The Ryen Russillo Podcast - ‘Scrubs’ Creator Bill Lawrence | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

Russillo does a new segment called Worst Take (3:05) before he is joined by the creator of ‘Scrubs’ and cocreator of ‘Cougar Town’ and ‘Spin City,’ Bill Lawrence, to talk about doing stand-up comedy as a young man in L.A. and getting fired from ‘Friends,’ ‘Boy Meets World,’ and other shows before cocreating ‘Spin City.’ They discuss how to get stuff made in Hollywood, the differences between writing your own show and writing on someone else’s, pickup basketball, bad TV show pitches, and more (12:34). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

what's up today's episode of the ryan rossillo podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected um unexpected give me something unexpected kyle you got anything you navigate the unexpected. Unexpected. Give me something unexpected. Kyle, you got anything? You got anything unexpected as of right now? I still haven't finished Tiger King. That's unexpected.

One episode left. That's surprising. What are you, busy? What's the holdup? You know, it's like video games. I actually am busy. You guys are keeping me busy. So all these drafts.

Yeah, actually, yes, yes. That is fair to very very fair it's more than just fair it's very fair that you're busy um i've been busier this the last i don't know 10 days or so than i've had other stretches um at least not at night you know just working on other things but not watching games so anyway that's what we have right there it's unexpected that kyle has not finished tiger one episode left though one episode it was late i just wanted to be aware of it you know i didn't want to fall asleep during it so i got one left i'm gonna finish up tonight i like that yeah that's when i know i care about a show because when i'm putting it on late and i go okay wait a minute i'm about

to the eyes are getting a little heavy here so let me let me just go into something else i already know or i don't care that much about or i know it's going to be slow you know what i can't watch stand up is my fall asleep it's a very good oh stand-up comedians is how you fall asleep because you don't have to open your eyes that's weird i find that weird but i think it's i think you're right because you can't fall asleep to die hard yeah give it a shot you know yeah that's uh that's a good idea maybe i'll'll peruse. I always wonder if you're a stand-up comedian and you don't have a special on Netflix, can you go outside?

But now you don't have to worry about it. See? I'm writing material. I'm writing material right now. Bang! Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. Today's plan. Bill Lawrence, big time, and I can't emphasize that enough. Big time showrunner, producer, creator, writer, director of television. He was on Friends the first season. I think he was 25. I have a very close mutual friend with him, Bill Callahan, who was the showrunner on Scrubs for Bill Lawrence, who I've known since I was back in high school in martha's vineyard um he used to spend some summers down there cali's big time athlete invited me to this pickup

basketball game it's kind of legendary with all these these actors and writers and directors and stuff i played in it once i did get the scattering report back from my agent that i was it was said that i could tell he used to be pretty good that was not what i wanted to hear but probably accurate i don't know if i'll bring that up with bill because we don't know each other that well yet so he created co-created spin city created scrubs cougar town um undateable whiskey cavalier he's got a million things going on and we're going to talk with him about the business, his career, and all that kind of stuff. Get some friend stories in there as well. Before I do anything on today's pod, I'm going to start a new segment that I may get bored of, which I've even talked about before because I thought

it'd be a good video series, but it would also... Simmons was kind of like, I don't know if you should do that. He's probably right because if I do something called Worst Take, which I think is funny because it rhymes, and that's pretty much all the titles need to do is sort of just rhyme sound like something but if you just did a segment every week a video thing and it's not even making fun of first take it's just anyone that has something to say that's really stupid that week and he was like are you really just going to call out all of your colleagues like i don't even like half of them so why why would i care and if you say something stupid you say something stupid and it's there for everyone else to consume. So just go ahead and do it. He's like, I'm going to steer you. I can always tell when bill it's a no from bill because he thinks he's helping me. And in

this case, he's right. Cause I would just end up building up a ton of enemies. Um, he'd be like, you know, I'm going to steer you away from that idea. It's like, okay, okay. So I guess what I'm saying is that now I'm going to do it anyway on the podcast because there are takes. And certainly during this time where I think some people are really going to start pushing the boundaries here a little bit. And there are times too where I know guys are doing it just for the attention. But I do think there are times guys just have opinions that are wrong. And that's okay. Like we have opinions. Although the defense of an opinion shouldn't be, hey, I can't be wrong.

It's my opinion. Okay. Well, if you think Pete Myers is better than Mike Jordan and you go, Hey, that's my opinion. It doesn't mean you're, you're in the clear. Okay. Um,

what are we doing here? If those are the rules. So Rick Buecher on this week's worst take first installment. I don't know that I'll do it every week. I'll probably get bored with it a couple of weeks. I like Rick. I've always liked Rick. I don't know him that well.

Now I've been on his radio show during Super Bowl row stuff. He was awesome as a guest. I loved having him on the radio show. And he was always great when he went around with Bill. He was, I think, one of Bill's best basketball podcast guests. But he's been with Fox. He's been on fire now

for a little while. And Buecher had this weird thing with me where he was... know how like when a guy is dating somebody and guys do this like any girl that's better looking than the guy and it's like wonder how much money his dad has uh i was dating somebody that yes fine above the rim outkick and whatever but he was obsessive about it he was weird like he came on a podcast with me once was like and by the way the idea that you're dating her oh my god i was like okay you're blatantly telling me you find me repulsive i got it and like not even a good enough personality to

carry my in your opinion average attractiveness thanks so i don't know that was kind of a weird side rant so let's get to the meat of what this whole point is, because that wasn't his worst take. Although maybe. Anyway. He was on with Marcellus and Whitlock, and he was talking about this season and potentially how it could be canceled. And then he got to LeBron. And he was saying this about LeBron. So this is Buecher's quote, meaning LeBron here.

Quote, I don't want to play in the playoffs when I know I'm going to be at a disadvantage. Rick's general premise, if you find the cut, is that it feels like if the season's canceled, LeBron will secretly be happier because he won't have to face another playoff failure. Now, let me preface this and why I think this is actually his genuine feeling

as opposed to being disingenuous for attention, even though I'm giving it to him right now, is that he's always been anti-LeBron because he's been such a pro-Kobe guy. And this has been going on 10 plus years. And Rick Buecher, classic Rick Buecher, came on my radio show and called LeBron a glue guy. And I lost it.

