How to: Sell a Show to Starz (if you're Rob Thomas)

[isoS]

Videogum posts this intriguing peek behind the scenes of how Rob Thomas pitched "Party Down." This was apparently shot at his house during the writers' strike, and features most of the cast that wound up in the series (interestingly, one-time ASTer Andrea Savage is playing what would become Lizzy Caplan's part). If you've never seen the show, please don't take this little clip as indicative of the final product -- even if a lot of cast and writing carried over to the pilot, the tone here (mainly dictated by the music cues) feels a lot more broad. And let that be a lesson to you, kids: if you want to win over the suits, sometimes it pays to drop a needle on "Kokomo."

(Bonus: here's a chicagotribune.com interview with Jane Lynch. Like us, they can't stop writing about "Party Down!")

[BillBrasky]

Who's the guy playing Roman?

And yes, this is an interesting example of how annoying editing can make anything look bad. Particularly terrible is the "cricket" sound effect after Adam Scott says "Do you remember me from anything else?" and, of course, that classic staple of crappy movie trailers, "Walking on Sunshine", being played at the end.

[isoS]

Yeah, I have no idea who that guy is. I thought it was interesting that Roman seemed to be a party DJ in this presentation, as opposed to now he's just another Party Down waiter/busboy/whatever.

Walking on Sunshine gets a lifetime pass from me just because of how it was used on "Futurama."

[Jouster]

Roman DJed in the reshot version, too. I think, aside from Henry always tending bar, everyone is a waiter/busboy/DJ/whatever.

The guy is James Jordan, who played the T.A. in Veronica's Criminology class in the 3rd season of "Veronica Mars" (thanks to Brian Palmer for refreshing my memory on what he was recognizable from).

[isoS]

Wow. Good eye.

[yumitree]

Roman DJed in the reshot version, too. I think, aside from Henry always tending bar, everyone is a waiter/busboy/DJ/whatever.

i think it was the episode with the guy from just shoot me?
i assumed that henry always tends bar (sometimes with help from kyle [or roman], if needed) and that roman handles all the technical needs (dj, running the av shit like the last episode, etc.), while everyone else fills in where needed, mostly dealing with waiting on tables/guests, and then food prep/clean-up.

[isoS]

Yeah, that was the pilot. The "just shoot me" guy is Enrico Colantoni, who played Veronica Mars's dad on Veronica Mars.