How to be a Comedy Writer: Writing a Sitcom Script And Other Dangerous Things.

You'll be there when I meet and eventually marry Goldie Hawn's stunt double. You'll ride throughout Western Europe with us, our new Beetle Convertible and Linus, who quickly reveals himself as the dumbest dog on two continents. You'll also be there when we impulsively buy a beachfront home in the Bahamas, then cavort with and delightfully offend some of the richest people in the world.
Ah, but then nobodys' perfect...
I should wear Kevlar shoes for how many times I've shot myself in the foot. No question I should have nurtured, paid more attention to the management of my career and not trusted my accountant when he said, "These tax shelters are perfectly legal, I make no commission on them and how do you like my new Bentley?"

In the mid nineties, unable to take a deep breath or make a left turn, I and family moved from Los Angeles to Sebastopol, California, in the heart of the Napa Sonoma wine country.
I am currently the webmaster of a new, hopefully funny and unique website, Dogs And Cats Go Hollywood.

A brand new website for those of us who love to laugh and show off our pets.
Read about: The Planet of The Dogs, Undercover at The Westminster Dog Show, What Happened to The Taco Bell Chihuahua? FBI Most Wanted Cats, CIA Most Wanted Dogs, Letterman's Pet Tricks is Rigged! Worst in Show...and much, much more!

PLUS, you can add pictures and videos of your own dogs and cats to the stories - or help us create new ones!

This is Studio Four at NBC, Burbank. Tonight, I'm sitting in with the audience and I can't help noticing some sneaky glances, a few hesitant, shy smiles. That's because earlier, during the warm up I was introduced to them as the Executive Story Editor of Sanford and Son and the writer of the episode now being taped.
In a moment, Redd Foxx will deliver a joke that has everything to do with how I got from there to here.

This particular episode is my brass ring. I wrote this one on speculation when I was near broke and incredibly it got me hired as a staff script writer on this sitcom, currently tied with All in the Family as the most popular television show in the nation. This episode also lights the sparkler that is to be my career for the next twenty years or so. You know what a sparkler is; that thing that burns very brightly for a very short time. I am so hot during this period that I turn down staff writer jobs on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson and the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live. I said my career was bright, I didn't say I was.
My parents are sitting next to me and I've also brought along a date who I hope thinks I'm talented and cute and will sleep with me tonight. I am thirty four years old and I've never gotten three out of three.

This joke the audience is about to hear is significant because I came up with it less than an hour ago during our dinner break between shows. Most sitcoms tape the same episode twice in one night. Then, the best of each is combined and edited to create the one half hour that will be broadcast. If a joke doesn't work in the first show (called the dress rehearsal or "Dress") the writers try to quickly come up with something better for the next. (Called, "The Air.") If so many jokes fail that we don't have time to fix them all, that's called drama.

Here's the set up: A Japanese company is negotiating to buy and eventually tear down all the houses on the Sanford block so they can build a brewery. Trying to jack up the price on his, Fred Sanford and his son, Lamont pay a visit to the traditional home of the Japanese buyers. Being escorted in by the daughter, Lamont, is trying to be cordial:

LAMONT
Gee, Miss Sato, you really have a
nice house. Everything has so much
tradition.
(NOTICING A LARGE SWORD
HANGING ON THE WALL)
That's a Samurai sword isn't it?
What's the story on this?

MISS SATO
My great, great uncle used that sword
to kill himself, commit Hari Kari, over
a hundred years ago.

LAMONT
Wow, amazing!

FRED
What's so amazing about that? My uncle
Louie killed himself, but you don't see
us go hangin' wine bottles on the wall.

I'm making a big deal about this joke because it illustrates a special talent that I have: The ability to quickly come up with a good joke. This is a skill highly valued in television comedy because of the inherent fickleness of funny and the rapid pace of production. Quickly coming up with a quality joke is called, "Being good in a room." It's a skill I always thought wouldn't be very useful anywhere else.
Anyway, Redd does the Samurai sword joke, I'm enveloped by a thunderous laugh and I feel this rush of pride. God damn, I'm good! But, there's also a healthy dose of awe and humility. I understand that being a TV writer, being able to make hundreds of people laugh at something that fell out of my head is a precious, god-given talent. I grin because I am so happy and so blessed.

I am also unaware of how easily it can all slip away.

Okay, if were going down this road together, some ground rules: (I have no shame.) In these Lenses I will not hesitate to use some time honored literary devices to maintain dramatic tension, enhance the story and make the writing gooder. However, I will never lie to you. That is a promise. Even the stuff about celebrities that I will sprinkle throughout like mileage awards, will be 100% true. For instance, if I tell you that when she was first starting out, I had a passionate affair with Kathy Griffin, you can take it to the bank. Take it anywhere you want, but it would still be a lie because fantasies don't count. But, if I told you Red Foxx almost got me arrested and sent to prison for cocaine possession, that would be true.
I said we're going down the road, I didn't say we wouldn't step in anything.

