The making of ALMOST PERFECT

Thanks for watching the ALMOST PERFECT pilot. Thanks also for your comments. I’ll post more episodes in the near future. I don't know why some of you had trouble playing Pts. 2 & 3. They're both still up there and functional.

That strikingly handsome rake who played the maitre’d is my dad. Ironically, he’s only on screen for a few seconds. But it was that portion that the network used for their promos all summer so he was on CBS five thousand times. Baffled friends of his would approach and ask, “Are you starring in a new show with Nancy Travis?” He of course said yes.

Since we later used that venue as a regular hangout my dad became a semi-regular. We even started giving him a line now and again. Pretty soon he wanted a hot tub in his trailer. It’s unbelievable.

The guy who was Nancy’s blind date (the real Tom Milner), the guy at a table stuffing his face with bread. That’s my partner, David Isaacs.

Chip Zien (who played the high strung writer, Gary) was not cast until after we had gone into production. We had the table reading and the actor originally playing that role just wasn’t up to the others. This was on a Thursday. The next day was Good Friday so we were shut down for the day. Chip lived in New York. We had seen a taped audition of him a month before but were told he was attached to another pilot. To save money, the other production decided not to lock him in but pay him just for a guest spot – assuming of course that he’d never get another pilot at that late date and they’d save a bunch of money. Once we learned that he was available we got him approved by the studio and network and made the change. He was on a plane that night.

David Clennon (who played the weird writer, Neil) came in for his reading wearing that get-up. He sat down on the couch, said his first line – “I’ve got a big problem with that” – and that was it. We knew we found our guy.

The hardest part to cast was Kevin Kilner’s (Mike). Nancy read with a few other candidates and quite frankly she wiped the floor with them. We really had to scramble. By this point we had read maybe a hundred guys. A tape arrived from New York with Kevin. At the time he was starring in a Tennessee Williams play on Broadway. He took the redeye to LA arriving on a Monday morning. Nancy was filming a movie-of-the-week so we took Kevin to her location and had them read together in her trailer. Instantly, we knew this was the guy. After she wrapped for the day we drove them both to Paramount to be approved by the studio. They were thrilled. We then set up the network audition. They wanted to do it the next day. We said it had to be that night because Kevin was taking the redeye back. So they reluctantly agreed but were not happy about it. Plus it was the night of the NCAA Basketball championship game (UCLA won. Yay!) and they weren’t thrilled about missing part of it. It’s not the way you want to go into a network audition.

Usually the procedure is after the actors finish their audition they leave the room and the network hedges and wonders who else is available. Producers have to beg, plead, twist arms, etc. Not this time. They were over-the-moon ecstatic. They even thanked us for finding him. Of course, one year and one president later we were told to find a replacement but that’s another horror story.

The pilot was really a “presentation”. That means do a full half hour pilot but do it at a fraction of the cost. We had no money for sets. The restaurant set was Paramount property, used in hundreds of shows and movies. The writers room was a set we borrowed from ELLEN. And Nancy’s house was really Helen’s house from WINGS just repainted. Once the series got picked up we had our own sets built.

The tie continuity issue drove us nuts. In the last scene you'll notice Kevin's tie placement doesn't match from cut to cut. We pieced together the best performance from two takes. At the end of the day we opted for best performance vs. continuity. And hey, it's not like SPARTACUS where you can see the Hollywood Freeway in the corner of one of the battle scenes.

The music was from Bruce Miller, who composed (among other things) the closing song from FRASIER. We only had ten seconds for the opening. So we needed more of a jingle than a theme song. We were looking for something distinctive and something to convey the spirit of the show. We decided on going with a big band from the 40s sound. This was the “Swingers” era so old time dance music was cool again. It was up, fun, and we felt suggested those screwball romantic comedies of the era. No lyrics were ever written. Too bad because I’d love to hear David Archuleta sing it on AMERICAN IDOL.

We were told the pilot tested better than any CBS comedy since MURPHY BROWN. And watching it again with the distance of time I think I now know why. Dad, you were great!