Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star (15 page)

Eventually, they actually approved stories for a second script, but something was amiss. Larry told me to write it up, but he wasn’t as involved in helping me plot out the story as he was on “The Soup.” He seemed vague. “Yeah. Okay, write it up,” is all he said. In my next episode, Jerry works a cruise ship, makes an off-color joke, and then becomes the pariah of the boat. I put George in a situation I had been in back when I did stand-up comedy in New York City. The comedian, Sandra Bernhard, had rejected me. The only problem was: I had never even asked her out. I had found out through Marjorie Gross, a mutual friend, that a journalist from
Rolling Stone
, also named Fred, had been calling Sandra up. Sandra told Marjorie, “Fred Stoller somehow got my number. He said he’s going on the road with The Pretenders, and when he gets back, he wants to get together. I’m not really interested.” After putting some clues together, the two women laughed when they realized that she had rejected the wrong Fred. Thus, thanks to Marjorie, who thought it was amusing, I found out that if I were ever interested in Sandra Bernhard, I would have been slammed down. I had this happen to George, who, even though he is not attracted to this woman, becomes obsessed with winning her over.

They seemed to like my Kramer story the best. When I was a kid, our family visited an animal resort in Florida called Monkey Jungle. We saw these men throwing rocks at the monkeys. When the guards ran over to stop them, this one guy pointed to the monkeys and said, “Hey, they started it!” So I wrote up a similar situation in which Kramer has a confrontation at the zoo and has to apologize to the monkey.

Larry read the script, but said he wasn’t going to do it. He just didn’t buy a story about Jerry and Elaine being on a boat. I was puzzled. Why then did he have me spend all that time writing it up?

After scores of other ideas had been rejected, I felt demoralized and invisible even more when one writer was leaving to have dinner with another comedian, and Larry called out right in front of me, “Ask him if he has any premises for our show!”

I’d walk the hallways, go out to play pinball, and stand around on the actual set hoping ideas would hit me. Roaming around once, I overheard Jerry urging Larry to purchase a Porsche. Those were Jerry’s favorite cars. Larry actually bought one, but returned it after just one day losing a big chunk of money, telling everyone, “I felt everyone was looking at me saying, ‘Who does that bald middle-aged Jew think he is driving that car?’”

I was doing my best to contribute. I also overheard that Carol Leifer was trying to flesh out a story about Kramer making extra money lending himself for police lineups. I suggested she use my original police composite story in her script. I thought I might score big points as a team player when I didn’t ask to get a story credit for my contribution. She thanked me, but no one else acknowledged me for the assist. (Years later, when Leifer starred in her own show for the WB called
Alright Already
, I was offered a fun guest part as an annoying cousin who sues her for sexual harassment. I felt that was a fair payoff.)

I had exhausted all my
Seinfeld
-esque life experiences. I dumped out my journals and did everything short of going to a psychic to dig up experiences I might have blocked out. One of the young writers, hardly a year out of college, commented that unlike me, he has to make up stuff because nothing bad ever happened to him. I was stunned. I had never met anyone like that before in my life, a person who claimed that nothing bad ever happened to him. But I’d soon open my eyes and notice that there were other writers like that, too. And they all did very well. He and some of his colleagues were already on their third episode by that point.

So I tried to also make things up. Forget my life. That didn’t seem to be working. When I did stand-up, sometimes I would do something called non-jokes, which were non sequiturs that sounded like jokes, but just missed. For instance:

“We were so poor growing up; we could only afford a blue car!”

“My girlfriend talks so much, she has pom-pom’s on her phone!”

“She’s so fat, when she goes to a nude beach she has to bring a bookmark!”

And in writing these, I had discovered that sometimes by accident I’d actually write one that some friends considered a “real joke.” So I decided to write down nonsense ideas as fast as I could. I wrote faster than I could think. I hoped that maybe by accident, here too a real premise might emerge. Here are some I knew well enough not to pitch:

JERRY INSULTS MANUTE BOL.

JERRY PUTS COINS IN HIS CLOSET AND THEY LEAK DOWNSTAIRS.

JERRY DATES A TRAFFIC REPORTER WHO LOVES BEING STUCK IN TRAFFIC.

AT THE PHARMACY THEY WANT TO KNOW HOW JER
RY USED EVERY ONE OF HIS BAND-AIDS.

JERRY’S PARTNER IN A CANOE TRIP BY ACCIDENT FILLED THEIR CANTEENS WITH YOO-HOO.

HE COMES UPON AN OLD DIARY AND CAN’T REMEMBER WHO A CERTAIN WOMAN IS.

