Just the Funny Parts

by Nell Scovell

  And I did have some stereotypical Mom skills. My mother made a home-cooked meal for our family every night and dinner was the one time each day when all seven of us would be together. Since I often worked late, I shifted the concept of family dinner to family breakfast. I’d wake up early and make popovers and buttermilk pancakes from scratch. One day a week, I made crepes, customizing each order. Colin likes his crepes filled with Nutella, bananas, and freshly toasted pecans. Rudy likes Nutella and pecans. Dexter likes Nutella and marshmallows and prefers his crepe folded in half like an omelet. Eventually, the tradition codified into “Crepes Thursday,” the holiest day of the week.

  Colin was a patient and loving dad, and it helped that Rudy and Dexter were best friends. Oddly, my kids’ personalities turned out to be similar to the aunts in Sabrina. Rudy is enthusiastic and warm like Hilda. At eight years old, he even invented his own emotion. On Christmas, 2004, Rudy suddenly announced, “Mom, I just discovered a new feeling. It’s called ‘perpy.’ It’s when you’re excited and cheerful and have no doubts about the world.”

  “So it’s better than happy?” I asked.

  “Yeah. When you’re perpy, it’s like the love is unstoppable.” He smiled broadly and said, “I just feel so perpy!”

  Dexter is more like Aunt Zelda, pragmatic and shrewd. When he was seven, we were walking in Washington, DC and Dexter spotted a penny on the sidewalk. He reached down and grabbed it.

  “Mom, I found a lucky penny,” he said. “I want you to have it.”

  “Aw, thanks,” I said.

  “But I get to keep the luck.”

  The kids and Colin have always been understanding about my missing occasional milestones because of work. Still, when the production schedule for Hayley Wagner, Star came out and I saw that Dexter’s first birthday fell on the second day of the Vancouver shoot, it tore me up. But what could I do? I couldn’t fly home in the middle of the movie.

  Colin came up with a solution. He got himself and two children under the age of four onto a plane to Canada, through customs, and onto the set so I could kiss Dexter on his first birthday.

  The family in Vancouver, May 1999

  Courtesy of Adam Summers

  My decision to be the breadwinner suited our family, but everyone who has a choice needs to make their own decision. If a woman decides to leave her job and raise her kids full time, I think she’s amazing and brave. And if after a few years, she wants to return to work, I think she’s amazing and brave to do that, too. Men should have the same options as women. We need to free ourselves from the cultural belief that mothers are better at raising children than fathers. In the deepest way possible, I can tell you that is not true.

  Fortunately, attitudes about mothers having a place in comedy are evolving. I cheered in 2009 when a very-pregnant Amy Poehler rapped a boisterous tribute to Sarah Palin on Weekend Update. Ali Wong filmed her 2016 standup special Baby Cobra while seven months pregnant. Samantha Bee did stellar work as a correspondent for The Daily Show while pregnant and, in a New York magazine interview, urged others to try.

  “It’ll add to your comedy in ways that you never expected,” Bee said.

  All these women are hilarious and tough, or what I call, “maternal.”

  Why Two Serial Killers Have the Same Names as My Children

  Naming characters, or children, is hard. Certain names carry certain associations. This explains why there aren’t many girls named Squeaky. We thought we’d given our kids fine names—Rudy and Dexter—until 2006 when “Dexter,” a series about a serial killer debuted with huge, blood-splattered billboards all over LA. Oh, well, there was nothing we could do.

  Then one day, my old Charmed colleague Daniel Cerone called. Daniel was one of the Dexter showrunners and he had a question.

  “I’m working on an episode where we meet Dexter’s brother and he needs an alias,” Daniel said. “I was thinking—if you’re okay with it—I’d name him ‘Rudy.’ But you should know that Rudy is also a killer so—”

  “I love it!” I said.

  “I knew it!” Daniel said. “I knew you’d be the one friend excited by this.”

