Todd Holland was eight units away from graduating with a master’s from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in 1983. That is, until he was hired by Steven Spielberg.
This whirlwind start to Holland’s career began when his friend Danelle Black, who worked at Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment production company, got the short film they had made together, “Chicken Thing,” into Spielberg’s screening queue.
“One day Steven walked in and had nothing to do, so he walked down, and Danelle took my film from the bottom of the stack to the top,” Holland said. “He watched it and he wanted to meet me.”
At their meeting, Holland gave Spielberg a script he had prepared for the company’s show at the time, “Amazing Stories.” Spielberg personally read the Halloween-themed script the same night and liked it, but asked Holland if he had another script since the show had already finished a Halloween episode.
“I didn’t, but I lied and wrote one that weekend. They bought it, and they hired me,” Holland said.
Ever since those fortunate beginnings, Holland has directed and produced films and a wide array of television shows, executive producing and directing “Malcolm in the Middle” and, most recently, the upcoming Fox series “Sons of Tucson,” which airs March 14.
The new show follows three clever, wealthy kids looking to hire someone to act as their father, who has landed in jail for committing a white collar crime. They find a father figure they can pay off in nonchalant slacker Ron Snuffkin, played by Tyler Labine, last seen in the CW comedy “Reaper.”
For Holland, gravitating towards this show was only natural.
“It was the simplest thing on the planet ““ it was funny.” Holland said. “So much stuff that has “˜comedy’ labeled on it is not funny to me, so I have a simplistic little litmus test: Did I laugh when I read it?”
“Sons of Tucson” passed his test with flying colors, eliciting laughter while also serving up a twist on the common nuclear household.
“It’s a unique way to look at the American family,” said co-executive producer Justin Berfield. “The kids are in control, they run the household and they’re bossing around their dad, so to speak.”
Berfield has plenty of experience working with Holland on another show about dysfunctional families, having played the fiendish Reese on “Malcolm in the Middle.”
“We all knew a show revolving around three young kids requires someone who’s done it before and Todd fit that bill immediately,” Berfield said. “I’d actually been dying to work with him again for the last three years, so I’m glad everything worked out.”
For Tyler Labine, the star of “Sons,” Holland brought everything together by ultimately convincing him to do this show. At the time, Labine had the opportunity to shoot a pilot for CBS or to do “Sons,” and was torn despite his greater interest in the latter.
“Todd told me about how he’d shot movies he didn’t want to do and how they offered him everything, even the kitchen sink, so he did it,” Labine said. “One time, he looked at the script again, and the only thing he had written on the back was, “˜I don’t hate it.’ He said to me, I don’t want you to make a “˜I don’t hate it’ by going with CBS. He was completely honest with me, and I couldn’t be happier now.”
The similarity of “Sons of Tucson” to “Malcolm in the Middle” is undeniable. Both shows involve Holland, Berfield and Matthew Carlson, who was co-executive producer of “Malcolm” and is now co-executive producer and show runner for “Sons.” Also, they both share the theme of an eccentric family, not to mention they were both picked up by Fox.
“The shows have the same kind of elements in terms of tone and comedy,” Carlson said, referring to the possibility of this show becoming a breakout hit like “Malcolm”.
In the end, though, “Sons” veers in the opposite direction.
“It’s a different beast,” Labine said. “There’s a reversal of power, not like “˜Malcolm’ where (power) was what the kids were fighting for, now I’m the one trying to get on top with the kids.”
But “Malcolm” fans should watch for an incarnation of a familiar character.
“In a nod to the fans of “˜Malcolm,’ I get to play Barry, who’s an older version of Reese,” Berfield said.
Despite Holland’s experience and success in making comedic shows, he prefers stories balanced between levity and gravity.
“Humor is better as a side dish,” Holland said. “It’s like fettuccine alfredo, nobody wants it as a whole dish, but on the side, then it’s really yummy,” he said.
That said, “Sons” has a wacky premise that is inherently funny. “There are four little con artists, one of which is not little,” Holland said, alluding to the immaturity of Labine’s character.
But it is also about the idea of a chosen family. “In “˜Sons,’ four people are slammed together to make a family, thrown together by circumstance, and they end up having a sense of place from sharing their lives together,” Holland said.
“But,” Holland is quick to add, “we’re not schmaltzy. We’re the anti-schmaltz.”