Members Grumpy_Polecat Posted March 26, 2009 Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 http://www.chucklorre.com/index.php?p=writtenby HOW TO CREATE A HIT SITCOMA simple, step-by-step guide to prime time success. by Chuck Lorre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grumpy_Polecat Posted March 26, 2009 Author Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 {cont'd} Write four scripts in succession that are produced and get paid for none of them because "term writers don't get script fees." This is your first clue that the WGA is not completely on the ball. Continue to eat condescending {censored} from condescending assholes while working fifteen to seventeen hours a day and six days a week. Discover the boundless joy of driving home when the sun is coming up. Make friends for life with the aforementioned assholes because you are now one of them. Drink more. You can afford the good stuff now. Notice that writers further up the food chain are quitting in frustration. Take this as an opportunity to ask for a promotion. Get one. What the hell, ask for another. Get it. Rise from term writer to supervising producer in two and a half years because you are a glutton for punishment and everyone else quit. Remember the phrase "two and a half" for later use. After three years of miserable, seventy hour weeks someone at the network belatedly realizes that when the premise of a show is two men who have never met agreeing to live together and raise the daughter of a dead woman they both slept with twelve years ago because either one of them could be the little girl's father but no one wants to go to the trouble of taking a blood test, the show should be cancelled. Facing unemployment, fight to get on a hit show that everyone else is fighting to get off of because the star, while undeniably talented, has a few personal issues not to mention a coke-addicted boyfriend she just made executive producer. Consider the {censored} you've lived through and think, "How tough could it be?" Quickly discover that working on this show causes you to look back at the anesthetic-free colonoscopy with fond nostalgia. Sign non-disclosure forms that threaten you with dismissal and legal action if you tell anyone the truth about what actually goes on there. Take more abuse than you ever considered possible but hang in there for two years and fifty episodes because you're making more money in a week than your father made in a year. Think to yourself, "The suffering and sacrifice of my ancestors is redeemed through my success," in order to avoid thinking, "If I'm a whore, does that make my agent a mack daddy?" Become single again and, after an initial surge of joy and freedom, discover that she was not the reason for your misery. Oh, well, no time for self-reflection now, you're on your path to creating a hit sitcom! Quit drinking. For almost a whole day. Roughly nine years after walking through that first door, finally get a chance to create your hit sitcom. But it won't really be yours. You have no creative clout. Your employers have lots of clout so, ignoring the priceless lesson, rely on their series premise, their casting choices and their comic instincts. Your hit sitcom is cancelled in five weeks. Your employer calls it a "noble failure", but noble isn't the word used in any of the reviews. The word putrid is used twice. Get back on your feet by pitching a single-camera film comedy based on Douglas Adam's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency." Your employers think it's a swell idea but instead want you to write a sitcom about a blue collar single mom on videotape. You see little room for compromise. Write a heart-warming script about an heroic single mom who struggles against overwhelming odds to raise her children and make a new life for herself. Fail to take into account that the gal cast by your employers to play mom, hates kids, hates people, hates sitcoms and, most importantly, hates you. Wake up to discover you have created a hit sitcom and Ralph's doesn't sell enough Stoli to ease the pain. Find yourself looking back at the bent superstar and her twitchy consort with fond nostalgia. Quit the hit show you created and get right to work creating another hit sitcom for another wack-job diva because you are just plain stupid. Get fired from your second hit show because the co-star wins a {censored}ing Emmy... and you're stupid. FINALLY learn from your mistakes and create a hit show with wonderful, loving people. Late in the second season during a rehearsal suddenly realize they are not going to hurt you. Stop drinking. Marry again. This time to a beautiful, warm and loving woman who encourages you to drink water. Write a half dozen pilot scripts that are used as landfill. Write and produce three busted pilots in a row because you think you know what's wrong with TV comedy, but are really still stupid. Then, when you're about to quit the business in disgust, write a pilot script with an old friend. Not because you like him. No one really likes him. Write it because