PROFESSOR HECUBA'S KOMEDY KOLLEGE


Greetings, class. You come here with your funny bones full of mush! But you will leave here... a comedy writer. Then you're on your own, and don't think just because you know everything and you're amazingly talented you'll be out there setting the sticom world on fire, because it just don't happen like that anymore. Well, at least not to me. But still we perservere. We continue to write our jokes, our gags, our bits, we go to Nate N Al's with our friends from the "Gimme A Break" days and we bitch and moan. Because we are comedy writers! And after enrolling in my totally free Blog-Course you can call yourself a comedy writer too. But if you stand between me and a freelance assignment on "Hannah Montana", look out -- I will kick your balls in. Because that is what we do, too.

With that being established -- let the lessons begin.

LESSON #1: POP CULTURE REFERENCES, OR "BYE BYE BARDOT"

The first thing you need to know about the art of sitcom writing is this: REFERENCES. There's nothing wrong with your computer TV -- I put it in all capitals for a reason. And the reason is this: REFERENCES to popular culture are the sitcom writer's bread and butter. Need a great joke to start a scene? Throw in a Bill Clinton joke. Need a great blow to a scene? CALL BACK the Bill Clinton joke. See how easy it is? BUT... and this is a big but. Your references have to be fresh and new, like the Clinton thing, or else you're deader than Dagmar, baby.

But Professor Hecuba, how do I know what references are still fresh? What, do you want me to do everything for you? Am I your slave? Jesus! KIDDING! Just print out and keep this handy Reference Reference and you're good to go.

OLD REFERENCE FOR BABE WITH GREAT BODY: Brigitte Bardot



NEW REFERENCE FOR BABE WITH GREAT BODY: Scarlet Johannson


OLD JOKE FOR YOUR STAR TO MAKE WHEN HIS MOTHER IN LAW VISITS: "Here she comes -- Excedrin Headache Number 32!"


NEW JOKE FOR YOUR STAR TO MAKE WHEN HIS MOTHER IN LAW VISITS: "Here she comes -- Abu Musab Al Zarqawi in a dress!"



OLD WAY FOR THE GAY GUY TO NERVOUSLY BACK OUT OF THE ROOM: "I just remembered, I left my Jacuzzi on Fast-Forward."



NEW WAY FOR THE GAY GUY TO NERVOUSLY BACK OUT OF THE ROOM: " I just remembered, I left my Palm Pilot in the Hot Sink."


OLD FUNNY EUPHEMISM FOR PENIS: "Sansabelt Buddy"

NEW FUNNY EUPHEMISM FOR PENIS: "Wang" (Network) "Cock" (Cable)

That should be enough to get you started. For homework, take a lined sheet of composition paper. On one side, make a list of people, situations and attiitudes the characters in your sitcom script might find themselves in. On the other side, make a list of things in movies, commercials, sports and the news that are funny-sounding. Now match the funny sounding current reference with the thing from your show. Whatever sounds funny is a winner... and so will be you.

HAROLD'S TOTALLY UNCENSORED SHOW BIZ STORY #1

"IT'S A LOVING"



The time, September 1985. The place, MTM Radford Studios, fabulous Studio CIty, California. The situation, a hit is born and Hecuba goes "one on one" with an actress to be named later... when I'm dead! While the rest of the cast and crew are gathered in director's chairs on the main restaurant set watching the first episode of "It's A Living" beam across the 20 inch Sony sitting stage center, yours truly found himself sitting on a bed on the swing set of "Jan's room" working on a better "Hello Joke" than the one we had. (More on "Hello Jokes" in a future glossary item.) But who comes over to supposedly go over the proper delivery of a joke than one of the stars of the show. I won't tell you the lady's name, because I'm a gentleman, but before I could say "Went On To Star On Wings", she grabs me by the Members Only jacket, if you know what I mean. One thing leads to another and Madame X and me find ourselves rolling around in the editor's booth. We put our clothes back on, say it was just one of those things and head back down to the stage, where we run into Fred Adelman, the president of the network.



Fred says "Hey, Harold (not my real name), and the chick shits a brick. I gather from her reaction that she thought I was Fred! She thought she was screwing the head of the network, not some ink-stained gag man! She went on to finally put the blocks to Fred after all, his wife found out and then jumped off an overpass on the 134 Freeway. Caused a 9 hour traffic jam and I didn't get home till 2AM. Yes, sir, comedy is a funny business.

A NATION MOURNS




















... the death of COMEDY! See, that's what we call a rug-pull. The title and photo set you up for a post about Anna Nicole What's-Her-Rack and then I pulled the rug out from under you to lead into my real topic....

HAROLD'S MINI REVIEW #3: I GAVE AT "THE OFFICE" -- NOT A CRAP, THAT IS.



So, this is comedy? Could somebody out there explain to me how any of this is funny? The lead guy, the 40 year old virgin, is a complete retard. The other guy with the glasses is a moron and the other guy, Joe Handsome, just sits there gaping at the frumpy girl like he just did a load in his pants, and then does some kind of half-smile every two seconds. Again, I ask you -- where are the jokes? Where are the laughs? In my day (and, in my mind, this is still "my day" because I ain't done yet!), a comedy show had jokes and laughs. Real honest to goodness laughs laughed by real honest to goodness people. Sure, some of these people had been recorded years ago and were probably dead by now, but at least they were laughing! They were telling you: "THIS IS A COMEDY... THAT WAS A FUNNY JOKE... YOU SHOULD LAUGH TOO." I don't know what happened all a sudden than comedies don't have jokes or laughs. ANd this thing, this "OFFICE"... it's like The Emperor's New Suit or something. The whole world and the critics (more on those pencilschlongs in another post) fall all over it and suddenly we're all supposed to fall on our knees and kiss this show's butt. Not this critic. See, I know comedy. Comedy is funny. This... I don't know what it is. And what the hell is this looking at the camera all the time??? That is the epitome of unprofessionalism! Where is the director when all this is happening? Calling his email broker or something? It just makes me sad.

