How CBS had me write a Christmas rap

As an entertainer I have been asked to do many unusual things in my career. One time I got paid to perform card tricks in a park WHILE senior citizens played bingo. Another time I was in Iowa and as I walked on stage to do stand-up comedy, in front of a room full of employees whose job it was to make the pseudo-egg for the McDonald’s Egg McMuffin, they said, “You speak Spanish, right?” But recently I was asked to do a most formidable task, I was put to the challenge of creating a Christmas themed rap for a network television show.

I’m currently writing for a Saturday morning, family based, CSI type show on CBS called “The Inspectors.” Basically it’s a college kid in a wheelchair who helps his postal inspector mom solve crimes. Riveting stuff. Surprising enough, our first season was nominated for 6 Daytime Emmy’s (including best writing) and won for Best Lead Actress (kudos to Jessica Lundy). Now last year the show runners were nice enough to let me act in the episode that I got my first “Written By” credit on. During that time I met the cast and crew and had an amazing experience in Charleston, SC shooting my first S.A.G. TV role. I bring that up because I got to know all of the actors, that will come into play in a minute.

Cut to season 2 in the writers’ room and the show runners inform me that Bret Green (actor who plays the kid in the wheelchair) would like to do more ‘rap’ in the show. “Is there ANY rap in the show now?” I asked. “No, he just really wants to rap on the show and we want you to write it.” I must have looked confused, “But I’ve never written a rap in my life.” They hadn’t either so somehow I got saddled with the task. As research we watched a music video of Bret rapping to the casting directors of Los Angeles.

As we discussed the volume of ideas we had in response to Bret’s music video I decided to Tweet Bret. Now although I had been on set with him I was pleasantly surprise he Tweeted right back.

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So the writers’ all come back from lunch (at the historic Tally Rand) and they pitch me the outline and say, “Can you write the script in 2 days?” Again I must have looked confused but for some reason I said, “Okay.” How the hell was I going to write this episode in 2 days AND somehow come up with a ‘Christmas Themed’ rap that wasn’t complete shit? I really had no idea so like any good writer I procrastinated. I went to see the Jungle Book with my buddy Cory Jasin. As we were carrying on about how much we loved the movie I told him about my predicament and he reminded me that he was a song writer and that he had even written Christmas themed music:

Yes, Cory could totally help me. So he came over gave me 12 lines of a rap. I changed a few words here and there and added a bridge. I finished this at 2:30 in the morning. Rapped it into my phone and texted it to the show runners. The next morning I got a text back saying they really liked it. Cory was a life saver. All and all I feel like we came up with something that is pretty okay. You be the judge.

Stay tuned on CBS in the Fall of 2016 to see if they even keep the rap in the show.

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