Origin
Creator Tony Vitale grew up in The Bronx and came to the realization that there were two very different worlds which didn't co-mingle. "In the club scene, both communities, gay and straight, co-existed but never really talked to one another. I had friends from both communities and I thought, if both these guys could talk to each other, that could be some exciting, interesting stuff." Vitale took a job at Club Med in the mid-1980s, and befriended his gay boss. "He had the most dynamic personality of anybody I ever met, and I wanted to be like him, but I wanted to be straight and be like him," Vitale said. The two quickly became best friends, and because of their conflicting backgrounds, people described them as "The Odd Couple." One day, someone commented, "It would be great if somebody made a sitcom out of you two," which sparked an idea in Vitale's head for a television show.
After sticking his foot in the door of the film world in the early 1990s, Vitale first pitched the concept of the series to executives as a vehicle for John Travolta and Harvey Fierstein, but he was told that a lead gay character on a television series would never fly. Several weeks later, Vitale happened to watching The Arsenio Hall Show when Fierstein came out and announced the show as his upcoming project, with Fierstein playing opposite Andrew Dice Clay. Furious that his idea had been stolen, Vitale threatened legal action and quickly scrambled to get a copyright on the story. The result was 96 Greenwich Street, a one-act play which was first staged at The Village Gate in New York City as part of a festival of short plays. Vitale received a positive response, expanded it to a 2-act play in 1993 and turned it into a screenplay for a film in 1994. The same year, Kevin Smith's Clerks had been a highly successful film made on a micro-budget, and Vitale set out to make his film the same way.
By 1996, the story was filmed under the title Kiss Me, Guido, picked up for distribution by Paramount Pictures and widely released in 1997. Reviews were generally positive, but several critics picked up on its intended television origins. Roger Ebert wrote, "Like a 30-minute sitcom, it acts like you already know all the characters and are just happy to have fresh dialogue. It's as if the deeper issues have been settled in previous episodes. And yet, also like a sitcom, it's kind of fun as it slides past. Here is a movie that was born to play on television." Vitale again tried to get it turned into a TV series, but it wasn't until after Will & Grace had become a hit that television executives would finally take him seriously.
Read more about this topic: Some Of My Best Friends
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