Well, at least we still have "According To Jim".

HAROLD'S SCORE: 4 CLAMS OUT OF FIVE. (I'll take one off for that it's only a ripoff of an English show, so the saps putting this out aren't completely to blame.)

NO POST TODAY


Sorry, fans, but I'm not up to it. Seems Mr. Aaron "Family Don't Mean Nothing" Sorkin did not see fit to hire Hecuba for his pile of dog-puke show "Studio 60 On The Sunset SHIT!" (Pun very much intended.)

I just don't know anymore. My spec Lou Grant was great!




It was great 25 years ago when I wrote it with my late partner! It had it all -- laughs (Great B-story with Animal and Rossi), drama (will Mrs. Pynchon pull a hard-hitting story on corruption at the Department of Streets?), and it had something not found anywhere within a hundred miles of SORE-KIN... HEART! The scene where Lou tells the girl, what's her name, that he'd rather have her in his newsroom than a boatful of Joseph Alsops. I'm crying all over again.

So okay, maybe this kid BORE-KIN, (who I once saw in diapers!!!) didn't "GET" my Lou Grant. I don't see how, but for the sake of argument we'll say okay. Not his cup of hack tea. Fine. But does loyalty to a man who served in the Marines with your father forty-five years ago mean nothing today? Like I said, I don't know. Well screw WHORE-KIN and his whole stupid, badly written, totally bullshit when it comes to the facts of how TV is produced show. I don't need his charity! I have you, my loyal readers to entertain. And if I get just one chuckle out of somebody sitting at their computer screen, then it'll be better than all the phony pats on the back I'd have got from FRAUD-KIN. I hope his show gets ball cancer! You read right... BALL CANCER! Let it die like Beverly Hills Buntz! (Another show run by a jerk who didn't "Get" my Lou Grant.




You hear me BOTCH-CO?!! You can all go to hell. I've had it with this business.

Well, that's it for now. Maybe I'll feel like being funny tomorrow, who knows. You all get off the computer and hug your kids, because that's what it's all about.

HAROLD'S COMEDY GLOSSARY #2: "LAYING PIPE"



Now don't start thinking dirty, because Hecuba never works blue. "Laying Pipe" is a comedy writer's term for the process of setting the scene -- providing needed but often boring exposition for a scene or episode. It's called laying pipe, because, like all manual labor, it's difficult and thankless and should only be done by Mexican day workers (that last part is a joke, so save your angry e-letters!). As thankless and anti-comedy as it is, it is also an essential task. How else can you do a joke about a character's fat mother unless the audience knows that the mother is fat before the punchline? You tell me that, smart ass from out there who thinks he could do my job better than me!

Anyway, there is a craft to laying pipe in the most elegant, inconspicuous way possible. Let Professor Hecuba teach you by way of a "word problem."



You have been given the privelege of writing an episode of "Lotsa Luck" starring the great Dom DeLuise. Now, in this scene, Dom, in the character of Stanley Belmont, needs to make a Christmas-related joke to his mooching brother-in-law Arthur (played by that prick Wynn Irwin) and the joke hinges on the fact that he is Stanley's brother in law. The joke won't work without the audience knowing this fact and it's still early in the run of the show so you can't count on the viewers to know their relationship. Which of these lines do you write for Dom/Stanley?

a) "Arthur, remind me again why you're my brother-in-law."

b) "I can't believe you're my brother-in-law on Christmas Eve."

OR

c) "As you know, you are my brother-in-law, and as you also know, it's Christmas Eve."

The answer: NONE of them! It's too hard to lay this pipe, it can't be done. You cut the joke and give Dom some business where he accidentally drinks the water out of the Christmas tree stand. That's what a professional does.

Thus endeth the lesson.

HAROLD'S COMEDY GLOSSARY LESSON #1: "THE CLAM"



A "CLAM" is a comedy writer's term for a joke or form of joke that is old hat, overused, played out. It's the worst sin a comedy writer can commit -- to put a clam in your script. (That's why I rate my reviews in CLAMS -- Five Clams being the worst (FAMILY GOY) and Zero Clams being the best (STUDIO 60). And the cockamamie thing is that the ground is always changing. A joke can be fresh one moment and a clam the next, such is comedy.

For instance, when I came up with it back in 19-never-you-mind-how-long-ago, "Too much information" was the hottest gag to hit the sitcom world since Lucy met Ricky.



When it was uttered by the late great Nell Carter on an episode of "Gimme A Break" I penned, it detonated in that studio like an Atomic freakin' bomb! They had to stop tape, the laugh went on for so long. It made Sammy Davis kissing Archie Bunker look like "Death Of A Salesman" was how new and fresh that was. Now, 20 or so years later, having a character respond to another by saying "Too much information" is hopelessly old hat. It is a CLAM. Do not use it. And certainly don't use it four times in one script. I learned that when I submitted my spec "According to Jim" to my agent's hot-shit young coffee-getting monkey who now for some reason says he's my agent. Here's another CLAM for you: "Don't call us, we'll call you." Sadly, that CLAM is still being used. Godddamn them all to Hell!!!

That last part I didn't want to be on this thing, but I can't figure out how to make my son's computer erase it, so there you have it. Look for more Glossary items in the future, though I don't know how many more, because once I start work on "Studio 60" I won't have time for this nonsense.