"You Can't Make It Up; Well, You Can, But It's Not As Good"

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, they said,

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Today, I say,

“When the facts become legendary, print the facts.”

I read this in the paper, and felt compelled to pass it along.

Friday, October 8, 2010

WASHINGTON – More than 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison, a government investigator says in a new report.

The payments, which were part of last year’s economic recovery package, were meant to increase consumer spending to help stimulate the economy.

But about $18 million went to nearly 72,000 people who were dead, according to the report by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general.

(FURTHER DOWN THE STORY)

People were eligible for payments if they were getting benefits during any one of the three months before the law was passed in February 2009.

Dead people were ineligible. But, the report says, there is no provision in the law to recover payments sent to dead people.

The report says that if similar payments are authorized in the future…the government should be able to recover payments made to dead people. The Social Security Administration agreed.

Hey, Government,

You can let ‘em scam yuh.

You can let ‘em lobby you to pieces.

They can keep you from getting it, through loopholes and special interest exemptions.

You can lose some of it.

But yuh duzzn’t have to give it dead people.

"'Outsourced' - An Appealing New Comedy (That Probably Won't Last)"

This is not a review. No nuts and bolts deconstruction of a new comedy series, intricately chronicling its strengths and weaknesses. As far as handicapping its commercial potential, I’m a fan of Outsourced – I’ve watched its first three airings. But I have a feeling it’s not going to last.

Even though I was a professional sitcom writer for quite a while, when I watch a new comedy series, I do not respond to it as a professional. Instead, I evaluate it with my fingertips. I react to it with my pores, or maybe it’s my cells, it’s one of those two. And my final determination – up or down – is based almost exclusively on the vibration the show sends out, and how it generally makes me feel.

Why do I do it that way? I don’t know. Maybe because, having been involved in it for so long, I’m aware that all TV comedies are manufactured contrivances, and I don’t expect them not to be.

This one’s clever, this one’s sex infused, this one’s touchy-feely, with an adequate injection of comedy – a spoonful of laughter makes the saccharine go down. This one’s “My job is killing me.” This one’s “My family’s making me crazy.” This one’s “I can’t get a date.” This one’s the “Battle of the Sexes.”

Every show is about something, even Seinfeld, though it’s reputed not to have been. In the end, what that “something” is does not really matter.

Do I need it to make me laugh? Sure, I suppose. But it depends on how they do it, and the degree that I’m aware of their effort. As a rule, the harder a show tries to make me laugh, the less they succeed in doing so. I watch those shows and feel tired at the end. It’s like watching people carrying a piano. I just want to say, “Will you put it down already? You’re exhausting me.”

Going in, Outsourced has some built-in problems attracting an audience. The cast is unfamiliar – no big-name stars to draw people in. The majority of the cast is of an ethnicity not associated with mainstream America. The arena – where the show takes place, and the job they do there – is unusual. And then, there’s the title.

As a title, Outsourced in no way rivals the celebratory aura of Cheers. Not every show title needs to evoke glasses clinking in a place where everybody knows your name. But, in the current climate especially, Outsourced is a tough title to get people revved up about.

“Hey, honey, let’s sit down as a family and watch a show that reminds us that I don’t have a job anymore.”

That could be a deal breaker right there.

Here’s Outsourced’s concept: A man is given the choice between losing his job, or relocating to India to manage a “call center”, where local employees take orders from American customers for goofy novelty items, like talking teddy bears and fake vomit.

“Fish out of water.” Done that, and done that. A tenderfoot emigrates to the Old West – Best of the West. A liberal journalist marries a Marine – Major Dad. There’s nothing new about this. Except, this time, it’s India.

I watched the Outsourced pilot and I liked how it felt. It wasn’t pushing too hard. It wasn’t forcing the issue. It didn’t feel that real. That bothered me a little. Especially because I’ve had personal experience with such “call centers.”

I once wrote about how a lovely woman named Rita from Bangalore was extremely helpful solving my AOL internet problem. Almost the first thing I asked after she finished helping me was, “What time is it there?”

