A Quote by Jason Segel
I did a show called 'Freaks and Geeks' when I was very young. And I had the naivete and arrogance of youth. You know, I really assumed that when the show got cancelled, like, oh, it doesn't matter, you just keep rolling, you know. I'm about to be the biggest star of the world. And then I was met with five years of unemployment.
Related Quotes
I did a pilot for Judd Apatow when I was 20 years old, so 18 years ago. The same year that he did that pilot, he made another pilot called Freaks And Geeks.Judd felt bad for me because I was living in L.A. by myself. Not only did he put me in an episode of Freaks And Geeks, but he was like, "Hey, just come hang out. I'm on set, getting to know everybody." I started hanging with everybody, and they were all either my age or a little younger. Seth and I just got along really well - Jason Segel and I, too - and before you know it, it was a really strong, solid group of friends.
At network television you could make a show like Freaks and Geeks, and even though 7 million people watch is every week, you were considered a terrible failure, and they got rid of you and staff. Now ... It's like a world where the replacements are the biggest fans in the world. It's, the Elvis Costellos of television are the winners. Creativity is king and it's very very exciting.
I watched 'Freaks and Geeks,' and I was like, 'Oh, if you write about your own personal experiences, and if you're specific about it both in what happened and how you felt about it, it can make for scenes that are really compelling.' For the rest of college, I was basically ripping off 'Freaks and Geeks' with plays I wrote and stuff like that.
In a weird way, 'Veronica Mars' was my reaction to 'Freaks and Geeks' because 'Freaks and Geeks' was the show I wanted to write, the one I wanted to create, where there was no gimmick; you didn't have to have a teenage private eye. It was just these beautiful small stories about real kids.
I think I was just so ecstatic that I was working, and then as it went on, you know, I started to really appreciate that it ["Freaks and Geeks"] was good and that we were doing something a little different and that, you know, everyone was really cool to work with and that it was really talented group of people, and it was just when I was realizing that, that it got canceled.
My favorite show of my father Aaron Spelling is probably a show that was his favorite and that was a show called Family. He was the most proud of that show because, you know, my dad kind of got a bad wrap, I think. A lot of times people would say oh he just makes jiggle TV and it's all for entertainment purposes. But he did some really amazing shows as well that he was really proud of, that people kind overlooked. And Family was one of them.
I was about 15 years old, and I needed a job, and somebody I know - I don't even know who it was - said that there was a television show that needed a presenter and that I should go and audition for it, so I did. That was a show called 'The Word,' and I got that job.
I loved 'Freaks and Geeks.' I don't know a better show.
'Freaks and Geeks' was my favorite show when it was on, by a wide measure. And that's the show I wanted to do. I noodled with the idea of doing a show about teenagers that told small stories, small moments of personal growth.
You don't get a lot of life milestones in show business. It's really difficult to make things, and a lot of times you don't know you're at the end of something. With Mr. Show, I was only a writer and we knew we were going into the movie, and we thought, "Okay, like Monty Python, we're going to make five movies." And we didn't know it was the end. So it ended up being a bummer and such a terrible ending for Mr. Show. We never got to feel like, "Wow, we did it! We did something."
I'm so grateful that the Internet and the DVD came along because, otherwise, something like 'Freaks And Geeks' would have been dead. At the time we made the show, those avenues weren't really available, and the idea of the show carrying on after it was canceled was something that didn't really happen.
I've had two great years, probably five good years. So I had 20 years of just kind of uncertainty and suffering and ego destruction and poverty. All these things. There's no way I'm ever going to catch up to the misery years. It's impossible... If I don't do anything dumb or I don't get a disease or something, and then I've got to five to eight years I think where it'll really be great and then it will start to degenerate like uranium, you know?
It never seemed like that much of a mystery why shows I was acted in failed. When you're doing a show called Freaks And Geeks about young people in high school, and it's on Saturday nights at 8 and there's no promotion for it, it's not really hard to guess why no one's watching it. And when you're doing a college goofball comedy that premières three weeks after Sept. 11, it's not that hard to piece together why that's not the most important thing on the radar.
My first show was called 'I Know I've Been Changed' in '92. I tried to do this show for years and years. It kept failing over and over and over again. Every time I went out to do the show, nobody showed up. I was like, 'What is this about?'
We never did try to get together and to show the younger Negroes such as myself, to try and even to show that he has ambitions - and with just a little encouragement, I could have really done something worthwhile. But instead, we did nothing but let the young upstarts know that they were young and simple, and that was that.
'Freaks and Geeks' was a show where our individuality was really celebrated.
Related Authors
Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes
Austrian
Actor
Benedict Cumberbatch Quotes
English
Actor
Bruce Lee Quotes
American
Actor
Clint Eastwood Quotes
American
Actor
Daniel Radcliffe Quotes
British
Actor
Dwayne Johnson Quotes
American
Actor
Jeff Bridges Quotes
American
Actor
Johnny Depp Quotes
American
Actor
Kevin Hart Quotes
American
Actor
Kevin Spacey Quotes
American
Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio Quotes
American
Actor
Rob Lowe Quotes
American
Actor
Robert Pattinson Quotes
English
Actor
Sylvester Stallone Quotes
American
Actor
Will Rogers Quotes
American
Actor
Zach Braff Quotes
American
Actor