Conan O'Brien gathered a bunch of glory era Simpsons writers together to talk about their experiences working on the show for his web talk show Serious Jibber-Jabber. The writers present are Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen, Jeff Martin, and, of course, Conan O'Brien, who wrote for the show himself in its fourth and fifth seasons. It's 81 minutes of Simpsons writers talking to each other, so enjoy!
Here's a never-before-scene, hour-long interview with the Onion News Network team, recorded at the Paley Center in 2011. Representing ONN are producer Liz Koe and writers John Harris, Carol Kolb, Lang Fisher, and Dan Mirk. The conversation covers a wide variety of topics, including why they made so many videos about horses, how to know when comedy crosses the line, and the sketch they wanted to make but never did: Moat Diggers, the world's most boring reality show.
The Writers Guild of America, West sent out a letter to members yesterday, urging them to stop writing for specific Comedy Central shows that are violating the WGA's regulations. While the letter didn't mention which specific shows are breaking the rules, the union said Comedy Central's production company, called Central Productions, hired writers on over two dozen new projects without making deals with the WGA for said writers. Here's an excerpt from the WGA letter, via The LA Times:
"No other major entertainment company has treated writers and their Guild so cavalierly. It is never easy to ask a fellow member to stop working. We understand all [...]
The wonderful Kay Cannon, a writer at 30 Rock who we interviewed a while back, has just signed a deal with 20th Century Fox Television that'll point her in the direction of launching her own show. She'll be leaving 30 Rock after this season to go over to write for New Girl, and while there she'll simultaneously develop a new show of her own. Cannon also wrote Pitch Perfect, a comedy about college a capella groups starring Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow and Christopher Mintz-Plasse due to come out later this year. So, you know, keep an eye on this one.
A sharp and clever writing staff is the key to a great comedy series, but some shows in television’s past have gone above and beyond, recruiting a murderer’s row of comedy minds to fill the writers’ room, with each member later creating an impressive body of work on their own. Either by design or by luck, some of the best comedy shows ever have featured an eclectic, unusual mix of personalities behind the scenes. This is a list of some of the most remarkable groups of writers in the history of TV comedy, not the best-written shows. Take The Dana Carvey Show, for example; it’s a cult hit but [...]
Last year, Conan O'Brien launched his web series Serious Jibber-Jabber, a longform interview show that's seen him sitting down for hour-plus chats with the likes of Judd Apatow, Jack White, and Nate Silver. On Monday, he's debut a new episode that's a roundtable interview with a bunch of his fellow Simpsons writers. O'Brien, who served as a Simpsons writer/producer during its fourth and fifth seasons before leaving to become a talk show host, chose Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jeff Martin, and Jay Kogen to join him for the discussion, which, from the looks of this trailer, will be a rollicking good time.
The writing staff of Community did a question-and-answer session on Reddit last night in anticipation of the show's return to the airwaves tonight after a hiatus that's lasted nearly nine months. Participating in the Reddit session were longtime Community writers Megan Ganz, Andy Bobrow, Maggie Bandur, and Tim Saccardo; new co-showrunner David Guarascio; and new-to-the-show Gene Hong. Hit the jump for a collection of the best parts from the Reddit session, including Jeff and Britta's sex tape, writing Chevy Chase out of the show, and a planned episode that puts the supporting cast at the forefront:
There are more people working professionally in comedy now than ever before, and with so many talented funny folks running around, it can be a little hard to keep track of your favorite writer or director and what their next project is/when it's coming out. We've gone through and compiled all the known info on what 50 leading comedy writers/directors are working on right now, and when you can expect to see their new project hit the screen. It's a mix of the comedy industry's current top dogs (like Judd Apatow, Greg Daniels, and Tina Fey), the old guard (Woody Allen, Larry David, Chris Guest), cult favorites (Charlie Kaufman, [...]
During my basement era — those years from age 8 to 17, 1990 to 1999 — I watched constant comedy. I memorized NBC's jingles (“If you want to be happy on Tuesday night, Wings'll raise your spirits with a brand new flight”), and called my off-at-college brother after episodes of Seinfeld to do post-mortems of Nothing. At that point my critical capacity only allowed me comments like, “Another thing that was really funny was when George screamed 'Seven.' Wasn't that funny?” I still needed him to tell me for sure.
By the time I was 14, television producers and writers had become my heroes. They were like baseball players [...]
SNL has been bringing in a lot of exciting comedians, like Kevin McDonald and Chelsea Peretti, to guest write for the show this season, and Splitsider has learned that stand-up Michael Che, who guest wrote two episodes last month, will be returning to write the final three shows of the season, which will be airing in May. Che previously guest wrote on the Kevin Hart and Justin Timberlake episodes and scripted the "She's Got a Dick" romantic comedy sketch from the Timberlake episode. The fact that they're bringing him back for three more episodes makes it seem like SNL's producers are interested in hiring him full-time [...]
Since joining Saturday Night Live's writing staff in the fall of 2011, Zach Kanin has quickly found his footing on the show and created some memorable sketches, not that it comes as any surprise to those who'd been following his career before that. Before being snatched up by SNL, Kanin was editor of The Harvard Lampoon, a contributing cartoonist for The New Yorker (his cartoons are archived here), and author of The Short Book, which offers a humorous look at what it's like being 5'3". Now, with only a season and a half at SNL under his belt, Kanin already has a bevy of funny and popular [...]
"So many times I’d write a sketch set at, say, a marriage counselor’s office and I was so naïve and unsophisticated working in television that I would literally have the opening line of dialogue be, 'Well, here we are at the marriage counseling center.' When you’re coming from the world of print, it’s not obvious that the characters can just walk by a sign that says 'marriage counseling center.'” – The thoroughly impressive Simon Rich talking to Co.Create about how he is able to write for so many different mediums and how, when he first started at SNL, he was at one point fallible.
This morning marks the deadline for a potential ONN writers strike, as well as a serious blow to our right to uninterrupted comedy broadcasting. As of this morning, failed negations between the Writers Guide of America-East and The Onion, Inc. still leaves ONN writers, as WGA says, "the only scripted live action television show now in production where the writers did not work under a WGA agreement." Without a contract, the writers are working without the promise of benefits, Guild pay or a sufficient term of employment for the show's second season, scheduled to premiere in September.
The WGA reportedly sent out an email last week calling [...]