HE FINDS A KARATE SCHOOL IS USING HIM AS AN EXAMPLE OF A TYPICAL BULLY.

JERRY GOES TO A KNICKS GAME AND AS A RESULT HE IS IN THE BACKGROUND OF A BASKETBALL CARD.

JERRY GETS A ROLODEX FILE DELIVERED AND THEY, BY ACCIDENT, NAIL IT TO THE WALL.

JERRY HAS A PACK OF INDEX CARDS THROWN AT HIM BECAUSE SOMEONE THOUGHT HE SAID HE WASN’T THAT ORGANIZED.

JERRY GETS A BULLETIN BOARD AND FINDS OUT IT’S BETTER TO STICK THINGS ONTO THE OTHER SIDE OF IT!

JERRY GOES OUT WITH A WOMAN WHO WANTS HIM TO HOLD HER BILLY CLUB.

JERRY CROSSES OUT A NAME IN
TV GUIDE
AND THEN THE GUY THAT WROTE THE SHOW IS MAD AT HIM.

JERRY FINDS OUT THAT HIS PLUMBER HAS BEEN SLEEPING IN HIS SINK.

JERRY HAS A CREDIT CARD THAT IS ONLY GOOD FOR BUYING WATER.

JERRY PRETENDS THAT HE IS ON A SEQUESTERED JURY TO AVOID SOMEONE.

HIS HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER COMES ACROSS AN OLD TEST OF JERRY’S AND REALIZES JERRY REALLY DIDN’T PASS THE TEST.

JERRY HAS TO PICK WHICH ONE OF HIS YAMAKAS IS HIS FAVORITE.

JERRY GETS INTO A STARING CONTEST WITH A
PUPPET.

Three other writers were struggling like me. They may have gone to different desperate measures than writing up non-jokes, but we were all in a slump. So Larry assigned us old orphaned ideas from years past that never found their way into a script. I wrote up these stories along with the monkey story that they still liked. After Larry read the script, he said, “I’m not doing it. Well, no reason to start anything else up. Season’s almost over.” The other three writers had been told the same thing, including my panicked “mentor.”

There were still six weeks to go, six more shows. Did he mean that there was no point in coming in? He didn’t say that. He just said don’t start anything else up. It was actually similar to an older
Seinfeld
episode where George was not sure if he did or didn’t get hired for a job. We didn’t talk much about our predicament; the others may have been in too much shock and denial to deal with the humiliation. Some of them were even working on premises for the next season, still hoping they would be asked back. But I sensed all too well that I was gone.

I did want to get my last six checks and didn’t want to do anything to aggravate anyone, so I came in. That seemed to be the right thing to do. For the most part, the four of us came in for just table reads, run-throughs, lunches, and tape nights. Larry never asked why we were there. We just didn’t say or do anything. I felt disconnected from the show before; now I felt like a ghost. We were the walking dead.

I’d come in at noon, eat lunch, and then go home. I tried to make the most of my time. I tried calling my new writing agent, but he didn’t return my calls. Apparently, he was done cultivating me. I tried to work on other ideas for films, sketches, and my own comedy video. I had an idea about how I could package myself and break through to much bigger success. Even though I wasn’t doing stand-up comedy anymore, people who remembered me really seemed to like my ThrillSeeker
jokes.

I decided to make a video of myself doing lots of those jokes in the context of a song. Even though I can’t sing, I fashioned it like Rodney Dangerfield’s song, “Rappin’ Rodney,” how Rodney told a lot of his “no respect” jokes to the beat of a song.

Gary, an old New York friend who always seemed to prefer messing around making music in his room by himself than hanging out at comedy clubs, was going to write the background lyrics and music to the song. Rudy, another misfit comedian I’d hung out with from my early days of stand-up, had the recording equipment.

The song was goofy and rather corny. I recorded lots of Thrill Seeker jokes while the other guys did a great job putting the music down. Someone, who was a fan of mine, got the song to the
Dr. Demento Show
, a long-running radio show that features novelty songs. Then, as a favor, he called up and requested it.

I wrote another video in which I played an inappropriate marriage counselor who had more problems than his clients. I counseled a couple who complained that they only had sex three times a month. I kicked them out exclaiming, “I wish
I
had sex three times a month!” I then asked another couple if they had anyone they could set me up with. I showed the video to some contacts I knew at Comedy Central. Nothing happened but it felt good to express myself. I needed that.

I then started to sneak out to some auditions again. I had called the producers from
Murphy Brown
and told them that I was available. It turned out that they had something for me. The
“FYI”
crew was down South covering a hurricane and I played an inept clerk at a motel who didn’t have any essential items they needed.

