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Do not adjust your set A Few Steps Short of a HitBy Rick Horowitz "Talk to me, babe." "Leo, I've got it! The show you've been looking for! You wanted a 'can't-miss' and I -- " "Slow down, Phil -- you'll give yourself a coronary. I wouldn't want that on my conscience, assuming I had one. So, what is it this time?" "It's 'The Baritones,' Leo." "'The Baritones'?" "'The Baritones.' You like?" "What's to like? He pitches me a show about opera singers, I'm supposed to kiss his feet? You want to pitch opera singers, you go to public television." "They're not opera singers, Leo -- that's their name. The family name, I mean. I was in bed last night, it just came to me." "You eat right before bedtime, this is what happens. I told you." "Enough with the kidding, Leo -- this one's gonna be big." "Like all those other shows you pitched me? Like 'The Malpractice' was big?" "That one had possibilities, Leo. I don't know why they didn't green-light that one." "And 'Sally McPeel' -- did that have possibilities?" "'Sally McPeel' was very high concept. Very high concept." "Lawyers in hot pants?" "It would have broken new ground, Leo. I know how this town thinks." "Fine, Mr. Hit Maker. So these Baritones are who? 'Family name' like a crime family?" "Like a family family. The father's name is Vinny Baritone, he lives in Jersey, see? With his wife and a couple of kids and all these nutty relatives. They run this chain of grocery stores." "Grocery stores." "Not a huge chain, not tiny. Used to be mom-and-pop, but they built it up. Anyway, this Vinny, he makes a decent living from the grocery stores, but after all these years -- " "The mob wants to take him over. Cutthroat business, groceries. My Uncle Sid used to be in canned vegetables -- you don't want to know what those mob guys can do." "There's no mob guys here, Leo. After all these years, this Vinny's hurting inside. Really hurting. So here's the good part: Every week he goes to see this therapist about his problems." "A therapist." "You love it, right?" "A cutthroat business like groceries, a guy's gotta do stuff he's not proud of just to survive. OK, so your Vinny goes every week and spills his guts to this shrink. Nice." "Who said anything about a shrink? He goes to a physical therapist. All that bending and stretching he does in the stores -- he's got weak knees. It's kind of like a metaphor." "Kind of." "So anyway, every episode, we have him at the therapist's, on the exercise bike, working the stair climber. And he's telling her where it hurts and she's giving him new exercises to -- " "The therapist's a girl? She has a couch?" "I told you, it's not that kind of therapist. Meanwhile, though, his whole family's a mess. Conniving, jealous, you name it. One morning -- this is just an example -- he opens one of the stores and he finds his mother's already there, pale as a ghost and jabbering like a crazy woman." "The mob got to her, right? They were trying to send him a message." "She fell into the frozen-food case. Spent the night with the halibut." "But then after that, the mob threatens to break his legs all over again, right? And the therapist's legs, too." "I never said his legs were broken -- I said his knees were hurting!" "Look, you want my advice? You've got yourself a nice little family drama about the grocery business. The girl therapist, that's your love interest. But lose all this mob stuff, OK?" "Mob stuff? But you were the one who -- " "If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Nobody's gonna watch a TV show where the hero's tangled up with the mob." "But -- " "And do something about that title, OK? Nobody in a million years is gonna buy a name like 'The Baritones.'" "I guess she could have a couch..." Posted 9/14/99. It's
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Rick Horowitz