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This story was originally published on May 22, 2013.
We are recirculating it now in the wake of Carl Weathers death.
It was made illegal after it was found to cause serious burns.
Now its called meta I guess, but it wasnt called meta then.
The phrase I wanted to play with is, Thats a little cornball.
I dont really know if people know that phrase.
Its kind of an old Broadway phrase, like, a big cornball ending.
When I was doingThe John Laroquette Showits almost all I did.
This was like one of those.
Lets articulate this cliche!
Thats a little cornball!
Lets have them make cornballs!
Growing up with my father, we were always trying to invent things.
We invented water weights once.
It actually goes back toChitty Chitty Bang Bang.
I think this was executive producerJim Vallely.
Sometimes he gives me credit.
But Im almost certain Jim pitched it and put it in the script asGob starts acting like a chicken.
As inspired as the idea was, alot of the credit goes to Will.
To this day thats true!
Maybe Phil Silverss Sergeant Bilko.
Im going to have a solid back and Im going to kick my feet!So angry!
Anger is just at the heart of so much comedy.Im.
Angry!Then we quickly turned his dance intoan ancient insult in Mexico.
We gotta do this with Carl and Tobias!
Then I needed to call Carl Weathers.
And he goes, Great, but let me ask you something.
Its not going to be just a bunch ofRockyjokes is it?
I laughed, No!
Give me a little credit, Carl.
Its a multidimensional character.
Maybe I could be really cheap or something?
And I said, Whaaaat?
Maybe I could be really cheap?
Youd like to do that?
Oh, absolutely, thats what Im saying.
I want to play someone funny, not just be a sight gag.
It was so much better.
I went back to the writers room and said, Youre not going to believe this.
Carl Weathers wants to be incredibly cheap.
All credit to Carl on that.
I was just always grossed out by eggs.
The whole thing together.
Egg-salad sandwiches always bothered me.
I often think of myself as George Michael, and sometimes I think of myself as Michael.
Franklin Delano Bluth
During Gobs bout with ventriloquism, he brought in his foul-mouthed puppet Franklin.
I had always wanted to do a ventriloquist.
There were all these kind of plagiarisms or homages toSoapin the show.
So we gave Gob a black puppet he would offend people with.
Franklin was basicallyFranklin fromPeanuts.
That morphed into Michael should have paid for the CD to be made and it cost him $5,000.
Theyre looking for more Blue Men.
Like, theyre having an open call for Blue Men.
Because he kind of looks like a Blue Man, if you made him blue.
That got a big laugh in the room.
Probably not the best road to recognition, painting yourself blue.
We worked with the guys in Blue Men Group, too, and they were great.
To their credit, they asked, What if Tobias justwantsto be one?
What if he just auditions?
And I thought that was even funnier.
Hes not a Blue Man, he just wants to be one.
That worked for them and it was actually better for us.
He just blue himself.
But for awhile the crew kept painting over it.
And Id visit the set and be like, Stop!
Everyone had come from the style of resetting to zero every time.
So we ended up just painting it on the walls.
We painted the blue marks on the walls and no one could erase them.