Like we had that soundbite going forever where I just go like, glue guy? I'm incredulous. So let's examine his position on this theory that LeBron would prefer the season doesn't start up again. So he can avoid a playoff L he used the fans quote that happened immediately when none of us really knew what the hell was going on with this virus, where LeBron was like, look, I do it for the fans. Like, I don't want to play in any games that aren't with fans. I honestly think LeBron was just trying to do something there

that he thought fans would like to hear. And it was so early in the process, he didn't even really know what he was saying. I certainly didn't understand the magnitude of what it meant. And as everyone's scrambling to try to figure out their own revenue, whether it's owners, which is okay to try to figure out a way to not lose all of your revenue, believe it or not, and players who would still like to not lose 25 plus percent of their annual salary,

and TV partners that would love to not pay for rights to this stuff, as you're seeing that start to circulate, like who's going to keep paying these leagues? But then they would also love to have something to put on so that the vendors that have paid for the advertising don't ask for all these make goods that you have to give back to these ad companies when a series goes four games instead of seven games. All of this stuff is connected. So I don't think, despite the seriousness and scariness of what we're going through right now, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to try to figure out some way to salvage your business. It's essentially restaurants doing takeout all the time and emailing you their menus,

hoping you'll do some takeout. And by the way, if you can do some takeout, take care of some of your local restaurants. So I don't have a problem with that stuff. But LeBron was simply, I wouldn't call it pandering. He was just doing the thing was like, Hey, I don't want to play without any fans in there because fans are part of this. And then once he learned more and once all of us learn more, he kind of corrected was like, all right, you know, I didn't really understand what was going on and now we do. So that is not, I think good evidence to prove that lebron was going well hey if no fans we should just not even play because i don't want to take a playoff l and that was how

it was connected um one thing we do with athletes we don't give them enough credit about what they're able to do physically i know that sounds weird but we kind of overrate their toughness and at the same time underrate what it is that these guys do. There's a reason why they're built the way they are and are as physical and as impressive and why we pay to watch it. It's not just the ball going through a hoop or a guy scoring a touchdown. We see these plays where a guy gets absolutely clobbered in football and the announcers always act surprised when the guy gets up. And honestly, most of them always get up because that's what they are. They're special. They're different than us. They're wired differently than us. And that's why they are at

the top 1% of their field. That's why everybody growing up, you're probably not going to be them. So when I hear part of Buecher's argument that LeBron at 35, shutting it down for a couple months and having to restart that engine, yes, I can imagine it'd be challenging, but I don't think it's impossible. I don't think it would be impossible for him to come all the way back. So I think that that's being overstated. And the final part of this whole thing, as Buecher said, quote, LeBron looks much better if there's no resumption of the regular season. oh, well, hey, there were no playoffs, but that Lakers team was a one seed, and he may have got another MVP, that somehow he'll be granted credit historically because they were a one seed in LA?

No way. It doesn't work that way. This stuff will be forgotten in a couple years, other than Lakers fans and pro LeBron people maybe bringing it up from time to time. But the general basketball public, years removed, when LeBron is inducted into the Hall of Fame, they're not going to say, LeBron James,

six-time All-Star, four-time MVP, had the Lakers in first place in the West in 2020, three-times Finals MVP, 12 All-NBA First Team selections, eight straight Finals. They're not going to do that. Nobody's going to do that. Nobody's going to round up and say,

you know what, he really deserved four in a season that no playoff games were actually played. So if you want to knock LeBron for little things, the hand cast after the finals games with the Warriors was weird. You can go ahead and do it. But as I always remind everybody, who in your life has ever gotten your 100% approval rating? The answer is likely zero. Unless it's a, I don't even say a newborn, because let's be honest, there's probably some nights

you're like, oh, this sucks, actually. I probably could have put this off another couple years. I just think it's, I just disagree with the opinion. And I don't actually think it was disingenuous, because I think LeBron is somebody that Buecher has not been, he's been anti-LeBron for a really good chunk of his career, and I think this adds to it.

Let's talk some TV. But before we do that, I'm going to do a little read for you. The best teams start with great talent, but finding the right people can be a challenge. It's hard to find... I'm trying to think. My father used to run a construction deal. Plumbers were slobs.

Electricians were not much cleaner, but plumbers always were the sloppiest. The plumbers just thought they didn't have to pick up anything. Framers can be a little rough around the edges, but the real guys that brought it home are the finished carpenters. Love those guys. Respect finished carpenters probably more than anybody

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Well, Bill, a lot of people know your resume, and it's been nice to get you on the podcast. And you and I have a mutual friend in Bill Callahan, who I know you've known for a really long time and how excited we all were, were kids that grew up with Bill being like, Hey, he's on with this guy, Bill Lawrence, Scrubs, Spin City, the whole thing. So let's, um, let's kind of start with you and how I think anybody that's trying to do something special, you have this thing of, of, I know what I want to do, but how can I do this? How did you get your start? Because I'd read you, you'd started by writing a play pretty much right after college. get your start because i'd read you you'd started by writing a play pretty much right after college uh you know it's it's uh interesting man the uh it's not that interesting but uh i i think nowadays you're very lucky if you have any idea what you want to do at a young age and i knew i

wanted to be in comedy somehow even as a kid i didn't want to go to college i wanted to go try and be a stand-up and uh my, my dad, uh, said he invented something called ITI, which is, uh, uh, he said, uh, if you go to college and get a degree, your mom and I will help you as much as we can financially, you know, rent money and stuff. Um, and if you go straight out of high school to LA, you'll have our love and emotional support, but it's called ITI, which is instant total independence. Um, and, uh, I was like, Oh, that sounds horrible. So, uh, I went to school and didn't come out. I barely got through it and didn't come out here until right after college. I came out to try and be a standup and I was a really shitty standup comic.

