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 MINI REVIEW #1

"FAMILY GOY" (no misprint, that's the joke)



What the hell is this show? A fat moron who makes poo jokes all the time? A baby that wants to kill its mother? Are you kidding me? This is a show? And the little 9 year old who writes it is swimming in women, driving some big car and laughing all the way to the bank? Well that's the only laughter in my house -- except when my grandson Tommy comes over to watch it. Explain to me how this is a show... a dog who drinks martinis? In the daytime? And every other word is bitch this and ass that and poo and pee that! What is this written in crayon?



It's a blessing that the original Family Guy, Robert Reed, never lived to see this. I thank God for giving him that disease 20 years ago so he wouldn't have to see the good name of FAMILY COMEDY dragged through the gutter by some bunch of smart ass retards. And don't tell me it's EDGY. I know edgy.




I wrote the "Carter Country" where the redneck famer called Kene Holliday "boy". You shoulda heard that audience at Radford Studios gasp. Then Kene came back with a zinger so strong, so "edgy" that it made the people gasp again, and then cheer. If I can find the script, I'll priint it here, but believe me, it was sometthing else, so don't talk to me about EDGE. This show isn't EDGE, it's FUDGE (think about it). It makes me glad that nobody returns my phone calls. Who wants to be hired by a show like this????!!!

HAROLD'S VERDICT.... FIVE CLAMS OUT OF FIVE (where five is bad and zero is good). In brief, this thing stinks worse that Totie FIelds' sauna pants after the March Of Dimes. (Look it up and laugh).

Look for more reviews in the future if I can stop throwing up.

"HOW ARE YOU?!"

If, like me, you didn't spend the past 90 years in a cave somewhere crazy, you'll recognize those words as the etetrnal catchprhase of the great Phil Silvers, the inspiration, if you will, for my nom de mouse... get it? If you do, then you have a sense of humor, unlike the morons running TV networks and studios and Hollywood talent agencies these days. Those people are the least funny, least "with it" human beings on the face of this earth. "But how do you really feel?"

Remember that line? Sure you do, it's funny is why. Think it wrote itself? Think it just sprang wholly from the lips of the actor who first uttered it on a little show called "Carter Country"? Think again, O Great Nimcompoop from the East. A writer wrote that line. A writer fought like hell to get that line broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company. Did that writer realize at the time he had discovered a whole new vein of comedy gold? That writer would be lying if he told you he did. But he did know it was FRESH. And FRESH is what the comedy writer's life is all about. What's new? What's now? What hasn't been done before? And once the writer finds that mysterious something FRESH, then he's free to use it all he wants. That's the beauty of this game that I've been proud to practice for these past 30 plus years.

So welcome to my blog. Here's where you'll get the straight dope from a straight dope. You'll get the true stories behind some of TVs greatest sitcoms and the abosolute pricks who produced and starred in these shows ("But how do you really feel?") You'll learn about the writer's life... and the life's writer. By which I mean LOVE. Love of a good woman, love of children and grandchildren. But mostly, and let's be honest, love of a nice fat paycheck.

To finish this first post with the words of a character I once created in a pilot (don't ask the name, it never got on -- the pricks killed it)... "Daddy, that looks like a WHOLE LOT of meatballs." A whole lot of meatballs indeed. And I'm gonna share them all with you.

ENJOY!