My thoughts on Kevin Reilly leaving Fox

Kevin Reilly is stepping down from running the Fox television network. He wanted to explore other exciting opportunities and familiar bullshit like that. Considering how bad Fox’s ratings have been (and that's with the Super Bowl), one could make a case that he was fired. Or cancelled. I like Kevin Reilly. I have not had too many dealings with him. My partner and I did a pilot for him when he was at NBC that didn’t go, but that’s the business....

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Friday Questions

Brace yourself for some Friday Questions.  TOMORROW:  My thoughts on Kevin Reilly vacating the presidency of Fox television.  Ron Rettig gets us started. What do you write on? George R. R. Martin works on an outdated DOS machine using Eighties word processor WordStar 4.0. Larry McMurty paid tribute to his Swiss-made Hermes 3000 typewriter. Like all screenwriters, I use an L.C. Smith typewriter from 1895 with the carriage arm on the...

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Could you play him "shorter?"

Casting is such a subjective and horrible process. My heart goes out to actors, especially character actors. Theirs is a life of constant rejection. And usually never knowing why. Someone thought they were too tall, their voice was too high, they had blue eyes instead of brown, they were too hot and it would be distracting. There are a million reasons why an actor doesn’t get hired and only one of those is that he didn’t give a good reading....

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Random rants, observations, questions, and nonsense

Here’s another edition of Short Attention Span Blogging.The one thing I took from seeing MILLION DOLLAR ARM is that Jon Hamm needs Matthew Weiner’s words. Don Draper’s really a boring guy without great writing. I wish every episode of MAD MEN was a season ender. This last one was spectacular. To the moon! And Bobby Morse can still warble. Huffington Post Headline from earlier this week: Study Shows What Happens To Gay Dads’ Brains When They...

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Great acting advice from Robert DeNiro

And it sounds so simple....But he's right.  Brilliant acting advice in only one minu...

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Here comes summer!

Being a BBQ, lay around the pool reading Paul Rudnick compilations kind of guy, I love the summer. It’s my favorite time of the year. Summer marks the return of warm weather and COVERT AFFAIRS. (How does Piper run in heels and still shoot a gun?)  Beaches, baseball, and crappy new reality shows that usually involve idiots doing ridiculous stunts. I think WIPE OUT is proof of Darwinism. I get to see all my favorite comic book heroes come...

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Memorial Day

It always seems weird to me that a festive occasion should be called “Memorial Day.” The purpose of the day is to pay tribute to the men and women of our armed forces who have given their lives for our freedom. There is a national cemetery near my home and every Memorial Day American flags are posted in front of all the tombstone. It’s a startling sight – endless rows of matching white gravestones with American flags. When my kids were teenagers...

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Celebrities read their mean Tweets

One of my favorite features of the Jimmy Kimmel show is celebrities reading their mean Tweets.  Here's the latest edition.  They're hilarious... even though I agree with one or two of them. ...

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My All-Time Favorite Job

Earl Pomerantz, in his wonderful blog, wrote a recent post describing his “All-time favorite job”. A few readers of both his site and mine have asked me what was my all-time favorite job? Here’s how blessed I am – it’s really hard to pick. I could easily say MASH, CHEERS, or ALMOST PERFECT; each for different reasons. Throw in FRASIER too. But that’s like trying to pick which of your four kids is your favorite? So putting those shows ...

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Impressive but useless talents

There’s a guy who imitates baseball players’ batting stances. I saw him at Dodger Stadium last night. He’s uncanny at it but it got me thinking – how the hell do you make a living imitating Yasiel Puig's  batting stance?And then I starting wondering – how many other gifted people are blessed with a talent that ultimately does them no good?There’s a guy in San Francisco I once saw who did amazing reproductions of great works of art in...

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Friday Questions

Getting you ready for the long Memorial Day Weekend with Friday Questions. If you have one, just leave it in the comments section. I answer as many as I can.Jeremy gets us started:You have had a ton of success with a writing partner in your career. I know you have shared what to look for in a writing partner, but I wanted to know how to find one. Is there a special screenwriter classifieds section somewhere?Not that I know of, although I’m sure...

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What am I up to these days?

