Interview with Geoff
Rodkey
Interview by Jenna Glatzer
Geoff is the screenwriter behind DADDY DAY CARE. A former research
assistant for Al Franken, Geoff also wrote a series of articles about the
presidential elections for America Online, and has contributed to Lateline and
Beavis and Butthead. In 1996, he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on
Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. He also sold a screenplay to Universal
Studios called DAVE THE OX, about a coach who moves to a small town to coach a
sports team.
I understand you went to LA right after college to
become a television writer, and within a year, you were writing for Beavis and
Butthead. Yet you say you didn't have much luck writing for television. This
didn't open doors for you?
Not really. My former writing partner (Stewart Burns, now a producer on
the Simpsons) and I wrote only three episodes, of which two were produced.
Considering that B&B’s run must have included over a hundred episodes,
that’s a pretty insignificant fraction of the total. Also, B&B was
produced out of New York City, while the meat and potatoes of TV writing is
sitcom work in LA. So there was no natural or obvious way to build on our
limited success (financially and otherwise – I took home a total of $500 for
the two produced episodes). Stewart stuck it out and eventually got his
sitcom career going a couple years later (Unhappily Ever After, Futurama, the
Simpsons), but I had a very negative reaction to living in LA, so I gave up,
went back to the East Coast, and got a job doing public policy research and
writing in D.C.
Then you became Al Franken's research assistant for the
book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. How did you land this job?
A good friend of mine from college, Dave Mandel, worked at Saturday Night Live
with Al. Al needed a research assistant for the Limbaugh book (which
actually contained a fair amount of information along with the comedy), and
since I had what turned out to be the perfect resume – public policy research
and comedy writing – Dave recommended me for the job. It was an
extremely lucky break, since that was pretty much the only job in America for
which my resume made any kind of logical sense.
You're actually a fictional character in the book,
too-- Geoff, the research assistant who dies. Tell me about readers' reactions
to your character.
It was an interesting education in audiences not getting a joke. Al got
hundreds of letters after writing the book, and at least a dozen of them
contained comments like “How dare you criticize Rush when you’re so
heartless you let your own research assistant die of an easily curable
disease!” Some were actually kind of mournful; I recall a
twelve-year-old girl writing in and asking if I was really dead, because reading
that had made her feel terrible. So I ended up sending a postcard to
everyone who thought I was dead that read something like, “Dear Mrs. Horskotte:
Al Franken has requested that I write to inform you that I am not dead.”
While you were working for Franken, you began writing
screenplays. I understand you sold six screenplays to studios in the late 90s,
but none of them have been made. What's up with that? Why would a studio buy a
script and then not make it?
Studios probably buy at least ten scripts for every one they make. If you
read the trade papers or screenwriting web sites, you’ll see that every week,
dozens of scripts are sold to various studios and production companies.
Yet every week, only a few movies are released in theaters. The rest
languish in development hell, which is sort of like the Island of Lost Toys in
that old Christmas special.
You now have a 3 year-old son, and your wife went back
to work soon after he was born, so you became a stay-at-home dad. How much of
DADDY DAY CARE comes from your own experiences with your son?
In the movie itself, there isn’t very much that’s directly autobiographical.
There was a bit more in the original script (see below). But the kids in
the movie are three and four, and when I was writing it, my oldest son was only
two. So a lot was cribbed from people I knew who had slightly older kids.
For example, the Flash character (a kid who won’t take his Flash superhero
costume off) came from a friend’s nephew, who stayed at my friend’s place
for a week when he was four and insisted on wearing a Spiderman outfit the
entire week. Marvel wouldn’t give us the rights to Spiderman, so we wound up
using Flash, which in retrospect I think is a much funnier visual image.
And the scene where the kid exits the bathroom and says “I missed” actually
happened to a different friend of mine.
Tell me about the development process. How is the
shooting script different from your original version?
The biggest difference is tonal. I tried to write a script for adults that
kids could enjoy, whereas the studio – and I think from a business standpoint,
this was a very smart decision – wanted to make a movie for kids that adults
could enjoy. I didn’t see it that way during pre-production, so rather
than argue with me, they replaced me for about six weeks with a very talented
writing team (Rob Ramsey & Matt Stone) who stripped out the more adult, less
kid-friendly elements (conflicts between the two guys who start the day care
center, conflicts between the main character and his wife, etc.) and replaced
them with broad comedy and a simpler plot structure. Then I was brought
back to do rewrites as needed over the course of production, and I was so
grateful to be rehired that I basically just did what I was told. And
again, I think gearing the movie toward eight-year-olds was a very smart move
from a marketing standpoint. In doing so, we set ourselves up for some
very negative critical reactions (see below), but I think that’s a fair price
to pay for success.
How did you feel at the movie's premiere?
It was enormously gratifying. I’ve written something like eighteen
screenplays, and this is the only one that’s ever been made. Plus, since
it was a family movie, I was able to watch it sitting between my three-year-old
son and my sixty-two-year-old mother, and they both enjoyed it. That’s
something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to reproduce, since I typically
write scripts that are inappropriate for both my mom and my son.
How important has your agent been to your career?
Agents are a necessary but not sufficient element of a healthy career.
When I sold Daddy Day Care, I didn’t even have one – I had a manager and an
attorney, but I had left my previous agent and hadn’t yet found a new one.
Generally, I don’t think beginning writers should worry too much about finding
representation. A producer friend of mine is fond of saying that if you
write a good enough script, you could leave it on a crosstown bus and it’d
find its way to a buyer. I think there’s an element of truth to that –
if you write a great script, you’re not going to need to worry about getting
an agent. Like sharks to blood, they will find you.
How have you felt about the critics' reaction to the
movie?
In retrospect, I probably should have seen it coming. This is a movie
designed to appeal to children and families. Youngish, single people – a
demographic which I think includes a lot of critics – aren’t likely to enjoy
it. And they didn’t. But the negative reviews only hurt until I
saw the exit polling (94% positive) and the movie’s performance in the second
week (down around 31%), which together seem to imply that not only did the
people who the movie was designed for enjoy it, but they told their friends
about it. Given the choice between making millions of children laugh and
pleasing Roger Ebert, I’d rather make the kids laugh.
What's your plan now? Will you keep writing specs, or
will you now take on assignment work? (Or both?)
I’ve written three scripts since Daddy Day Care sold. Two were
assignments, and one was a pitch that I co-wrote with Al Franken from an idea of
Al’s. I’m still working on the last of those. When I’m
finished, I’m going to write a spec while I look for an assignment that I’m
really excited about. From a creative standpoint, the best thing about
writing a movie like Daddy Day Care is that, at least temporarily, it’s
liberated me from having to write for the marketplace. I feel like I’m
in a situation where I can write to please myself for a while, which is where I
began my career and where I think the best work comes from.
What's your best advice for new screenwriters?
Your first script will be lousy. EVERYONE’S first script is lousy.
But if you keep at it, you’ll get better. And if you have enough talent
and perseverance, you’ll eventually get someplace with it. Second -- and
this probably sounds hypocritical coming from the guy who wrote Daddy Day
Care– write what you love, not what you think studios want to buy. If
you write something you’re truly excited about, and you put the effort into it
and really make it something you’re proud of, then it’s a rewarding
experience even if it doesn’t sell. And more often than not, they
don’t sell.