And I got, I got lucky. I got hired, assigned by two managers named George Shapiro and Howard West. If you ever see that movie, Man on the Moon, about Andy Kaufman, Danny DeVito played my manager, George Shapiro. And so they managed all comics. Very early on, my manager, Howard West, who passed away, said, you've got nothing as a stand-up comedian. You have no voice, which is true, man. It was horrible, right? But he's like, how bad is it when you how bad is it?

Like, no, look, you kind of had this idea. You have an opinion of yourself. You have to have an ego to kind of do this stuff. What was that like to go out there and know this isn't this isn't it? Oh, you know, you knew the few times that i was ever on a stage that was good enough to get real audience feedback i didn't get killed i'd do okay but when you're out and about in these towns even if you do okay and you're feeling good about yourself before the end of it someone will come on that you're like holy shit i can't do that that person's so interesting and

it just makes you have suddenly laser focus. You're even enjoying the shit they say that's not funny. You know, um, I think it was a huge ego blow, but these guys said, uh, right off the bat, probably to hook me in, they said, but you're very good at writing material. So you should stick with that. You know? And so I immediately ship, I don't, you know, you and I both share a love of sports. You know, I don't have anything to whine about because even though it was a body bow, I think it's like somebody, you know, that's a quarterback being told they're a receiver. You know what I mean? For a second, you're like, no, man, I'm a quarterback, you know? And then they're like, oh, you can do that, but you're never going to work again.

I'm like, all right, maybe I'm a receiver, you know? to work again. I'm like, all right, maybe I'm a receiver, you know? Uh, and, uh, those two dudes, uh, changed my life because they got me, um, you know, I got on really, uh, kids shows cause I didn't go to Harvard. I wasn't in the lampoon. And so I was, uh, I wrote on, I wrote on and got fired from boy meets world and the nanny and, uh, uh, got fired from all my first four jobs. and the nanny and uh i got fired from all my first four jobs and uh uh those guys i took a play that was kind of like a more adult play and wrote it those guys put up the money and produced it and then got me signed with the agency and kind of reinvented me as a writer it was all bullshit you know my my agent once i did that play he's like yeah that all those kids shows never happened you're a playwright that just came out here from new York. I'm like, all right, I'm in, man.

Okay, so is it true that you came up with Topanga, the name for Boy Meets World? Yeah, but, you know, it's also me being self-aggrandizing because anybody that ran, the guy that ran the show and the woman, April Kelly and Michael Jacobs, you know, they, he had to yes to, yes, everything, create everything. All he really let me do was in my writer's draft, come up with the name and I stole it from Topanga Canyon, you know, and then use my last name. And then they backfilled that character,

you know, because she became a regular, she wasn't a regular in the pilot. But yeah, hell yeah, man, that's mine. That's one of the few things I did before I got shit canned off that show. Yeah. So you mentioned you you're fired a bunch and I know some of this is, is probably repetitive for you cause you've done these interviews before, but for the audience, that's, you know, a very sports heavy audience and the, the legend of you being fired from friends. How old were you when you were, and it was the first season of friends. were you when you were and it was the first season of friends yeah i got i got fired you know i got fired from uh i had a good job i got fired from boy meets world when i was 23 and then i got fired from the nanny i think when i was 24 and then i got fired from friends also when i was 24 so yeah this is crushing it why did you keep getting fired uh uh you know it's something i talk about now i teach this um showrunners training program the writers could have this which is pretty cool it's the

only thing they have for kind of young writers that have a pilot know how to do it is it took me a long time to learn the lesson that when you write on someone else's show, your job is not to do what you think is funny. Your job is to do what they think is funny. Any show that works has an audience. It has an audience, and you have to respect that. I didn't love the show Boy Meets World. It wasn't written for me.

I was a too-cool-for-school guy in my 20s. I wrote this one episode about the first time you're embarrassed you're you're embarrassed of your dad as a kid and the guy that created the show i handed my draft in the guy that created the show because he saw a through line had the main character say like six or seven times this line i can't believe i hurt my dad i love him more than anybody in the world right which is a little corny, but in line with the show.

And when it was on TV, it was back when there were still message machines, I went home and it was like, you have 23 messages. And it was all my clown friends I grew up with going, hey Bill, I just want to say I can't believe I hurt my dad because I love him more than anybody in the world. It was like one after

another giving me shit. Hey Bill, I'm so sorry you hurt your dad. I mean, didn't you love him more than anyone in the whole. It was like one after another giving me shit. Hey, Bill, I'm so sorry you hurt your dad. Didn't you love him more than anyone in the whole world? I made it clear at work that I didn't think the show was cool and I deserved to get fired. It's such a great lesson because in retrospect, I know so

many people that remember that show as part of their childhood and liked it and stuff. I was very clear that i thought it was lame and a little kiddish and so they were correct to unload me um uh friends was more of me just being a uh a bit of a you know a bit of a wise-ass idiot of you know it's really interesting when you're dropped in these writers room dynamics because no one tells you all right a your job is to write what someone else that you don't know very well thinks is funny unlock that

cube and b your job is to be in a social environment that there's certain people that guess what if uh they ruffle your feathers it's fine and if you rustle their feathers it's not fine and uh um so friends was that horrible lesson because uh uh the co-creator of the show um you know i didn't really mesh with her uh and she's a lovely and successful woman and uh my harsh memory about that show was uh the other creator of the show, David Crane. He, right after the first season wrapped, the wrap party, he came up to me and everybody was drinking. He was like, Bill, you did a great job. I think you're going to do great

no matter where you end up. I'm like, oh, thanks. I immediately walked out and called my agent. I'm like, I think I'm fired, man. And the worst thing of that was I got fired right when that show was on the cover of every magazine and there's billboards. I was fetal and crying in my apartment. I'm like, oh, dude, I had the cherry gig.

