rant · moment 6 of 13

Pitching a Tour Bus Food Show to Coked-Up Producers

from Day Drinking At Borders · #5

Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.

5 min

Tim recounts a bizarre pitch meeting where producers wanted him yelling at tourists on a double-decker bus before a barbecue party, comparing it to a mashup of Bar Rescue and Man v. Food, and concludes nobody in TV knows why anything gets greenlit.

In this bit10 moments
  • 18:15Production people pitch Tim a food travelogue concept where he eats at fancy restaurants.
  • 18:28Tim proposes the show hook: he'd have to roll over tourists to get money for the restaurants.
  • 18:58One producer pitches putting people on the bus while Tim yells at them, then ends with a barbecue as a reward.
  • 19:28The producer keeps refining: Tim yells at people on the bus and they all share donut ice cream sandwiches at the end.
  • 19:39Tim notes the producer was probably on coke during the meeting and couldn't explain why any of it would make a show.
  • 20:31Pitches keep piling on: Bar Rescue meets Man vs. Food meets a cooking competition, all on a tour bus.
  • 21:13Tim concludes no one knows why anything gets on TV, so producers just throw concepts at the wall.
  • 21:42Networks tell him: you're funny enough to host, but everything unique about you we don't want—we just want the fat guy archetype.
  • 22:37They want him to improvise in an unscripted arena, but not the way he naturally would—instead with a migrant kid following him around as the actual show.
  • 22:53The ideal cameraman would preferably not speak English so he won't understand Tim berating him on set.
Mentioned here

bar rescueCedric's barbershop battleCharlie Rose

All 13 moments in this episode →