  And that’s why in the season one finale, “Dexter” and his brother “Rudy” are reunited until—spoiler alert—Dexter slashes Rudy’s throat.

  Chapter 14

  The Decade-Long Roller-Coaster Ride

  A young man sits on a park bench reading a book when an old man sits next to him. Thirty seconds later, the old man announces, “Oy, am I thirsty.” The young man tries to concentrate, but thirty seconds later, the old man repeats, “Oy, am I thirsty.” This continues every thirty seconds until finally the young man gets up, buys a water, and hands it to the old man. “Thank you,” says the old man and he takes a long sip. The young man sits back down to read his book. Thirty seconds later, the old man says, “Oy, was I thirsty.”

  —old Jewish joke

  THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER I BROKE INTO TV, I’D RISEN to the level of creator and showrunner. I’d written and directed my own movie. My career expectations were high, but as supermodel Paulina Porizkova once wrote, “The American woman is told she can do anything and then is knocked down the moment she proves it.”

  That’s how I felt. And it’s not just supermodels and me. A 2014 study revealed that “by the age of thirty-nine, college-educated women working full-time stop getting raises and see their salaries peak.” Meanwhile, college-educated men get an additional nine years of wage increases, peaking at forty-eight. It’s important to note that this happens to women working full time. Women are not necessarily pulling back. Sometimes, they get pushed back. (Also, there should be a German word for the joy you feel when a study proves that a bias you’ve experienced is real and you weren’t just paranoid. Wharton professor and psychologist Adam Grant suggests this emotion be called vindicatzinstudie.)

  In my twenties and thirties, I converted almost every meeting into a job. In my forties, I struck out a lot. By then I’d worked in so many genres—late-night, variety, animation, sitcoms, dramas, and features. I thought this range would make me a utility player. Instead, jumping around genres seemed to confuse the market. I heard more than once that comedy executives considered me a drama writer and drama executives considered me a comedy writer. I was a pigeon without a hole.

  It didn’t help that I was no longer a mid-level writer. Rising to a leadership position and being a woman led to wariness about my character. (See chart on facing page.)

  Years later, I learned about a Columbia Business School professor who divided a class in two and assigned each section to read about a successful venture capitalist. The case studies were identical except for one detail—the entrepreneur was identified as “Howard” for half the students and as “Heidi” for the other half. The next day, the students were asked to give their impressions of the “two” entrepreneurs. Both Howard and Heidi were deemed competent, but they weren’t both judged as likeable. Howard received only favorable responses. Students described him as “the type of person you would want to hire or work for.” Heidi, however, was perceived to be “selfish” and “out for herself.”

  HOW MALE AND FEMALE SHOWRUNNERS ARE PERCEIVED DIFFERENTLY (AN UNSCIENTIFIC CHART)

  Men

  Women

  Arguing a point

  Thoughtful

  Crazy

  Defending a joke

  Perfectionist

  Difficult

  Missing deadlines

  Creative

  Crazy

  Holding back on sharing an outline

  Protective

  Difficult

  Crying at work

  Sensitive

  Crazy

  Suggesting a character be less sexist/racist

  Progressive

  Difficult

  Throwing objects (phones, scripts)

  Passionate

  Crazy

  Refusing to delegate

  Commanding

  Difficult

  Hiring f
riends

  Loyal

  Crazy

  Negotiating for more money

  Savvy

  Difficult

  Massive drug habit

  Struggling

  Crazy and difficult

  “Women are expected to be nice, warm, friendly, and nurturing,” my patient sociologist friend Marianne said, interpreting yet another study for me. “If a woman acts assertively or competitively, if she exhibits decisive and forceful leadership, she is deviating from the social script. We are deeply uncomfortable with powerful women. In fact, we often don’t really like them.”

