STBD 5-1: Revealed!

On Tuesdays this season, we'll be revealing some of the behind-the-scenes commotion involved in the making of each week's episode.

The Making of "Rich's Little Problem" involved:

- 7 versions of a 17-page script (eventually trimmed to 14)

- 2+ hours of raw footage

- 7 different shooting days

- 18+ hours of editing

- 3 unused (or severely edited) scenes

Fun Facts, scene by scene:

* The stoplight that opens the episode was filmed at the corner of Murray and Forbes, in Squirrel Hill. However, Rich and Caroline's car is stopped on a dead-end street in Highland Park.

* The audio in the opening scene is dicey because there were cicadas chirping near Rich's window and children on a trampoline near Caroline's. That background noise was reduced as much as possible.

* Courtney Jenkins (aka Tabitha) was late to the "lunch" shoot... because she got pulled over on Bigelow Boulevard for speeding... because she was late for the "lunch" shoot... (Cost of ticket: $55)

* Rich's "Umbrella" line was improvised.

* The "manuscript" Caroline is editing at her desk is actually a play that Ann Turiano (Caroline) is evaluating for a local theatre company.

* Rick Hertzig (Glenn) and Ryan Ben (Tim) were never in Affogato at the same time. Their shoots took place on completely different days.

* Ryan had to grow a beard for his role as Jesus in a play for the New Works Festival. The festival ended the week we were filming, but we couldn't time the shoot to coincide, so Tim had to be bearded for once.

* Caroline and Pryce had a completely scripted "date" that was cut due to time constraints.

* Rich's "Mathis 4 Mayor" sign was hand-scrawled on the back of an Amanda Across America poster, which we were sent by mistake when Blip.TV sponsored PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 in August. We hung the banner up, only to realize afterward that they sent it to us by mistake (they meant to send one with the Blip logo). After Dina Kaplan at Blip assured us she didn't need it back, we decided to pay homage to it in the episode.