2 episodes this week
Let me start with two completely unrelated facts that you should tell everyone you know.
1.) Someone just sent me the complete version of the Michael Richards meltdown, and the one part that was cut out of the version most people saw is where Hugh Laurie is high-fiving him.
2.) We’re on twice this week. Tuesday at 9:00 and 9:30.
In keeping with the theme of twos, this week I’m going to present to you the two part Big Day guide to torturing your co-workers.
1.)Outthinking: ”The Kurt Fuller.”
This week of shooting, Josh Cooke and I spent countless hours in his trailer playing Connect Four for $50 a game. Josh and I were about evenly matched, having a good time, feeling solid about our skills, until Kurt showed up. He watched for a few minutes, and then he asked to play. Thankfully, we didn’t play him for money. We played him just for “fun.”
I use quote marks because it didn’t take us long to realize that the fun was over. For one thing, we learned quickly that Kurt Fuller is the greatest Connect Four player who has ever lived. You might say “how can anyone be that good at it? It’s a game with two 7 year olds on the box. Anyone can play it as long as they’re old enough to not swallow the pieces.” Just understand when the box says 5 and up, Kurt is the “and up.” The man plays Connect Four like one of those savants whose brain is so full of every possible combination on a chessboard that they can’t tie their shoes or say hello to you. And I’d rather play connect four with that person, because he wouldn’t taunt me.
The mind games made you want to throw the board. Between classic Fuller backhanded compliments, Kurt gave us a reason for his superpowers: he said it was because he has two children. He said it to make us feel better (and, of course, also a little bit worse), but it made me feel sorry for the children. If our many games are an indication, Dad’s style of parenting doesn’t involve letting the kids win. It does include taking the time after a loss to infuriate them by pointing out where they could have won five moves ago if they were just paying attention. Kurt is one of those guys who treats knowledge like Vicks mentholated ointment. The way he gives it to children is by rubbing it in.
After a while, Josh and I didn’t feel like playing Connect Four any more. He ended up a few games ahead of me, but I didn’t want to get back to even, or look at another Connect Four board again. When I have children, I’ll have them play baseball in the house.
2.)Not thinking: “The Marla Sokoloff.”
Marla Sokoloff is a sweet girl, but this week she did more damage than Fuller. Josh and I enjoyed this method a lot more, because we were witnesses to it and not the subjects.
One of the guys on the set, whom I will call Jarrett Grode (not his real name, but I don’t want this to show up when people google him, and also, the real Jarrett is my friend and a talented guy, and I figure he could use the plug at the bottom of this blog under “tvguide links”) came back after a few weeks away, during which time he was supposed to get married. When he showed up, he said hello to Marla and Josh and me. Marla asked Jarrett how his wedding went. It didn’t happen, Mr. Grode told her.
Let’s pause the tape here and point out that “the wedding didn’t happen” is what I like to call a conversational danger sign. About as subtle as “I just got back from the doctor’s and he explained why I’ve been losing weight,” it says to the alert listener “careful--this conversation might be heading into some non-laughter territory.” Not that it’s certain disaster. Just be careful. You have a few safe responses. You can try an ambiguous “oh, really?” Maybe “Ring! Ring! I have a call I have to answer on my cell phone.” Or the recommended method: change the subject with a “hey, did you see ABC’s new slate of comedies? The only show better than the one on Tuesday at 9:00 is the one on Tuesday at 9:30. And I hear that House is a racist.” All of them would be better than…
“What, did she get cold feet and break it off? Ha ha ha ha.”
Marla was frozen in mid-joke when Jarrett Grode, in a dead monotone only heard from prisoners of war and people telling the absolute truth, said yes, that was exactly what had happened. Josh Cooke and I had a hard time figuring out who felt worse about it—Marla or Jarrett. You would have been able to figure it out easily (it was Jarrett), but our judgment was impaired by the fact that we were laughing so hard. Sure, it might have been more polite to be silent, but it was like watching someone win a game with a shot from half court. Someone’s going to have their heart broken, but that’s why it’s so special.
Which one are you? Let me know, and watch Tuesday at 9:00. And 9:30.