A while ago, my daughter decided to go back and finish college. To help out with the finances, I started working as a Wine Tour Guide. I would drive people around in a limo, recommend wineries for tasting and at the end of the day, pour them back into their hotel. I was informative, entertaining, a good story teller and I loved to make them laugh. Not infrequently someone would ask what I did before this. When I replied, I'm a "retired" TV writer, they often responded with, "Oh, really?! What's it like to work on a show? Where do you get your ideas? Tell us about sitcom writing. What's this or that star really like?"
And I would tell them.
Frankly, it never occurred to me my life was all that interesting until people started telling me it was. However, the real light bulb was when I realized that telling all these funny stories was just another way of being good in a room.
And, there are all kinds of rooms.

In the western movie classic, The Magnificent Seven, Steve McQueen plays one of seven gunfighters hired to protect a poor Mexican village against two hundred bad ass banditos. At one point he is asked how the preparations for defending the village are coming along. Thumbing his hat back, McQueen squints, says: "Well, It's kinda like the man who jumped off the top of the ten story building. As he passed each floor, they heard him say, "So far, so good."

I've always loved that line because it's pretty much how I feel about my life.

I could have also entitled this, "How Not to Become Rich and Famous - And How I Did it!" Back when I knew every single thing about life and the universe, it was my naive belief that as a TV writer I could avoid the ass kissing and politics that are obligatory in other professions. I was fond of saying, "All that counts is what I put on paper." I felt that the joke either gets a laugh or it doesn't and that's the only standard by which I should be measured.

I can accurately point to ageism in the script writer workplace as a major hindrance to my career. However, I also have to accept responsibility for the misjudgments and mistakes I've made.
But, there's this other, much bigger problem that I have: It's basically an attitude, a very deep down mind set - and time after time it gets me into the most trouble. To put it simply, I have an almost incurable problem with Mean, Petty People. I've never been able to ignore them. Conversely, I tend to confront them. Many have said they admire me for this trait, but just as many tell me to shut the f--k up and look for a new job.

FROM: How to Throw a Script at Your Producer:

Gardner and Caruso aren't there because they've been fired. They've already cleaned out their offices and are off the lot.
Just like that.
Ken Hecht and Ted Bergman are the new producers.
Just like that.
Well, okay, my first real producing credit! There'll be a nice money bump and now we'll have more control over the creative process. Hopefully, we can improve the show, at least make the working environment a lot more pleasant.
Hope lasts until Monday morning.

At the table reading, Fred Berry is loud and abrasive, bitching that there aren't enough jokes in the script for him and he doesn't like the ones that are already there. He's done this before, however it's the first time he's done it when I'm the producer.
I tolerantly reply that his comments are duly noted, however the time to discuss this will be after the reading when Ken and I will be happy to give him some face to face time.
Fred's response is one that will come to haunt him. He blurts, "You know, there is life after Rerun and What's Happening!" Then he throws his script across the room, it wind milling about a foot from my face.
Oooops! Fred has just pushed my Mean People Button.
My reaction is totally knee jerk. However, if you put me in this same situation a hundred times, I don't think it would be any different.
I stand up, point to him and say, "Get out!"
He says, "What?!"
I say, "Leave the room and get off the lot."
He says, "You can't do that!"
To their credit, Saul and Bernie remain silent. But the look they're giving me says, You can't do that!
I repeat to Fred, "Get off the lot, (putting my hand on the phone in front of me) or I'll call security and have someone help you off."
Talk about your pregnant pauses...
Finally, Berry yells, "F--k you!" Then gets up and strolls to the door, managing to come up with a few more pithy sentences containing mother and f--k. Of course, he slams the door on his way out. However, the key word here is, out.

FROM: Island Head.

I will risk a generalization here: Most very rich people are boring. If you are a very rich person and offended, so sue me, you can afford to.
Unfortunately, rich people have no idea they are boring. That's because they hang out with other boring, rich people. And, on the rare occasion when they do associate with non boring people, they are not told they are boring because these non-boring people are also aspiring to be rich and boring. (If this appears in Forbes without my permission, I'm going to sue.)

Kathy and I are not only fresh blood, but we are in show business. To them, we are like two new, slightly exotic pets.
Arthur, the elderly gentleman who handed us the invitation is tending the crowded bar. It is here that, slightly tipsy (remember, it doesn't take much), I regale everybody with our sneaky adventures in the Miami airport. I think they find it amusing because if they were ever denied access to a hotel, most of them would just buy it.
And, whoa, some of these geezers haven't been close to anything like Kathy in decades. She's only twenty eight and still looks like a USC cheerleader. Kathy is to these guys what Viagra will be to the Twenty First Century.
Consequently, her dance card is full.

One quite elderly gentleman asks her to dance and near the end, slides his hand down and pinches her rear. When she comes back and tells me this, I venture it's because he is well into his eighties and he thinks he can get away with it.
A short time later, he asks her to dance again and when she accepts I know there is trouble a brewing. Sure enough, just when I happen to glance over, I see the old guy's expression go from rapture to reality.
He has pinched her yet again, but this time Kathy tells him, "You do that again, I'm going to pull out your hearing aid and step on it."
She comes in loud and clear.

FROM: Full House of Pain.

Have you ever stepped in dog poop, but not realized it right away? And, by the time you catch that unmistakable whiff, it's too late, you've already tracked it into the house. Then you have to backtrack and clean it all up.
That pretty much summarizes our experience on Full House.
I know, nowhere to go from here but up.