It turns out the time difference between Bangalore and Los Angeles is twelve-and-a-half hours. Even if was Bangalore-New York, the difference is nine hours, which realistically requires Outsourced’s employees to regularly work through the night. As the lovely Rita succinctly put it: “I have to be up when you’re up.”

Outsourced ignores the time difference. They didn’t have to. In Taxi, it was clear the drivers worked all night, and our awareness of that informed the tone of the entire series. Working “opposite to normal” hours, Taxi’s characters were a little bit off-kilter.

That’s all that bothered me – ignoring the time difference. On the other hand, I was intrigued by the new locale. I liked the unfamiliar, Indian faces, and wardrobe. I liked the “Shy Girl.” She was beautiful, and, other than, perhaps, Georgette on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I recall no other time when shyness was a character’s dominant attribute. And it fits, because, unlike in America where shyness requires therapy, here, it’s a natural consequence of a female’s position in the culture.

In the second episode, the “Shy Girl” introduces us to the indigenous “Head Bobble”, a gesture apparently adopted by Indians, when being politely evasive. I never heard of that before, it caught me totally off-guard. I also enjoyed watching her demonstrate the gesture. Though intended to reflect neither agreement nor disagreement, the move itself was a little sexy.

Overall, I enjoyed the freshness of the arena, people who looked differently than people I am used to seeing in sitcoms behaving in ways that appeared to be more Indian than American. I was intrigued by the uniqueness.

This part’s a little weird, and I can’t explain it. I just know that it’s true. Even though the creator of a series rarely writes every word of every script, somehow – and as I said I can’t explain it – the series ends up permeated by the touch, taste and sensibility of that particular writer.

It’s like this indescribable sense that you get. You watch – or at least I watch – a show, and I subconsciously pick up this vibe: The person behind this show is thoughtful. The person behind this show is mean. The person behind this show is a “sitcom war” veteran, hardened by battles he can never win. The person behind this show is playful and generous and genuinely eager to please.

This could be crazy talk. But somehow, in the spaces between the jokes and tomfoolery, you just pick something up.

There’s an infusing sweetness surrounding Outsourced that I can only attribute to the people behind the show. No cheap shots. No one’s thrown under a bus for a laugh. The characters struggle but they don’t whine, or act overly aggressive. That goes for the writing style as well. They don’t push the comedy in your face.

It’s entirely appropriate for a sitcom based is India to be presented this way. It’s not “New Yorkers fighting over a cab” comedy. It’s more yoga comedy. Unforced and not intense. It leaves room to relax and breathe. The people who made the show up must, at least to some extent, be like that themselves. Otherwise, they’d be unable to pull it off.

I like Outsourced, and though I don’t know them, I feel a kinship with the people behind it.

That’s why I hope it succeeds.

"Open House"

Our house is a hundred years old. That’s old for California. In New England, a hundred year old house is “that monstrosity those new people put up.” But out here, any place older than a hundred has a bell at the top of it, and is inhabited by friars. Those will be your California Missions, which have dotted the landscape since Zorro tormented the Commandante.

I wrote elsewhere about how, before we ended up buying it, Dr. M saved this house from demolition, by spearheading a campaign to get it declared a Santa Monica landmark. I also mentioned that, being a structure close to the ocean, our house requires constant, not uncostly, maintenance, reporting, with only slight exaggeration, that we paint the thing every Tuesday.

Dr. M is the clinical director of an institute that trains future psychologists, and provides low fee therapy to people who can’t pay that much. This is a truly noble undertaking. However, as a business, it’s deficient in a fiscal fundamental:

Offering therapy to people with no money guarantees you will make no money doing so.

Whoops.

“How did we forget that part?”

Actually, they didn’t. The people who created the institute were committed to delivering a much-needed service to the community, believing the financial issues would work themselves out. Well, so far, they haven’t. The place always needs money.

Put those two pieces of information together, and you have…

A tour of a hundred year-old house, plus three other vintage houses in the neighborhood, to raise money for the institute.

