Comedy Writers
Jun022005
Filed Under Comedy Writers
Believer Magazine has an online exclusive conversation between the comedy writing twins Steve and Mark O’Donnell. It’s random but it does touch upon being funny as a profession for the “fairly” and Jimmy Kimmel being discovered as “quick and smart” once he gets out from under the pressures of network influence. A good quick read.
Apr202005
Filed Under Comedy Writers
One of the things I try and do with this blog is assist in creating a language about why something is funny and why it isn’t. Having some sort of common ground to explain why something works has to go beyond the broad terms of “funny/not funny.” There’s an actual art to making this crap, even though when it’s done well, it appears so effortless that it’s hard to imagine any labor involved at all.
Although the movies Airplane and The Naked Gun never looked laborless (when you’re throwing that many jokes up against a wall, you don’t exactly exude lazy), the terminology for how the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team talk about creating comedy is endlessly fascinating. I think quite a few of these are common to anyone trying to write something funny, but were unnamed. Check ‘em out and use them with (or on) your writing partner the next time you’re collaborating.
Oct202004
Filed Under Comedy Writers, Sitcom
Read the Sunday NY Times article (original link) (author’s archive), which details the possible ramifications of the sexual harassment suit against three Friends writers.
Though I was cautiously favoring the writers’ side when I first blogged the lawsuit, this article tipped me there completely when it noted that plaintiff had none of the sexual references directed at her. Even if the comments were lewd and immaterial to the matter at hand, they all could be part of the creative process. In fact, one anecdote about having oral sex with a prostitute who turned out to be a man inspired a joke actually used on the show. All grist for the mill. Even if you don’t like the humor used in the room, if it gets a usable result, it’s hard to argue it wasn’t necessary to get the job done. You can’t judge beforehand which smutty remark would finally break a joke, so as long as it doesn’t target anyone working on the show, it should be OK. Though it doesn’t excuse the comments on Courtney Cox, Jennifer Aniston or writer/creator Marta Kaufman… it’s clear that most of the “disgusting” language took place in regards to doing the work.
Lindsay Robertson finds fault with the assistant for considering a field like comedy writing if she didn’t have the stomach for the writers’ room talk. I don’t really think that’s entirely fair, after all… at the bottom of any field you are essentially trying out the job and seeing if it’s right for you. (Obviously it wasn’t for the assistant, she’s now in the Air Force… pretty much the exact opposite of comedy writing.) You wouldn’t necessarily imagine the writers from Friends would be talking about Joey being a rapist from watching an episode of the show. But you could be told that when you applied.
I think for every writer and assistant there will need to be a waver which states that the employee acknowledges they will work in an environment where uncomfortable subject matter will come up in order to create material, don’t sue. Sign it if you want to make the funny. People should still have the option of suing if they feel they have been directly sexual harassed… like the Bill O’Reilly case.
Jul222004
Filed Under Comedy Writers, Sitcom
To write comedy, do you have to have an uncensored environment? That’s essentially the question that’s being put before the California Supreme Court in a harassment case involving some of the Friends writers. I absolutely fall into the idea that it’s a creative necessity to be able to say anything, because that’s how you find laughs. What makes funny stuff is usually inappropriate stuff that makes people feel uncomfortable. Saying them out loud, creates laughs. And a show like Friends, which is so focused on the sexual behavior of the characters, it seems impossible to work in an environment where talking about sex would be verboten.
But reading the description of what the plaintiff says went on (via The Smoking Gun), it sounds like a lot of it crossed over into the personal, and rather pedestrian, fantasies of the writers on staff (sex with cheerleaders, C’mon?). Although arguably, talking about turning Joey into a serial rapist is a creative process decision (and might explain the sudden move of the character to LA in Joey). This document, of course, only shows her side of the story. What really happened is probably someplace in-between.
It’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out. I imagine a plaintiff win could mean a lot of repression in writing rooms. For a rather amusing anecdote about an uncensored environment, one that doesn’t cross over into the personal and done purely to relieve creative tension, check out this Louis CK description of a late night writing session at Conan (4th Item down).
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