“The Michael J. Fox Show” was my most anticipated new show of the season, and meeting Michael J. Fox exceeded my expectations. Even on the panel for the Television Critics Association, he joked about looking back and forth in a sea of reporters resembling symptoms of Parkinson’s.
Later that night, I ran into showrunner Will Gluck poolside at the NBC party to further delve into the specifics of “The Michael J. Fox Show.”
CraveOnline: Michael J. Fox said opening the pickle jar was based on an incident from his real home. Were any others?
Will Gluck: It was all so loosely based that it kind of goes in and out. A lot of stuff is from his home. Most of the stuff that’s from his home is not the actual stories, but little moments like the pickle jar thing. There’s a lot more throughout the whole series that are taken from his life and also, you saw the panel today. When someone’s raising their hand, he couldn’t see where he was, everyone laughed. That’s what we want to do with the show because we’re all trying to laugh.
He’s done that on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” also.
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” he played up Parkinson’s. That was the character. This, he’s not playing up Parkinson’s. He’s just a father who happens to have Parkinson’s.
The last two shows Michael J. Fox did were sitcoms in front of a studio audience. Has it been a big learning curve for him to do the single camera format?
Well, the guest stars were all single camera and don’t forget he was a movie star for years.
Right, I’m not saying he’s an amateur.
No, I don’t think it was hard for him at all. It just gives Mike more of an opportunity to play so instead of five hours a week, he gets to play for five days a week.
Just thinking about how much television has changed, does this allow you to show a side of Michael J. Fox that we hadn’t seen before?
It allows us in these episodes to show much more of an emotional and real side. We’re doing a lot of stories about things that in a multi-camera format, I don’t know if you could do. It’s more about the jokes. This show is very funny but also every episode is about something that families go through, people go through and that single camera element gives him that opportunity to actually act.
Did this come to you as “Michael J. Fox wants to come back to television, can you develop something for him?” Or did you have an idea you brought to him?
No, it came to me that someone said, “Do you want to meet Michael J. Fox? Mike is thinking about maybe going back to TV.” I said yeah and we just literally sat down and talked, hit it off and then he said, “Let’s do it.” It was that easy.
Will there be some episodes where Mike Henry is a supporting character in a story about one of the other Henrys?
Yes. The pilot is Mike heavy, but it’s never only about him.
Never?
No, no, it’s never only about him. There’s three stories every episode, so he’s always got one story and sometimes it’s the first story. Sometimes it’s the second story, sometimes the third story. But it’s always about, whatever is happening in the family, it’s how Mike reacts to it. He doesn’t drive every episode by any means.
What are some of the upcoming funny episodes you can tease?
I always think it’s so silly to tease episodes because no one knows the show. All I can tell you, and what makes this exciting, is that every episode is about something that every family, every person goes through. It’s not necessarily the fact that Mike has Parkinson’s. It’s his unique perspective on having three kids and a wife, both working parents. That is more the perspective than his Parkinson’s. His daughter has a boyfriend or the son doesn’t want to get a job, the older son doesn’t want to go back to college, there’s problems at work. It’s all very relatable things.
I would imagine if you had a story where Michael J. Fox dressed like a chicken, that would be an easy sell for “Guess what’s coming up?”
Yeah, we’re not doing that. I can guarantee you we’re not doing any of those episodes.
So the sorts of stories you’re doing might not have a quick logline.
We are not doing any crazy slipping on a banana peel stories. I said on the panel, we shot it like a movie. We’re honoring Mike. It’s very funny. It’s all very real. At the end of every episode, I guarantee you it’ll be emotional. That’s because of what we do but no one is going to be trying to steal a jaguar at a circus.
That “inspirational” trailer in the pilot, has NBC brought you any promos that are at all similar to the slow motion, soft music gag on the show?
We were very prescient. That’s all I’ll tell you. We were very prescient.
Are you and Michael very hands on about how they’re going to be selling the show?
I’m very hands on. My point is that, and NBC has been very good about this, it’s not hard to sell Michael J. Fox. Just put him out there, everyone’s going to know about it. What we did in the pilot with the joke about the promo, we might even have a promo that makes fun of that, so we might even have the promo that shows the clip from the show. That piece you saw, I bet you that’s going to be a promo.
A part of me thinks you should. Just embrace it.
Yeah, we should. Right, because everyone laughs and gets relief. I don’t think it’s hard to promote the show.
Does Michael ever come into the writers room?
He comes and says hello. It’s mostly just telling us the stories in the beginning. Mike doesn’t need the micro stuff. It’s more about the macro stuff now and he’s just worried about acting and keeping the cast together. He doesn’t get that involved.
