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I'm still in Boston. Tonight the M's again face the Red Sox and I'll be calling the game with Rick Rizzs on 710 ESPN Seattle and MLB.COM at 7 PM EDT.

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Does working in radio help you in TV?

Hello from Boston where I never stand down from my Friday Question Watch.  Also, tonight the M's begin a three game series against the Red Sox.  Air time on 710 ESPN Seattle and MLB.COM is 7 PM EDT.  Yes, I'm plugging my broadcasts but have you noticed I haven't bugged you about buying my book?  Although you should.

Here are this week's questions.  What's yours?
Starting us off with an a & b

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Summer Movies Preview -- the Sequel to the Sequel

Hi from either Detroit or Boston depending on when you read this. The M's wrap up a crucial three-game series with the Tigers today at 1:00 EDT. Rick Rizzs and I provide the play-by-play on 710 ESPN in Seattle and MLB.COM. But for those who'd rather go to the movies, here's the final installment of my annual Summer Movies Preview.  The first two parts (prequels?) were yesterday and the day

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Summer Movies Preview -- the Sequel

Part one was yesterday.  (Again tonight, I'll be callin' 'em if I see 'em -- Mariners/Tigers at 7 EDT on 710 ESPN Seattle and MLB.COM)

COWBOYS & ALIENS – “Them’s the damndest injuns I ever did see.”

AN INVISIBLE SIGN – Jessica Alba as a teacher. Will do great business only if her clothes are invisible.


PASSION PLAY – Studio synopsis: Mickey Rourke as a jazz musician and a woman with

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Summer Movies Preview

Hello from the show business capital of the world -- Detroit, where it's time for my annual Summer Movies Preview.   (Programming note:  I'll be calling tonight's Mariners/Tigers game with Rick Rizzs at 7 EDT on 710 ESPN Seattle and MLB.COM)
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 2 – Last installment of the series. Any more and Daniel Radcliffe will be able to play Dumbledore.


THE

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My "Sam Kinison" period

Flying today to Detroit to begin a roadtrip with the Mariners, which is an convenient lead-in to another tale of my checkered radio career. Back in 1974 I was a screaming disc jockey (literally) at WDRQ, Detroit. My tenure was short-lived but memorable.

At the time I had been out of work as a disc jockey for about six months. No one wanted a high energy, “youthful”-voiced,

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The biggest laugh you never saw on CHEERS

One of the biggest laughs we ever got on CHEERS was taken out when the show aired. Not that big laughs are so easy to get that it’s no big whoop to just toss one, but in this case we felt it ruined the show. Here’s the backstory.

First season. The episode was called “The Coach’s Daughter” (written by Ken Estin and directed by James Burrows). From the title you can probably get the gist of what

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Hannspree -- the world's dumbest store

Store owners in Beverly Hills will tell you their busiest time is Saturday afternoons.  The streets are filled with Gucci clad shoppers and tourists from Iowa.  So what does the Hannspree store do?  They close at 2:30 for an hour lunch.   That's like the Cheesecake Factory closing Saturday night from 7-8, or American Airlines going on Hiatus Thanksgiving week.

Hamspree is a store that sells TV's

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Have Punch-Up Will Travel

Helped out on a pilot one night this week. Some quick observations.

It’s sure a lot more fun when the show is in good shape. This one was.

There’s nothing like being in a room with side-splittingly funny people. Until you reach midnight.

Food you would never touch you eat in rewrites. We had take out Chinese food at 6. So at 9 you can imagine how cold and congealed and generally just “

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Why do stars take producing credits? Because they can.

Ready for some Good Friday questions?
Chris asks:

I've seen a lot of canceled (some good actually) shows that have their main star listed as an executive producer since the first season. Is there a connection?
Some stars are in a position to ask for and receive a producing credit. For show writer/creators this is sometimes the deal you have to make with the devil. A producing credit gives

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My thoughts on Major League Baseball taking over the Dodgers from Frank McCourt

I’m a lifelong Dodger fan. Went to the Coliseum as a kid (where you were closer to the action if you were in a blimp), cried when they lost the pennant to the dastardly Giants in ’62, took off from work to go to the downtown victory parade in ’81 (okay, I also picked up some great electronics at cheap prices – probably stolen), and I still carry my Sandy Koufax autographed ticket stub in my

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Some thoughts on pilot writing

At first you’ll read this and think, “Oh Christ! This guy’s just tooting his own horn again.” Read on. You’ll see that I’m not.

