Blank Meets Blank: A Comedic Homage to Pitching Movies

Ever wonder what would happen if you brought together improv masters who love movies and gave them free rein to pitch their wildest ideas? It’s Blank Meets Blank, Cowboy Bear Ninja’s company-defining series produced for Rachel Dratch’s Late Night Snack on TruTV.

An absurdist take on writing and selling in Hollywood, these nine shortform episodes were fuelled by jokes within jokes and razor-sharp comedic performances, all lovingly shot with the refinement of the original films being parodied.

So how did it all start? Jon Paley. Jon was a friend and collaborator of Michael Melamedoff – so he and his company, Guagua Productions, brought the idea over to Cowboy Bear Ninja to develop the project and shoot the proof of concept. Michael, a Cowboy Bear Ninja partner and Blank Meets Blank executive producer, got everyone behind the alluring concept: a sketch show based on the insane film pitches that happen every day in Hollywood, but never make it to production and release. This working style of partnering with talented creators in the development stage to harness everyone’s powers to create a show became the prototype for what is now a critical development model at Cowboy Bear Ninja.

“Blank Meets Blank was one of the first projects Cowboy invested in after I came over to the company,” Michael notes. “It was off the strength of our proof of concept that Michele Armour (Strangers with Candy, The Chappelle Show, Upright Citizens Brigade) also came to board the project, with her company Marobru. She took Blank Meets Blank to TruTV knowing they were looking for comedic shortform segments to program into Rachel Rachel’s Late Night Snack. And they loved it! TruTV licensed our proof of concept, and greenlit an additional eight episodes with Marobru, Guagua, and Cowboy Bear Ninja serving as its production companies.”

“This was an all-time joyful collaboration, and I am really proud of what we created together,” said Blank Meets Blank showrunner and Cowboy Bear Ninja partner Miguel Drake-McLaughlin. “The show is a love letter to the process of filmmaking as well as our love for films – this homage got people to really go all out and make each episode pop, and it inspired tremendous performances in front of and behind the camera.”

What made Blank Meets Blank so hilarious was the comedic strength of the actor-writers pitching in each episode, which included Daniella Pineda, Don Fanelli, and Cocoon Central Dance Team. “They would write out their pitch beforehand and come into the room with really strong decisions and commit to the bit,” added Cowboy Bear Ninja partner and Blank Meets Blank contributor Matt Semel. He notes that an important pillar of the series was the performance by Nadia Quinn, whose role of the 'studio executive' was the lone series regular. “She was hearing the pitches for the first time during that first take, so we’d get a real reaction from her and then play to that reaction.”

“Nadia earned a writing credit for her fantastic ad-libbed contributions to the stories,” added Miguel. “After the pitches were filmed, we would edit the improv sessions into four minute sketches, and our filmmaking teams would cast, location scout, shotlist, and go out to shoot the films as pitched – all in about one week!”

Blank Meets Blank was nine episodes, with Cowboy’s Matt, Michael and Corey Tatarczuk directing seven of the nine episodes. Genre filmmaker Jenn Wexler made her television directing debut with one episode, and GuaGua partner Ross Finkel directed another. Most of the episodes were shot in Harrisburg, PA, where Cowboy Bear Ninja partner and Harrisburg local Adrian Selkowitz produced, finding incredible talent and locations to best serve each story.

“The Rocky Field of Dreams episode directed by Michael [Melamedoff] became TruTV’s internal example of what the studio’s comedy should be in terms of pacing, structure and humour,” adds Miguel. “They called it iconic. It doesn’t get much better than that.”