And I thought I was killing on it creatively, too, you know. And even the jokes amongst my friends were like, hey, you're like Matty Perry's fatter older brother. And then I was his skinnier younger brother and's fatter older brother and then i was his skinnier younger brother and then fatter older brother again because there's fluctuation back and forth you know so uh i think a lot i've seen this a lot now that i do the gig ryan is um it's a lot of really talented people that i think would be great at doing their own thing but aren't great at doing other people's things and i was not i like to ask smart people kind of dumb questions from the outside right so can i ask it just a dumb simple one and like what

what happens when you sit down and you're in the writer's room and that was season one you were on friends right yeah you were the first season so your how much of the story is mapped out for that first season like i understand the pilot and what you have to tell everybody established not established like hey here's season three here's season five and all those things but what what is actually happening in the room as you're going hey well let's have ross be really obsessed with rachel and all like how much of that is figured out and how much of that just sort of happens as the story develops uh depends on the showrunner you know i think uh david crane who created episodes after that um um

among other shows that was pleasant which is something that happens on podcasts when you drink diet coke and burp um the uh last podcast he ever did uh he was very organized and clear about arcs that they wanted to do the first year with ross and and Rachel and would always talk at the you know a lot about the big picture of it and then that show was fascinating man because um uh you know he had the what he was doing for a whole 22 episode season 24 episodes sometimes in his head and then uh in an outline and each story when you'd come up with the general part of the story the whole group would outline it you might go off to write a script that was your script that you had less to do with coming up with a story than somebody else's script, just because it was a grouped outline. room I was in because you're under this weird time schedule of only having these three nights before it shoots to write jokes and all these young, great joke writers in there and just

sitting around until three in the morning trying to come up with pop culture jokes. That was what that job was like for young writers. So the answer is outlines are a group. The stories are usually driven by the showrunner. Like on Scrubs, I would start the year off before we had outlined episodes going, we need one arc for the year. We need to talk about each major character's arc, and then we'll get to outlining episodes. And then Friends, the weird thing, and it was really trial by fire, you'd be there at three in the morning going, we need a random pop culture joke. you know, and then somebody would be like, uh, guess what? That's their only setup. Guess what? This one else would go to the fifth dentist caved.

And now they're all recommending Trident, you know, and that's, that joke in a vacuum is so hard, man. You know, you'd get that. You'd be like, Oh God. All right, let's go to the next one. Really a joke driven show is tough, but yeah, the showrunner usually arcs his stuff out so you're out and i'd heard were you fired at the emmy's party was that what it was no it was it was the rap party i got shit right it was either the rap party or the um might have been after the people's choice awards i can't remember it's whatever it's whatever is

best for the story when i'm telling it so you mentioned how like it dawns on you, but I've also seen interviews with you where you turned into this positive. Like if I'm this young and I'm on this show and the show's going to take off, like I guess in LA, you still have that on your resume despite the ending not going the way you want it to. So you go into Spin City, you know,

I don't need a, I don't want to do show by show here because I'm sure you've done it all and that's been boring. But like, how do you transition from, okay, wait a minute, what did I do wrong? To now I'm going to start creating shows like Spin City and Scrubs on my own. I got really lucky, man. I'll tell you why it's a cool story. I think Hollywood is often depicted as a ruthless cutthroat. Everybody shits on each other.

Sketchy business. Which there's part of that. But nobody has gotten anywhere without the benevolence of others that believe in you. It's a huge mentoring town, you know what I mean? And, uh, uh, and everybody thinks it's nepotistic. Uh, yeah, maybe there's a way in through that shit. You know, I didn't have it, but, uh, unless you're, you can actually come up with the work, you disappear pretty quick. I didn't have it, but unless you can actually come up with the work, you disappear pretty quick. This place is littered with people that had easy ways in and never lasted for more than a month.

I got very lucky. That guy, David Crane, who was one of the people that let me go, took the time to call Gary Goldberg. This is a good sports Hollywood hybrid because it's for Callahan too since we have a mutual friend he called Gary Goldberg who created Family Ties and Brooklyn Bridge and all these shows and said Bill Lawrence didn't really mesh with us here

but I think you would really dig him you know he's talented and Gary shit till like eight years before he passed ran a basketball game that is now the game that you played in. That game started as Gary Goldberg's game. That's what I heard.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, Gary couched it all in terms of sports for me. You know, so he had me come play ball a couple of times back when I was young and pre-knee surgery and wrist surgery and could jump and stuff, you know.

And he liked me in that. You know, he still had a poster on his wall of him and Bill Bradley, because they were both freshmen of the year in the Ivy league. Gary played division one at Brandeis, Bradley played Princeton, right? Yeah. And, uh, um, so I went in in a different way through sports and I very quickly learned what the dynamic is. You know, it's like Gary was your team superstar,

you know what I mean? And seeing it in terms of a sports dynamic of not ruffling team chemistry and knowing where your place was, you know, in the pecking order, you know, it made things a lot clearer for me. And he had me, when he brought me over, he had me write on a show called Champs.

It was DreamWorks' first sitcom. It was only like 10 episodes. And I worked on that show. And it was only on for a second. But we got along so well, I got a call right after. He's like, hey, Mike Fox wants to work with me again. But he wants to work with some young dude that knows how these shows like Friends have multiple storylines and 26 scenes and all that stuff. And so I was literally on my first private jet sitting next to Jeffrey Katzenberg flying in New York city at 25. And all because of Gary, he mentored me like, you know, like the way that everybody wishes the old veteran quarterback that was a

gene, you know, the rock star would actually mentor the younger ones. And the reality is that rarely happens. So that's how I call it Spin Shitty, but that's how it came my way. We created it together. I thought it was out of benevolence, but I thought it was only out of benevolence. And I remember in Spin City, Callahan and I used to joke about this know gary was like here's how you run a writer's room here's how you edit you know and it never dawned on me that he never moved full-time to new york

you know and i thought he's just being awesome he's like here's how you talk to a director you got it i'm like yeah no this is fun he's like cool see you around man so he was he was mentoring you and also hoping you didn't have to fly across country all the time too so yeah man he had the he had the greatest gig in the world he flew in on uh like thursdays and show night was fridays and they'd stay in the weekend and play ball and then fly back to la sunday night you know so the birth of an idea so say scrubs okay you're is it always something you're thinking about does something motivate you and? And I heard a story that, that it was about a guy you live near that was a doctor, um, who would, you know, again, correct any of this stuff. Cause I know the research is all over the place with it,

but that's okay. I love just the, the inception idea and then how often you'll probably go, okay, that's stupid. I'm just going to stop. And then maybe it doesn't go away or you're glad it went away. Cause it was a bad idea. Yeah. You must have this man. I think, uh, ideas come all the time. And, uh, for me anyways, I'm always looking for reasons not to work. You know, I, I couldn't hate writing more. Anybody, by the way, that says they love writing is a sociopath and it's fake. Okay. It's fun to have written something, right. But to actually sit by yourself and write it, it's like going to the dentist, dude. It's horrible.