Slow Week
TVGuide’s celebrity blogs are displayed in the reverse order that they were written, which is so that the reader can watch the author enjoy himself more and more. It would be kind of depressing to see them in the real order, which is from “oh, wow! I get a blog! This will be fun!” to “Greta Garbo did not go far enough.”
That’s because it’s a lot of pressure to come up with an interesting story each time. Here’s a television secret: not every episode of Big Day provides the sort of exciting behind the scenes anecdote that meets the incredibly high standards of a tvguide blog. Sure, every once in a while you’ll have to wrestle a sword away from a drunken Josh Cooke before he accomplishes his bellowed intention of driving to the set of the Office and decapitating John Krasinski (“There can only be one! There can only be one!”) But that’s only three weeks out of ten. The other seven, you’re searching for things to put in the blog. (“Maybe if I set Cooke’s trailer on fire? I’ll tell him it was Krasinski.”)
This was one of those weeks. Not a whole lot happened. Pretty calm. To be honest, that was why I enjoyed it. As we were shooting this episode, in real life, I was only two weeks away from my real-life wedding to my lovely and patient fiancée, Tracy. We met in college. We’ve been together since. You know the story. It’s true love, considering how often she is ashamed to be seen with me in public. The logical human response is to not commit your life to someone you have seen fight a stranger for wearing a Red Sox jacket (in fairness, it was Fenway Park.) That sort of thing has happened so much I can tell I’ve made a mistake by the look she gets in her face, a combination of amusement and sadness.
Anyway, when this episode was shot, we had reached that stressful point in the wedding preparation where Tracy was starting to realize exactly what she was getting herself into. Both of us were having the most exciting moment of our life, together. It just wasn’t the same moment. She was spending her time focusing on every detail of the celebration of the beginning of our lifetime commitment. Meanwhile, the person she had chosen for said commitment was pumping his fist and holding up a letter that ABC sent Big Day’s producers, claiming that the bulge in last week’s “trampy” sweatpants was too prominent and would have to be CGI’d out. “Forget about the seating chart, woman! Do you know if Kinko’s makes copies in marble?”
That’s how it would go. She would prepare for the wedding, and I would come home and complain about the grueling twelve hours I had spent with my hand on Marla Sokoloff’s breasts. “I’m doing this for you! For us! Now please never ask me about the reception ever again.”
Ultimately, though, there was something I couldn’t get out of by faking sleep. That was our pre-cana A pre-cana is a catholic church requirement that you have to spend eight hours in a room with fifteen other couples taking a class about your impending marriage. That pretty much sums up the Catholic approach to life--we go to traffic school before the wreck.
We went and it was actually wasn’t that bad, as wedding preparation went, until we got to the point where everyone had to draw where they saw themselves in ten years. I might have drawn something different if I had known the priest was going to show everyone’s drawings to the class.
First, he showed Tracy’s drawing, which was a man and a woman and two beautiful children. He liked it, even though, really, I think even she would have to admit it was kind of a cliché.
Then he showed my cartoon, which was a man and a tall, blonde woman. He was about to make a comment about the absence of children, and what it said about our different expectations for blah, blah, when he noticed that Tracy is a brunette. “Steve, not to criticize your art, but this doesn’t look very much like Tracy at all.”
“Oh, that’s because it isn’t. You said ten years from now…”
As I kept talking, I noticed that churches are especially silent when you use the words “starter wife” in them. Tracy just had that look again.
Enjoy this week’s show. It turned out way more entertaining than the process of making it.
Episode #2 Blog
After I wrote last week’s blog, I planned on never having to write another story about my life. All I had to do, I figured, was just spend the next ten weeks responding to the comments from this one. It is now seven days later and right now there are three fewer comments on my tvguide.com blog than are on my imdb page arguing that I look like David Boreanaz, “however, David is much more attractive.” (Words hurt, dovercliffs.)
Which is to say, zero. So here’s blog entry number two.
For me, as for many young actors, the difference between shooting the first episode and the second episode of this television show was kind of like the difference between Rocky I and Rocky II. If you can have a show get picked up, you have a lot more money and you know it’s going to be on the air. The world gets a lot brighter.