That’s what’s happening this Sunday, from eleven to two-thirty. If you’re in the vicinity, feel free to drop by.

It’s tricky. A tour of your own house presents certain questions:

What do you show? And what do you put in a drawer?

Six days before the event, the living room already looks pristine. Dr. M has been moving things around. The coffee table books currently on display – art, photography, classic architecture. The NHL’s Greatest Goalies – it didn’t make the cut.

And so it goes with every room in the house.

The kitchen sparkles. The bedrooms are uncluttered, the bedding, crisp and wrinkle-free.

It’s understandable. Strangers will be coming through. You want to make an impression. What kind of impression? I’m not exactly sure. But it seems to involve the illusion that nobody actually lives here.

There’s a two-foot high, straw basket that serves as our laundry basket. On "Tour Day", there will be nothing in that basket.

An unused breadbasket houses my accumulation of medicines. On "Tour Day", it too will be empty.

The piano’s in the basement. I have to consider what music to set up on it.

“‘The Big Note Disney Fake Book.’ What is he, six?”

Can’t leave that out.

My piano stand will likely display some classical sheet music I have never looked at. Fur Elise. The alternative is the theme song from To Sir, With Love.

The Master Bathroom will be “Off Limits.” But you can stand at the door and look in. What exactly will you see? Neatly folded towels. The infamous “Giant Soap” I wrote about recently, which is still dangerously humongous. “High end” shampoo beside the tub. But no T-Gel. That’s dandruff shampoo.

We have to be careful. We have a reputation to uphold:

“We don’t take medicine. And we never flake.”

Okay, Earl. So what would you want strangers to see when they’re coming through your house – you, watching a ballgame in your underwear, eating cereal with your hands?

No. But not a museum. Something more natural. I hate pretense and phoney-baloney. It feels blatantly dishonest.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to arrange my Emmys, my Humanitas Prize, and my Cable Ace Award in a way that will make jaws drop in reverence and admiration.

Hey, I won them, didn’t I?

Earl Pomerantz Speaks At The Mark Twain Prize For American Humor Award Ceremony Honoring Lorne Michaels"

(I’ve been told that this one sounds mean. They could be right. But after some seven hundred posts, maybe I'm due for a mean one.

What can I tell you? Even a “Good Boy” has his prickly side.

Okay. So here we go.)

----------------------------------------------

Lorne Michaels’ recent showcasing in Rolling Stone prompted me to write this speech, which I was never invited to give, but if I had been, my address on that special night might have gone something like this.

EARL POMERANTZ ENTERS AN EMPTY STAGE TO POLITE APPLAUSE. HE FACES THE ASSEMBLAGE.

Good evening. I’m Earl Pomerantz. I’ve known Lorne since college.

I’ll tell ya, I’m a little confused. Help me out here. Mark Twain was one of America’s greatest writers, arguably, the best writer this country ever produced. And his specialty was writing humor.

Now, it seems to me, in order to be honored with The Mark Twain Prize For American Humor, I mean, it’s just seems logical, that, first:

The honoree would have to have written something.

And second: That “something” would have to have been

Really funny.

EARL HEAVES A HEAVY SIGH.

I’ve known Lorne Michaels for over forty years. And, to be totally honest with you, I don’t recall him writing

Much of anything.

And, of the paltry amount Lorne has written – I mean, you could stack his entire body of work on a table in the lobby, and people going by would say, “There is nothing on that table!”

Of that meager output of Lorne’s writing – I don’t mean, “Change this!” or “Shorten that!”; I mean actual writing – I don’t remember any of it

Being

Really funny.

There may have been some. I just don’t remember.

The question then arises

If a a man has written almost nothing

And none of what he’s written is

Really funny

How does that man get awarded

The Mark Twain Prize For American Humor?

I’m just asking.

I mean, Lorne Michaels unquestionably has many, impressive attributes.

Though none of the attributes you would think would be required for him to earn The Mark Twain Prize For American Humor.

