NBC's best new show — "Ed" — is one that languished in development at CBS for years. Literally.
The show's producers, Rob Burnett and Jon Beckerman, even shot a half-hour pilot of the show for CBS back in March 1999. And working with the Big Eye network made sense, being that the show comes from David Letterman's Worldwide Pants productions, whose other shows — the "Late Show," "The Late Late Show" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" — are all on CBS.
And, yet, CBS didn't pick up "Ed" (or "Stuckeyville," as it was titled at the time.)
"It was one of these things where (series star) Tom (Cavanagh) would keep calling me and say, 'Boy, everybody loves the pilot,' " Burnett said. "And I kept saying, 'Except (CBS President) Les Moonves.' "
Still, Burnett didn't think there was a problem with their first attempt, which was a half-hour, filmed comedy.
"I don't know that anything went wrong with it. We were pretty happy and proud of the first one," Burnett said.
The problem with the original pilot at CBS was that it was just "too hilarious," Beckerman said.
"We do definitely and absolutely think the second one is better. We had a really different experience at CBS. Having done the show at both places, the honest difference is that I think CBS was not so interested in this kind of show. I think it had less to do with us, specifically. I think they liked it. They never really criticized it. Les (Moonves) said he thought it was terrific, but I don't think CBS' schedule really had a spot for this."
Moonves suggested changing the show into more of a standard sitcom, complete with a studio audience. But that isn't what Burnett and Beckerman wanted to do.
"We really wanted to work single camera. That was really the impetus and originally back in 1996 when we started this," Burnett said. "We wrote this as half-hour show called 'Ed.' It was single camera for CBS, and Les said, 'OK, I love it, but make it a multicamera show.' "
They weren't crazy about that suggestion, but soon "Ed" — for a time retitled "Stuckeyville" — got put on the backburner.
"This was at a time when there were a few changes at the 'Late Show,' and I had to come back and be the executive producer, and Jon came back as the head writer," Burnett said. "We put ("Ed") aside and then when we went back to CBS, our resolve had toughened to do single camera and they said, 'We just don't have room for a single camera half hour on the schedule.' So we said, 'OK, we'll make it an hour.' "
Which also didn't go over well at CBS. When the network announced its fall 1999 schedule, the show wasn't on it.
"By May, (the original pilot) was all ours. I used to call it the $3 million paperweight," Burnett said.
Even though CBS didn't pick up the show, it still had options on it. Eventually, however, those options expired.
"When we finally got it away from CBS, NBC bought it really pretty quickly. They were eager," Burnett said. "The minute we came over to NBC, we got a sense that, look, they already have all of these amazing one-hour dramas — 'ER,' 'Law & Order,' 'West Wing,' 'Special Victims Unit' — so I think they were really in the market for something like this. So right from the start, we found this a better marriage."
Perhaps the most amazing thing is that they managed to keep the original cast that shot the half-hour pilot for CBS back in early 1999 together for the NBC pilot and series.
"For some strange reason, I never felt it was dead," Cavanagh said. "It worked out really well for me. I started doing 'Providence' for NBC. I did about nine episodes there, as well as a few other guest spots on other shows. So it was actually a really great period for me acting-wise. Plus, I never really felt that this thing was completely dead. I kind of had hope that it would see the light of day somewhere else. And fortunately, that's what turned out."
And a little bit of that CBS pilot actually made it on the air — it was condensed down to be the introduction to "Ed" when it premiered earlier this week on NBC.
"That two minutes-and-nine-seconds shows the fruits of mine and Jon's labor for the last year and a half," Burnett said.
THANKSGIVING FEAST: Speaking of "Ed," don't miss the show's Thanksgiving episode on Sunday at 7 p.m. on Ch. 5. It's funny, it's smart, it's heartfelt — it's great.
Ed decides to throw a non-traditional Thanksgiving feast at the bowling alley, which doesn't go quite as planned. And the endearing supporting characters each has his or her chance to shine as well.
If you can't watch it live, be sure to set your VCR.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com