The Harry Situation

I confess that there are worse things than Dawn Spangler.

Our friends at Bold It! demanded that we turn in an episode that put Cindy in the A story, and pushed Claire to the B story; this would push Dawn Spangler to the background.

And the sponsor tried to hide this shift in a really crafty way:

IMAGE OF DOCUMENT: Email from sponsor to Dawn saying that Carrie Harrison’s character is now the focus of the show. Todd was CCd.

Don’t know how she caught on.

She was already torturing Harry Johnson. Poor guy.

But when Dawn learned of Carrie’s PSA for the episode “Glued To You”, it was over.

I totally called it. I said that she would come in with some insane reason to do a PSA of her own.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you an important public service announcement from Spawn Dangler:

Simply put… brilliant. And highly effective. Pretty much nobody spoke to her after this.

But it is true - she is a Hottie. And just because she flaunts it, and uses it to manipulate people to her own sick advantage, doesn’t make her any less hot.

And I suppose in a twisted way, it’s even hotter that she rubs it in everybody’s face. I’m sure that every crew member on that set wanted her to rub it in theirs.

Even the Best Boy, Leanne.

Hi Leanne.

Carrie Harrison was a production assistant with no experience when we hired her to replace Teri Morgan as Cindy Christington.

It was the best decision Nancy and I made. Far better than our decision to marry.

We were on the chopping block, and the injury of our lead threatened to close down the show permanently.

Basically, the show would have died without Carrie. Look at this:

Focus groups loved her, so the sponsor had something to believe in.

So get this: Garnier Fructis had serious reservations about a script I wrote called “Glued To You” where Cindy and Harry start to have more than just a sexual relationship. They thought the language I used when talking about Bold It, would cause audiences to think the product was some sort of sexual glue, again.

So instead of shooting the episode and then testing it with a focus group, they shot a PSA apologizing for the yet-to-be-shot episode, and then put the PSA in front of the focus group.

Enjoy:

And it tested through the roof. Box office gold!!!

Test groups loved Carrie Harrison’s Public Service Announcement so much that Garnier Fructis approved the episode that they hated, only because they were sure that their audience would love the PSA that apologizes for said episode.

The sponsor started to fall in love with Carrie Harrison. They made a snap decision. They told me to refocus the whole show on Carrie Harrison, pushing her character into the foreground.

Hah. Got you again. You’re easy.

In my previous brilliant post, I told you about how I didn’t care about the actors’ personal BS. Mostly because I didn’t care about them as people, but also because I thought it had no bearing on the show.

Here’s how my apathy and willful ignorance came back to bite me on the tush:

Ultimately “The Harry Situation”, good or bad, rested upon one core idea: Harry’s apartment becomes a sex factory after he uses “Bold It!”. Like it or not, that was what the show was now about.

I was writing and re-writing episode four, trying to satisfy everyone and still come up with something I could live with.

Here’s what I had to juggle:

-Garnier Fructis needed Bold It! Power Putty mentioned again.
-The show needed to establish that Harry’s new hairdo is sexually irresistible in a very profound way.

Here’s the winner we shot (see you at the awards show - I’ll be the one parking your car):

All hell broke loose after we shot that scene.

Floyd was angry because he was playing a bunch of lame gay stereotypes. He wanted to play a highly nuanced, thinking, feeling, three-dimensional gay man – not some hackneyed cliché. He was unhappy. Or as they used to say in the 1940’s, “not so gay.”

Then, we got this from the focus group:

We learned:

1) The audience thought Ben and Harry were a couple.
2) They were confused as to why Harry kept talking about sex with his roommates when he was already in a serious committed gay relationship.

And of course…

3) They thought that Power Putty was a male performance enhancer that you’re supposed to put on your privadas.

The world is truly a beautiful place.

It was an incredible moment of serendipity: This scene played into Harry’s nagging fear that women would think he’s into dudes, and the sponsor’s nagging fear that consumers would think Power Putty was Sex Putty.

So once again, what better way to solve the problem than with a misguided and desperate Public Service Announcement “brought to you by Garnier Fructis Bold It!”.

Terrible. Terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible. The sponsor “asked” me to include information about their hair putty. Didn’t I do a great job? I’m pretty wonderful. And somehow this PSA solved everyone’s problems. I was grinding my teeth into tiny yellow nubs while I slept, but everyone else was eerily happy.

Almost… too happy.

(My awesome cliffhangers are getting better and better.)

Must go. I have a hot date with someone I met at a party.