You Can’t Be Serious(100)
I then spent half an hour throwing the ball from the mound to the catcher. I was sweating profusely. Romen tried to discreetly hand me some water, whispering, “Why are you sweating? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine! It’s harder than I thought. Why the hell is there a lunge involved?”
I woke up the next morning unable to move my right arm or my left butt cheek. (Thankfully I didn’t really need my butt cheek, but the arm thing was real annoying.) Back in the writers’ room, I shared some of the practice videos Romen took so that everyone could enjoy the absurdity of my situation.
Comments came quick.
“That’s so cool!”
“Man, you’re really sweating there. Is it hard?”
“Whoa, that’s your coach?! He’s so handsome! We should put him in the show!”3
A few days before I flew to New York, an inquiry came in from the Mets. I was going to be given a team jersey to wear when I threw out the first pitch. They wanted to know what name I wanted on the back, and if I had a lucky number.
“Penn or Modi?” my publicist asked.
“Modi, definitely. It’s also my character’s last name. And let’s go with sixty-nine. If they’ll let me.” ;)
The following afternoon came the Mets’ reply: “Yeah, you can’t do sixty-nine. The team won’t go with anything inappropriate.”
“What if we say I’m a huge fan of the 1969 season?”
“Just pick a different number, Kal.”
“Seven.”
Game day. My parents joined me, along with Josh and some friends, including Ronnie Cho (my good buddy from Obama world) and Jon Hurwitz (our Harold & Kumar cocreator, who flew up from Atlanta where he shoots his Netflix series, Cobra Kai).
Despite all the friends and family support, walking onto that field was nerve-racking. This was bucket-list stuff right here. I leaned into the positive—no matter what happens, it’ll be fun. I had started to improve during my last two sessions with Coach Zach; instead of eight out of ten pitches going in any direction except the catcher’s mitt, we were down to four out of ten. Would that be enough? The announcer’s voice boomed, “Please welcome, the cocreator and star of NBC’s Sunnyside, premiering this Thursday, September 26, at 9:30 p.m., actor Kal Penn!” I smiled. Strutted to the mound. Took Zach’s advice and didn’t do a wind-up. The ball left my hand and… made it over the plate! The crowd applauded. I smiled and waved cockily (come on, I earned this). “Dude!” Hurwitz shouted, “that was amazing!” And you know what? Depending on which camera angle you looked at, it really, really was.
* * *
Sunnyside debuted on September 26, 2019—and the first episode bombed. It was the worst-rated premiere in the history of big network television at the time. I felt that sting. The executives at NBC tried hard to soothe our anxieties by reminding us of our conversations during development of the pilot: “Don’t be alarmed if you don’t see good numbers at first. We’re great at making comedy. Sometimes shows need multiple seasons to take off. Seinfeld didn’t do well initially. Sunnyside just needs time to find its audience. We’re one hundred percent committed to the show. It’s hilarious, and we completely support you.”
We were all more than a little worried, but these assurances came from every senior executive at the network, so we wanted to believe we’d be fine. Besides, in an unfortunate blow to NBC’s entire lineup, their other new shows weren’t faring much better—Perfect Harmony’s cast was far less diverse and rated only a tenth of a point higher than us. I was thankful for the network’s promise of investing in the long-term goal of what most comedies need: time, space, and promotional support to find viewers.
Except I still wasn’t seeing that promotional support firsthand. I barely noticed any Sunnyside ads, and certainly not with the same frequency of Perfect Harmony commercials. I tried not to think much of it since the majority of my days were spent on a creative high, making the actual show itself. But then I started to see that other Thursday night shows were getting a bevy of physical and television advertising in ways we indisputably weren’t.
As I was cooking dinner one evening, I caught a thirty-second ad block for the Thursday lineup. It began with a narrator saying, “Thursday, it’s a teenage takeover of Superstore…” followed by nine seconds of funny clips from their upcoming episode. Next up, nine seconds that began, “Then, Perfect Harmony is locked and loaded…” with some fun clips from their next show. After that, the narrator teased, “This Thursday, something bad is coming to The Good Place…” with another nine seconds of clips from their new episode. I intently watched with eager anticipation, full of the joy and pride I still carried in my heart from the day at work with my diverse, hilarious team. I was eager to record the clip and text them all. What scenes did NBC use from our pilot? How would they tell the story of Sunnyside in our nine seconds? As Ted Danson’s smiling face faded out from The Good Place, my picture emerged on the screen holding an American flag next to the words Sunnyside and Thursday. The narrator quickly said, “FollowedbySunnyside” and the commercial ended. That was it. If you blinked, you’d miss it. And even if you saw it, you’d learn nothing about the show, its characters, or its plot. While the other shows each got nine seconds of promo time with featured clips, ours got just one and a half seconds of a photo.