And yet…

Here we are.

EARL RAISES HIS HANDS PALMS UP, AND SHRUGS, IN AN EXPRESSION OF TOTAL BEWILDERMENT.

Lorne has an amazing gift for structuring his show. Similar to the gift Ed Sullivan had, strategically ordering the acts for maximum effect on the TV classic, “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Lorne does that to perfection as well.

But Lorne is not getting The Ed Sullivan Prize.

Lorne’s getting the Mark Twain Prize.

For American Humor.

Lorne also possesses the indispensable gift – especially in the jittery world of show business – of inspiring confidence. Lorne says to the people, “I know what I’m doing. Trust me.” And, sensing his wizard-like understanding of a world they know nothing about, they do.

But Lorne is not getting The Bernie Madoff Prize.

Lorne’s getting the Mark Twain Prize.

For American Humor.

Maybe it’s this. Mark Twain, especially in his later years, became recognized for his sartorial spiffiness. Twain famously appeared before Congress, dressed in a spectacular eye-catching white suit.

I guess that’s why he’s being honored tonight. Anyone who’s seen him knows

Lorne Michaels looks really nice

In a suit.

Maybe I’m missing something.

I mean, I haven’t been around Lorne for some time. Maybe, after I knew him, he really got down to business. But if that’s the case, and Lorne ultimately cranked out some brilliant comedic material…

Where is it?

You know, the way I see it, Lorne Michaels deserves a much loftier award than The Mark Twain Prize For American Humor. He deserves – I don’t know who you’d name it after, opinions would probably vary – but Lorne Michaels deserves the

Somebody Somebody

Miracle Award.

I truly believe that. I mean, here’s a man, who never wrote anything funny in his life, and he’s being awarded The Mark Twain Prize For American Humor.

If that’s not a miracle,

I don’t know what is.

I’m absolutely speechless.

EARL POMERANTZ EXITS THE STAGE.

"The Fear-Striking Terror of the Giant Soap"

I told you I’d be writing about this. Did anybody think I was kidding?

I am not permitted to write about Dr. M. She’s a psychologist, and there are confidentially concerns. But sometimes, I transgress, and I slip something in. Hopefully, her patients will be too self-absorbed to notice. Not that she told me you guys are self-absorbed; I’m just assuming. I mean, I’ve been in the therapy-patient seat a time or five. And I don’t remember talking much about other people.

Okay. Shower Soap.

Some people, they see the soap getting really small, and they break out another bar. Others – mentioning no names – will work that remaining sliver down so far, you can barely feel you’re holding it.

“Am I holding soap? No. Oh, wait. Something’s bubbling in my hand.”

I believe I will leave it at that.

A couple of days ago, I’m stepping into the shower. I reach over towards the soap dish, where I am suddenly confronted by this

Absolutely humongous bar of soap.

(The remaining sliver of old soap is barely visible, peeking out from under the Gargantuan newcomer.)

“Mr. Big Bar” is the color of maple walnut ice cream. And it’s got some flecks in it. They look like wood, but that can’t be right. Who puts pieces of wood in a bar of soap?

It’s probably something else.

I am standing under the shower, staring at this super-sized bar of soap, resting ominously in the soap dish. Imagine the biggest bar of soap you have ever seen in your life. This one is bigger. It is monstrously big. If it showed up at a playground, the children would scatter.

It’s heavy and it’s slippery. I am immediately afraid.

But before I go there, I would really like to know. Who decides the size of a bar of soap? Is there some kind of standardization? Or am I facing the product of government de-regulation, where “All bets are off”?

And while we’re at it, do the “soap people” have a way of controlling the “Slipperiness Factor”? Is it a matter of engineering? Something the manufacturer can order up?

“I want it ‘slidey’, but not ‘constantly popping out of your hand’!”

Let me know if you know about that.

In the meantime, I will return to my story.

