Rob explains his personal regimen for maintaining his mental health and why it's important to be grateful for a free trip to Azerbaijan (it's a metaphor).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the business braces for a potentially bruising writers’ strike, Rob Long tries to remember that in show business, everybody ends up working for — and with, and next to — each other. It’s an org chart that makes no sense, except it’s the only one that works.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Rob Long gleans takeaways from the reboot of Night Court. One of the reasons Rob is happy about this traditional multi-cam sitcom revival is because it could be good for him (the format is the Cheers veteran’s sweet spot). But no matter who you are, you’re still desperately trying to buy or sell something — a lesson best illustrated through a recent cryptic interaction with a stranger at an L.A. car wash.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob Long examines the concept of spec scripts, and the risks involved with writing something without knowing whether there’s any interest in it. And when it comes to buyers, it’s impossible to know what they think they want. It’s why Rob suggests always pitching the show you want to do; typically, people don’t know what they need until they’re faced with it, and sometimes, as Rob learned recently, that might just be a Nigerian choir.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob Long advises “Be nice to everybody. Or at least, in Hollywood, don’t be not nice to anybody.” Not just for manners, but also, as Rob learned, sometimes someone who escaped your memory, yet with the power to give you money, will be seated opposite you on a suede sofa. As it turns out, hundreds of moments in your life when you were not your best are embedded in someone else’s. Which is why even Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote should say thank you to each other.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No matter how much power you have, you’re going to eventually sit in someone’s office and pitch something. It’s why Rob Long thinks everyone has to perfect at least 10 minutes of pre-meeting chit chat — those short but important conversations, usually between writers and execs, that take place prior to the official start of any pitch (weird traffic patterns, huh? Did you guys know each other in college?). Just don’t talk about scary spiders.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Rob Long reveals his big plans in 2023 for digital absolution — in other words, a reprieve from having to read or watch (or even know) about what's on TV. Full and unfettered forgiveness for not watching that movie you like or clinking on the link to that article you sent him, and he’ll give you the same in return. Deal?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a great dividing line between a person’s time in show business: When you’re starting out — or even before that, when you’re just daydreaming about a successful career — all you see is upside. But once you’ve made it (usually with a little bit of luck and a string of crazy events), you devote a lot of time (thanks in part to our armies of lawyers, business affairs types, etc.) to worrying. “If you spend too much time in this business,” says Rob, “you forget that there are only two things you really need to be successful: a willingness to put it all on the line, and an idiot to convince you to do it.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How competitive is host Rob Long? Well, as he’ll tell you, he once fumed over his friend — not him — being named Customer of the Week at their local coffee bar. Which brings us to awards season, where, “if you spend a lot of time watching other people get good stuff, you become stressed out and unhappy.” But, cautions Rob, you can either wallow in rage at the injustice, or redouble your efforts just so one day you too can see the look on the faces of those idiots who doubted you. Says our host: “Vengeful satisfaction… is priceless.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob met Kirstie Alley on Cheers when he was 24. Never afraid to ugly cry or ask for a scene to be changed (a scene was changed once because she wouldn’t take aspirin; see: Scientology), Alley, decades later, wanted a role on Rob’s TV show playing a grandmother (a role another actress, 82, thought she was too young to play). Never vain, Alley summoned Rob to her house, and, in her way, said, “If you think I’m too fat, just tell me.” Says Rob, “We didn’t. She was just perfect.” Alley passed away after a brief battle with cancer two weeks ago at age 71.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices