Martini Shot

So, apparently, if you want to get out of jury duty, what you have to do is this.  When they ask you what you do for a living, you say, "I write television comedy, your honor," and then you wait around a bit while the judge and the lawyers busy themselves with other prospective jurors, but you're eventually going to hear something like, "The court would like to excuse the television comedy writer with the expensive watch"...

When you pitch a pilot to the network, or to anyone,

A writer friend of mine told me this story a few weeks ago. He’s

My wonderful dog died a year ago, and I spent the past year staring at other people’s dogs in a way, frankly, that I sometimes stare at other people’s girlfriends.  “Why are you with him?” “What’s that relationship all about?”  That kind of thing.

It's the end of pilot season.  In less than two weeks, the networks announce their picks for the fall 2007 schedule.  The process which began in January with hope and optimism and a sense that the TV business really wasn't in decline, really could pull itself back up, ends in New York, at some huge venue, with the president of each network appearing before a crowd of media buyers at the big ad agencies selling the upcoming fall season.  They call this the "upfronts," because this is when networks try to sell a lot of their ad time upfront, before the shows premiere, before the 80 to 90 percent new show failure rate kicks in...

A friend of mine was working on a pilot last year for a big star who had a big deal at one of the big TV networks.  It was a great idea for a show, and he's a great writer, and the actor liked him, so on the face of it, it seemed like a sure thing....

When I tell people what I do for a living -- which, for the record, I try not to do; mostly I tell people that I'm a merchant banker and leave it at that; when you say "merchant banker," I've found, there are no follow ups -- but for the times when I actually tell people that I write and produce television comedies, what I hear back is either "You should do a sitcom about everybody in the payroll department. Crazy.  Crazy funny," or something a little more aggressive and challenging, like "So what do you do now?  Sit around and live off of your Cheers residuals?"...

A few years ago, we had a pilot ordered to series.   I know, I know: hard to believe.  But there was a time, I promise, when thing