Eddie Pepitone Broke Me
I don’t laugh during takes. I’m unbreakable. Kevin James, Neil Patrick Harris, Terry Crews — none have prevented me from delivering my precious dialogue. Fine, there was one time while slapping handcuffs on Henry Winkler during a Barry take when he blurted “Ouch!” and in a nanosecond I replied, “I’m so sorry.” All I could think was, “OMG I hurt the Fonz.” Thankfully, Henry was kidding, our national treasure intact. Anyway, that wasn’t laughter, right? I absolutely love seeing characters break during sketches on Saturday Night Live, their forgivable flaws shot live in front of a roaring studio audience. Bill Hader turned impromptu giggles into an artform. After many years on set, I was beginning to think I was immune. Finally, one dreary day in North Hollywood while shooting a pilot…it happened.
We stood slouched, cramped inside a dingy bungalow on Lankershim Boulevard in late March 2008. A stained poster-sized headshot of Roger Moore hung on the paint-chipped wall. The phones didn’t work. An old fridge, filled with cans of Fresca, was adorned with nudie calendars. It was supposed to be a disgusting hole of a used car dealership in “the bowels of the San Fernando Valley.” And it was. It was also a low budget production with friends, so there was no set decorator. We just changed the sign outside. Ok, we did add the Roger Moore frame. One of the guys had recently discovered it in a dumpster as if dropped down from Heaven. The show was about the worst used car salesmen in the country. The tagline — “They want your money.” This was Action Auto.
Old friends Ted Sullivan, Dan Dworkin, Grant Calof and Greg Lee had written scripts which comedically baked three webisodes together like a scrumptious layer cake. The plan was to give studios a flavor of what the TV show would be like, directed by the four sagaciously goofy guys. They told me this would be their It’s Always Sunny, a concept they’d shoot on a shoestring, sell to a network, then produce with the original cast after attaching a ringer like John Goodman to bring in eyeballs. I’d met the gang through my buddy Patrick Gallo, a Buffalo transplant, kindred spirit and bohemian soul who sees the world through a kaleidoscope lens. Teddy and Patrick, along with Ted’s brother Paul, had been old pals since their New York days in the 90’s. I loved them to death, so the idea of shooting something like this was especially exciting. Along with Patrick and me, they had recruited friends Chris MacKenzie, Eric Price and CeCe Pleasants to round out the cast. I knew it was going to be a blast, each artist brilliant in their own right. You’ve seen Patrick in The Irishman opposite Pacino and DeNiro, and MacKenzie in dozens of hilarious commercials. Eric Price was a cast member on Mad TV. CeCe is an Emmy-nominated scribe who’s crafted jokes for late night shows like Jimmy Kimmel and The Late Late Show with James Corden. We all played together in our dusty sandbox, flaunted our feathers, improvised to our hearts delight. We’d do a take, madness would ensue, then we’d explode into laughter after the cameras stopped. In one episode, my character has a “rage blackout,” slamming a prospective customer’s (Charlie Weirach) head onto the hood of a car. As a poor bloodied Charlie runs off, MacKenzie calmly blurts, “He’ll be back.” Weirach is a priceless put-upon character actor, a master of malaise. To his character’s chagrin, he returns with an indifferent cop (the sublime Geoffrey Owens) who uses the time to find a deal on some wheels. In yet another episode, we can’t decide what to do with an interested buyer (Edward L. Green) who dies before signing his paperwork. Did we sign the contract with his lifeless hand? Yes. Did we place him in his new car, light it on fire, and push it out of the lot? Also, yes. Every moment was deliciously insane, but we never broke character.
I remember going to see Patrick Gallo perform stand-up in the early 2000’s at a dive in Hollywood. When I first got there, Eddie Pepitone was on stage ranting and raving. The small audience was falling off their chairs. I said to Patrick, “Who the hell is this guy?” Patrick’s face lit up, “Oh, you don’t know Eddie?” I guess they had known each other from back East. That was the first time I saw Pep. Once you see Eddie, you never forget him. After that night and before we shot Action Auto, I’d see him around town occasionally at auditions and he’d always put a smile on my face. Aside from being funny, he’s just a likeable guy, so I was happy to finally work with him. He fit in perfectly with our Action Auto family. In his episode, his character buys a used car, gives us a trade-in, but mistakenly leaves an inflatable woman in the trunk. He comes back to pick her up, we give it back, and he merrily drives off. He’s great in those moments. What put me over the edge was when his character unhappily returns. Apparently, the blow-up doll had been damaged in the interim, and Eddie wants to know who the culprit is. Or as Eddie says, “Who befouled my Margot?” When he first enters the shop with the deflated, blemished woman, and sees the four salesmen, his first line was not written to be a big punchline. It was simply, “Who did it?” I did not expect the moment to be anything special, but when Eddie stepped into that room with the wrath of Khan in his eyes and the sadness of an 80’s ballad in his heart, crying out the words “WHO DID IT?” — I just lost it. We all did. His pleas still echo in my head over a decade later. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in all my life. I couldn’t stop. Take after take, he’d come in, he’d say the line, and we’d have to start over. I felt like my sides were going to literally burst. Did I drink too many Frescas that day? Yes. Did I pee my pants a little? Also, yes. It’s one of those memories burrowed in my brain that reminds me just why I got into this crazy business. Creating with friends. Laughing. Pure joy.
I’ve had lots of fun days on sets over the years. I’ve performed a dangerous fire stunt in Bulgaria, I’ve fought Gary Coleman in an octagon while wearing an 8-foot tall Taco mascot costume, I’ve shot a romantic comedy scene with my family watching in the neighborhood where I grew up. But my favorite day ever might be the time Eddie Pepitone made me break.
