the winking bunny

At the corner of 26th and Colorado in Santa Monica, on one of the upper floors of the main MTV building, two network executives sit in their respective offices managing not only “The Rules” pilot project, but also the many other projects they have in development at the present time. Their decisions are creative in nature, affecting the tone and style of all the content that may eventually make its way to screen; and they are financial in nature, ranging from the hundreds of dollars that may be spent on a particular prop to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that may be spent on a particular show...

Now let’s walk down the street and into an office on the second floor of one of the two MTV satellite buildings, where a writer perches on the chair at her desk contemplating the possible trajectories of the main character’s love story, an executive producer sits next to the writer considering how to handle a certain production-related issue, and a director leans against a bookshelf pondering her shot list. They are all acutely aware that their decisions will have a significant impact on whether or not this pilot presentation gets picked up for series… which, in turn, will affect not only their own future employment—but also the employment of the entire cast, crew, and production team…

A knock on the door.

The production designer enters with several sheets of paper in hand. The writer, executive producer, and director look up in anticipation. But almost before they can review the pages…

The phone rings. The two network executives are on the line. They are ready for the conference call.

All six of these extremely busy individuals—the various weights of various worlds on their shoulders—have stopped everything they were doing to come together and discuss:

Whether or not the bunny should wink.

No, that's not a joke. The discussion also includes whether or not the cartoon bunny should smile, the pros and cons of outlining the bunny’s head in a field of grass, and the color schemes that should be used for the bunny, the grass, and the lettering that will go above (or should it go below?) the bunny’s head.

Now, I have to be honest here and tell you that the “bunny” is not actually a bunny… but change the “bunny” to the four-legged creature we’re actually using and then modify the other details accordingly, and that was our actual conversation. I kid you not. Which means, I suppose, that today’s entry should be filed under the annals of: “Yes, I get paid for this." Alternatively, it may also be filed under: “I can’t believe I get paid for this.” I have a feeling my partners—and the network execs—have had the same thought. :-)

Oh, and as to why I can’t tell you what animal we were really talking about, well, it’s top secret. Revealing that information would mean I’d have to kill you… or kill myself… neither of which sound like very pleasing options. As for the purpose of the bunny and its head in a field of grass, you’ll have to wait and see. Let’s just say it has to do with our main character and what she does when she's not failing miserably at dating…

So stay tuned. And when the pilot finally airs (I say hopefully), you can look back on this particular entry and smile, knowing what behind-the-scenes information you now know about the “bunny” in the grass.