Several years ago my partner, David Isaacs and I wrote a pilot for one of the major networks. A conference call was arranged for us to get second draft notes. The VP of Comedy Development was a young guy, fairly new to the job. He started the conversation by

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The most fun I ever had in radio

Here’s another look back at my disc jockey career – when radio was great and I was passable. One thing that the industry was back then was FUN. Not so today certainly. And it’s a shame – both for the talent and the listeners.

Everything was live and local. You were encouraged to show some personality. Most radio markets had two competing stations playing the exact some music. So the

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Women I love

Here’s who I have major crushes on (this week)…Margo Martindale – If she doesn’t win an Emmy this year there is no justice and no JUSTIFIED. At least this season. Margo is a wonderful character actress whose portrayal of Mags Bennett on JUSTIFIED is so deliciously evil she steals every scene she’s in. And that’s not easy when she’s playing against Timothy Oliphant or that mongoloid family

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Comedy 101 is back in session

From time to time I like to deconstruct a half-hour episode of comedy and give you some insight into the thought process we went through in writing ALMOST PERFECT.   If you're writing a spec, it might be especially helpful.  Otherwise, it's a glimpse behind the curtain. 

ALMOST PERFECT was a CBS show that ran for almost two seasons in the mid ‘90s. It starred Nancy Travis as Kim, the head

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Homework for tomorrow's lesson

Hello, everybody. This is Comedy 101. Check to see if you're in the right class. For those new to the course, what we do is show you a half-hour sitcom episode and then tomorrow I deconstruct it. This is from a series I co-created in the mid '90s for CBS called ALMOST PERFECT.  It starred Nancy Travis and Kevin Kilner.   She's the head writer of a TV cop show and he's an assistant D.A.  The

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Thats it! I'm officially done with AMERICAN IDOL

Finally got around to playing back this week’s AMERICAN IDOL. I’ve been reviewing IDOL for this blog (originally every week) for the last five years. Well, after screening this week’s episode I can categorically say “I’m done.”

What the hell were these judges watching because it sure wasn’t the show I was watching? There’s not a single contestant this year that doesn’t bore the crap out

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Happy birthday Liz Montgomery... and other stuff

You may think of this as Friday question day, or tax day, but it’s also Elizabeth Montgomery’s birthday… or at least would have been. God, I miss her.
William Gallagher starts us off:

What's it like for a showrunner when their show hasn't officially been cancelled but the star takes a role in a new pilot? I'm thinking of Kyle Bornheimer and Perfect Couples: could there be a case where the

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SOURCE CODE -- my review

SOURCE CODE is a techno-thriller meets GROUNDHOG DAY. I guess because television now does drama and suspense far better than the movies (and you never have to worry about Matthew McConaughey starring in any of them), Hollywood now believes every feature thriller has to be high-concept. Hence INCEPTION, THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, HOP. But of all these recent big idea films, SOURCE CODE is by far

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You're going to think I'm making this up

But I'm not.  Compare my flight on a commercial airliner to any you've ever been on. 
This is another excerpt from the other book I'm writing -- on growing up a teenager in the '60s.  It could also serve as my very first travelogue.  (More current travelogues are contained in my hilarious current book, WHERE THE HELL AM I? TRIPS I HAVE SURVIVED -- available at ridiculously cheap prices in both

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Join me on the radio

This morning I will be doing a virtual book tour, shamelessly plugging WHERE THE HELL AM I? TRIPS I HAVE SURVIVED on radio shows all across the country (and hopefully being entertaining, too).  Here's the schedule, subject to change.  All times, Eastern.   Hope you can tune in if you're in one of those towns.  A new post follows at 10:30 AM Eastern.


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Writers' torture: waiting for your script to be read

For a writer it never gets easier.

Waiting.

You’ve turned in your script to the producer/network/studio/agent/manager/professor/best friend.

And now you wait for the response.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

You’d think in time it gets easier. It never does.

You generally calculate in some reasonable reading time period. They’ll read it over the weekend. But you still

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Opening Night -- My Oh My

Okay, this is kind of a personal one.  My account of opening day last Friday.  Might not be subject matter that interests you (in which case I invite you to click here for my other post today), but it held a lot of meaning for me so I thought I'd share it. 
Even though it was not my weekend to do play-by-play, I had to fly up to Seattle for the Mariners' home opener and Dave Niehaus tribute.

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I was a victim of Komedy Karma

It's a comedy staple and I've resorted to it many times. People trapped in an elevator. I've written scenes using that premise, directed scenes using that premise, and in improv class I've performed that scene almost as many times as "two people meet on a blind date".

