November
13 The Sarah Palin Hoax: The Dan Mirvish Interview

Dan Mirvish is nothing else if not persistent. He made his first film, "Omaha," in 1995; when the Sundance Film Festival rejected the comedy for its lineup, Mirvish responded by taking the film to Park City, Utah to launch Slamdance. More recently, when he wrote and directed "Open House" in 2004, a "real-estate musical," he raised a ruckus with the Academy when it refused to activate its live-musical category that year.

And so it would follow that he'd be involved with the Great Sarah Palin Caper otherwise known as Martin Eisenstadt, the conservative talking head who claimed Palin didn't know Africa was a continent but, in reality, doesn't exist. (Eisenstadt, that is. Not Palin. Or Africa.) The New York Times wrote about the hoax in today's paper with the cooperation of Mirvish and his partner in crime, Eitan Gorlin. And all hell has been breaking loose for Mirvish ever since, mostly because his doctor wife worked the night shift and left Mirvish in charge of getting their three kids to school. Nonetheless, he picked up the phone in between zipper and shoelace crises to discuss his adventure.

Did your agent know you were doing this? Or anyone else in the industry?

It's very generous for you to presume I have an agent. I've had a few over the years; I don't have one right now. There's a number of people in the TV world who knew about us and our shenanigans -- production companies, networks. JJ Abrams' company Bad Robot, Paramount TV, CBS, Comedy Central, Sony TV, Ashton Kutcher's company...

So basically, it was a massive left-wing conspiracy?

(Laughs) Right. Not that any of them were involved at all, because they weren't. (At this point, chaos takes over as his daughter Becca starts to scream.) Zip it up, no, OK, take it off. Who left me in charge? You know what, Dana, let's continue this a little bit later.

[More coming.]