he has two young kids, dental problems that would scare English people, and if he doesn't write something quickly he'll lose his WGA health insurance, which is something you know about. Anyway, a script is written and when it's time to come up with a title, the phrase "two and a half" effortlessly floats into your consciousness. To everyone's surprise and delight, the script attracts an incredibly talented, easy-going, warm and generous star. The star attracts a green light. Green lights attract Jimmy Burrows. He has script notes. You have creative clout now, ignore them. Brilliant, sane actors join the cast. A young boy who was obviously a world-class actor in a previous life and is simply picking up where he left off makes the whole thing feel like it's really going to happen. A group of extraordinary writers overlook that you're a condescending asshole pummeling them with condescending {censored} and help you make a great pilot. Great pilots get killer time slots. Killer time slots get lots of viewers. Lots of viewers are required for a sitcom to be considered a hit... if the viewers come back week after week. They come back. Drive to your big, fancy house in your big, fancy car, drop to your knees and whisper, "Thank you, God, for showing me this simple, step-by-step guide to prime time success but couldn't we have done this without the teaching hospital?" Share the guide with others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 78pbass Posted March 26, 2009 Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 that's awesome, thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators isaac42 Posted March 26, 2009 Moderators Share Posted March 26, 2009 "There's nothing like a big mortgage to make sure you don't quit a job that has already begun to kill you." This can apply in a lot of situations. "Brilliant, sane actors..." Isn't this an oxymoron? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members groutt Posted March 26, 2009 Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 Same guy that flashes the big chunk of text in the closing credits of Big Bang Theory? That's some weird stuff. At least the ones that don't just say something like THIS HAS BEEN CENSORED. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ender_rpm Posted March 26, 2009 Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 I love those closing notes. The wife makes sure to pause the DVR just so I can read'em and usually egt a good chuckle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grumpy_Polecat Posted March 26, 2009 Author Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 Same guy that flashes the big chunk of text in the closing credits of Big Bang Theory? That's some weird stuff. At least the ones that don't just say something like THIS HAS BEEN CENSORED. Yeah. They're called 'slides' (the term goes way back in the history of how shows are presented. Quite literally they used to run a slide projector and point the TV camera at the screen it was shown on). Chuck Lorre saw a unique way to use them. It's like a blog in a blink. Since they only display for about 1.5 seconds, he has all of them posted on his site, which you can get to from the link above (chucklorre.com). Interestingly enough, he also wrote French Kissin' in the USA which was recorded by Deborah Harry of 'Blondie' fame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pickdust Posted March 26, 2009 Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 Thanks GP! Pretty funny read. What makes it really funny is that I'm sure that 90% is true! Reminds me of Californication. Sounds strangely like the path many song writers have to tread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members El Glom-o Posted March 26, 2009 Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 ...the star, while undeniably talented, has a few personal issues not to mention a coke-addicted boyfriend she just made executive producer....the gal cast by your employers to play mom, hates kids, hates people, hates sitcoms and, most importantly, hates you....another wack-job diva... Rosanne Barr/Arnold/Rosanne, Brett Butler, and Jenna Elfman? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 78pbass Posted March 26, 2009 Members Share Posted March 26, 2009 Rosanne Barr/Arnold/Rosanne, Brett Butler, and Jenna Elfman? I was thinking: Rosanne Barr/Arnold/Rosanne, Brett Butler, and Cybill Shepard. I believe that Christine Baranski is the co-star that one the emmy he's referring to; but I could be wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members El Glom-o Posted March 28, 2009 Members Share Posted March 28, 2009 I was thinking: Rosanne Barr/Arnold/Rosanne, Brett Butler, and Cybill Shepard. I believe that Christine Baranski is the co-star that one the emmy he's referring to; but I could be wrong I'm sure you're right. I was just guessing about Jenna Elfman since I've never heard anything really bad about her. Didn't make the other connection. Glad to be corrected. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.