In an interview with The A.V. Club today, Patton Oswalt revealed that he was supposed to write for the fifth season of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’s mythic HBO sketch series Mr. Show, which didn’t end up happening. Oswalt, who was a frequent collaborator of Mr. Show actor/writer Brian Posehn, made background appearances in a couple of episodes, but he was busy working as a writer on MADtv’s first two seasons for most of Mr. Show’s run. Here’s Oswalt telling the story:
“after they didn’t bring me back to MADtv—rightfully so, because I was such an asshole over there—Mr. Show asked me to submit a packet. So I rushed and wrote a packet overnight and turned it in, and it just sucked. It was not good stuff. Bob and David were so nice. They were like, ‘We can work with you, not this season but maybe next season.’ And that was their last season. I was going to be on the fifth season of Mr. Show, but, of course, that never fucking happened. [Laughs]â€
HBO was interested in making a fifth season of Mr. Show, but Odenkirk and Cross turned them down (Odenkirk because he was upset over the network dicking the show around on the schedule and Cross because he just wanted to move on). If they had made a fifth season, Oswalt would have joined a staff of comedy writers that also included Odenkirk, Cross, Scott Aukerman, Brian Posehn, Dino Stamatopoulos, and more, making that comedy rogues’ gallery all the more impressive.