“Oh, my,” says Mrs. Kressin, sounding kind of giddy. “That certainly is exciting. Every young performer’s dream come true! Are you currently casting any supporting roles?”
“Yeah,” says Joe Amodio as he shows Mrs. Kressin the door. “We might need a few teachers. But only if they know how to take direction.”
“Certainly,” flutters Mrs. Kressin. “What is my direction for this scene?”
“Exit stage right,” says Brad Grody. “Immediately.”
The teachers take away their cake while the suits fill the table with briefcases, laptops, and file folders.
“Please,” says Joe Amodio, “everyone, grab a seat.”
“Except Jamie,” cracks Stewart the joke machine. “He brought his own!”
Everybody laughs. But while they’re laughing, they’re watching me to see if I’m going to laugh, too.
I give them a tiny “ha-ha” because I don’t want to be rude.
They take the hint and immediately stop chuckling.
“Jamie,” says a very tall lady. Her nerd glasses have purple frames. “I’m Rose Skye Wilder, executive producer on the show. Let me put this out on the stoop and see if the cat licks it up.”
“Huh?” I say.
“Let’s put it on a train and see if it reaches Milwaukee.”
“Whaa?”
“She’s going to run something up the flagpole and see if you salute,” says Uncle Frankie. “Right?”
“Exactly.”
I’m still confused.
“She’s going to tell you their idea for the sitcom pilot and see if you like it,” Uncle Frankie explains. Then he leans back in his chair a little. “I’ve been in show business a little longer than Jamie. I’m more familiar with the lingo.”
Ms. Wilder lays out the basic premise behind Jamie Funnie.
“It’s fresh. It’s out there. It’s never been done before. Jamie Grimm will star as Jamie Grimm in a show about Jamie Grimm’s daily life and how it feeds him material for his comedy routines.”
It’s true. My life is a comedic gold mine. Hey, it’s middle school.
“At the beginning and end of each episode,” she explains, “we’ll see Jamie onstage in a comedy club doing jokes based on what’s going to happen in that night’s episode. He goes up against the school bully, he does jokes about bullies. He eats oatmeal, he does jokes about oatmeal. He buys a pack of bubble gum, we pack in the bubble-gum jokes. So, what do you think, Jamie? It’s boffo, am I right?”
Rose Skye Wilder seems like a nice lady. I don’t want to burst her bubble-gum bubble. But I’ve studied all the great comics. Practically memorized their TV shows.
“Um,” I finally say, “isn’t this ‘never been done before’ show a lot like Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld’s old sitcom?”
“No way,” says Joe Amodio.
“Seinfeld was fifteen, twenty years older than you,” adds Brad Grody.
“His first name was Jerry, not Jamie,” says another one of the suits.
“And,” says Ms. Wilder, “Seinfeld didn’t have an Uncle Frankie or a kid in a wheelchair.”
I nod.
They’re right.
It’s one hundred percent completely different.
Except for where it’s not.