The one and only time comedy was “too hard” for Ricky Gervais: “I can’t do it”
It wasn’t long ago that no terrain of comedy seemed insurmountable to Ricky Gervais during his rise and rise.
He was wrong-footed by Hollywood, Ghost Town and The Invention of Lying unfunny misfires during the late 2000s, but the genius of BBC’s The Office carried Gervais a serious distance. Totally reinventing the sitcom format, his taboo-pushing comedy style, sharp social observations, and underlying pathos all hit perfect comedic and sentimental bullseyes and thrust the immortal David Brent character to UK phenomenon and an international star; the US version just one of 14 other official adaptations worldwide.
From then on, he and Stephen Merchant would score another solid effort with Extras before losing steam with the patchy Life’s Too Short, thrust former Xfm producer Karl Pilkington to national treasure status, break podcasting records with The Ricky Gervais Show, as well as enter the realm of animation with its cartoon offshoot, and forge a highly lucrative stand-up career.
Before long, Gervais stood as an A-lister, infamously hosting the Golden Globes Awards among Hollywood’s rich and famous, able to rope in Ben Stiller for an Extras cameo, and hosting documentary hangouts with Christopher Guest, and, most notoriously, Gary Shandling. His jump from 2000s British TV personality to one of the biggest names in entertainment in the 2010s was a dizzying one.
Yet, one comedy behemoth proved too colossal even for the cocksure Gervais during his prime. Legend has it that he was initially put off by America’s most famous dysfunctional family by 1990’s ‘Do the Bartman’ single during the peak Bartmania years, but The Simpsons’ laugh-free sitcom style, coupled with its nuanced humour and idiosyncratic pop culture references, would find its way in shaping The Office’s similar dwell in comedic silences and grab at the peculiarities of the British cultural landscape.
Possessed with a near King Midas’ touch, Gervais fancied himself a slice of Fox’s prized prime-time cartoon. Offering his writing services in 2004, former series showrunner Mike Reiss revealed that the entire team were such fans of The Office they didn’t need persuading, but were pleasantly surprised at Gervais’ high praise of The Simpsons team’s sky-high comedy standards.
“Truth is, we often write in guest stars to meet our idols,” Reiss wrote in 2018’s Springfield Confidential. “The writers have used the show to bring in all of their comedy heroes: Eric Idle, Rodney Dangerfield, Albert Brooks, Mel Brooks, Jerry and Richard Lewis. Ricky Gervais, who sort of invented modern comedy with the original version of The Office, asked us if he could write an episode. We were flattered, and even more flattered when he called back two weeks later and said, “I can’t do it – it’s too hard.”
Despite receiving writing credits, Gervais only actually conceived the plot of 2006’s ‘Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife’ from season 17. Borrowing from the UK’s Wife Swap reality concept, Gervais stars as the Brentesque Charles Heathbar, who falls for Marge as the swapped spouse for the Mother Flippers show within a show. With some sequences written by Gervais entirely, including the serenading love song to Marge, but otherwise the usual team padded out the material to make the episode Simpsons-worthy.
It’s faded in Simpsons affections today, lost in the gloop of the pale imitation that The Simpsons has exhaustively lurched into for the last quarter century, and Gervais’ turn into washed-up culture war chases has blighted much of his former glories, but his turn in The Simpsons, while biting more than he could chew, would see a spike in ratings for the animated series well after its prime, and pull the old Office star further into America’s comedy orbit.