  I felt the industry and even my own agents chill toward me. Fine, I thought. If Hollywood didn’t consider me a showrunner, there was only one thing to do—I lowered my expectations. I convinced myself that I didn’t want to run a show. “I’d rather be the Co-Executive Producer,” my brain rationalized. “Then I don’t have all the responsibility and won’t have to deal with all the politics.”

  Like many women—some out of choice and some out of necessity—I leaned out. I shifted my career goals away from securing power and creative control and toward simply continuing to work. The aughts were a roller coaster for me professionally and I was lucky to have a supportive family and friends. Colin and my sister Claire listened to me vent constantly. I didn’t want to complain but “Oy, was I thirsty.”

  Daily phone calls with my friend Rob Bragin were cheaper than therapy and a lot funnier. Once Rob emailed me, “This just in . . . NOTHING.”

  We stayed optimistic for each other. Rob would repeat his motivating mantra, “You eat what you kill.”

  For a decade, I accepted every job that was offered to me. A reboot of McCloud for Brett Butler on USA? Sure. A pilot loosely based on Sliding Doors for Lifetime? Sounds great. An hour-long dramedy about female inmates for FOX? Absolutely! Actually, I had a great time writing Behind Bars for Executive Producer Mike Darnell and we were both disappointed when the script didn’t move forward. Would a series about women in prison have worked? I guess we’ll never know.

  I wish I’d enjoyed the down time more. Unfortunately, when you’re in a dry spell, there’s no way to know if it will rain tomorrow or if it’s the start of a hundred-year drought. I still loved writing for TV and hoped someone would keep paying me to do that. I wasn’t looking for fireworks. I just wanted to find a nice show and settle down. But like a good man, a good TV show was hard to find.

  Looks Good on Paper (2001)

  When the hit WB show Charmed, created by Constance Burge, hired me as a Co-Executive Producer, it seemed like a perfect match. I wanted to transition from writing half hours to hours and was well-versed in witchiness. The Charmed room was filled with gifted writers and had a fifty-fifty gender split.

  “This is too good to be true,” I thought.

  And it was. The cracks showed early. The on-camera message of the “magical power of sisterhood” did not extend offscreen. By the time I joined the staff, all the Charmed Executive Producers were male. Out of 178 episodes, only eight were directed by women and series star Shannen Doherty was the only woman to direct more than once.

  Figurines of shrunken Halliwell sisters from my episode, “Size Matters,” which guest-starred Robert Englund aka Freddy Krueger. (left to right) Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan, Holly Marie Combs

  Courtesy of Colin Summers

  In the middle of my second season, the showrunner began to negotiate a new contract for himself. The studio approached my agents to float the idea of me taking over if those negotiations fell through.

  “Oh, no,” I told my agents. “I won’t discuss that until the showrunner decides what he’s doing.”

  I’d been in the business long enough to know that being competent enough to do your boss’s job makes you an asset, but being competent enough to replace your boss makes you a threat. I prayed that he hadn’t gotten wind of the phone call. This story makes me think he might have.

  A month earlier, the showrunner had asked me to cowrite a sweeps week episode with him. We divided the work by acts. I penned the teaser, act one and act two. He penned acts three and four. We put our work together and the network and studio approved the script, which went into production. On the morning of the table read, I walked into the conference room, grabbed a coffee, a freshly printed script, and took a seat next to my boss and cowriter. He leaned over.

  “I made a few small changes last night,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  That was his prerogative. Besides, last-minute tweaks are easy to spot because once a script is locked for production, any change is marked by an asterisk in the right-hand margin. I opened my script. My face dropped.

  Every single line on the first page had an asterisk next to it.

  I inhaled sharply and turned to the second page. Same thing. I started flipping through the script, like Shelley Duvall rifling through reams of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” in The Shining. Every page of the teaser, act one and act two, was littered with asterisks. His acts—three and four—were totally clean. I looked closer at the actual changes. They were mostly minor, involving punctuation and word choices—just enough to trigger an asterisk, but by no means the major rewrite that those asterisks suggested. I felt humiliated. It would appear to the actors and execs at the table that my half had been a mess. I wanted to walk out, but worried it would look like I was upset at having been so heavily rewritten. I stayed. That was the last script I wrote that season. The showrunner refused to assign me another episode.