It's horrible, right? So for me, generally, I think of an idea and then try to find a thousand reasons not to do it. It's an interesting story because you can check it out online right now. I went to college with a dude, soccer player, complete screw up, great pal, JD. He's out here in LA now. He's a doctor.

And I used to joke when I was in my 20s with him, I'm like, dude, he had to go back to college. He was such a bad student just to do pre-med again to become a doctor. He decided to become a doctor, right? And I'm like, my biggest nightmare having seen how you behaved in your 20s would be to wake up in an emergency room with you over my head going, you're going to be fine, man. I'd be like, I am not, because you are a horrible person. And I just thought that would be a funny TV show. And he literally gave me all of his intern stories and hooked me up with a bunch of other doctors. And so I think we were always proud of everybody's like, hey, Scrubs is the most realistic.

And just because we took actual stories from people that age of how screwy it is on your first day of work to suddenly be in charge of people living and dying. Two days ago, he now, he was a heart surgeon, but he tore his rotator cuff in that basketball game that you played in. And so he's having trouble doing surgery the last year. And so he took over, he had as many surgeries,

he became the chief administrator for Kaiser's Hospital in Los Feliz in LA. And he is literally running their command center, COVID command center. He's in there seven days a week. And randomly, I don't do stuff like this on social media much. He never tweets, but he put out, you know, I'm so proud to be working with these doctors and nurses.

And I retweeted it and said, Hey, I don't talk about it a lot, but this is the real JD. You know, his name is John Doris. I can't think of names. His name is John Doris instead of John Dorian. And he has to change his clothes in his garage at night, you know, trying not to get his kids sick and stuff. And within like four hours is an entertainment weekly story. So it's in the magazines right now and stuff. He is literally a medical rock star. But that's where that idea came from, man. We all used to love our doctors to be very serious and heroic.

And I just realized no one ever done a story that I think all of us have. If we have a doctor friend that was a, you know, a beer drinking college fuck up buddy, I can do language on here, right? Yeah, absolutely. All right. All right. Good. So the, uh, that was kind of, I think what caught some people is like,

oh shit, you know, it's a doctor who is really afraid and just wants to hook up with people and have a light and still have fun. And it's the most serious person in the world, but still has this kind of undercurrent of doing a job that's really important. So, yeah, I just stole his life, dude. You know, I didn't I didn't ever think it would work in a million years. You know, you never think these ideas are going to work. And, you know, it was a cool, cool experience. We've got more of Bill, including know, uh, uh, it was a cool, cool experience.

We've got more of Bill, including some friends stuff, some hoop stories, but if you're like me, you probably start thinking about what to eat for dinner while you're eating lunch. I love food, right? And that's why I love using Postmates. They deliver food from every restaurant I can think of right to my door. And I got to tell you a lot of times, especially when you're gone and you're on your own and you land and you're coming back from LAX and you get to your place and you go, I've got pickles and hot sauce. Well, that's why I hook it up with Postmates. They have everything I could want in my part of town. And sometimes you get a little adventurous and be like, oh, Postmates is going to deliver it from that far away. I'm in.

So Postmates doesn't just deliver burgers and sushi. They actually make my life easier with grocery delivery and whatever I can think of delivery as well. Convenience stores, clothing stores, you name it. So no more trips to the store, no more late night fast food runs. I don't even have to worry about where to grab lunch anymore.

Just download Postmates on iOS or Android. Find your favorites and get anything you want delivered within the hour. For a limited time, Postmates is giving our listeners $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days. Start your free deliveries. Download the app. Use the code RRSHOW.

That's code RRSHOW for $100 of free delivery credit with no minimum purchase for your first seven days when you download the Postmates app. Anything you need, anytime you need it, Postmates. $100, okay? $ it, Postmate it. A hundred bucks, okay? A hundred bucks, boom, done. Deliveries are free. So hook it up. So how did you pitch it?

Did you just pitch it? Because that's outside of the rules, right? You know, of what a doctor's show would be. Yeah, you know, it's funny, man. So I worked, that is a show, is a dinosaur because it was a show, this might be a little over people's head, because it was a show this might be a little over people's head but it's a show that was owned by disney and abc but was on nbc which never happens anymore because there's consolidation and without naming names i'll tell you i went and pitched it

to the people at uh abc the company that was paying me. Um, and I was, you know, the big pitch was like, Hey, look, it's this tonal tightrope. I want to do a show that's really silly and goofy and has fantasies and big jokes and can seem like a cartoon sometimes. And I want to switch gears immediately and have it have a huge emotional resonance. I think, I think you can do it just using music and shooting in a real hospital and have patients really die and stuff.

And as I was pitching it, there's no bullshit to my own bosses at ABC. One of the heads of the company fell asleep during the pitch. He had a chair. There was heavy silence. So his head kind of – and I hadn't heard anything for a while, and I just kind of heard a little rumbling snoring. I'm like, oh, this is going that well.

So I got lucky. Was he older? No, dude. Was he older at least? No, I think he just had a rough night. It was Hollywood. Maybe he really was going to like it then. He's like, all right, I relate to these guys. It was Hollywood. Well, then maybe he really was going to like it then. You know, he's like, all right, I relate to these guys.

