Michael and Michael Have Issues

So now we're editing, which means we're putting together everything we shot into an actual TV show instead of just hours of footage of Showalter forgetting his lines. The way you edit is load everything onto super computers and then nocturnal people with big eyes use magic to make into it a movie.

So far, the editing is going well. We've got first cuts of all of the episodes, which is good considering we start airing in less than a month. Our goal is to have everything pretty much done by the end of June so that if time shrinks it'll still be ready for our July 15th premiere. (By "time shrinks," I meant the literal shrinkage of time-space, which is also one theoretical way you would travel at warp speed.)

I will say that I'm thrilled to be done with shooting. Shooting is hard work, and as I get older I realize more and more that I was not cut out for that sort of thing. Easy work, yes. Shooting Klondike commercials, for example. That's pretty easy work. Writing, acting, directing, and producing? Not as easy. So it's good to be onto the final phase of our show.

Increasingly the question in our minds is: will anybody watch? Fortunately I have little control over that, so it's not something I spend a lot of time worrying about. I would say I worry as much about how many people will watch as I do about the state of Jon and Kate's marriage, which is to say I worry about it, but not so much that it's affecting my appetite.

More »

I just flew back from a great show in Chicago at the Just For Laughs Festival. It was a great show. Chicago audiences are some of the best in the world. Kumail and Jessi and Owen Benjamin were on the show too and everyone had a great "set". Then we ate hamburgers and went to bed. I barely slept then was on an airplane in a crowded airport and my seat didn't recline and I tried to sleep but couldn't so I read an article in the New York Times about Shepard Smith from Fox News. We're in the final stretch. A few more weeks of editing and arguing about stuff and then the show will air. I'm a husk of my former self but it's okay. Tomorrow's another day. Tonight I will watch The Next Food Network Star and hang with my cats.

More »

"That's a Wrap" is not only a terrific name for a pseudo health-conscious sandwich shop, it's also what we said last night around eleven o'clock to signify the end of shooting on "MMHI." The announcement was greeted with many hugs, tears, ass grabs, etc.

The end of a long shoot is always a time of mixed emotions. On one hand, one is happy to be finished with the long, long days and questionable catering. On the other hand, intense friendships are formed over the weeks, and we haven't had a chance to have terrible falling-outs yet, which is how I know a friendship has completed its cycle.

Our entire crew was magnificent, doing heroic work on a very tight budget. Each one of them is the film equivalent of a really hot stewardess on a discount air carrier.

The next step is editing. After that we put the shows on the air and then obsessively check the internet for every single random mention. The premiere is less than a month away. Sho and I are very excited and nervous. I'm also nauseous but that has more to do with eating my first "finger steaks" here in Montana than with anything having to do with the show.

Observation: any food that incorporates the word "finger" is probably not going to be the smartest choice, although Butterfingers taste pretty good.

More »