Several people have asked this question so I thought I’d respond, but I can’t provide too many details yet. Hope this will suffice.  The latest to ask was John.  He tried to pose the question very delicately, which I appreciate.  He could have just as easily wrote:  "Have you finally been kicked out of show business?"  Instead, he asked: Are you actively writing or attempting to write for TV / movies anymore? Are you just...

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Determining credits

Credits seem to be a popular Friday Question topic.  Had one over the weekend.  And here’s another that's become an entire post. Terry asks: A show I saw the other day had a credit for "story by" and for "teleplay by" on one of its episodes. What prompts an unusual situation such as that? If a writer does an outline and the actual script is assigned to another writer, the first writer gets story credit and the second receives teleplay....

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Real Housewives of Thailand

Among the many things we learned on MASH was the value of research. Gene Reynolds, the showrunner, loaded us down with transcripts, articles, books, and even maps. The more authentic, the more real you can make your world, the richer and more interesting it will be. During our time on MASH we conducted numerous interviews with doctors, corpsmen, nurses, and soldiers who had served in Korea. And there were five years of interviews before us....

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The current state of network comedies

Now that the Upfronts are over and the networks have announced their fall schedules we can assess the state of comedy. In short: not too good. After a resurgence for a few years due to the success of BIG BANG THEORY and MODERN FAMILY, the networks are cutting back this fall. MUST SEE TV is no more an NBC tradition, partly because there are no shows on NBC that are must see, and because their comedy cupboard is now pretty bare. So they are...

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What do all those goofy credits mean?

Here's one of those Friday Questions worth an entire post. As always, if I can't find an appropriate picture I put up one of Natalie Wood.sonderangerbot asks:Ken, I'd be interested to know what the difference is between the different writing credits you see on a show; you have your staff writers, story editors, creative consultants (which I think you described once in a post as authorities doing basically nothing) etc etc , could they all be...

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The time I thought my career was over

Every writer has doubts. Some mild, some nagging, and for me in one case – crippling. This might surprise you since I seem fairly prolific – banging out a new post every day (a few even decent). And my list of credits is rather lengthy (more than you know -- imdb doesn’t even include our classic BRAM & ALICE). But there was one point in my career when I seriously thought I was done. The well had run dry. It was fun while it lasted....

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Friday Questions

Thanks as always for your Friday Questions. Here are some answers.HikenFan asks:I've been reading a lot of multicamera scripts, and often see the transition "RESET TO" at the end of a scene.I understand CUT TO and DISSOLVE TO, but what is actually being "reset" when this transition is used? When you CUT or DISSOLVE you stop filming (or taping). When you RESET you keep filming for a few seconds while the camera move to new marks. Generally this...

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Unlock the creative YOU

A recent study conducted by Stanford University (so you KNOW it’s legit) found that people were way more creative when they walked as opposed to sat. The study was conducted with human subjects. I was curious whether they had rats run a maze and then see if they could come up with better stories for 2 BROKE GIRLS. These findings are no surprise to me. Often, while writing, I’ll pace with a yo-yo. (Still waiting for the study to conclude that...

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How to fix television

WARNING: This is another rant from one of those old school cranky comedy writers. Networks today are more hands-on. Showrunners need approval for everything, from story notions to day players to set dressing. My question is: what was wrong with the Grant Tinker template?Grant Tinker, along with his then-wife Mary Tyler Moore, started MTM Enterprises in 1970. Beginning with THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, Tinker built a dynasty of top notch, high...

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How TV shows get selected for the fall schedule

This week is the Upfronts, when the major networks are announcing their fall schedules to much hoopla and ice mountains of shrimp.  Of the hundreds of pilots that had been commissioned, only a select few have made it to the promised land. My heartiest congratulations to the winners. I’ve always maintained that for the producers of pilots, when you get the news that your show has been picked up or your show has not been picked up, the reaction...

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My rant on the lack of showrunners

A recent article on Deadline Hollywood bemoaned the fact that as networks were putting their fall schedules together they were discovering that there is a real shortage of qualified showrunners to attach to these shows. Well, duh! And whose fault is that?There are plenty of excellent showrunners out there. But networks don’t hire them to write pilots anymore. In their quest to find hot new young voices they push to the curb experienced writers...

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