You never know. But that's why that show ended up going back to ABC at the end because they owned it. But I had to wait around for like six months. And I pitched it to, finally, the head of the studio helped me out. And I pitched it to NBC and they bought it. But it was a constant fight with people. It's really interesting, man. Is anything different?

I do it the same, so I'm not criticizing. You and I were talking a little bit about how we don't love, you know, it's easy to kind of stereotype executives as being like, nah, you know, idea killers. And I think it's just anything different makes people apprehensive. You know, I'm the same way when people pitch me ideas for my own shows. And so it was just a really hard battle to get to do, you know, the path to that show is like, hey, do it as a sitcom and have it be about Dr. Cox and his girlfriend. I'm like, no, you know, or do it more as the drama and don't do any of this

silly stuff. And so I just got lucky that it worked, you know, I don't know why it resonated for people, but I'm really grateful. I want to stay with that. Cause it is something I sent in the note because I know, you know, it was an on-air guy at ESPN and the execs knew we did this, um, that they made a decision and we didn't agree. Or if it was something that helped happen to us, impacted us directly and we're all kind of selfish,

especially the ego of being on air. You would just go, you know, the execs don't get it. They've never been on air. They don't know what it's all about. Like there is this general feeling of they don't know what they're doing. And we're the ones that know what we're doing. And I would always like, even if I believe that at times I go, you know, this can't be possible. It can't be that every single executive is wrong every time about any talent decision. And I'm sure there are some parallels there as writers and on the creative side where you've been on both as the executive and creator side, where you've probably had younger writers reach out to you. You felt like that at some point. So what do you think is accurate about that dynamic? It's a really good question. I've been obsessing about

it a long time because I've seen both extremes. You know, I've seen Gary Goldberg was famous for, um, you know, the deal for spin city was that City was that the because a lot of the networks were bidding on it. No network was whoever bought it wasn't allowed to give notes or be involved in casting or be involved in anything. And I never registered that until kind of Gary left the show, you know, right after the second year. And then the third year I showed up to work and there was like 9,000 executives there. I'm like, what's going on? Why is everybody here? Cause I didn't have the same deal. And then I've also seen people who are so eager to accept any note,

you know, to get their show on television that it's been, we call it being noted to death. You know, it's the end product is nothing about what they really made, what they really wanted to make. So here's what I think, man. I think the problem isn't with making creative decisions. The problem is with, and where the animosity and edge comes from sometimes, is from suggesting fixes

okay or suggesting something else as if their idea is better than yours all right and here's what i mean um oh the guy that runs my company used to be a person that gave notes for a living his name is jeff ingold He plays in the basketball game. He couldn't be a better guy. And I had grown up with a mentor that convinced me not to like notes. And Jeff gave me the first note that drove me insane. Because this is what will happen in a writing thing.

You have 10 writers working on a show for months, and then you give them the script, and then some executive will go uh hey this moment here and we don't think it works what if you did this instead like she almost kisses him but then doesn't and this happens and in those dynamics you've already thought of that a hundred times with 20 other people you know and so you're like no yeah we never came up with that with the eight weeks we've been working on this you know you want to be an asshole right um and so jeff ingold gave me this note man how much would this drive you crazy if you're you know writing a show is he called up

he goes uh hey you know i love the show right all right so that's point one he likes the show i like anybody that likes the show i'm like yeah he goes all right i got this script like the act break you really want me to care about these two characters, right? I'm like, yeah. He goes, I didn't give a shit. And I was like, and then he didn't tell me how to fix it. He didn't tell me how to anything. I got mad at first.

And I'm like, yeah, whatever, man, we'll think about it. And I went back to everybody else. And they were like, oh yeah, it doesn't, you know, we haven't really done the work to make people invest in this yet. So it was a great note because he said, uh, so imagine if somebody in the decision maker side on your side came at you from a place, instead of saying you're a feeling of who you should book or what you should do or who you should talk to is wrong. If they said, Hey'm a huge fan of your stuff ryan and when i heard about what you're doing blah blah for whatever reason i'm just not excited about it you know i mean then you would go

oh that's weird you know does that make sense it does make sense the only pushback i give is that if they said at the same time every 20 times they were about to criticize me, then after five or six, I'd go, oh, here we go. Because it's brutal. It comes with a B side of empathy for me that I had to take a long time to learn. Anybody that goes into your business, any of these people from Harvard and Cornell Business School that end up running studios and networks, they could be on Wall Street making more money. They're here because they wish that they were doing what we do or they love it so much. And if you understand that, you immediately go, like I became friends with a network president who said, I'm here because I love TV. If someone goes, hey, you're allowed to tell people what you think and what

you want to see, but don't do it. He's like, it's insane. Of course you're going to do it. You're going to hear it because I love this stuff. So once you get that empathy that these men and women that are talking to you that way are talking to you a little bit because they want to do what you do, they love what you're doing, then it makes it a little clearer and I feel for them a little more. It makes sense. Yeah, that does make sense but it's it's still really rare no but it's it's so rare and that's how i got you know after 14 years of espn like there would be okay

this is the guy i'm going to listen to you know and whether the best was when it was another on air person you know and in your notes thing where the guy just said other than hey i don't care about this like that makes you think like yeah you going to get mad at first because you're creative, and you're like, damn it. Maybe he's right. That's the fear. What if he's right? But that was it.

I remember Tirico was the king of that. He would call and say one thing. He would say one thing to me and then hang up. And that was him mentoring me because Tirico is as good as anybody on the air. And he would just give me that one thing to think about. And that would be something I would tell anybody that has a position of power, has to give advice to people,

especially creative people, just given the one P, even if you have seven things you want to tell them, just tell them that one, because they're going to forget the other ones, you know, or they're just going to get mad about it and shut down after three or four.

Anyway, a hundred percent. Right. And look, look, we also take knowledge. It's easy for me to say what I'm saying, because there's a leverage shift in both of our businesses, which is you eat shit because you have to and you find your way to navigate it. And I got lucky that I created a couple shows that

made dough for the companies. And then there was a leverage shift that I didn't have to take notes and that made it much easier to actually take them. To me, that was the big crossroads is when you go, hey, I can now be at a place of going, I'm doing whatever I want to do. And the hell with you guys and gals. Or to go, well, now I can ultimately say, I'm going to go ahead and respectfully do it my way.

