The first thing you should know is that I really like Christina Applegate.

I mention that up front because the story I am about to tell you might come across as negative toward her, and I don't want it to. Seriously, I think she's awesome. I would completely work with her again in a heartbeat if I were ever asked to.

Yes, again. In case you're not aware, long before I was able to make fantasy sports my living, I was a writer on "Married... with Children." My title was "story editor," which is Hollywood-speak for a low-level writer, but I worked on 28 episodes of the show, co-writing five episodes (getting credit for four, long story), including the 250th episode and the last original episode of the show to air (though not what is considered to be the "final episode"). I loved that show, loved working on it, and the cast was amazing. All of them brilliant (and underappreciated) comedic actors with the ability to turn bad jokes into laughs and good jokes into huge guffaws. There is no questioning their talent. And if you ever wanted a super-cool girl to have a beer with, you could do a lot worse than Christina Applegate.

I don't miss show business, but I do miss writing for "Married... with Children." Ron Galella/Getty Images

Our story begins with one of the episodes my writing partner, Eric Abrams, and I wrote. One of the plot lines of this particular episode involved Kelly, who (on the show) was an aspiring actress who often got parts in bad movies with roles like "Biker bimbo No. 5" or some such. Anyway, in our episode, she gets an audition for a role in "Cat Fight: The Movie." It was a female boxing movie. At the time, female boxing had become somewhat popular, and, 250 episodes into "Married...," we were willing to try anything as long as it was somewhat new. So we wrote this scene in which, while at the gym training for the movie, Kelly runs into her archrival, a cut-from-the-same-blond-dye-bottle named Heather. Turns out Heather is up for the same role; they talk trash to each other; and eventually they decide they will box each other for real, with the loser dropping out of the audition, giving the coveted role to the winner. Of course.

I tell you all this because the role of Heather is actually important to our story. If you've seen the show, this won't shock you, but most female guest roles on "Married... with Children" were not very rewarding. They were generally one of two things: an obese woman who came into Al's shoe store and was made fun of by Al and Griff, or a stereotyped bimbo for Al, Jefferson, Griff and/or Bud to ogle and lust after. But this role was different. The role was Kelly's biggest rival, so it was three big scenes with Christina, with lots of funny jokes and insults to deliver and a showy set-piece scene at the end. Sure, it also involved boxing in tight spandex -- I mean, it's still "Married... with Children" -- but whatever. This was a very good guest role, and we got submissions from a higher caliber of actress than was typical. In fact, lots of great actresses auditioned for the role.

Now, one of the cool things about working on "Married..." was that they let the episode's writers be involved every step of the way. You got to sit in on casting, help with the final edit, etc. This is not typical of most shows with lower-level writers.

So, OK, we do the audition, and we see actress after actress vying for this role. Many are very good, but one comes in (I'll call her April) and just knocks it out of the park. She's fantastic. Plays it perfectly between hostile enough to be a real rival to Kelly, but funny enough so that you're enjoying the interplay as insults fly back and forth between them. Plus, she's great-looking, never a bad thing on "Married…" and important to the plot if we're to believe she's a legit rival to Kelly. We've heard these lines, like 20 times in a row, yet she has us legitimately laughing really hard. Audition finishes, we are profuse in our praise to her, she thanks us, the casting agent says, "We'll let you know." We turn to our executive producer.

Me: That's our winner.

Executive producer: Let's see everyone who came by.

Me: Of course, we should see everyone who came in, but April's the clubhouse leader. It's not close.

So, we see the rest of the actresses, and none of them comes close to April. The last girl leaves and the casting director turns to us.

Casting director: What do you think?

Me: Gotta be April. She was the best.

My writing partner: Definitely.

Casting director: I agree.

Executive producer: I think we should hire Lisa.

I'm surprised, and I quickly consult my notes.

Me: Lisa? She was good, but not as good as April. Not even close.

We look to the casting director for help. We're low-level writers, not about to go toe-to-toe with the show's executive producer.

Casting director: I gotta agree with the guys here. April's your winner.

Executive producer: I hear you, but it's ultimately my call and we're hiring Lisa. (To the casting director) Go hire her, please.

The casting director looks at us and shrugs with a "What are you gonna do?" look. He leaves the room, and we turn to face our boss. Why, we respectfully ask? Did you not just see the same audition we all did? And that's when our boss gave us, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story. "She was too good. That's the problem."

What? He explained. "Look, this is a big Christina episode. We've seen this before. When Christina has to carry the storyline by herself, she gets nervous. And that other woman is too good. If we hire her, she'll come to the stage and she's like a new shiny toy. All the guys on set will be all over her, flirting with her, fawning over her; she's gonna get big laughs, and everyone will be talking about the new girl and ignoring Christina. And when that happens, Christina will get even more nervous and she just retreats. She gets into her own head too much, she's not as confident and we'll get a bad performance out of her. We need someone good and pretty for the role, just not as good or as pretty as our star."