  When my contract was up at Charmed, I left a Nell-shaped hole in the wall on my way out. I would miss the other writers. I’d even grown fond of actresses Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs, and Rose McGowan. And there was one other perk specific to that job that I enjoyed. At the wrap of each season, the costume department sold the production’s used wardrobe. One of the actresses and I wore the same size jeans so not only did I get cheap high-end clothing, but I could brag about getting in a TV star’s pants.

  We’re Just Not That into You (2002)

  As a failed pre-med major, writing on medical shows always appealed to me. After Charmed, CBS executives encouraged me to join Presidio Med, a new medical drama set mainly in a neonatal unit. The show had a spectacular cast and Emmy Award–winning producers. The tone was a little somber, and the network hoped that I would help provide some lightness.

  The series got off to a rocky start in the ratings and as we neared the holidays, the staff was jittery about whether we’d be picked up beyond the initial twelve-episode order. In late November, I was sitting in my office on a Friday afternoon reading a script that had just been turned in. The story had some problems so when an assistant stopped by to say the showrunner wanted to see me, I assumed it was to ask me to do a pass over the weekend. The thought didn’t make me happy. I walked slowly down the hall to the showrunner’s big corner office, trying to delay the inevitable.

  “Have a seat,” the showrunner said.

  I sat.

  “So the network wants more changes to the show. And given the new direction, we’re going to have to let you go.”

  Wait, what?!

  I felt psychological whiplash. My arms and hands went numb, as my body went into mild shock. I’d never been fired before and had no idea how to react. The showrunner noticed my stricken face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Her tone was calm and professional.

  It seemed like my turn to say something so I blurted out the first question that popped into my head.

  “If someone asks you about me, what will you say?”

  “I’ll say that you weren’t right for the show,” she replied. “And that I enjoyed working with you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Because I also enjoyed working with—”

  I couldn’t finish the sentence. Tears started streaming down my face. I struggled to breathe as emotion overwhelmed me. Apparently, my reaction to being fired was to cry sloppily.

  “I’m sorry,” I sai
d and exited her office.

  I walked quickly back to my office and closed the door. I phoned Colin.

  “I just got fired,” I said.

  “Good,” he said without hesitation. “You weren’t happy on the show and now you’re done.”

  Colin was right. I hadn’t been able to lighten the tone. If anything, the show had become more serious. I’d even started joking with my comedy friends that the Presidio Med tagline should be: “Winning America’s heart . . . one dead baby at a time.”

  After Colin calmed me down, I went into the hall to share the news with my coworkers. The mood was already gloomy. Another writer had also been axed. I recently asked Howard A. Rodman, President of the Writers Guild of America, West, from 2015–2017 if he knew the statistics of how many writers get fired at some point in their careers.

  “I don’t think we’ve even asked that in our survey,” Howard messaged me. “I’d say a hundred percent, but what do I know?”

  He was joking, but getting fired (or not having your option picked up) happens to almost everyone. As a manager once told me, “Show me someone with a long career and I’ll show you someone who’s had ups and downs.”

  I gathered my personal items from my office and threw them in the trunk of my car. Then I paused. I didn’t want to seem bitter and since the crying had stopped, I decided to go back to the showrunner’s office and make a more professional exit.

  Her door was open.

  “Got a sec?” I asked, calmly.

  “Of course,” she said.

  I stepped in just past the door jamb.

  “I just wanted to say that I really do appreciate having the chance to work with so many talented—”

  I couldn’t finish the sentence because the tears started flowing again. I simply couldn’t control them. This time, it struck me as funny so I said goodbye, crying and laughing simultaneously.