Hey, it works. You can get two people together who otherwise wouldn't be and place them in a highly stressful situation that

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One more lost scene from the original ARTHUR

Hello from Seattle!  Thanks for your great response to yesterday's post.  Much better than paying money and seeing the current ARTHUR is reading a scene from the original ARTHUR.   I'm fortunate enough to have Steve Gordon's original draft.  It contains scenes that never made the final cut.  I posted one yesterday and I'm sharing another one now.  I'm sure the stuff that didn't make the first

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A lost scene from the original ARTHUR

With the remake of ARTHUR out this weekend (a movie I will never see) I thought it's a good time to re-introduce you to Steve Gordon (writer/director of the original and for my money still only version).  I wrote a bio post on him, which you can find here.   Steve Gordon’s ARTHUR is probably my single favorite comic screenplay. Believe it or not the first draft was 147 pages. (Do NOT try this at

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Friday questions: Inside dish on MASH and pilot advice

Heading up to Seattle for the Mariners’ home opener and tribute to my broadcast partner, Dave Niehaus. I found white shoes. Here are some Friday questions:

Tom gets us started with a question that relates back to Monday’s post.

Referring to vintage hairstyles got me thinking about something I always wondered while watching MASH: Was it a conscious decision especially in later seasons to have

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How to create a hit network drama

Fame and riches can be yours! Procedural/action dramas are in and you too can create one if you just follow these very simple steps:

Always start with a couple. He must be boyishly handsome and she must be smoking hot. You can go “mature” but then one has to be an established television star, and the other has to be a J. Crew model. In rare cases you can go “both mature” (CSI: NEW YORK)

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Bravo's PREGNANT IN HEELS -- Oh my fucking God!

Rosie Pope
In my never ending quest to bring you the absolute worst, most appalling reality shows on television, I present PREGNANT IN HEELS on Bravo. Thanks to reader Matt for turning me on to this argument for why rich people are buffoons and shouldn’t be allowed to have matches much less children.

The show centers around Rosie Pope, a willowy opportunist who calls herself a “Maternity

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Some random thoughts even though no one asked me.

What’s the difference between the CMA Awards and the ACM Awards?

Whatever happened to Bridget Fonda?

Congratulations to U. Conn for winning the worst NCAA Championship Game in history.  I'd watch 24 and Jack Bauer would be running, dodging thousands of bullets and I'd think -- nobody could shoot that badly.  And then I watched Butler.   

Big controversy: Natalie Portman did very little of her

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Should you keep a joke that only three people in America will get?

Comedy writing legend Jerry Belson once pitched a very obscure joke during a CHEERS rewrite. One of the Charles Brothers said, “Jerry, only three people in America are going to get that” to which Jerry said, “That’s good enough for me!”

A common question that all comedy writers ask from time to time is whether a particular reference is too obscure to get a laugh. The downside of course is

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Netflix Pick of the month: IRON GIANT

As a kid I used to love animated movies. Of course, in those days that primarily meant Disney… with the occasional full-length Mr. Magoo. That all changed when I had kids. After THE LITTLE MERMAID seemed to revive the genre there was a glut of animated features and I schlepped my kids to see many a RAINBOW BRIGHT and LAST UNICORN. They better not say bad things about me to their therapists EVER!!

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My idiot comment of the week

And of course it's from Anonymous.  Wow.  He sure put me in my place!


screw u. Just another media wannnabee loser. If you want to succeed lose the tired old memes. But you won't cause you are a liberal loser. Go hang out on CNN or worse yet MSNBC where you will never be seen again.

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International Marketing fiascos.

In making reference earlier in the week to marketing disasters, I came across some famous campaign slogans and names that didn’t translate all that well to foreign markets. Check these out.
Chevy Nova did not sell well in South and Central America. “No va” means “it doesn’t go” in Spanish.

Coors had a translation problem with their “Turn It Loose” campaign. In Spanish it means “Suffer From

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Me on the radio acting insane in 1976

An aircheck of me as Beaver Cleaver on B100 San Diego from 1976 is playing now (11-12 EDT) and again from 11-12 PDT on GreatBigRadio.com.   Thanks to Howard Hoffman and Rob Frankel.  So stagger back to 1976 for better boogie.

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My year living with Candice Bergan

Picture I took of Candace Bergen in our backyard

Here are some Friday Questions.
Fanboy69 gets us started.

How did you break into movies after writing for television?
Dumb luck. Steven Spielberg saw an episode of THE JEFFERSONS my partner and I wrote and thought it was the best written half-hour he had ever seen. Needless to say, we were SHOCKED. He arranged a meeting and asked if we had

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