TVSquad

I had no idea that Rodney Rothman was an executive producer on ABC's comedy Help Me Help You. Rothman is not only the author of a very entertaining book, Early Bird, about his experiences "retiring" early to Florida, but he was also a writer and producer for such shows as The Late Show With David Letterman, Committed, and Undeclared. He talked to The Futon Critic about the new show, why he'd like to do a comedy version of The Wire (one of his favorite shows), and his experiences working with Letterman:

"It was a really fun job. That show has a lot of clout in New York so you didn't hear the answer 'no' a lot when you worked for that show. Like if your idea involved dropping Jimmy Walker from the ceiling on cables or it involved Steve Martin or it involved building a giant puzzle on 53rd Street with a picture of the trumpet player from the band, it was very... I just don't remember things I've since heard all the time like "we don't have the money to throw the camera in a bathtub full of pudding." [Laughs.] "We can't get Art Garfunkel to come shoot free throws on 53rd Street." The word "no" kind of didn't exist back then which was fun. And just the volume of that show, it's just exhilarating. Working on a variety show can be like, the rush of it is so consistent that honestly after I left it took me six months to kind of kick it. And yeah, we got to do lots of weird things. Like when I was head writer, one of the things I look back upon most fondly was this thing we did where me and these writers, Carter and Craig, who now run "How I Met Your Mother," and [some of the other writers] we'd invent these fake pieces of entertainment and present them on our show as real and never tell the audience they were fake. And it started off as musicals, we'd put them on the slot normally reserved for musical performances and we'd make a CD for them and Dave would introduce the cast of the musical "One Small Step" and then we'd present this fairly deadpan musical about the lunar landing. And it had people in astronaut suits as part of this three part song, their wives smoking cigarettes at home, the guys in mission control, and Paul Schaffer would write this amazing music. And we would just present it to the audience and never ever tell them we were joking."

Rothman got a job on Letterman's show after sending in a submission to a new writer talent search the show was doing with college students. He went in for a meeting, got the job, and relates a funny story about how Letterman asked him what stuff he was working on at MTV, and Rothman wasn't sure if Letterman really wanted to know or if it was a test to see if he'd talk about other shows.

He also talks about the fake band Fresh Step, which I remember. They somehow become popular and real. Their hit was "Don't Talk To The Hand Girl, Talk To The Heart."