Sometimes a show is so shockingly bad right from its very first scene - say, for instance, Rob!, which debuted on CBS this week - that you wonder how it ever got made. Who at the network thought a sitcom about a timid Caucasian runt who marries into a big, noisy Mexican family was a good idea?
Here's how I imagine the pitch meeting went:
"Gentlemen, I think the script you hold in your hands speaks for itself, but we also have a big star attached. Rob Schneider."
No reaction.
"Rob Schneider?" says the show rep, as if astounded. "The guy's been in, like, every Adam Sandler film from Waterboy to Jack & Jill. He's like the Sandman's good-luck charm."
"I'm not seeing a face," says a v.p. of comedy development. "What does he do in the Sandler films?"
"It's classic," the rep says, chuckling. "He always has this cameo where he pops up and says in a redneck accent, 'You can do it!' It kills every time."
The CBS execs look at each other.
"Come on," pleads the rep, "the guy was on Saturday Night Live, for Pete's sake. He was the copy machine guy. Remember that skit? 'The Richster. Makin' the copies.' "
"Oh, yeah," says the scheduling director. "They beat that sketch to death."
"Look, why don't we focus on the script," says the rep. "You have a chance to read it? It's gold.
"Ten minutes in and Rob wanders into a little religious shrine the grandmother has set up in her bedroom. Some hot wax spills down his pants, all very innocent. The next thing you know, the family comes in the room and Rob has the grandmother bent over the bed and his trousers are down around his ankles. Hello!"
Laughter breaks out around the table.
"That's good," concedes CBS' v.p. of acquisitions. "But I notice in the pilot, you have gags about Julio Iglesias, Selena, building a border wall, guacamole, and siestas. I'm afraid you're burning through your stereotypes too quickly."
The rep smiles. "Not to worry. We just finished a script for week five. Rob discovers that his mother-in-law's chiles rellenos give him bad gas. . . . Wait for it . . . but he finds this out during the solemn Funeral Mass for his mother-in-law's sainted aunt."
After a brief pause, a CBS suit shouts, "I smell Emmy!" and the table erupts in laughter.
Poor man's diet. Man, the economy's in worse shape than I thought. If there is one absolute in TV, it is that viewers are inundated with weight-loss commercials in January. So it has ever been.
