from the Las Vegas Sun
June 04, 2004
Stand-up comic Robert Schimmel, a cancer survivor, is counting his blessings as he begins a two-weekend engagement at the Monte Carlo tonight.
For one, the cancer has been in remission for four years.
Schimmel had just completed a date at the Monte Carlo in June 2000 when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and given six months to live.
"Here I am, four years later, appearing on the same stage," the outspoken comedian said during a recent telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles. "I never dreamed it could happen."
Weeks before he was diagnosed with cancer, the 54-year-old Schimmel had completed a pilot for a television series. In the wake of his illness, the series was canceled.
A second blessing -- he is wrapping up preliminary work on another TV series for Fox, which is scheduled to air in the fall or as a midseason replacement.
"The script is done, we're casting," he said. "Tentatively it will be called 'Schimmel and Schimmel.' It's based on my real life, about me and my daughter Jessica."
Shock jock Howard Stern, a friend of Schimmel's, is the executive producer.
A third blessing -- Saturday is his son Sam's first birthday.
"On June 5, 2001, I lost a testicle," Schimmel said. "The doctors said I would be sterile."
Through all of his tribulations -- his son Derek died of brain cancer at the age of 11 in 1992 -- Schimmel has maintained his sense of humor.
"That's how I deal with it," he said.
Discussing cancer has become an integral part of his act. His mother, Betty, 74, is a survivor of breast cancer.
Schimmel, a native of New York, got a late start in his comedy career.
Twenty-two years ago he was married and raising a family in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he ran a stereo store. One weekend he visited a sister in Los Angeles.
"She took me to the Improv one night and signed me up without telling me. The emcee pulled my name out of a bucket. When I went onstage, my first line was, 'I'm really not a comedian, I'm a stereo salesman,' and the audience started laughing. That's all I needed to hear."
The owners of the Improv told him he had a standing invitation to appear.
"So I quit my job, put my house up for sale and moved to L.A. with my wife and daughter, and the night before I got here the Improv burned down. It was still smoldering when we arrived."
He got a job selling stereos and appeared wherever he could get a gig at night.
His big break came when Rodney Dangerfield spotted him and invited him to appear on his HBO "Young Comedians" special. He went on to appear on Showtime, the Playboy Channel and the Fox Network as well as star in his own Showtime specials: "Hard Core in The Big Apple" and "Robert Schimmel Guilty As Charged."
Although onstage Schimmel talks about many taboo topics, especially sex, he rarely delves into politics.
"I don't like talking about politics in my act," Schimmel said.
But that isn't to say he doesn't have strong opinions.
"When (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld apologized for the treatment of prisoners in the Iraq prison, that bothered me," Schimmel said. "I don't remember us getting any apology for the four guys hanging from the bridge."
His pal and producer Stern has been at the center of a censorship furor for several months. Fans are afraid Stern will be pulled off the radio because of material the Federal Communications Commission claims is objectionable.
"It's unfair to single him out," Schimmel said. "But they always have to go for somebody big.
"It's a witch hunt. They are selective about who they pick."
He noted that Stern repeated some words that were used by Oprah Winfrey on her TV show, but it was Stern who caught the heat from the federal government.
"How did she get away with it, and not Howard?" Schimmel said.
Schimmel said Stern is fighting for everybody.
"What happens to him can happen to everybody," he said.
from Zap2it.com
May 21, 2004
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Inevitably, some of the new series for next season that the broadcast networks are so excited about now will be clunkers -- sitcoms that aren't funny, dramas that don't hold your interest, reality shows more sad than anything.
And inevitably, critics and viewers alike will rhetorically tar and feather network executives for putting such dreck on the air. It's easy to forget, though, that things could be worse. America could have been subjected to a Jessica Simpson sitcom in the fall.
Simpson's comedy, which received a good deal of press during pilot season and was at one point supposed to be a good bet to join the ABC schedule in the fall, was one of several high-profile projects not to make the cut at this week's upfronts. The WB's update of "Dark Shadows," NBC's "My 11:30" and the CBS comedy "The Amazing Westermans" fell by the wayside as well despite early buzz and well-known stars.
Pilots get scrapped for any number of reasons, and quality isn't always atop the list. A show might not fit the identity of the network where it was developed, it might be too expensive to produce as a series, or it might not have a strong showrunner on board to guide it.
Additionally, some of the "buzz" that circulates in Hollywood in advance of the upfronts can come from people attached to a pilot -- or their agents -- looking to create a positive impression. And, of course, network heads are human and prone to changing their minds.
