Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of In the Hills With Harry. This week we will talk about David Schwimmer, and how Henry Winkler's 1990s narcissism almost caused Schwimmer to quit the small screen permanently, prior to Friends.
When you hear the name David Schwimmer, obviously you think of the character Ross on Friends. Schwimmer became a household name in the 1990s, and made a boatload of money while doing it. He also legitimately had a good time on the show. This wasn't one of those cases where an actor drew a paycheck while quietly hating life.
However, things weren't always that easy for Schwimmer. He had a major part in a little-remembered sitcom called Monty from 1994, which was a mess in all ways. To understand what Schwimmer was going through, you first have to understand the travesty that was Monty. However, let's go back even further to Happy Days.
Henry Winkler was a huge star in the 1970s due to his surprise breakout role as "The Fonz" on Happy Days. Winkler was not the first choice for the role, and in fact the role was oriignally conceived with Mickey Dolenz in mind. However, Garry Marshall was having a hard time settling on an actor to play The Fonz, as nobody reading for the part really nailed what he had pictured for the character. Winkler decided to throw his own personal arrogant spin on the character, which resonated with both Marshall and ABC executives. He was awarded the role.
The Fonz was not supposed to be a major character. However, as the focus of Happy Days shifted a little bit during the show's initial season, The Fonz became increasingly popular, and eventually became the central character of the series. Winkler did not expect this, and assumed himself to be a character actor when awarded the role. By all accounts I've heard, Winkler handled his newfound fame fairly well, and treated his castmates and backstage workers with respect.
After Happy Days ended in 1984, Winkler wasn't able to get further roles, being typecast as The Fonz. He got a few bit parts here and there for the next 9 years or so, but nothing noticeable. Winkler did sign on with Jon Rich to produce MacGyver in 1985. While that show was successful, Winkler felt unsatisfied, wishing he could still be acting, and lamenting the typecasting which wasn't his fault.
In 1993, Winkler finally got his chance to act again, and he put on his existing executive producer hat to help make it happen. Marc Lawrence brought an idea to Winkler which drew upon the popularity of then-recently-famous conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. What if a Rush-like character were to have his college-aged daughter visit back home, reveal she was a lesbian, and bring her girlfriend to come meet the family? In 1993, there had not been an openly gay major character on any sitcom to date. This would be a first. While the show clearly had a lot of parallels to All in the Family from over two decades earlier, and while Winkler's character was an unabashed ripoff of Rush, Winkler felt the potential. Between his star power, the controversy, and perhaps even the pervert factor of men turning it on to see two young lesbian characters, he was quite bullish on the series. Winkler signed on to be executive producer, alongside Lawrence.
Gary David Goldberg (who knew Lawrence from "Family Ties") came on board to produce, and John Pasquin (also from "Family Ties") signed on to direct. So what happened, and why have you probably not heard of Monty?
Marc Lawrence had a contract with Disney, which was able to convince NBC to take a shot with the show, and a pilot was commissioned. However, when NBC executives saw the pilot, they got cold feet. They didn't like the gay daughter angle. They ultimately passed. Disney then took the pilot over to Fox. Lawrence thought that Fox might be more interested, given that one of their first successful shows was the very unconventional and rauncy Married With Children. However, even Fox wasn't willing to do a show with a major gay character just yet. However, Fox offered a compromise. If Lawrence and Winkler agreed to retool the show, they would allow a gay character to be introduced later in the series, provided it was successful.
Goldberg and Pasquin decided to leave the project. They saw the fail coming. The entire show concept was too wrapped around the idea of, "What if Rush Limbaugh had a gay daughter?" There was little beyond that, and the subtraction of the gay daughter left something very empty. Winkler went to Lawrence and said that he felt the project was cratering, and wanted out. Lawrence convinced him to stay, noting that Rush was such a polarizing figure that the show virtually had a guaranteed audience. He also reminded Winkler that Fox agreed they could bring in a gay character after the show got established, and the two quietly planned to bring in a gay sister of Monty's, sometime during season 2.
David Schwimmer was brought on to replace the gay daughter character. Schwimmer played Monty's son Greg, who came home from college with his new nose-ringed hippy girlfriend, who immediately clashed with Monty. In addition, Monty was surrounded by people who disagreed with him, including his entire family and his own producer. While Rush Limbaugh was wildly famous and successful in 1994, Monty was instead portrayed as a middle-class, pathetic, bumbling host of a local TV station's in-house talk show, where he would be humiliated by his guests. In fact, an 11-year-old girl humiliates him in the first episode.
China Kantner was signed to play Greg's hippy girlfriend. Now that was some great casting! China is the daughter of Grace Slick and Paul Kantner. She was born in San Francisco, and embraced the local hippy lifestyle almost immediately. All she had to do was play herself. She actually did a pretty good job. China had a recurring role on Home Improvement playing a very similar hippy character. Unfortunately, China had a lot of issues with alcohol, like her mother. She eventually attributed the alcoholism partially to the stress of acting and being in the public eye. She quit acting in 2001 and stopped talking to the media, determined to quietly live a life of privacy.
The show was a complete and utter flop. How bad? By the sixth episode, it was the lowest rated program on TV. At that point, it was axed. Henry Winkler's big TV comeback lasted all of six weeks.
I knew someone who was fairly high up on the food chain at Monty. Three years after the cancellation, we were sitting at the grand opening of Hollywood diner Fred 62, and he still couldn't stop talking about his miserable experience on the show.
"How do they think they're gonna succeed with a character everyone hates? They despised Rush so much that they couldn't bear to make Monty even a little bit likable. God forbid someone watches and thinks maybe Rush is a fucking human being, so they have to make sure we hate Monty. Mother fucking Winkler, best buds with Clinton, of course he's gotta make Rush look like a shithead. So I'm watching them shoot, and it's just so bad. I tried to say something, David [Schwimmer] tried to say something, nobody listened. They were the visionaries, we need to just shut up and do our jobs. Then it's dead fucking last and they say, 'Oh it's because we couldn't show the gay daughter.' No humility. None."
That's close to a direct quote, fuzzed perhaps by the 25 years which have passed since its uttering. I wish I didn't have to keep his name confidential, because it's a name you might know. Suffice to say that you can still get this guy to go off about Monty if you bring up the subject, nearly 30 years later.
Oops, this thread is about David Schwimmer. I'm supposed to be talking about him. Sorry, I got off track a bit. Next post I will tell you how this almost caused Schwimmer to quit television acting forever.
While you're waiting, perhaps you'd like to watch the first episode of Monty...
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Originally Posted by Texter