It makes it a lot easier to empathize. And here, you must have the same thing on your side of, you know, someone. I mean, I bet you Scott Van Pelt's note life now is different than it was, you know, when he first came on the scene, you know? Yeah, you can't tell that guy anything. He doesn't want your your tips he doesn't want to hear about you you know your interview uh style stuff so i mean he you know that was frustrating because he didn't get me in the beginning because we weren't friends prior to doing the show together and i'm like this

guy who's like well it needs to be done this way or whatever and he's like you may be doing radio longer than i have but i'm i'm scott fucking. Like, I don't, I don't want your tips. And I'd be like, nope, that was wrong. You know? And I would just say it. And that was part of my own insecurity about so many people, the company not wanting me to be his co-host and me trying to make sure I did the best I could possibly be every day. And then honestly, we were great friends, but we laugh about it. But I, I, sometimes I try to look at me from his perspective, going back 10 years and be like, man, he must've been like,

Hey, you know, I picked you right. Asshole. I don't need this. Like, who do you use him? I use him as a good example.

You know, I got this new show coming out on Apple that Scott's actually in, believe it or not. Oh, no. Yeah. Thanks for the call. All right. The, uh, I'll take it. The, um, tough not. Uh, cause it's a sports show. Yeah. Thanks for the call. All right.

The, uh, I'll take it. The, um, tough one. Um, but,

uh, uh, I think he, he struck me not knowing him nearly as well as you do as a guy that shows the, what I call the good path is now that he has some leverage and power probably does not have to answer to anybody. Um, is not, does not have to answer to anybody.

He does not seem to be rubbing it in people's faces. He seems to be still a kind, good dude. Yeah, yeah. No, no doubt. No doubt. Okay, we do this thing, because I'm going to let you go here. It's in honor of Craig Kilbourne,

who's triumphant return. He came on the podcast recently, and I love five questions. He played in the ballgame a couple of times. He can actually play. How was he? He could fill questions. He played in the ball game a couple of times. He can actually, how was he? He could, he could fill it. You could shoot, but you could tell he was bummed out that he was not who he used to be. You know what I mean? Cause he, yeah, too well. I know that far too well.

Yeah. And by the way, you know, some nights that game has a bunch of young division one types of, you know, and not, not still there, but guys in their 20s who played in college. So there was real talent there, but he could fill. He's not afraid to shoot threes, I'll tell you that. I think he plays the way he hosts. He's just going to get out there and start firing. So I always thought five questions was funny and not all that.

Sometimes we don't even get to five. Here we go. You ready? Yeah. I know how the business works because you don't want to name names or you don't want to lead where everybody inside the business will know, but you can either do the worst pitch to you and it can be a real one or I imagine

the worst pitches are for people that aren't in the business. I mean, I feel bad when somebody's like, oh, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, I'm getting into some of this stuff, have some stuff coming up. And then they start paying. I'm like, you know, I'm not like, don't even be in the Senate. Right. By the way, if this turned into a pitch, it would be really fun.

No, I'm not. I'm not doing that at all. God, no, that's not even where I was going with that. I'm telling people if they come up to me to be like, oh, that's cool. Like what's going on? And I'm like, don't talk to me me to be like, oh, that's cool. Like what's going on? And I'm like, don't talk to me about it. Like I'm still trying to figure out what all the tabs on final draft are. But anyway, what's the worst pitch that you've been given that you can share

that you think is a good story? I'll give you generals. And look, the worst pitch I've given you, I've got to stay general because I And look, the worst pitch I've given you, I've got to stay general because I have heard, and it's a cliche, over a thousand times, where I work is a sitcom, man. It's just a sitcom. And that can be, I'm like, is it? And by the way, it can be a garage, an adoption agency. The best example is a friend who said, my mom works in an adoption agency. It's an amazing, amazing sitcom. I know you hear this a thousand times, but this is a one in a million thing. And I took that person down to the Writers Guild because when people write scripts, they register them to make sure they're not stolen. And I think there's been something like 24 adoption agency scripts submitted that year. Do you know what I mean? To be registered.

And the hard lesson that I give everybody is your idea is not new. Okay. And it's just not. And so the horrible pitch is my workplace is a sitcom. And then the lesson I tell people is two things. One, because then they'll go, oh, some ideas are new. And they'll talk to me about whatever show they're watching at the moment. And then I will point out, no, the idea is not new. TV is about execution. Okay. So if you're doing a project or an idea or a script, you could do an adoption agency script that feels new and fresh because of the way you execute it. You know, and 30 Rock, people have done shows about the writer's room of TV shows before.

I could name a bunch of them. And 30 Rock was great and funny and a joke driven show and felt original and new. I loved it. You know what I mean? The idea wasn't new. The execution was and new. I loved it. You know what I mean? Uh, the idea wasn't new. The execution was very new. Um, uh, so look, that's number one is ideas are cheap. If you want to work in the idea business, it used to be go to screenplays. Um, you know, because it's like, it's a huge hook and a movie. Great. TV is, uh, here's a world that can last for 50 or 100 episodes, and I'm going to execute it in a way that has a specific and original voice.

Okay? So, A. B, the answer to that is, I'm like, I want you to understand what you're doing when you come tell somebody that's a writer that you have a sitcom. Here's what you're doing. I'll just translate it. This is why it's good if you're creating stuff that you're writing and putting together. Somebody comes to me and they go, I got an idea. I'll say, are you a writer?

And they'll go, no, no, but my office should be a sitcom. I'm like, all right, so here's what you're asking. I've worked my whole life to get to a place that I'm allowed to do my own ideas and own all of them. And what you're doing is saying, hey, I'm going to give you my idea that you're going to do and you're going to do all the work and only own half of it. Is that exciting? And by the way, it lets through a weirdo that goes, so cool that you came along because even though I do this for a living, I don't have any ideas. I don't have any. No, that's what I did. One of the first script books I think I bought years and years ago when you go through the phase of, I'm going to buy these books.