I’m aware of the soap-size basics. Shower soap is big, hand soap, medium, and then, there are those tiny “Guest Soaps”, shaped like little roses, or something. Call them Useless Soaps. You rub your hands together, and they’re gone. But they’re decorative, and they sometimes smell like what they’re shaped like.

I have seen these “Guest Soaps” set out in our Guest Bathroom when we have parties. Three to a soap dish. And there’s still enough room for a good-sized nailbrush. End of the evening, the “Guest Soaps” have disappeared. Either melted away, or people take them home in their pockets, I don’t know.

Have I turned into Dave Barry?

Meanwhile, back in the shower, I am considering a bar of soap almost precisely the size and shape, and weight, of a brick. I am fully aware of the stakes involved. If I drop that bar of soap on my foot, I am definitely headed for the Emergency Room.

I have broken a bone in my foot before. I was working on Lateline in New York, and I twisted my foot in a pothole. Which reminds me, I need to sue the City of Manhattan. My chiropractor assured me it wasn’t broken, but further x-rays proved it was. Which reminds me, I need to sue my chiropractor.

They can’t do anything for a broken bone in your foot; they tell you you’ve got one, and they send you home. The problem is, a visit to the Emergency Room involves hours of waiting in an enclosed area filled with people so sick, they came straight to the hospital. It would not be difficult to pick something up in that place. Something really bad.

These thoughts percolate in my brain as I warily eye this gigantic bar of soap. I can almost feel my toes, begging me not to pick it up.

“There’s still some of that little soap left. You’re not that big. There’s enough there to wash you all over.”

Wishful thinking. You know how toes are when they’re feeling imperiled.

There is no way around it. It’s either pick the bar up, or smell like a guy who showered without using soap.

I take a long, deep breath. This could my last fracture-free moment. I want to savor it.

I reach for the soap. “Two hands for beginners”, as I was instructed in the outfield, just before an arcing fly ball passed through my outstretched arms on its way to the ground.

Showers are supposed to be relaxing. But how can you relax when you’re handling an anvil that happens, by its very nature, to be slippery? I practice the notorious “wide stance”, popularized in the airport bathrooms in Minneapolis-St. Paul. If the soap drops, it hits the tub. We can repair the crack in the porcelain later.

Finally, it is done, and I am happily shampooing. Despite being “giant sized”, the shampoo bottle feels substantially lighter than the soap.

Why was I put in the position of being seriously endangered by my shower soap? I have no idea. Maybe it was on sale: “Giant Soap – Shockingly Cheap.” The ingredients may have been attractive, and this was the only size they had. Maybe it’s from the “Big Hands Bath and Body Store.” Maybe it’s “Joke Soap.”

It’s a mystery. But I do know this.

I will not shower easy, till I’ve worn the thing down.

"I Know What's Funny"

That’s not me talking.

I’ll say it straight out for the record:

Alone by myself, I’m not always sure what’s funny.

The quote in the title is pulled from the article I mentioned yesterday about superstar sitcom director, Jim Burrows. In the article, Burrows makes that exact claim:

“I know what’s funny.”

I was going to move on today. I was going to write an important post about my near immobilizing fear of the new, giant bar of soap Dr. M has just placed in our soap dish in the shower. But that one will have to wait. I simply could not leave “I know what’s funny” without comment.

Bitterness Alert: Jim Burrows is stupendously successful, older than me, and still working in television. So there’s that. How much of “that” there is, coloring my angry response to “I know what’s funny”, I will leave to your sound judgment.

My fundamental claim is this:

Nobody knows what’s funny.

Not even Jim Burrows. Though he may be the closest to knowing.

My view on the matter is simple. It is not “If it’s funny, you laugh.” It is, instead, this:

“If you laugh, it’s funny.”

The audience’s laughter is… I’m not sure of the word, it’s more than a confirmation, or a validation, it’s that it’s the laugh that defines the “funny thing” as being funny. Without that laugh, all you have is a hypothesis, a guess as to what might be funny. An educated guess, if it comes from a professional, but a guess nonetheless. And only a guess.

You can’t know what’s funny. Because you can’t guarantee a laugh.

