Post-Seinfeld' Sitcoms
In 1999, Mehlman created, produced and co-wrote the sitcom It's Like, You Know..., which was primarily a bitter satire of life in Los Angeles and the Hollywood notables and idle rich who live there, as seen through the eyes of Manhattan writer, Garment (played by Chris Eigeman). The show was often described as a Los Angeles version of Seinfeld. Despite being nominated for "New Program of the Year" at the Television Critics Association Awards in 1999, the show was canceled by ABC after 26 episodes, mostly to clear more time slots for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
Mehlman commented afterward that he found the studio interference from ABC a problem during the show's production, and after the show was canceled commented that he "wouldn't do another show for ABC if the future of Israel depended on it."
"When ABC execs gave me their first note on the script — a small plot change — I pondered it and said, No, I think it's good the way it is. What else you got? The ABC brass looked at me as if I'd announced I was pro-pedophilia. My first experience with network interference. Seinfeld had no network interference." - Peter Mehlman
He then wrote a TV pilot called The White Album, which he described as a "a dark, comic, serialized murder mystery", but he failed to find a network which would produce it.
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