Check your ego at the door

In Hollywood, people tend to think an awful lot of themselves. Maybe it’s because we give out trophies for every industry job there is. “Best Craft Services – the nominations are…”

But every so often it’s good to get a reality check; to realize we’re not such hot shits.

One such example for me came when I was writing MASH.

MASH was headquartered on the 20th Century Fox lot. Our offices were on the second floor of the (appropriately named) Old Writers Building. It was a very cool building, looked like a Swiss Chalet and in fact, appears in shows and movies to this day.

We were on the second floor with large windows that looked out on an apartment building that was just beyond the studio wall (that kept out illegals and rapists).  

One afternoon we’re rewriting and notice four or five people hanging on the apartment balcony looking in at us. Yes, it was a little disconcerting at first, but also somewhat flattering. It’s not completely unheard of to assume people might want to see how MASH is written, right? At least in our swelled ego state that’s what we thought.

So we decided to really give them a show. We started acting out scenes and gesturing in an exaggerated manner. We were killing it.

At the end of day we stepped out of the office and noticed there was a lot of smoke. It seems the giant HELLO DOLLY New York skyline set was on fire. That’s what the spectators were looking at, not a bunch of idiots writing army jokes. I slinked into my car and drove away.

I often feel the entertainment industry would be well served by taking down the HOLLYWOOD sign and replacing it with HUMBLE.