(Exception: All jokes about, or relating to, sex. In that case, clever or not, original or not, coherent or not, you are absolutely guaranteed a laugh. I used to stand on the stage, there’d be a sex joke, the audience would roar, and I’d turn around to them and say, “Shame on you.” They were just so easy. The sex jokes and the audience.)

The primary point here is this: “Funny” is not in the material. It’s in the receiver’s reaction to the material. I will give you one example, where the same material triggered two entirely different reactions.

The funniest book I ever read is the classic, anti-war novel, Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. In Catch-22, the protagonist, Yosarian, demands to be dismissed from military service, on the grounds that he’s insane, but his claim is rejected, because a desire be released from military service is sane, and can therefore not serve as acceptable grounds for dismissal from military service. And it gets crazier from there.

My first reading of Catch-22, often while using public transportation, elicited uncomfortable looks from fellow passengers, due to my sudden – and frequent – thunderclaps of explosive laughter. There was no doubt in my mind. Catch-22 was unequivocally hilarious.

During the early years of my career, I would sometimes find myself unable to write. I had an assignment, but I couldn’t get down to it. Why? I didn’t feel funny. And if I didn’t feel funny, I was convinced that I couldn’t write funny.

“What would make me feel funny?” I pondered. What would put me in the mood? I know. I’ll read Catch-22.

I now had a plan. Catch-22 would get me laughing. The pump would be primed. And I would get down to work.

I opened Catch-22 at one of my favorite passages. It comes early. There’s a casualty in the hospital, encased from top to toe in a full body cast. You cannot see an inch of him. Beside his bed are two plastic bags of unspecified liquid, hanging from a metal pole, leading to two tubes, inserted in the patient’s body. One tube feeds the patient intravenously; the other collects the waste. When the feeding bag is empty, and the waste-collecting bag is full, a nurse comes into the room and switches the two bags.

The first time I read that scene, I almost literally fell on the floor. Which means, there I was on the bus, shrieking with uncontrollable laughter and actually thinking of falling on the floor, but stopping myself, because I felt it would be embarrassing to live out a cliché in front of strangers. So I remained in my seat. But I held on tight.

The second time I read that scene, seeking comic inspiration, the exact same material seemed, to me, disturbing and sad. It took me by surprise. The same words. Describing the same situation. The first time, side-splittingly hilarious; the second time, gloom inducing.

Turns out, the “funny” was not on the page. It was my reaction that made what was on the page funny. Or on the second reading, not.

Jim Burrows can say, “I know what’s funny.” Anybody can say anything. But I believe, to be totally honest, he can only claim this:

“I may not know what’s funny, but my extensive experience indicates that this joke or piece of physical “business” is very likely to elicit a laugh from the audience.”

The shortened version being:

“I know ‘funny’ when I see it.”

The even shorter version being:

“Trust me.”

A powerful reassurance in the uncertain world of comedy.

But no slam-dunk.

A professional evaluation is definitely persuasive. But in the end, it’s the audience, and the audience alone, that tells you what’s funny.

Recently. I took in the second episode of the new comedy Mike and Molly, directed by Jim Burrows. (Mike and Molly’s premier was the reason for the newspaper article.)

There was some sweetness to the two plus-sized leading characters, especially the male lead. And there was one moment where Molly, doped up on cold medicine on the couple’s first date, reaches over the table in a restaurant, and snatches a protruding hair from Mike’s nose that was deftly executed and caught me off guard.

But other than that, I didn’t laugh much.

It doesn’t matter what Jim Burrows thinks. Or what I think. Unless there’s an overwhelming number of “me’s” in the TV viewing audience. If there are, then the verdict is in:

Mike and Molly is not funny.

"Jimmy"

A recent newspaper article focused on Jim Burrows, the most successful sitcom director of all time. I don’t have the energy to list all his credits. If you’re interested, you can check them out on IMDB. From my perspective, Jim Burrows’ most significant credit is that, in 1981, he directed the pilot of Best of the West.