I had a new car. I was engaged. Things were good. But as we got ready to shoot the second episode, I realized I had to do the same thing I did in the first one, and there were some problems. I wasn’t as hungry any more. In fact, I was getting kind of fat. The only exercise I liked to do was throwing my motorcycle helmet at the statue the city built for me. I think I fought Mr. T at some point, but I get really confused about the differences between Rocky two and three. Was there an exhibition fight with Hulk Hogan? No. I’m pretty sure about that.
In any case, before I shot the second episode, things needed to change. Particularly the part about gaining weight.
So, like Rocky, I picked up a deranged trainer to get me back in shape. Mine was a former British special forces agent who ran me through hills, which is almost as mind numbing as chasing poultry.
With Rocky, as he does those insane workouts, you think things are going to be fine, but you aren’t sure until you see him running through the city and all of those children are following him and going crazy. You can tell it’s going to happen from the clothes he’s wearing. It’s back to basics. He’s a hero again. In sweatpants and a crappy shirt, he’s giving those kids a memory that will last a lifetime.
And that relates to this episode and the clothes you see me wearing in the picture.
I am wearing this outfit because an angry bridesmaid has dressed my character in the most humiliating way possible. And at first, in real life, it really was embarrassing. Look at it. Even if it’s for a fictional character, it’s still a real grown man who has to wear a shirt with jewelry attached to it. After a while, though, I kind of stopped noticing. It’s like when you say a word so many times it loses meaning.
It was at this point that Josh Cooke and I both had a several hour break during shooting. We noticed that there was a pitch and putt golf course across the street. You know the type--the tiny par 3 jammed into city property where the only natural hazards are bus stops and the families sitting at them. I figured why bother to take the outfit off? They don’t have a dress code, and I’ll just have to put it back on again.
I did not play well. I was experiencing significant problems with my swing--you try reaching a full range of motion with enough rhinestones on your shirt to spell out the word “diva.”
I will admit that there was some angry swearing.
That usually isn’t a big problem on golf courses, since the only other people you see are golfers who are yelling the same words over you. But it was in the middle of a particularly creative rant that I noticed several horrified mothers at the bus stop glaring at me as they realized that, despite the use of hands and elbows, it was physically impossible to cover both of their children’s ears and eyes at the same time. They were left with the Sophie’s choice of which of their children’s delicate senses was most important to protect from the screaming devil in “trampy” sweat pants.
Most of them went for the “hear no evil” option, and that meant you could look over and actually lock eyes with the distressed and confused child in that rare moment when it is both creating and repressing the same memory. I’m not telling this story to say that it stopped me, or even slowed me down. I am telling it so that it might explain why years from now, when you come across this episode in reruns, the person sitting next to you is weeping uncontrollably without understanding why.
And to say that just like Rocky, in sweatpants and a crappy shirt, I gave those kids a memory that will last a lifetime.
Oh, yeah—this week’s episode is great. Watch the show and post a comment. But I’m warning you--if next week doesn’t work out, I’m just going to respond to the comments on the “My Boys” blog.
TVGuide.com Blog
Hello, dedicated TVguide.com reader--my name is Stephen Rannazzisi. You can see me on ABC’s new comedy Big Day. The show premieres on Tuesday, Nov. 28th at 9:00pm. Each episode covers a different half hour in a single wedding day. It’s kind of like 24 without explosions.
The show was created by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, a married couple that used to write for King of Queens. We have a talented cast--Marla Sokoloff (“the Practice") Josh Cooke (all three episodes of “Four Kings”!) are Alice and Danny, the bride and groom. Wendie Malick ("Just Shoot Me") and Kurt Fuller (really, who cares? I’ve already gotten bored of giving everyone’s credits, and to be honest, I’m not sure what else he’s done. I think he was in “Wayne’s World,” but he doesn’t like to talk about it) play their parents, and Miriam Schor (look on imdb) as Becca, the maid of honor and the hilariously nervous Stephanie Weir (I really think the Red Sox overpaid for that Japanese pitcher) as Lorna, the wedding coordinator.
But enough about them. They didn’t have to write a term paper for TVguide.com, did they? No. Let’s talk about me. I play Skobo, the groom’s best friend, also known as “the breakout star”of ABC’s new comedy Big Day, premiering Tuesday, November 28th at 9:00 PM.
