They say you always remember your first time. “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” star Rachel Bloom was appropriately smutty as she reflected on learning that her show had been picked up to series by The CW.
Bloom and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna, speaking on TheWrap’s Outstanding Showrunner Comedy Panel Tuesday night, shared some words of wisdom from the late, great comedy writer Jerry Belson: “In Hollywood, you almost never get to come.”
For Bloom and McKenna, Belson’s expression means that any victory or milestone doesn’t arrive as excitement, but relief after countless hours of work and effort.
“You know those orgasms you have where you’re like, I think I came? I no longer want the sex, so I think I came,” Bloom told TheWrap executive editor Tim Molloy in blunt terms.
Showtime originally ordered a pilot for “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” but Bloom was new to the experience, and that first step on the road was far from what she expected.
“So we made this pilot with Showtime, we were diddling off the whole time, kind of flicking our beans the whole time, and then we got the first notes call, and it was like the dog was barking, I got to start over on you going down on me now,” Bloom said.
“Rachel was such an optimistic, sunny person. And after our first notes call I thought, ‘Oh we are completely f—ed,’” McKenna added. “We kind of knew from that call they were never going to do it. But she was so optimistic.”
Things didn’t get much better from there.
“When we tested the ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ pilot, we had an executive who said, ‘They really get the show. It’s a show about a broad with big boobs who sings dirty songs,’” McKenna said. “And I thought, he’s not wrong. Perhaps not how I would’ve described it.”
“And that, my friends, is called the male gaze,” Bloom joked.
But after Showtime passed on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” the week of her wedding, McKenna finally gave Bloom the relief she was after.
“Aline called me and said, ‘What are you doing right now?’ Which sounds like someone who wants to make you come,” Bloom said. “Do you want to get a class of wine to celebrate our fall pickup? And I came! I came! I squirted all over everyone. And it was lovely.”
“I told her not to tell anyone and she walked into her writers room and told everyone,” McKenna added.
A week later, Bloom was being introduced on stage at New York City Center for upfronts, which Bloom described as “surreal.”
“The curtain raises and I’m like, ‘This is a joke. This is the popular kids playing a prank on me. This isn’t real,’” Bloom said.
“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” will enter into its fourth and final season later this year. Bloom and McKenna appeared on TheWrap’s Outstanding Showrunner Comedy Panel along with Dan Goor of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik of “Episodes.”
Watch a video from the full panel discussion above.