Friday, May 15, 2009

Clearing up a little rumor about me

I heard a rumor about myself yesterday from a friend. It went like this: "Someone told me that you were asked to write for a television show."

Me: That's not exactly true.

Friend: I heard it was for 'The Office."

Me: !

Me: That's not true at all.

Here's the story that this rumor is probably based off of... when I was in college one of my professors in a screenwriting class was a well-respected television writer. She really liked my writing and a script I was working on for her class and she thought that she might be able to get me a job. She said there was this new television show coming out that was looking for young writers and I might be a good fit for it.

Professor: I think I can get you a job with this new television show.

Me: That's GREAT!

Prof: It's a show based on a movie.

Me: What movie?

Prof: It was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Me: HA HA HA! That was a terrible movie!

Prof (offended): I don't have to get you a job.

Me: No way! I will write for any show!

I finished the script as my prof requested and sent it to her and never heard from her again. I always assumed this was because I broke the Hollywood rule of never badmouthing the work of someone else because you might work with them in the future (I didn't know, I swear). It wouldn't be the first time that my Big Mouth got me in trouble. On the other hand, in retrospect, it may have been that the script I sent just wasn't very good. I try not to think about that.

3 comments:

  1. Ah! I totally hear you on kids' usage of the word "fair." I occasionally hear "It's not fair!" from the kids I babysit, when it's actually very fair. I think they MEAN, "That sucks for me!"

    Did you ever read Calvin and Hobbes? One of my favorite dialogues between Calvin and his dad:

    Calvin: It's not fair!
    Dad: Life's not fair.
    Calvin: Well, why can't it be unfair in my favor?

    :)

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  2. Anonymous6:37 AM

    Waaaaaait... You have a Big Mouth? That gets you in trouble? Since when?

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  3. I once wrote an episode of Gilligan's island where they almost got off the island but Gilligan spoiled it. I also wrote an episode of 3's Company where the scenario was basically that Janet and Crissy thought they saw Jack do something creating a lot of comic foil but in the end it turned out to be a wrong assumption.

    Never understand why neither scripts got bought. They seemed original to me.

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