A few of the 120 pilots produced this year have the dubious distinction of being rejected more than once. FOX's attempted update of "Mr. Ed," the ABC drama "Gramercy Park" -- starring "The O.C.'s" Samaire Armstrong and "Gilmore Girls'" Milo Ventimiglia -- and CBS' Staley/Long comedy starring Ricki Lake all went through the development process in some form last season, with the same, no-pickup results. Also, Robert Schimmel's comedy at The WB didn't make the cut, which is at least the second time the veteran stand-up comic has been on the outside.
--snips--
from the Boston Globe
May 21, 2004
"If they go for it the way it is now, I'm going to be shocked," he says, laughing. "Because it's pretty close to reality. It's very close."
The fact that radio personality Howard Stern is executive producing might make the project more of a hot potato, given Stern's ongoing troubles with the FCC. Schimmel says no one has brought it up yet at the WB, and he's not worried. If anything, the publicity Stern is giving the project on his morning radio show only helps.
"They're hoping to broaden their demographic, and they're hoping that Stern will bring his fans to the WB," he says. "There's no way that's going to happen if they go middle of the road.
Even Schimmel's own proclivity for using profanity in his stage act won't affect the show, he says, because it doesn't need profanity to be edgy.
"The whole premise is inappropriate," he says. "But it's true. That's what lets you get away with it, is everybody knows it's a real story."
Schimmel's real story has always been a part of his act, whether it's his daughter's boyfriends, his sex life, or his heart attacks. But since his struggles with cancer began, he has been more focused as a comic; there is a mission behind his personal revelations.
In Schimmel's estimation, it has all made him a better comedian and helped him reach his audience more effectively. "I think I am more comfortable onstage because I know that what I'm talking about -- most of it is from the heart, anyway, or from real life," he says. "It might be a cartoon version of what's really happening in my life, but I know that now I'm talking about something that other people can truly connect with in a bigger way."
--snips--
from Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The broadcast networks have barely finished unveiling their new fall lineups, but comedy development for the 2004-05 season already is picking up steam.
NBC has committed to a pilot for a comedy project that "Boston Public" co-star Michael Rapaport wrote with Les Firestein; Rapaport is attached to star.
The WB Network has committed to a comedy pilot from comedian Robert Schimmel and Howard Stern about Schimmel's experience of falling in love with his daughter's friend after winning his fight with cancer three years ago.
The as-yet-untitled Schimmel-Stern comedy for the WB will tell the real-life story of Schimmel, who married a friend of his 25-year-old daughter, Jessica, and found himself living under the same roof with his grown-up daughter, his new wife and their newborn baby.
The way the project came together is as unusual as the show's premise. In August, the WB's co-CEO Jordan Levin was driving in his car, listening to Stern's radio show, on which Schimmel and his daughter are semiregulars.
The two were riffing on the quirky dynamics of their relationship, which resembles more a brother-sister one than that of a father and daughter. Schimmel's daughter wasn't shy about scolding her father on the air about leaving her mother for her friend.
"The more that Schimmel spoke about it, the more clear it was to me that there was a story there that could be filed under the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction category," Levin said. "At the core, we see it as a show about the unique relationship between Robert and his daughter."
Levin immediately contacted Stern and his reps at Don Buchwald and Associates, and the project soon started to jell.
The show, which is looking for a writer, is a comeback for Schimmel, whose newly picked-up series at Fox had to be scrapped after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000.
The Rapaport-Firestein project, tentatively titled "First Comes Love," is described as an interracial "When Harry Met Sally ..." and looks at the relationship of a young couple who has just moved in together after dating for a few months.
The show is a passion project for Rapaport, who came up with the idea and has been the driving force behind it.
"My real excitement about ('First Comes Love') and my real inspiration about the project is because, for me, hip-hop culture has become pop culture," Rapaport said. "The idea about doing a show about an interracial couple and having the show be about the love aspect, the celebration of two people getting together because they love each other and having all the race come up around them is exciting to me."
Firestein, who also grew up in New York, got his first writing gig on Fox's "In Living Color" and most recently co-created and is executive producing Fox's comedy "Wanda at Large" starring Wanda Sykes.
"We're kind of odd ducks. It seemed like we were a good fit to this project together," Firestein said about his pairing with Rapaport. "We're all very excited about this project, and we think that the interracial thing really gives us a context from which to do a really exciting love story."
Rapaport's credits also include "Zebrahead," "Higher Learning" and "True Romance."
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