Also joining her on the show were two former Los Angeles Laker stars, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Kurt Rambis. Jabbar had a reputation for being aloof his whole NBA career. After watching him film one of his other scenes from the sidelines, I told him he did a really good job.

“Really? You really think so?” he excitedly asked.

I saw that this seven-foot intimidator was a little insecure and just needed to hear he was doing a good job. Brian Benben who starred in the critically acclaimed HBO show
Dream On
was now playing a news reporter. I felt the show was very strong and was surprised it never got a shot. There was grumbling on the set that CBS wasn’t really behind it and they were looking to introduce Ted Danson’s new show
Becker
in that spot instead.

I was sorry it didn’t air. Obviously Brian Benben must have been more disappointed than I was. I intended to put my scene from the show on my demo reel. I felt it would showcase me in a different light than other clips I had that were edited onto the reel. Benben’s character was trying to interview me, but I was so excited, I talked faster than my usual droll, low-key way of talking.

An actor uses a demo reel as a way for casting agents, directors, agents, etc. to get a sense of their work. It’s also a way to encompass their total range of work and show their high points. It used to be expensive to go to an editing facility to pay for editing time to construct my demo reel. I’m lucky that my friend had the equipment and was very generous in helping me edit it.

Also on the reel was a clip of me from HBO’s
Thirteenth Annual Young Comedian’s Special
. Of course I had my
Seinfeld
clips on it. I had a segment of me doing some of my stand-up comedy jokes on the Comedy Central animated show
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
. That was a fun, unique show where comedians did their act and were animated as if they were patients talking to Dr. Katz, their therapist. The style of animation was one they invented called Squigglevision, which was basically a drawing shaking back and forth.

After it had aired, a person on the street told me they saw me on the show and liked what they saw. Obviously this person had to know me from something else. No one seeing that show would be able to spot who the actual person was supposed to be based on its crude blurry style, although it still was fun to see myself animated.

The scene from
The Brian Benben
Show
was inserted onto the reel and I had twenty new copies made at my favorite video house, and I had someone important to show the tape to.

In Los Angeles, people hardly ever walk the streets. It’s just not really done. The town is massively spread out and it’s rare that the three things you need to do are within a four-block radius. People think you’re a mental patient if you’re over thirty-five and walking by yourself in L.A. A woman from one of my former acting classes used to wait tables at a restaurant by my apartment. Once when I was walking by she came out and had to say something.

“Hey, um, I see you walking by all the time. What’s wrong?”

But I like to walk. I like to find the places where others might be so I can feel I’m interacting. I’ll find a mall. If you’re walking around a mall you can pretend you’re shopping and seemingly have a purpose. And when I walk, I hope something might happen that will change my life. It’s the same hope as when I check my voicemail or e-mail messages. I just hope that getting out of my house will lead to some miraculous chance encounter.

Perhaps that’s why I put so much pressure on my demo reel when I bumped into film director Amy Heckerling at the Beverly Connection mall. Her daughter had recognized me from
Seinfeld
and that started a little conversation. Amy Hecklerling was the director of such films as
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
,
Look Who’s Talking
, and
Clueless
. She had actually seen me twenty years earlier when I first started out as a comedian in New York City. After our friendly talk, she asked who my agent was. I mentioned them and not to my surprise, she had never heard of them. Then being a bit brave, I asked if I could send her my tape. (I suppose I learned nothing from my harsh initiation to Hollywood when Billy Crystal slammed me for asking if I could send him one.) Apparently I didn’t “push it” too far with her and she said to call her office and her assistant would give me her home address for me to send it. I was excited. I thought she’d watch it and maybe have me in mind for something she was working on.

I brought the tape to the post office after anxiously deciding what my cover letter should say. I called a friend and he said the simpler, the better. It was two lines: “It was great bumping into you last week. I hope you enjoy the tape.”