Prince’s Appearance On ‘New Girl’ Re-run By Fox

Fox was already going to air two episodes of New Girl last night at 7 and 8 pm, but they added a repeat at 8:30 pm. The re-run features an appearance by Prince, the late musician.

It was originally aired in 2014, but the network decided to show it again as a tribute. The series’ creator, Liz Meriwether, recounted her experience with Prince.  She recalled her near panic-attack when she was on the phone with him for the first time, but the feling never really went away throughout the taping of the episode.

The two originally linked up through Prince’s manager, whom Meriwether met at a party. At first, the singer was supposed to appear on season two of New Girl, but it wasn’t meant to be. They got in touch again for the next season, when Fox asked the show to do an episode following Super Bowl XLVIII. Meriwether was constantly anxious that Prince would back out.

He did not, however, but not without changes. He made some adjustments to the script, even reshaping one scene to make it funnier. As planned, star Zooey Deschanel was supposed to be in a dark closet, with Prince surprising her by turning on a flashlight under his chin.

“Prince was standing on the balcony, beckoning to me,” Meriwether told Vulture. “I walked up the stairs and followed him into a bathroom. He turned out the lights. Then he flicked a lighter on underneath his chin.” He then said to her, “Isn’t this funnier?”

That wasn’t his only moment of behind the scenes brilliance. “Right before we were about to shoot him performing his new song in the episode, he asked my producer for a megaphone,” Meriwether said. “Right before the first notes, he pulled out the megaphone and called out: ‘Does anyone want to fall in love tonight?’ Everyone cheered. We hadn’t asked them to. It was just a feeling. You just had to shout out.”