Jennifer Grey's First Major Television Role Is Impossible To Watch Anywhere

Vestron Pictures

When "Seinfeld" (controversially) ended its nine-season run in the spring of 1998, NBC knew better than to force a show-about-nothing replacement. Like most long-running sitcoms, "Seinfeld" was a lightning-in-a-bottle sensation that owed its success to a knockout ensemble that could power their way through the rare writing slump. CBS, on the other hand, wasn't in the market for mean-spirited humor, choosing instead to build sitcoms around nice guy comics like Ray Romano and Kevin James.

ABC? They rolled the "Seinfeld" dice and, ratings-wise, came up snake eyes.

On March 24, 1999, ABC unveiled "It's Like, You Know...," a sitcom that sought to lampoon vacuous upper-class Los Angelenos from the perspective of a cynical Manhattan transplant (Chris Eigeman). Created by longtime "Seinfeld" producer Peter Mehlman, and boasting a killer writing staff that included comedy-writing legend Carol Leifer, Etan Cohen, and Jon Hayman, ABC was confident enough in the series to openly invite comparisons to its groundbreaking inspiration. After all, it was right there in the title (and its tagline: "Same Writer, Different Coast").

"Seinfeld" initially stumbled out of the blocks. Critics liked it, but it needed more zip (which was provided and then some when they made Julia Louis-Dreyfus a member of the main cast). It also struggled in the ratings, which placed it in danger of cancellation. "Seinfeld" didn't crack the Nielsen top 20 until its fifth season, but it was winning Primetime Emmy Awards by then. The prestige alone was worth it for NBC.

"It's Like, You Know..." seemed to be on the same trajectory as "Seinfeld," but the outsized hype robbed it of the chance to find its footing and build an audience. ABC couldn't cancel it fast enough, which means viewers never had the chance to see Jennifer Grey in her first leading role on a TV series.

ABC

Meta celebrity goofs have become commonplace over the years thanks to "Being John Malkovich," Neil Patrick Harris' horndog run in the "Harold & Kumar" movies and Nicolas Cage starring as himself in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," but that kind of humor wasn't exactly mainstream friendly when "It's Like, You Know..." brazenly cast Jennifer Gray to play ... Jennifer Gray.

When I tuned into the first episode of the show (ABC never aired the pilot), I was concerned that they'd go overboard with jokes about her infamous rhinoplasty (which radically transformed her appearance). They go there again and again early on, but, in subsequent episodes, they write her as just another character in a close-to-winning ensemble.

The main draw for me was Eigeman, a Whit Stillman regular who specialized in over-it-all sarcasm. He plays a New Yorker who's moved to L.A. to write a book about how much L.A. sucks. What he doesn't bargain on, and what would've been explored in subsequent seasons, is that the sunny, laid-back metropolis grows on you. One day, you wake up and realize you love this land of weirdos because you're a weirdo, too (like A.J. Langer's delightful masseuse/process server Lauren).

"It's Like, You Know..." got an 18-show order after an abbreviated first season, but ABC quickly dropped the axe as it tanked in the ratings and failed to garner widespread critical support. ABC left the last six episodes unaired and never released the series on DVD. It's completely unavailable to stream, and, aside from random snippets on YouTube, there's almost no visual evidence that it ever existed. I'd love to revisit it, but I am apparently in a very tiny minority. This does not bode well for its return in any format ... ever.