The Yolk's On Him

Jeremy Wright never dreamed of hitting the big time. He’d never written a thing in his life and was happy with his blue collar existence. As Jeremy found out, however, the big time would find him by the dairy case.

“It all happened like a whirlwind,” Jeremy recalls from his director’s chair on the set of his sitcom in which he also stars. “One day I’m shopping with my wife, and the next I’m TV’s newest star! Talk about being in the right place at the right time!”

Jeremy’s life would never be the same after a fateful Sunday morning trip to the Valley Shopper in Ansonia, Connecticut. While his wife shopped, Jeremy nodded hellos to the people around him and tossed the occasional soft cheese or bag of pork rinds into the cart. As they went through the refrigerated section, it was his time to shine.

“Is that how much eggs cost?!” Jeremy asked in a booming voice. “I’ll need to take out a second mortgage to make an omelette!”

The joke got some polite laughs and a groan from his wife.

“Last year I got her a diamond necklace for our anniversary,” Jeremy continued to an innocent shopper as he pointed his thumb in his embarrassed wife’s direction. “This year I’m getting her a dozen eggs!”

As Jeremy finished his impromptu comedy set by outlandishly claiming they were going to replace the gold in Fort Knox with—you guessed it—eggs, someone approached with an offer no one could ignore.

“This dude in a suit and tie walked right up to me,” Jeremy recalled. “He said he liked what he’d heard and offered me a television contract right then and there. When he asked if I was interested, I said ‘Shell yes!’ It’s funny. When I went to the Valley Shopper, I had no idea I’d be poached.”

“Get it?” Jeremy asked with a wry smirk. “I said I was poached.”

“The art of the sitcom is dying,” talent scout Adrian Orion said with a gleaming smile. “There have been a few big ones over the years like M*A*S*H.”

“More like H*A*S*H!” Jeremy shouted from the other side of the studio. We didn’t even think he could hear us.

“There are others, of course,” Orion continued. “Perfect Strangers, Herman’s Head, and that one that took place in New York City. We quite frankly got desperate to fill space between the vapid entertainment shows and the atrocities showcased on the local news, so we started scouting for the next big sitcom writer.”

Orion’s quest brought him all over the country as he searched high and low to fill the programming gap. He visited a wide array of gas stations, taco restaurants, bodegas, gay bath houses, and supermarkets. Until he found himself in an unremarkable supermarket in Connecticut, he feared he’d never find someone with that special something. Then, like a bolt of lightning, Adrian Orion struck gold.

Jeremey was whisked away from his humdrum life as a gas company meter reader and given free reign to create a sitcom based on the humor he’d displayed by the egg case in the Valley Shopper.

“We usually have entire teams of writers on a show like this,” Orion said, “sometimes a dozen, but we didn’t want Jeremy’s voice diminished. We gave him complete control over the entire project.”

“It’s called ‘Yolk’s On Me’,” Jeremy explained. “That’s also the main character’s catch phrase. The show’s about a hard boiled guy, played by me, who doesn’t take crap from anyone, especially Big Egg. He takes on the egg industry while doing his best to live in a world where eggs cost over seven dollars a dozen. Seven dollars a dozen?! It would be cheaper to buy a chicken and squeeze breakfast out of its ass every morning!”

“Put that in the pilot!” Orion exclaimed.

“Oh, it’s in there!” Jeremy replied. “I play the main character Egbert ‘Eggs’ Benedict. He’s married to a sunny side up hottie named Shelley, and they have a son Sheldon. In the first episode, Sheldon gets in trouble at school for crack possession.”

So is this a show about juvenile drug use and its long-lasting consequences?

“No. It’s ‘crack’ like ‘crack an egg’. Get it?”

So none of this is meant to be ironic?

Jeremy stared for almost a full minute before saying, “That’s not an egg pun. You can’t iron an egg! We don’t need to inject irony into the plot. It’s redundant and not needed.”

I sure hope this show isn’t panned by reviewers.

“Now you’re getting it!” Jeremy said. “Man, this show is gonna sizzle!”

“It’s gold!” Orion added. “This show really…makes me laugh.”

When asked if there are any politics in Yolk’s On Me or if the reason for the price hike in eggs is explored on a deeper level, Jeremy told us not to get his message scrambled.

“I’m here to make people laugh, not depress them about bird flu, inflation, or the woes of American farms. If you don’t like that, then this interview is over.”

We stared at Jeremy because we knew he was about to—

“Easy! Over easy. Get it?!”

Yes, Jeremy. We get it.

Although the subject matter may be runny at times, it’s no worse than anything else on television. Jeremy’s version of the American Dream comes packed with bacon, cheese, and green onion. Because, uh, it’s an omelette. Are we done with these egg puns yet? They’re starting to feel beat.

All in all, we all wish Jeremy Wright the best and hope that Yolk’s On Me has a long primetime run.

[Editor’s note: Yolk’s On Me was canceled halfway through the pilot.]