When I was approached to do the blog, I didn’t know what I was supposed to write about. Then I decided to let you in behind the scenes. By “behind the scenes,” I don’t mean “in an actually revealing tmz.com kind of way”, but rather “in a superficial Byron Allen way.” Let’s begin, shall we?
It’s a great job, working on television. But it’s still a job, just like yours, TVguide.com reader, with one significant difference being that I never take time off my job to read about yours (I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that--maybe you should get back to work, huh? Well, after the blog. But if you stop reading now, remember, Big Day, November 28th, Tuesday, 9:00. Go on-line and have your Tivo take care of it now.). I wasn’t really sure what to expect on the first day, when I pulled my 1995 Ford Escort into the parking lot of the set. I was excited—well, as excited, as anyone can be when he’s driving a 1995 Ford Escort. I sat in the car, thinking that if this went well, I wouldn’t always be driving out of the lot with people staring at my car.
Since the wedding day begins the morning after me spending the night with the maid of honor, I begin the show shirtless in bed. Staring at the cracked plastic of the dashboard, I visualized the looks of barely restrained awe in the crew as they gazed at my physique. I practiced some false modesty (“No, no. All natural. Just good genetics, I guess.”), while thanking fate that I was born in a world with television cameras. If this were another, more backward time, I would only be seen on murals, instead of ABC’s new comedy Big Day, premiering Tuesday, November 28th at 9:00 pm.
Appropriately rehearsed, I headed into the set. After I got my shirt off, I decided that I would take the risk of not being taken seriously: I decided to do some pushups before the take. Appropriately pumped, I leaped into bed, ready to do the scene.
Just as I pictured, the crew gazed at my physique—even the director. Then he stopped shooting. He pointed at me. “Can we do anything else?”
And so it was that before my network television debut, I found myself with a crew of people gazing at my physique, as they shaved my chest and painted abs on my stomach.
At the end of the day, I walked out to the parking lot. It didn’t go as I thought, but it’s still pretty exciting, being a part of ABC’s new comedy Big Day, premiering Tuesday, November 28th at 9:00 PM. When I got to the Escort, it wouldn’t start. We had to call AAA. I rode out of the lot in a tow truck. At least one wish had come true.
(Please watch the show, will you?)
Basketball League
I am playing in an a basketball league with short, white, Jewish guys from Philly and I get hurt every week. I either hurt my back or get sore feet. Who gets sore feet? My grandfather, that's who. It's not like I am playing during the depression, I am wearing shoes. I remember when I was a kid I used to have to have the best Air Jordan's or whatever and now it is like I have 24$ sneakers and am looking for the best knee brace money can buy. "Oh shit, is the new Dr. Shcools ankle brace with free tube of wart cream!" Screw you, I am deadly from three point land.
I MISS MY FRIENDS
There are about 7 people who actually read this page and I know them all very well. I have been a dick about them posting comments on the site. I told them that this was a professional thing and that it had to look a specific way. I then I realized that I got into this business so that I would never have to say those words again. I hated myself for being a dick. So go ahead, post way. If there is anyone out there that has no idea what I am talking about, then you are lucky. I am not sure if I have any fans that come here religously but if I do, this is me and these are my friends. Come play with us!
AWARD SHOWS
Well it is award show season and already I am sick to death of watching all these idiots pat themselves on the back. The main problem I have with all these award show, especially the golden globes, is that I feel like the same people win every year. Like when Sex and the City was on Sarah Jessica Parker won the award every year and now it is The Desperate Housewives. And then they get up there and they act so surprised they won. THEY CANNOT BELEIVE THEY WON!!! I am not buying it, first of all you were nominated weren't you, they only picked 4 or 5 of you so the chance weren't that remote to begin win. You know who can act very surprised if they win and award, if I see Merryl Streep get up there and say, "The Golden Globe for Best Actor this year goes to Steve Rannazzisi!", I am going to be like Holy Shit, I am at home right now in my underpants and there is Chinese food everywhere, I should do a sit up and find something to wear, I just won a golden globe. I don't know how. I wasn't in a movie last year this is awsome. That would be a suprise