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A Comedy to Inspire Premise Envy
A
HUSBAND and wife are in the kitchen of their Los Angeles home one day,
talking. Not arguing; just talking. The wife is chopping a carrot; just
— chopping a carrot. Their conversation is spurred by that familiar
question: You know what would make a great television show?
No. What?
First
of all, enough already with mobsters and men with guns. How about a
fresh comedy, with a male protagonist who is just a regular guy, a high
school teacher, maybe, who coaches basketball? And what if his marriage
had broken up, and he had no money, and the local economy was tanking?
The
carrot-chopping wife, Colette Burson, then says: And what if he had
nothing going for him except that he had a really big penis?
Actually,
Ms. Burson used another term that cannot be published here. In fact,
such effort is being made here to write this story without violating
propriety — or without slipping in a few sophomoric double entendres —
that the words being muttered at this very moment make Ms. Burson’s
original term seem almost Psalm-like.
Now back to the kitchen
conversation. So Ms. Burson says, wouldn’t it be great if the
down-on-his-luck-regular-guy protagonist had a big penis? To which her
husband, Dmitry Lipkin, immediately gives a name to this imaginary
show: “Hung.”
These two professional writers giggle, eat their raw salad with chopped-up carrots — and before long sell this concept to HBO.
Next Sunday will offer the premiere of a comedy about a teacher in
Michigan. Once a star athlete who seemed destined for success, he is
divorced, separated from his children and so financially strapped that
he is camping outside the fire-damaged home inherited from his parents.
Heeding the words of a motivational speaker, he vows to capitalize on
his greatest asset (see above) and decides to become a male prostitute.
The show’s name: “Hung.”
HBO
is banking on this show to become a breakout hit. Not just a
niche-market gem like “Flight of the Conchords” or a critical (but
ratings-challenged) darling like “In Treatment,” but something that
speaks to the national mood, a “Sex and the City” for both sexes that
would cement the reputation of a relatively new management team at the
cable channel. It is the first show to be nurtured from conception by
Sue Naegle, the president of HBO’s entertainment division; she started
championing the “Hung” proposal the moment she assumed the job 13
months ago.
Michael Lombardo, the president of HBO’s programming
group and West Coast operations, admits to having a “multitude of
reactions” when he first heard the show’s proposed name, which he
acknowledges comes with its share of marketing challenges. “It
diminished my expectations about what was to follow,” he said. “At the
same time it was clearly provocative and it piqued my interest. Then I
read it and I fell in love with the script.”
Ms. Burson, 40, a
playwright, and Mr. Lipkin, 42, the creator and head writer of the “The
Riches,” the canceled FX show about con artists on the lam, discussed
the show’s evolution during a recent three-way telephone conversation,
with Mr. Lipkin in Los Angeles and Ms. Burson in Detroit, where another
episode was being filmed. These partners in life and in writing prefer
to be interviewed together, which made for a lot of talking over each
other.
But they talked as one in saying that — the name
notwithstanding, a name they never once considered changing — their
show is more than a mischievous one-liner. Yes, at first it was a joke.
Whenever people asked what project they were working on, they would
matter-of-factly say: “We’re working on a show called ‘Hung.’ It’s
about a guy with a really big penis.”
Gradually, though, the
couple realized the possibilities of this throwaway joke, and together
they developed the characters and plot. They explore economic pressures
and male-female relationships, while trying to answer the question: Who
would you find if you tracked down the Big Man on Campus some 20 years
after his high school graduation?
Ms. Burson and Mr. Lipkin set
the story in Michigan in part because it is, sadly, the First State of
Economic Distress. But they made this choice before the national
recession took hold, which meant that in a strange but hardly
serendipitous way, others around the country might now identify with a
struggling teacher from a middle-class Detroit suburb, or with his
ex-wife’s new husband, a wealthy dermatologist whose net worth suddenly
drops.
“I think we were a little ahead of the curve,” Ms. Burson
said, referring to the recession, and not to some trend in which more
and more men are moonlighting as male escorts.
As for the
protagonist, Ray Drecker, played by Thomas Jane (“The Punisher,” the
HBO movie “61*”), there is a sweet earnestness in the way he comes to
realize that while he may be endowed, and while he may consider himself
a stud, he has much to learn about women.
“He’s so outmatched, I
think,” Mr. Lipkin said. “There is sex in the show. But a lot of it is
not sexual. It’s psychological. It’s emotional.”
“But he’s not a dolt,” Ms. Burson added. “He loves women.”
True.
But the show is not called “The Dolt Who Loved Women.” The writers have
turned a penis into a plot device. What’s more, judging by the first
four episodes, they advance the theory — fact? myth? — that bigger is
better, risking the alienation of a sought-after segment of television
viewers: men who are average in every way. The writers said they didn’t
want to make too much of this. Although Mr. Lipkin asserted that
“smaller is not better.” And Ms. Burson said: “It’s just like a car
with leather seats. It’s better than cloth.”
Where were we?
Anyway,
in the opinion of Tim Brooks, a pre-eminent television historian and
the co-author of “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and
Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present,” the writers and HBO know exactly what
they are doing. “It’s all about marketing, it’s all about breakthrough,
it’s all about titillation,” he said. “They want to make people think
they’re going to see something they haven’t seen in the past.”
This
is a standard technique. Take, for example, “Three’s Company,” that
long-ago sitcom about a single man sharing an apartment with two (!)
single women. Nudge, nudge. This living arrangement managed to wink at
America from 1977 to 1984, until, finally, all that chastity exhausted
the country.
Given the name and premise of “Hung,” the first
episode or two will almost certainly attract viewers, including those
who may merely want to educate themselves about the, the, the emotional
needs of the opposite sex. Yeah, that’s it. Emotional needs.
“But
once they sample the show, it has to be a strong show,” Mr. Brooks
said, adding: “They won’t come back to see bits and pieces of
genitalia. They will come back to see characters they like and writing
that is really sharp.”
Mr. Lombardo, HBO’s programming chief,
said he never doubted the power of the writing. He just felt that the
title at least warranted a chat about whether it was appropriate. When
that chat finally took place, everyone agreed: Stick with “Hung.”
The conversation, he added, was surprisingly short.