Comments on: Five Actors Who Did Two TV Pilots at the Same Time https://popculturereferences.com/five-actors-who-did-two-tv-pilots-at-the-same-time/ Brian Cronin takes a look at interesting pieces of pop culture history from the worlds of TV, film, music and more. Mon, 23 Oct 2023 23:52:16 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 By: John B Trumbull https://popculturereferences.com/five-actors-who-did-two-tv-pilots-at-the-same-time/#comment-14041 Mon, 23 Oct 2023 23:52:16 +0000 https://popculturereferences.com/?p=5816#comment-14041 You’re right, Brian. Your comment jogged my memory of what they said in the special features on the S1 DVD of Party Down – They knew from the beginning that they only had Jane Lynch for a limited time, so they just decided to shoot as many episodes as they could with her before she had to move on to Glee. I suppose they didn’t definitively write her off permanently so that she could return to Party Down just in case Glee didn’t go.

Thinking about this topic more, I remember DeForest Kelley saying in Allan Asherman’s The Star Trek Interview book that he did Gene Roddenberry’s pilot Police Story around the same time he was brought into Star Trek, and if it had sold he would’ve been the first person to be a regular on two series at the same time. But researching it, it looks like the Police Story pilot (which also featured Grace Lee Whitney) was shot in 1965, and while Star Trek’s second pilot “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was also shot in 1965, it didn’t feature Kelley as the ship’s doctor. So I suppose Kelley was misremembering slightly.

More info here:

https://www.facttrek.com/blog/policestory

]]> By: Brian Cronin https://popculturereferences.com/five-actors-who-did-two-tv-pilots-at-the-same-time/#comment-13975 Sun, 22 Oct 2023 00:30:27 +0000 https://popculturereferences.com/?p=5816#comment-13975 In reply to Ben.

Thanks, Ben, silly me for trusting IMDB’s image credits. Swapped in a replacement image!

]]> By: Ben https://popculturereferences.com/five-actors-who-did-two-tv-pilots-at-the-same-time/#comment-13963 Sat, 21 Oct 2023 17:04:05 +0000 https://popculturereferences.com/?p=5816#comment-13963 The picture you used for Good Wife isn’t Gillian Jacobs.

]]> By: Brian Cronin https://popculturereferences.com/five-actors-who-did-two-tv-pilots-at-the-same-time/#comment-13952 Sat, 21 Oct 2023 06:53:54 +0000 https://popculturereferences.com/?p=5816#comment-13952 And yeah, boy, would I have loved for Aniston’s show to have been from the same pilot season as Friends! That’s a classic one that would have been amazing to feature.

]]> By: Brian Cronin https://popculturereferences.com/five-actors-who-did-two-tv-pilots-at-the-same-time/#comment-13945 Sat, 21 Oct 2023 02:21:42 +0000 https://popculturereferences.com/?p=5816#comment-13945 Thanks, John. I figured out what happened now, Party Down was done much earlier than the other shows, but it wasn’t PICKED UP until she had already committed to Glee, hence not even finishing Season One. I’ve edited it accordingly!

]]> By: John B Trumbull https://popculturereferences.com/five-actors-who-did-two-tv-pilots-at-the-same-time/#comment-13941 Sat, 21 Oct 2023 00:38:02 +0000 https://popculturereferences.com/?p=5816#comment-13941 Jane Lynch must’ve left Party Down pretty abruptly, as the last two episodes of season 1 feature Jennifer Coolidge as Bobbie St. Brown, the roommate for Lynch’s character Constance, subbing for her at the catering company, in scripts that were pretty obviously written for Lynch’s character.

Oddly enough, Jennifer Aniston was in second position to another sitcom the year Friends debuted. If the other show had been picked up, she would’ve had to drop out of Friends. Similarly, Matthew Perry couldn’t audition for Friends initially as he was committed to LAX 2194, a show about baggage handlers in the year 2194. Thankfully, it was quickly cancelled so he could finally audition for the part of Chandler.

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