Name: Bill Burr - Failed Pilot Story
Uploaded: 2015-11-24T15:19:05.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bill Burr - Failed Pilot Story' from Bill Burr Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2015-11-24. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bill Burr - Failed Pilot Story' from Bill Burr Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2015-11-24. Transcript available.

I got, yeah, I don't want to tell you guys, I got nothing else. I can't even do
a fucking hour.
That's, that's how little I've been doing this week. I got caught up on Peaky
Blinders.
Peaky Blinders, I don't know nothing about no Broadway.
Um, Peaky Blinders with subtitles, uh, I'm up to the, uh, first episode of
season two,
so I'm gonna blow through that this week. And then my wife is watching Bloodline.
I believe that's the name of it, with, uh, Norbert Leo Butts,
who I did a failed pilot with a long time ago, and, uh, he's a fucking great
guy.
And I keep walking in there, and he's absolutely crushing every scene.
And, uh, so I, I gotta watch it out of solidarity.
Um, we actually, a long time ago, did a fucking pilot.
Did I ever tell you guys this fucking story?
We did a pilot, and they wanted edgy.
All right? I thought I told you guys this one.
Whatever, who gives a fuck?
Um, they wanted edgy.
Okay?
It was, you know, and they were letting us go really far.
And the, uh, the pilot name was Playing Chicken, was the name of this pilot.
And the premise was, um, me and Norbert were brothers.
He was Republican, and I was Democrat, and Norbert's character was paralyzed
from the waist down.
And he was paralyzed because he was playing chicken on a fucking jet ski, and
neither person turned away.
And he got paralyzed.
So that's, what's the name of it.
So that's already the fucking premise.
So he was like, over the top, fuck homeless people and all that shit.
So anyway, so we're doing, you know, whatever.
They write this edgy fucking pilot, and, uh, writers were about ready to do the
fucking run-through where all the fucking major network guys come down.
And it's basically, you do, it's basically, it's like a live play.
Alright, let me just give you a little back.
Basically what happens is, if you're on a sitcom, you have the table read on
Monday.
Right?
If it kills, you go upstairs, and you do a bunch of blocking in the fake living
rooms and all that.
Which is basically, I'm gonna stand over here when I do this.
You go through the whole fucking thing.
If it bombs, and they know that they're gonna rewrite a lot of shit, you have a
quick fucking day.
Like, well, we're gonna get a new script tonight, and this will be, you know, a
little bit different.
So then Tuesday comes around, you fucking rehearse it, you still got your
script in hand.
And then you do a run-through, and it's just for the, uh, the production
company.
Like, the, whoever's, you know, making the thing.
So it's, that's friendly fire there.
You know, those are like the executive producers and the people that wrote it,
the writers and all that.
So they watch it, and they see what's working, what isn't, what needs to be
fixed, what can stay the same, what they can add on to.
And then Wednesday is the network run-through, and that's when the people that
can cancel your fucking show, show up.
And leave their sense of humor at the fucking door, right?
So that's always a nerve-wracking fucking day.
And you go out there, and if you do a couple lines, they don't get laughs.
You start getting in your head like you're gonna get fired, you know?
And as you're walking from one fake living room to the fake bar or coffee house
that you hang out, the only sound you hear is the shoes of the fucking
executives walking over to the next fucking, the next scene.
So anyway, so we're doing this fucking pilot, and the opening scene is we're
sitting there at some ice cream place, eating ice cream.
And this homeless guy, whatever, we're having a back and forth, and this
homeless guy comes up and asks for money.
So I, of course, being the liberal, go to give some money.
And Norbert's character, being the conservative guy, you know, basically tells
the guy to fuck off.
So everybody's loving it.
He actually, I remember, flicked ice cream at him.
Oh, he decided he was gonna do that during the fucking run-through, because we
weren't gonna do it all day long, flicking ice cream at him.
It'd be a fucking mess.
So he just kept miming, flicking the ice cream.
That's what it was.
So, anyways, people are digging the pilot, you know?
The producers and all the writers are all thinking it's funny.
They're laughing it up.
We do the regular run-through.
It's going great.
So now we got the network run-through, but the next day, and it just so happens
that during that week or whatever,
Don Imus said the nappy-headed hoes fucking comment, and for whatever reason,
all hell fucking breaks loose, like, you know, Hitler's back.
And it becomes this big fucking lightning rod thing that allows a bunch of
people who don't, you know, want to increase the fines with the FCC and all
this shit.
Basically, what this one guy said on the radio trickles all the way down to our
pilot.
That has these fucking suits nervous, you know, just in general, about we
better watch our step because Don Imus, I don't know what, lost some
advertising money.
So they're in that fucking headspace, and they come down to our show where we
got a half-paralyzed guy, you know, in the opening scene.
We're doing the scene.
It's getting zero laughs, and I remember the homeless guy walked out, and they
even gasped at that because they really made him look homeless.
He was really dirty.
And Norbert goes, all the jokes are bombing, and he goes and turns around and
flips this fucking glob of ice cream and hits the actor right in the face, and
they gasped.
And no laugh.
I mean, I thought it was going to kill.
We thought it was the funniest shit ever.
They just gasped, and then it ended, right?
And then just the sound of their shoes just shuffling all the way down to the
other side of the set for the next fucking scene.
And, dude, it was the worst run-through I've ever been in.
I'm talking, there was zero laughs.
It was dead fucking silence, and I just remember walking by this one actress.
She delivered her line, and it got nothing, and she walked by looking at me
like, what the fuck is happening?
And I almost bursted out laughing because for actors, it's like, fuck, I'm
going to get fired, and I'm going to be unemployed again.
For a comedian, I can still, I'm not unemployed.
I can just go back to doing shows.
The fact that I'm on this thing is gravy.
So the look on her face was just, I mean, I don't want her to be out of work,
but it was just funny to me.
So the more it was bombing, the harder I committed to what I was doing.
Just because if you're going to bomb, you might as well just fucking do the
triple Lindy.
So I was just going bigger, and it just was just dead fucking silence.
So the run-through ends.
I mean, you can hear a fucking pin drop, and it was to the point where I was
like, dude, I don't even think they're going to shoot this fucking thing.
So me and Norbert went back to the hotel.
We go right to the bar, and we just start laughing, going, I'm getting fired.
He's going, no, I'm getting fired.
And we had like a bet.
Who's going to get fired?
It's like somebody's going down for that.
It's like, you know, like LSU loses three in a row.
Somebody's got to pay the price.
Somebody's getting fucking fired.
They ended up showing up, and they would talk to both of us individually in our
hotel rooms.
I remember the guy that directed the thing.
He came walking into my room and just sat down on my bed and started eating the
peanuts, my peanuts, without asking.
And it was the most arrogant thing I'd ever seen in my life.
And I was just sitting there going like, it still bugs me to this day I didn't
say anything to that guy.
But anyways, so they fucking, so they ended up toning this whole fucking thing
down.
Right?
They go, look, we're not going to get rid of you guys.
It was the wrong tone, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then what ended up happening was they fucking dialed it back like 40%.
Really took all the balls out of it.
And then, you know, a few days later, we shot the pilot from a live studio
audience, and it actually killed.
It went great, but it didn't end up getting picked up.
And that's my story about bombing.
Sorry, guys.
I had to go in the well there, man.
I ran out of fucking stories to tell you for this week.