As the pair revealed in an interview withVoyageLA, the show had a minuscule budget.
As a result, they wound up being incredibly hands-on throughout the entire process.
“It forces you to use your experience from every aspect of the business.”
“You know, am I going to do a FedEx run today?
Or am I going to clean the toilets?
Or am I going to record the [voiceover] scratch track for the editor?
Or am I going to go out and direct the episode?
Or am I going to write the episode?”
“We both looked at each other and said, ‘Wow, this is really stressful.
This could be a really good idea for a show,'” recalled Sandler.
That’s how we created ‘House Hunters.'"
“At that time, HGTV was mainly doing DIY programming.
It was more craft-oriented,” Davidson explained.
“And Michael really wanted to take more narrative storytelling and apply it to HGTV.”
In fact, “House Hunters” marked something of a sea change for HGTV programming.
The format that they created was something that had never been done on television before.
“I think it was something like $28,000 an episode,” Sandler told Cosmopolitan.
According to Sandler, HGTV never balked about gay representation on the show.
“The internet said, ‘Let’s not make a big deal out of it.’
They’ve always said that.
‘They’re a couple like anyone else.’
The series’ solid storytelling also explained its late-in-primetime time slot, airing in the 10 p.m. hour.
“Our executive used to refer to it as a good bedtime story,” Sandler told Cosmopolitan.
“That’s why it was on at 10 p.m.
The series also had something of an interactive element to which viewers could easily relate.
“You play along by deciding, which would I choose?
And so, am I like these people, or am I different from these people?”
The crappier the better.
“But really the most important thing is that they are passionate about the project,” she added.
That said, competition to be cast in an HGTV home-reno show can be fierce.
There was very little out there that featured family rituals in reality television,” Davidson told Cosmopolitan.
“‘A Baby Story’ kind of made a big splash.
That put us on a path of being more recognized in the industry.”
