It’s the end of August when I note I mailed the script polish to Kevin. Kevin, again, was please it was coming so quickly. That’s me, Mr. People Pleaser. But word is Kimberly the executive is nervous now; it seems there is another Christmas story kicking around. It's been a long ride to wind up here... |

So, as we entered the 1990s, the idea of home video was kicking in. Suddenly, having perennial titles made sense. It wasn’t just TV showing the same dozen Christmas specials each year, people could rent all Christmas movies they wanted. Yet, we were still in a transition, and the idea of more than one holiday film getting produced a year remained a risky one. At least with my stuff (Two volcano movies or two meteor-hitting- the-earth movies? No prob!). Most frustrating; this other Christmas movie idea sounded really stupid: “Sammy Claus”-Santa’s rebel teenage son leaves home to become a shock jock. I’m going to guess that it went nowhere as I’ve never seen such a movie. Unless it morphed into Fred Claus…


Kevin calls the next day. He finished the script. He’s got concerns. Me? I got defenses (I hope without being defensive). I honestly don’t remember the conversation we had, even after reading my notes. Kevin wondered about Pee Wee’s “Meaning of Christmas” speech. I explain I was tightening up the big confrontation scene, as per notes. The speech worked for the Nick Flebber character; he was a cynic turned believer of Christmas, he was explaining it as much to himself as to the villain; Pee Wee doesn’t need to do it as much, he gets Christmas already. Kevin also has some problems with the new lumberjack scene; he’s hung up on the “homosexual stuff.” Pee Wee is asexual. I think it would be funny in a Chaplin/Harry Langdon/silent movie way. I say it’s just a seed, that it could be choreographed into a great scene. Kevin buys that and informs me he’ll check back Monday, after touching base with Joel, Bill & Kimberly.
I admit it, I don’t take criticism well. If you come up with a good idea, I can leap all over that and turn it into something. But if you tell me “it’s not quite there,” or “needs to be 30% funnier,” I’m at a lost. I once got canned from a corporate gig, writing an industrial film because the two people in charge, who loved my sample and original ideas, couldn’t verbalize what they wanted except by pointing to what I handed in and saying not like that. Worse, they would point to something I wrote and say we want something like this, so now I’m in a battle with them explaining how I already gave them “something like this” except now it’s not. I’m kinda dense like that.
And it would be days before I check in again…