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Inside the Writer's Room

Enter the Parks & Rec Writers' Room

by | September 29th, 2011

This article takes us untested innocents into the darkness of the Parks & Recreation writers' room to uncover the mysterious – and often bloody – process of writing a TV show. Nah, just kidding, it's mostly arguing about jokes, eating snacks and watching YouTube videos. And index cards, lots of index cards. The second part of the article is an interview with co-creator Mike Schur about which ideas from that first meeting made it into the show:

Certain ideas just linger, and linger and linger until you finally figure out a way to break them. In my experience, this is how story breaking goes: someone will come [...]

Inside the Writer's Room

Inside Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with Head Monologue Writer Jeremy Bronson

by | January 6th, 2011

Jeremy Bronson didn't take the traditional path to become the head monologue writer on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Sure, he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon in college, but between that gig and becoming a professional comedy writer, he lived in DC and worked for both the senatorial campaign of Lamar Alexander and the not-so-funny Chris Matthews Show and Hardball.

I talked to him about his career path and what his job is like now that he's in 30 Rock writing topical jokes for Fallon every day.

Inside the Writer's Room

Dan Harmon on Gender Equality in the Writers' Room: "Think of it as a common-sense thing"

by | June 8th, 2011

Your best friend/fantasy lover Community's Dan Harmon's A.V. Club interview includes a particularly interesting section on the influx of female writers in the show's second season, a change that the show's creator was initially…less than thrilled about. Apparently former NBC head of programming Angela Bromstad required Harmon to staff his writers' room with an equal number of women as men. "I remember going, 'Are you fucking kidding me?' to myself. 'Okay, I got a sitcom, and this is as far as you go,' because I’ve just been told that half of my staff needs to be a quota hire," he recalls. However, despite his reticence, Harmon now [...]

Inside the Writer's Room

Behind the Scenes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report with Writer Eric Drysdale

by | December 14th, 2010

Eric Drysdale wrote for The Daily Show for six years before helping to develop and then writing for The Colbert Report, where he currently works. You may recognize him as Colbert's stage manager "Bobby," although that character hasn't been seen since April of 2008, when Colbert ate him. Naturally.

In addition to his work for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, he's also created a 3-D ViewMaster show, “The Man with F.E.E.E.T,” which recently premiered in NYC and is now available for order online. He talked to me about breaking into the comedy writing game, his experience at The Daily Show, what it was like to develop [...]

Inside the Writer's Room

Inside the Conan Writer's Room with Brian Stack

by | March 4th, 2011

Brian Stack honed his skills at Second City in Chicago before being hired as a temporary replacement at Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 1997. Fourteen years later, he still works with the late night legend, having travelled to The Tonight Show and then to TBS with Conan. I asked him what it was like to work to work with Conan O'Brien, what advice he has for aspiring comedy writers and to recall some of his favorite Late Night characters.

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