Then it's like, hey, are you ever going to read them though? That was a fun day at Barnes & Noble. You go through them. I remember one of the first ones was like, would you ever sit down and start playing a trumpet? You just go, I'll figure this out by the end of the day. You wouldn't. Once you thought of it that way, you're like, all right, this is going to take a little bit more time.

Okay, I've got a couple more let me go quick on these who's the all right who's the most famous person so we're looking for peak fame that also had the best basketball skills that has played in this legendary game so it can't be somebody who actually played you know in even in college give me the most famous guy that showed up that had the best game. I can't go. The cheat is Paul Shirley played for a while because he was in the

NBA for 10 years. He's the guy that wrote the book about hey, can I keep my jersey for those that don't know. Yeah, because that's a cheat because he's an NBA player and he played for a while. There's a guy at paper USC that could guard him. A good one is another former athlete. And I would have put two and two together. Derek Mays still plays in the game. Fantastic NFL receiver, Notre Dame guy. If you put the pieces together, dude that grew up in Indiana, of course, he's going to have just a, you know, a rock solid, uh, basketball game. Um, Kilbourne, pretty good shooter. Um,

uh, surprising. Uh, uh, there's a, uh, there's a lot of good guys, you know, the Donald Faison from scrubs, um, plays like an actor is look at me, look at me, shoots whenever he touches it, but he's very, he's very good, but humbled and only tolerable because he was humbled by his older brother played division one basketball, played in the game for a while. But so I'd have to say, I'd have to cheat though and say, uh, Paul Shirley for the win, man. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would hope so too.

He's pretty big. By the way, here's the funny nightmare. I'll do a quick story and you laugh paul surely not many people know this um worked his way up to like being in the rotation and uh uh his last year is either on the suns or the bulls i think bulls he's gotten into rotation and in a game of mop-up time the coach is like is anybody gonna fucking play some defense out there and paul went out and austin Crozier was coming down full speed. They were already up by 19. Paul's like, I'm going to stand here like I'm going to take a charge so the coach doesn't get mad, and Crozier's going to go around me.

And Austin Crozier went right into him and lacerated his spleen and broke a fracture in his sternum and essentially knocked Paul out of the league for a year, and he never really made it back. And our game, except for the night we were there, is usually at Crossroads. And the one big retired jersey that decides Baron Davis is huge is Austin Kroos' years.

Oh, wow. Paul surely came to play, and every night he would start up by looking up at that. He's like, like oh fuck that guy fuck that guy okay I'll do one more best because the friend story I want to give me your best friend

story whether it's about any of the people just the thing that you love the most that one where it's a couple beers and somebody asks you the question I just asked you what's your favorite joke that's where it's a couple of beers and somebody asks you the question I just asked you. All right. Sure. It was, what's your favorite joke? It's nobody else's favorite joke. And, um, uh, I didn't write it. So it's not even self-aggrandizing. A dude named Jeff Astroff wrote it and you can find it in that old friends episode. And it was not the showrunner, David

Crane's type of joke, but it was like three or four in the morning and we were all punchy. And, uh, they were all looking for that annoying monkey remember that monkey on the show uh yeah everybody thought that monkey was adorable and whenever you were on stage the monkey was there more so yeah it would shit into its hand and then just throw it at you you're on stage was a horrible horrible creature man you know and uh the parallel of that thing just heaving its own shit at people and everybody in america loving it made me laugh but uh uh the joke was uh uh late night there was an episode that they lost the monkey and they're going everywhere to try and find the monkeys and um we needed the joke for matt leblanc for joey to knock on the door and uh jeff astroff pitched um he knocks on a random door to ask if they've seen

the monkey and a beautiful girl answers and he should just say look i'm sorry to bother you in the middle of night but uh we lost a pet it's a monkey it's about this big it answers to the name marcel so if we could just get a couple naked pictures pictures of you, that would be great. And it's not that great. Yeah, but you know what? For that show, though, and then for it to zag like that, you know, 90s? It's a different time. But what made me laugh is the showrunner, it was one of those things of all these events hitting,

it was late. The showrunner had been beaten down, and Jeff Astroff would not let it go. He's like, you got to do it. You got to. And the joke didn't kill. The fact that it's on TV and I still see it in reruns takes me back to a time of like how that's – people don't understand that's only on television because it was 3.30 a.m. And because the guy that came up with it wouldn't leave the showrunner alone until he said he'd put it in the show.

Otherwise, we'd never get to go home. Now, it's there in perpetuity. What a great way to close that out. Bill Lawrence, thanks so much for your time. Are you more on Instagram or Twitter? I know you don't tweet a lot. I'm barely on Instagram. I'm

VDoozer on Twitter. I think I'm hysterical. VDoozer, that's two O's, and it's a play on the middle name. Hey, man, thanks again. Hang in there throughout all this, and let me know if I can ever return the favor, all right? Yeah, and hey, get yourself back out there in that game as soon as we come out on the other side of this, all right? Absolutely. I'll see you soon. See you, Ryan.

I hope you enjoyed that. I know that I like to do anything where we can try to give you guys maybe a window into how other industries work. And that's something that's always been interesting to me as well. So enjoy the rest of the week. Bill and I are going to redraft the 2000 NBA draft for Sunday's pod, I think.

Is that the plan, Kyle? I know we're doing, the next one he and I are doing is 2000. We were looking through the history of it and now it stacks up. It is so comically bad. Like it's even worse when I think about what it is. We were looking at some of the numbers of how many people made all-star teams, how many all NBA selections there were from an entire class. It's pathetic. It's so bad. I mean, we knew it was bad, but I couldn't believe it when I was actually reading through some of the research on it. So, uh, that's Bill and I. And then of course, you know, we knew it was bad, but I couldn't believe it when I was actually reading through some of the research on it. So that's Bill and I.

And then, of course, you know, we're going to go because we went forever on Sunday. And we'll just keep this stuff rolling. So we really appreciate you listening and getting through your day any way you can. Stay safe. Thank you.