Who is allowed in the Writers Room?

The Writers Room needs to be a safe environment – especially for comedy writers. Seven or eight highly talented but bat-shit crazy people are locked in a room for hours on end and can not leave until they’ve fixed the script that’s currently in production. That could be as the rest of the world is going to work at 8 in the morning. It’s a lot of pressure and one way writers let off steam is by being hilariously cruel and politically appalling. There are no sacred cows. One time in a room the staff made merciless fun of someone for a half an hour until one person observed, “He’s only one day old.”

And those are the tasteful jokes compared to the sexual references. Personally, I go by the Carl Reiner code. He doesn’t care how dirty a joke is as long it’s really funny. And if you’re in the right room with the right group, you will laugh your ass off every night. Imagine going to the best comedy club in town and they pay you.

The thing is though, writers have to feel uninhibited. And we can’t when there are outsiders in the room. Many times I’ve had friends ask if they could just sit in on a rewrite, and I always politely tell them no. You’d be surprised how fast seven people become self conscious when someone’s cousin is in the corner.

One time on a show, one of the executive producers let one of the cast members come up and sit in on a rewrite. She was just curious and wanted to watch the process. What she saw was eight people who sat for an hour and didn’t say a word. Eventually she left and the rest of us almost killed the exec producer.

The Writers Room is the ultimate Las Vegas. “What happens in the Writers Room stays in the Writers Room.” Obviously, there’s no control when an outsider is in the room. The CIA leaks more secrets than seasoned staff writers.

And all that is not the worst. When I was on a show, one of the executive producers was friends with a highly renown drama writer who was curious as to the process with a sitcom. Could she sit in? Since this was a fellow writer we said okay. An hour into the rewrite she started shooting down ideas. The staff glared at the exec and mouthed “What the fuck?!” We said, “Let’s call it a day” and broke. Once the drama writer left we reconvened and continued the rewrite.

If for some amazing reason you are allowed access into a Writers Room, do not pitch jokes and do not call out things like, “I don’t believe he would do that.” An agent I know came into the room once and started pitching jokes. I thought his client was going to strangle him. Warm-Up guys have been notoriously guilty of this. It's a good way to lose your job. 

John Rich was a legendary TV director – from THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW to ALL IN THE FAMILY and hundreds more. One day he’s on the set directing a show for ABC. The ABC president’s son walked on the set. He wanted to observe. John chased him off. The crew couldn’t believe it. Sure enough, an hour later, the president of ABC was on the phone wanting to talk to John. John picked up the phone and before the prez could speak said, “Hey, I was just about to call you. My son is 13 and wants to come to your office and sit across the desk all day and watch you work. That wouldn’t be a problem, right?” The exec got the message, laughed, and told John to have a good runthrough. And no, John Rich was not fired off that show. He directed many more episodes.

But my favorite story involves the writers of THE NEW MICKEY MOUSE CLUB. That was the series done in Orlando that featured, among others – Britney Spears. The Writers Room was on the ground floor and had a big picture window. There were no drapes, no blinds, nothing to cover them. Why? Because they were a stop on the Disney lot tour. Every fifteen minutes another tram would pull up to the window and thirty tourists would gawk at the writers for two minutes. Talk about a buzz kill.

So please don't take it personally if you're not admitted into a Writers Room.  We're just trying to do our job.  And of course the irony is: you can’t get in, but we can’t get out. And 90% of the time we envy you.