Bob Schimmel had a few chances at TV. The 60 year-old comic, who died this weekend from injuries he received in a car accident Thursday, wrote for 'In Living Color' early in his career. He appeared frequently on Conan and the Howard Stern Show, which made him a favorite among his fellow comics, who appreciated his honesty about everything from his sex life to his health. And there was a laundry list of maladies there that ranged from a heart attack to lymphoma.

That kind of honesty, and Schimmel's blunt approach to it, is hard to translate into sitcom success. Schimmel had sitcom pilots, but they never made it to television. He came closest in 2000, when Fox ordered a run of 'Schimmel,' which would have opened with Schimmel getting an anal exam at the proctologist's office.

That was taken straight from Schimmel's stand-up, and that was mild in the context of his act. The essential element in Schimmel's approach wasn't a desire to shock. It was a desire to communicate his own deepest, personal experiences.

Yes, he pushed the envelope, talking about his daughter's virginity, how to approach sex after a heart attack, and even providing an index of sex-related terms on his Web site. But it was his humanity that made him a successful comic.

"I'm just very honest onstage, and I think that's what throws people," he told me in an interview for The Boston Phoenix in 1999. "You know, 'He's not really supposed to be talking about that.' Well why?"



It's also why when he passed, comics and entertainers like Joe Rogan, Wendy Liebman, Penn Jillette, Sarah Silverman, Michael McKean, Dane Cook, Jimmy Kimmel, Jim Gaffigan, and Tom Green mourned him on Twitter and Facebook. Friday night, the comic community was trying to figure out if the rumors were true, when it was finally confirmed when Jeff Schimmel, Robert's brother, confirmed it on Facebook, and The Comic's Comic posted the news. That's a diverse group of fans.

But it wasn't just subject matter that kept Schimmel from TV. Political satirist Barry Crimmins posted in his Facebook status that "As star-crossed as he was talented and that is saying a lot." That Fox pilot was scratched when Schimmel was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

That was a major disappointment to the comic, but he turned it into another pilot in 2004 for the WB (and then a book, 'Cancer on $5 A Day' in 2009). That show would have followed a man going through chemotherapy who marries his 25-year-old daughter's best friend, and still has to deal with his ex-wife. All of that happened to be drawn directly from Schimmel's life.

When I spoke to Schimmel about it for the Boston Globe in 2004, he said the WB was looking to broaden its demographic, but that he'd be shocked if they picked it up as is. "The whole premise is inappropriate," he told me then. "But it's true. That's what lets you get away with it, is everybody knows it's a real story."

Predictably, the WB passed. The best way to experience Schimmel on TV remains his many stand-up specials, the most recent of which was 'Life Since Then' on Showtime. It would have taken the perfect storm to bring Schimmel to TV, something like Louis C.K.'s 'Louie' on FX.

Schimmel's fans can take solace in the fact that he preferred to be known as a great stand-up comedian, rather than a mediocre sitcom star. He couldn't imagine Bill Hicks, the legendary comic with whom Schimmel shared a big break on Rodney Dangerfield's stand-up special 'Nothin' Goes Right' in 1987, as a wacky neighbor. And he couldn't imagine himself in that role, either.

"You can't be a rebel and be on 'Happy Days,'" he told me in 1999. "You choose that path, you've got a different walk you gotta walk."