I didn’t tell Larry I was working, even though I’d miss a run-through and a tape night. I figured they didn’t care at that point. It felt very satisfying to act again. The bit went well. I even enjoyed doing that little curtain call at the end. I realized I had missed it a lot. During the curtain call, I bumped into George Shapiro, Jerry’s longtime manager and one of the executive producers of
Seinfeld
. He also managed Peter Bonerz, who directed that evening’s
Murphy Brown
episode.

“Great job, Fred!” he said, but he didn’t say anything about my moonlighting.

A few days later, during lunch at
Seinfeld
, they were discussing possible cliffhangers for their last episode. It was rare to talk about the show all together at lunch like that. Larry was thinking of a cliffhanger in which George gets engaged. I mentioned that they were doing something similar on
Murphy Brown
.

“You seem to know a lot about
Murphy Brown
,” Larry said, as he dumped his food into the wastebasket and headed back to his office.

I was busted. George Shapiro must have said something. But what did Larry expect of me? What was I to do those last exiled weeks on
Seinfeld
?

In the last episode of that season, they actually ended up using my monkey premise, when a monkey spits at Kramer. I got a shared story credit with Larry David. On the set, the monkey’s trainer started pitching other story lines to me for his other animals. He said he had a chicken that could play the piano and a dog that could fish. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that as superb as those ideas sounded, he was pitching to the
wrong guy.

On the last day of my contract, I finished emptying my office and said good-bye to Larry and Jerry, who were in the editing room trimming one of the last episodes. I thanked them for bringing me on and hoped I helped and not hurt the show. They said “no problem,” but didn’t say anything about me coming back. They didn’t have to. I had mixed feelings a few weeks later when I got a call from the president of the production company, informing me that I wasn’t returning. I felt pleased that he told me but a little sad that Jerry and Larry couldn’t that last day. I realized that it must be hard for them to have to do that.

I was truly grateful for the experience though. I had saved some money that would keep me off the road and away from the depressing comedy condos and the unruly crowds screaming, “Show us your dick!” In an attempt to settle down, I fixed up my apartment with nice drapes and a coffee table and got a cat I named Mitchell. I promised Mitchell that I would stay in town to take care of him.

Several people over the years—including that woman armed with my IMDb résumé—have asked why I didn’t use my
Seinfeld
credit to get other writing jobs. My overall writing experience on
Seinfeld
had left me feeling confused, numb, and not very confident. On the other hand, the first thing I had done in months that made me feel good was that guest star appearance on
Murphy Brown
. It made me want to devote myself to my acting career and be available for every audition. I also wanted to try to write premises for a show of my own, even though I wasn’t quite sure how to make that all happen.

My
Seinfeld
experience had been great for my mother. She was quite sad when it was over. I dreaded the call telling her it was over. I fudged the truth a bit when I said that the job was never intended to extend over forty weeks and that no one else was being brought back. She was a bit stunned, almost as if in a state of shock. It was one of the few times she was at a loss for words.

“Oh, really? Oh, okay I guess,” was all she could say. I could tell she was very disappointed.

As it turned out, I got swept up in some guest spots rather quickly that next season. I felt I had to be on the right track, that I was close to that one job that stuck or that breakout film role that would get me to the next level. I didn’t know it at the time, but my varied guest tour sitcoms was just beginning.

17

WHERE I LEFT OFF, BUT
20 POUNDS HEAVIER

I
’m glad I didn’t have too much time to wallow in uncertainty after my puzzling
Seinfeld
writing stint. I was able to rebound at the start of the next season, from writer’s unemployment to getting acting work again with a three-line part as a skinny moving man on
Coach
. In the episode, my coworker and I were taking boxes back and forth so fast, it was hard to tell it was me. I wore shorts and a T-shirt, but I didn’t look like the stick figure I portrayed a few years earlier on
Vinnie & Bobby
. I had gained almost twenty pounds pigging out in the
Seinfeld
writer’s room, and my metabolism finally slowing down.

And just a week later things were really moving along when I found myself on the set of Drew Carey’s brand-new show,
The Drew Carey Show
. The assistant director had just brought in the extras to fill up all the cubicles in Drew’s office. I was not participating in my usual people-watching when the background artists were put on display for the first time. Something besides the fact I had a decent-sized role was still making me feel good: the wedding ring on my left hand. I couldn’t stop staring at it. The sight and feel of that ring on my finger for the first time in my life was such a comfort. It was just a prop, but it put me in a fantasy of calm fulfillment I hadn’t experienced in ages. I felt sort of what it must be like to be a regular person. I wasn’t desperate Fred on the set looking around to see who I could be with. I was the one with the ring. I, as the character, had someone in my life. That’s what I wanted.