Stuff you didn’t know about the stuff on your TiVo.
The Office
In 2009 producers planned to spin off Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) to his own show. Following the same “mockumentary” format, the show was set to be about Bernard’s home life with his wife. Why didn’t it happen? Because Modern Family happened, and it used virtually the same premise.
Breaking Bad
Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) was supposed to die at the end of the first season. The 2007–08 writers’ strike shortened the season prematurely, which gave creator Vince Gilligan time to realize there was a lot more he could do with the character. Pinkman remained on the show until the end; Paul won two Emmys.
Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin’s books contain a few words of the fictional “Dothraki” language, but when HBO adapted the books into a TV series, linguist David J. Peterson was hired to expand it into a speakable language. Peterson developed more than 3,000 words and phrases, used extensively on the show (all subtitled).
Highest-paid actor on a sitcom: Ashton Kutcher, at $750,000 per episode of Two and a Half Men. Second highest: Jon Cryer, at $650,000 per episode of the same show.
How I Met Your Mother
Alyson Hannigan starred on the series. Former Full House star Bob Saget was also on the show, as an unseen, uncredited narrator. In the late 1980s, Hannigan was the regular babysitter for Saget’s children.
Creator Mitchell Hurwitz got the name for Maeby Funke (Alia Shawkat)—a reference to a running joke that she was “maybe” adopted—by combining the names of his daughters: the “ma” from Maisie; the “be” from Phoebe.
The West Wing
In the Roosevelt Room of the real White House, Teddy Roosevelt’s portrait is traditionally hung during Republican administrations; FDR’s portrait is hung during Democratic administrations. In The West Wing’s Roosevelt Room, portraits of both presidents are visible. (Producers didn’t want the show to seem partisan.)