Weird writers I have known

Writing rooms are often filled with, er…”interesting” personalities. Why comedy writing breeds quirky eccentric sometimes psychotic people is beyond my scope of understanding, but I frequently found myself in rooms populated by some colorful types. I should mention a couple of things at this point: Names have been changed to protect the guilty. I’m not looking to embarrass anyone or tarnish anyone’s reputation. And two, many of these individuals are also very funny, very helpful comedy writers.

So off we go:

Fred was an elderly gentleman from one of comedy’s golden ages (there have been so many) who used to draw pornographic flipbooks all day. We’d be trying to adjust some heartfelt speech and he’d interrupt to proudly show us “doggie style from the woman’s point of view looking back from between her legs”.

Gary read Variety all day and night. I don’t think I saw his face more than twice an entire season. How can it take a person twelve hours to read Daily Variety?

All you generally saw of Max was his ass because he was always getting phone calls and bolting the room to answer them. He’d be routinely gone for 45 minutes. Most of the time it was his agent. How much was there to talk about? This was his only job and he was lucky to have that!

Donna breast fed her baby. That was a little distracting but actually okay.

Robert had anger-management problems. One time his therapist suggested that when he got mad he take out a rubber band and play with it. This rubber band would come out and for two hours the rest of the staff would be freaked.

Paul had even worse anger issues. Something would set him off and he would just shut down. Completely. For weeks (not hours, not days, but weeks) Paul would sit in the corner, seething, never saying a word. We always figured he’d become the first Emmy winning serial killer.

Jeff was a P.A. killer. He had a large appetite. At 2:00 in the morning he’d have a taste for soul food and would send the 20 year-old coed who was interning for the summer from Oregon State out to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles in the seediest part of Hollywood.

Jim paced with a yo yo all day. Okay, that was me.

Since comedy writers tend to be 8th grade geeks who never grew up, unattainable cheerleader crushes were replaced by unattainable actress crushes. Meg Ryan, Teri Hatcher, the Olsen twins, Jennifer Aniston, and Jamie Gertz were among the favorites. Interestingly, none of these writers had crushes on actresses from the shows they worked on. Maybe the fantasy is broken when the object of your heart's desire tells you your script is shit.

Anyway, these are just some of my encounters. I’m sure every room veteran has six or thirty of their own.