“It just kind of came out very quickly,” David says about the pilot, which took only about a week to complete. “In part because I didn’t know what I was doing, frankly.”
Instead, Larry and Jerry wrote a show that they themselves would want to watch—rules and conventions be damned. And what they wrote felt like a funny, authentic peek into the everyday life of a comic, which they ended up calling Stand Up.
On March 11, the pilot script for Stand Up was delivered to the folks at Castle Rock.
“Castle Rock seemed to like it,” David says. “Glenn [Padnick] seemed to like it.”
That did indeed seem to be the case. However, behind the scenes, not all was what it seemed.
According to Glenn Padnick, reading the script for Stand Up was one of those special never-to-be-forgotten moments.
“I remember when the first draft of the pilot script came to my desk,” Padnick recalls. “I remember reading page one, [then] two, and saying, ‘Am I crazy or is this really good?’”
“Glenn is crazy if he remembers it that way,” Stand Up showrunner Gary Gilbert retorts. “Everyone at Castle Rock hated Larry and Jerry’s first draft.”
Regardless of how many people at Castle Rock actually hated Larry and Jerry’s first draft, it was enough that the company was concerned. Especially co-founder Alan Horn.
“Alan Horn came into my office,” Gary Gilbert continues, “and he said, ‘Did you read this?’ I remember laughing when he asked that. Because, you know, I was producing the show. So of course I read it.”
“Well,” Horn said, “what are we going to do?”
Richards, Alexander, Louis-Dreyfus, and Seinfeld in an episode of the hit show.
Everett Collection
