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Flashback Apr 12, 2007

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When I tell people what I do for a living -- which, for the record, I try not to do; mostly I tell people that I'm a merchant banker and leave it at that; when you say "merchant banker," I've found, there are no follow ups -- but for the times when I actually tell people that I write and produce television comedies, what I hear back is either "You should do a sitcom about everybody in the payroll department. Crazy. Crazy funny," or something a little more aggressive and challenging, like "So what do you do now? Sit around and live off of your Cheers residuals?"...

Anything but That Apr 05, 2007

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A few years ago, we had a pilot ordered to series. I know, I know: hard to believe. But there was a time, I promise, when thing like that did happen...

The Man Mar 29, 2007

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It turns out that Viacom is suing YouTube, which isn't really much of a surprise. Viacom will eventually sue us all, for something. That's kind of how they do business. Here's how it went down...

Bellweathers Mar 22, 2007

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When Bob Crane, the star of TV's Hogan's Heroes, was found murdered in an Arizona motel in the late 1970's, among his personal effects were several hundred pounds of video equipment. Crane had state-of-the-art equipment for 1974: a huge video camera, a heavy playback tape machine (roughly the size of four microwave ovens stacked together), and enough lights to form a small production company.

The Aflac Duck Mar 15, 2007

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So, how do I do this? On the one hand, I want to share something about a certain network. This certain network ordered a pilot recently based on the caveman character in the Geico insurance ads. Have you seen them? Kind of funny. The idea is that if you're a caveman somehow living in today's world -- I don't mean like a caveman, I mean an actual caveman, with eyebrow ridges and stringy hair and like that -- anyway, the point of the commercial is that if you were such a caveman, making your way in the modern world, you'd have to deal with a lot of prejudice. People thinking you're stupid or oafish or dazzled by fire or whatever...

Writing for Free Mar 08, 2007

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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Said Samuel Johnson, at some point, to someone. Good advice...

Episode Two Mar 01, 2007

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Now that I'm officially not making a pilot, and am deep into my seasonal I'm-quitting-this-idiotic-business muttering and stomping around, I need to get something off of my chest....

Technically Dead Feb 22, 2007

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This year, I had two pilot scripts in contention for the fall 2007 season. Both of them are now, in the words of the networks that paid for them, technically dead. Technically dead. Not dead. Not alive, certainly. But dead, technically...

We're Going to Be Okay Feb 08, 2007

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The Bonus Jan 25, 2007

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A few years ago, we shot a pilot for a network that didn't want it. They were cornered by something called a "pilot commitment" -- which means, essentially, that at some point someone at the network agreed to pay a huge penalty (something pretty close to the cost of producing a pilot) if they didn't produce the pilot. So, faced with the prospect of paying one-million-two for a something and one-million-one for nothing, they thought, "Okay, what the heck. Make it. But we hate it. But make it. Even though we hate it..."

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