MONDO EXTRAS

In 1996, I watched a new pilot on Fox called Profit, a maniacally compelling show about a ruthless and slick corporate type who spent his days gleefully lying, blackmailing, and even killing to get ahead in the corporate world...and his nights sleeping naked in a cardboard box in front of a television. After I took my jaw off the floor, I called my sister and asked her if she'd seen what I saw. "The man slept in a box!" she screamed. "It was great! How the fuck did Fox let that show on the air?" Well, as it turned out, the executives over on Pico Blvd. were wondering exactly the same thing, and the show was resoundingly cancelled after a handful of episodes. Also among those baffled by its making it onto the air at all was creator John McNamara, who spoke about the show at an event I saw at the Writer's Guild Theatre earlier this year. Apparently he and David Greenwalt created the show almost as a lark, and were not at all surprised that the clearly ahead-of-its-time show was cancelled. Profit has since always existed only in my head, as a shadowy memory of turning on my television and seeing something extraordinarily weird and extraordinarily compelling -- an experience that happens seldom enough to stand out. Well, now, thanks to the wonder that is the DVD, I get to experience it all over again.

So here we go. Profit. The two-hour (aw fuck! Seriously?) pilot.

We open with a creepy Mike Post score and the sweeping, '80s-ish shot of a big city. Manhattan? Chicago? Toronto posing as Manhattan, most likely. We'll see. And the movie-esque titles. Profit. Yeah, boy.

We move around a tidy apartment with modern furnishings and all manner of relaxing furnishings, including a tiny Zen garden, a giant fish tank, and books on the shelf such as Eat Healthy, Live Long and Triumph and Tragedy. We go back to the double-sided fish tank, where the face of our man Jim Profit is visible staring at the fish. A sliding panel opens in the wall and he walks out naked, the camera making what had to be a very tough move to keep Profit's "assets" hidden behind a lamp at all times. He walks, disappears into another room, and closes the door. From whom? The cinematographer?

Profit, now dressed for work, sits contemplating a tidy plate of cut fruit.

Now Profit's putting on his suit in front of a wavy mirror. Suddenly, he turns to the camera and says, "Wayne Gresham is dead," in a voice coming from deep in a gravel pit, and one that would make even Christian Bale say, "Okay, wow. That's a cool voice."

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In 1996, I watched a new pilot on Fox called Profit, a maniacally compelling show about a ruthless and slick corporate type who spent his days gleefully lying, blackmailing, and even killing to get ahead in the corporate world...and his nights sleeping naked in a cardboard box in front of a television. After I took my jaw off the floor, I called my sister and asked her if she'd seen what I saw. "The man slept in a box!" she screamed. "It was great! How the fuck did Fox let that show on the air?" Well, as it turned out, the executives over on Pico Blvd. were wondering exactly the same thing, and the show was resoundingly cancelled after a handful of episodes. Also among those baffled by its making it onto the air at all was creator John McNamara, who spoke about the show at an event I saw at the Writer's Guild Theatre earlier this year. Apparently he and David Greenwalt created the show almost as a lark, and were not at all surprised that the clearly ahead-of-its-time show was cancelled. Profit has since always existed only in my head, as a shadowy memory of turning on my television and seeing something extraordinarily weird and extraordinarily compelling -- an experience that happens seldom enough to stand out. Well, now, thanks to the wonder that is the DVD, I get to experience it all over again.

So here we go. Profit. The two-hour (aw fuck! Seriously?) pilot.

We open with a creepy Mike Post score and the sweeping, '80s-ish shot of a big city. Manhattan? Chicago? Toronto posing as Manhattan, most likely. We'll see. And the movie-esque titles. Profit. Yeah, boy.

We move around a tidy apartment with modern furnishings and all manner of relaxing furnishings, including a tiny Zen garden, a giant fish tank, and books on the shelf such as Eat Healthy, Live Long and Triumph and Tragedy. We go back to the double-sided fish tank, where the face of our man Jim Profit is visible staring at the fish. A sliding panel opens in the wall and he walks out naked, the camera making what had to be a very tough move to keep Profit's "assets" hidden behind a lamp at all times. He walks, disappears into another room, and closes the door. From whom? The cinematographer?

Profit, now dressed for work, sits contemplating a tidy plate of cut fruit.

Now Profit's putting on his suit in front of a wavy mirror. Suddenly, he turns to the camera and says, "Wayne Gresham is dead," in a voice coming from deep in a gravel pit, and one that would make even Christian Bale say, "Okay, wow. That's a cool voice."

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20Next