Posted on YouTube (and likely soon to be removed) is an unaired pilot for a Judd Apatow-created series. Get this cast: Jason Segel, Amy Poehler, Kevin Hart, and January Jones!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTS6fGiYCL0
WATCH ABOVE FIRST AS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Okay. Now that you're back. Judd has a great eye for talent. His series FREAKS & GEEKS launched a generation of comic performers and likewise this is a stellar cast. Traditionally, it's said to be a bad idea to do a show or film about the industry. Whereas a show like ENTOURAGE engaged in wish fulfillment, NORTH HOLLYWOOD is about the lower-level wannabe side. There's real chemistry among the characters, especially in a scene ten minutes in where Amy and Kevin encourage Jason to try out for a film role.
The premise of NORTH HOLLYWOOD is a struggling group of actors and comics form a friendship while searching for their big break. Opening with the struggling actor Segel playing Frankenstein at a kids' park is funny but I'm sure the network objected to the main character being a loser or unlikeable (ugh) because he scares a kid. And, yes, he should be referred to as Frankenstein's monster and screw you for reading books.
Poehler plays an assistant to actor Judge Reinhold. Judge does a good-natured turn playing off his film roles and working out a plot to BEVERY HILLS COP 4 with Kevin Hart's character. A laughable suggestion that Kevin (who smartly uses his own name on the show) takeover the lead to the series as Eddie Murphy's cousin doesn't seem so absurd in 2020.
The pilot clocks in at 35 minutes. Most TV shows on network at the time were 22 minutes. These days the show could have found a home on streaming and all ten episodes dropped at once online. But it was a difficult sell with the network. The now stars were relative unknowns and it may have been viewed as too 'insider' to appeal to a mass audience.
Interestingly the four members of the ensemble met at an acting class. BARRY successfully set a series at a Hollywood acting class decades later. Another show exploring the wannabe side of stardom is the amusing PARTY DOWN.
Give it a watch while it's available as the show is an important step in Apatow's development before he would dominate comedy in the 2000s. The exploration of outcasts, wannabes, losers, and comedy based on real life painful events were all part of this pilot.
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