People call Jim Burrows Jimmy. I never called him Jimmy. I’d be too embarrassed. I called him Jim.

“Hey, Jim,” I would say.

But that’s me. Most people call him Jimmy. A 69 year-old Jimmy. That’s what we’re dealing with here.

Show business is very informal in that way. Sometimes, this can catch you off guard, like when they’re your boss, and they suddenly exert their authority.

“Jimmy fired me!”

It’s a disorienting feeling. Were you actually fired? Or were you banished from the tree house?

I have strong memories of the valuable, directing touches Jim Burrows’ injected to make the Best of the West pilot better, moments that may have been suggested in the script, but they weren’t specifically designated, and he put them in, and they fit, and they were funny, and they improved things considerably.

My favorite example:

It’s the final scene. A clinging Elvira, is gathered on the cabin floor, her arms wrapped tightly around her seated husband Sam’s leg. As he speaks, Sam gets up and tries to move. But Elvira continues clinging to his leg. Sam momentary stops speaking, and looks down at his wife. Given no alternative, he sits back in his seat.

The moment’s in the script. But not the physical move. That was inserted by Jim Burrows. The addition bolstered the scene and enhanced the moment. Dramatically, and more importantly, comedically.

Boy, was I grateful.

I was less grateful, however, and less gracious, at another point, early in the production process. Jim had agreed to direct the pilot, though I have no idea whether he liked it, or if he was simply doing a favor for his buddies, who created Taxi (which Burrows regularly directed), and produced Best of the West as well.

I guess Jim was attempting to provide me with his overall “take” on the material. He opened the script to Page 2, pointed to a spot in the middle of the page, and said,

“There’s your first joke.”

I made a face. Call it a grimace. I wasn’t happy with that approach.

“There’s your first joke.” Indeed!

I didn’t write jokes. I wrote something else, something that, in the Best of the West pilot, at least, elicited some powerful laughter from the live studio audience. I could write jokes. That’s generally what was expected of a sitcom writer. But they always felt structured to me. For me, “structured” meant contrived. And “contrived” meant “not my favorite.”

When I was writing at what I felt was my best, I was able to get laughs a different way. I wanted the laughs to come directly out of the moment, rather than from a manufactured setup.

Example:

The Best family has just completed an arduous, stagecoach ride West. Almost immediately, Sam is challenged to a gunfight by a deadly desperado. When Sam exits for the confrontation, a terrified Daniel, Sam’s eleven year-old son, throws his arms desperately around his Stepmom, Elvira, and buries his face in her chest.

At this point, some writers might take the “head in the bosom joke” route. I, instead, allowed the moment to remain silent for a long beat, and then had Daniel look up at his Stepmom and ask,

“How long has this dress been in the trunk?”

A “bosom” joke might have gotten a bigger laugh. I preferred this one. Not just because it avoided an eleven year-old doing a “bosom” joke. But because the line arose organically out of the situation.

This was a different way of getting a laugh. No (at least, verbal) set-up. Payoff.

So, when Mr. Burrows pointed to the middle of Page 2 and said,

“There’s your first joke.”

I got upset.

If that’s how he was evaluating my script, Jim Burrows was going to find it sorely lacking in places to point to.

But that was his training – the “Set-up, Punchline Express.” It turned out, the “pointing to the joke” approach didn’t hurt the pilot, which turned out extremely well. It only hurt my feelings.

Jim Burrows and I do have one approach in common, which was highlighted in today’s article, though my name never came up. While other writers and directors watch the actors directly or, more often, watch their performances on an onstage monitor, Jim and I both

Watch with our ears.

We don’t watch the actors. We just stand there, and we listen. What are we doing? We’re feeling for the rhythm. When it’s there, it’s right. And when it isn’t, you cut, and change the actor’s delivery, or you alter the words. Word rhythm is like music. There’s right, and there’s wrong.

Laugh-getting methods may vary.

But you don’t mess with the rhythm.

Don’t take my word for that.

Take it from Jimmy.