They were the perfect young sitcom-writer-writing team. Hansen and Pollock. Hansen, the Wasp, all single malts and tweed, was good at lobbing the deft bon mot. Pollock, the sputtering Yid, was funny 24/7 with the jokes and shtick. In their third season of the Fox hit Crotch!, the team was cleaning up. They even had a piece of Crotch!

Then Hansen drops a bomb on Pollock. Weekend, solo, he’s been penning a dark dramatic screenplay. Miramax, after a sneak peek, was pissing its pants. The script was absolutely perfect for Gwyneth and Ben, or Gwyneth and Matt, or with a tiny rewrite, Ben and Matt. Hansen dumped Pollock.

Then the writer’s strike hit. Poor Pollock. With no income, two kids with cell phones, and a wife who shopped Rodeo Drive like a Kuwaiti, the man went belly-upsky in just two weeks. He had no choice but to call his old partner and beg him to take in his family.

Hansen, still guilt-ridden over their split, couldn’t refuse. And so he and his wife, the childless Wasps, welcomed the colorful Yids into their home. Think The Brady Bunch meets The Odd Couple. But smart, with heart.

And did it get wacky. Like when the Pollock kids, armed with Magic Markers, broke into the liquor cabinet and drew uncircumcised penises on the labels of every rare single malt. Or when Hansen’s wife, a Harvard-educated botanist, developed an all-natural herbal breast enlarger, and Pollock tried to partner up with her by pitching names for the remedy: Breast In-Plants, Nature’s Rack, and the more playful Chitty Titty Bang Bang.

It was on the picket line, however, that the ex-partners tugged our heartstrings. At first, Hansen, affirming his new career, marched solo. Like everyone else, however, he couldn’t help but be charmed by Pollock’s indefatigable shtickery. Like the time he showed up with a picket sign that read CONTINENTAL AIRLINES UNFAIR, or when wore nothing but a barrel emblazoned with HERE’S YOUR REALITY SHOW! You hadda love the lug.

So when Pollock asked, Hansen again couldn’t refuse. As soon as the strike ended, they’d pitch one last project as a team.

In Hansen and Pollock, an episode of the show within the show within the show, the reunited team pitched to CBS The Brady Bunch meets The Odd Couple. And the day after Hansen and Pollock sold it, they were fired and Davenport and Lipschitz were brought in to write the pilot.