PASADENA, Calif. — The tale of how the new WB show "Brutally Normal" made it on the air in its present form, while not necessarily abnormal for television, is still rather interesting. (Arguably more interesting than the show itself.)
It began as a half-hour comedy, became an hourlong program that leaned more on drama, then morphed back into a half-hour comedy before finally making it on the air. And on a different network.
"Brutally Normal," which premieres Monday at 8 p.m. on Ch. 30, follows the lives of three high-schoolers who are, well, brutally normal. Anna (Lea Moreno of "Legacy") is a sweet, still tomboyish young woman struggling with growing up. Pooh (Mike Damus of "Teen Angel") is an overachiever who puts enormous pressure on himself and is just beginning to make independent choices. And Russell (Eddie Kaye Thomas, of the movie "American Pie") is a chronic underachiever who wants desperately to be a Casanova but can't quite play the part. None of them are in the in crowd. They're not the cool kids, but they'd like to be.
"Brutally Normal" was originally conceived as a half-hour, single-camera comedy back in the fall of 1998. "When we came up with the idea, we thought it was a half-hour idea," said Michael Goldberg, creator/executive producer. "And we were kind of nudged to make it into an hour."
It was a decision based on what the producers and the studio (Disney-owned Touchstone) thought would be most palatable to network executives. And, according the to writers/producers, the development of "Brutally Normal" as an hourlong show seemed to be going well. "We started to expand the storylines to do some stuff and we would up really enjoying the hour, Goldberg said.
But, as tends to happen far more often than not, the network changed its mind. ABC passed on the series in the winter of 1998. At which point, the programming department at the WB "got ahold of the script and brought us in for a meeting," said executive producer Greer Shephard. At that meeting, they actually ordered a pilot based on that script. "We shot the hour pilot. But then the series was actually picked up predicated on our converting it to a single-camera half hour, which is what we originally wanted to do anyway." And set the writers about the task of rethinking the show once more.
"We looked at the future storylines that we had planned and we came back and we said, 'Yeah, you can do this. You can actually do this in a half hour,' " Goldberg said. "And it was a challenge for us, but one that we found to be really exciting and really fun."
The show itself seems very much still a work in progress. It has its moments, but it doesn't completely come together in the episodes screened for critics. Later episodes do, however, seem better than the early ones, which is a good sign.
OLDER THAN THEY LOOK: As is quite common with any show that features teenage characters, the actors who play them are older than the characters themselves. But in the case of "Brutally Normal," they're not that much older.
The characters are sophomores in high school, 15 or 16. Moreno is 22, Damus is 20 and Thomas is 19. And the producers aren't worried about the age thing.
"When we happen to have a pretty guest star, these guys, they become 14 years old in about a millisecond," said co-executive producer Marc Buckland.
REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCE: Despite the fact that they're actors on a network TV series and all that, the stars of "Brutally Normal" say they know just what their characters are going through.
"Just for the record, I was the gawky kid in high school," Damus said. "I was gawky," Moreno chimed in. "Nobody ever wanted to date me. I never had any cute boyfriends. All the boys were my friends. I liked them, but they didn't like me." "I was trying to be an actor for all of high school," Thomas said, "so I never knew a cheerleader. I never played football. I was trying to get up here on the WB."
What's that old adage about he who laughs last. . . .