How funny?
Funny enough you could write a script for a sit-com?
Funny enough you already have written one, it's on your laptop right now, just needs a little polishing?
Funny enough you're wondering what an Emmy Award winning comedy writer, somebody's who's written for shows like MASH, Wings, and Cheers, might think of it? Somebody like Ken Levine?
Funny enough you'd like to get some pointers from Ken?
Funny enough you think you could hold your own in a real sitcom room run by Ken with a bunch of other writers who think they're funny enough too?
That funny?
Well, then Ken has just the ticket for you.
Ken's holding another of his famous Sitcom Room seminars in November and he's still got a few openings for funny guys and gals like you.
If you're interested, follow the link and tell him Lance sent you. Tell him nice because I sent him one of my scripts on spec. See, I got this idea about a show about this blogger and all the wacky trouble he gets himself into trying to juggle being a "prominent and influential blogger" while keeping it secret from his wacky neighbors and co-workers in his real life as a soccer dad and an insurance salesman or an architect or a marine biologist, latex! He sells latex!, Whatever, his boss is a real hardcase and super conservative, thinks he's John McCain and Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney all rolled into one. But he's got these terrific kids who say funny things and give him great ideas for his posts and this beautiful and understanding wife played by, I'm thinking, Lisa Kudrow or Nancy Travis but maybe Bonnie Hunt, who...
Maybe I'm giving too much away. I don't want anybody stealing my idea and taking it into Ken's Sitcom Room trying to pass it off as their own.
Meanwhile, for those interested in the Sitcom Room, Ken has posted a few FAQs.
And he's given some helpful tips on writing for actors in this post called What actors hate (besides other actors).
"prominent and influential blogger"
Does TBogg know you've based this sitcom on him?
Posted by: Linkmeister | Monday, September 15, 2008 at 04:00 PM
Why Tbogg? There's more than a few of us pseudos out there, actually.
Lance: Good idea, but flip the gender and make it a loosely fictionalized version of the digby story: a smart woman blogger whom everybody thinks is male. Give her the same silly conservative boss, but add a goofball-but-unconventially-attractive husband/boyfriend.
(For more points, make her a blue-collar. Not like Roseanne, she shouldn't be obnoxious, but blue-collar is good.)
Put it in front of a single camera—because multi-camera sitcoms are a relic—slap together some SitC-style "I'm talking and writing at the same time" bracketing bits, maybe give Patton Oswalt a role as a wacky co-worker who's secretly her greatest blogfriend/blognemesis, and you're gold.
(Anyway, feel free to take credit, but I want points on the back end.)
Posted by: Demosthenes | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 01:41 AM
Demosthenes, take note of Tbogg's tagline on the post-it note in his header. It's not quite the same line, but Lance's phrase reminded me of it.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 02:50 AM
Sheesh, I should checked out his recent posts. He's thinking of upgrading the line.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 02:59 AM
Fair enough.
I'm still feeling the digby adaptation more, though. It's got more zazz.
Posted by: Demosthenes | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 02:48 PM