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Writers' Room
A writers' room is a space where writers, usually of a television series, gather to write and refine scripts. It is a common method of writing television series in the US, but is much less widespread in countries like the UK. Composition The television industry has long had a collaborative model for writing shows, though not all shows use a writers' room. With the explosion of scripted shows, and the competition among the networks and streaming channels, a "fluidity has developed to the way shows are created." The writers' room follows no single formula; it is an open-ended process with a range of set-ups. Room sizes vary from two to thirty, depending on the budget and number of episodes, each room with its own rules. "Mini-rooms" exist for limited series and smaller shows, mostly those not yet approved. Mini-rooms consist of fewer writers than ordinary writers' rooms, who are paid less, and may not be employed for the duration of the production. The "proliferation" of m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Writers' Room Plaque
''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the Most common words in English, most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Weiskopf
Bob Weiskopf (March 13, 1914 – February 20, 2001) was an American screenwriter and producer for television. He has credits for ''I Love Lucy'' which he and his writing partner Bob Schiller joined in the fifth season. They also wrote for '' The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour'', ''The Lucy Show'', '' Maude'', ''All in the Family'' (for which he won a 1978 Emmy for co-writing the episode " Cousin Liz"), '' Archie Bunker's Place'', ''The Red Skelton Show'', the short-lived '' Pete and Gladys'', and '' Sanford'' (the spin-off of '' Sanford and Son''). Life and career Weiskopf, born in Chicago, Illinois, began writing for television in 1950, when he wrote an episode for ''The Colgate Comedy Hour''. Weiskopf first tried comedy writing at the suggestion of friends Norman Panama and Melvin Frank. Panama and Frank lured him to Hollywood in 1940, where he managed to sell some jokes to Bob Hope for his radio program. From there, he later wrote for radio, for Eddie Cantor's ''The Eddie Cantor Sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neil Simon
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He received three Tony Awards and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. He was awarded a 29th Tony Awards, Special Tony Award in 1975, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1991, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006. Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the United States Army Air Forces, Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio progr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sid Caeser
Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950–1954), which was a 90-minute weekly show watched by 60 million people, and its successor, ''Caesar's Hour'' (1954–1957), both of which influenced later generations of comedians. ''Your Show of Shows'' and its cast received seven Emmy nominations between the years 1953 and 1954 and tallied two wins. He also acted in films; he played Coach Calhoun in '' Grease'' (1978) and its sequel ''Grease 2'' (1982) and appeared in the films ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' (1963), ''Silent Movie'' (1976), ''History of the World, Part I'' (1981), ''Cannonball Run II'' (1984), and ''Vegas Vacation'' (1997). Caesar was considered a "sketch comic" and actor, as opposed to a stand-up comedian. He also relied more on body language, accents, and facial contort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Liebman
Max Liebman (August 2, 1902 – July 21, 1981) was a Broadway theater and TV producer-director sometimes called the "Ziegfeld of TV", who helped establish early television's comedy vocabulary with '' Your Show of Shows''. He additionally helped bring improvisational comedy into the mainstream with his 1961 Broadway revue ''From the Second City''. Biography Max Liebman was born in Vienna, Austria, and emigrated to the United States during childhood. He attended Boys High School in Brooklyn, New York City. where his extracurricular activities included the debating society and school theater, including shows with classmate Arthur Schwartz, the future Broadway composer. In 1920, Liebman entered vaudeville as a comedy sketch-writer, and in 1924 or 1925 became social director at Camp Log Cabin or the Log Tavern in Pennsylvania. In 1932 or 1933 he was named theater director at Tamiment, a Pocono Mountains resort, where he would remain for 15 years. Concurrently, he made his Broadway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mel Tolkin
Mel Tolkin ( Shmuel Tolchinsky; August 3, 1913 – November 26, 2007) was an American television comedy writer best known as head writer of the live sketch comedy series '' Your Show of Shows'' ( NBC, 1950–1954) during the Golden Age of Television. There he presided over a staff that at times included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, and Danny Simon. The writers' room inspired the film '' My Favorite Year'' (1982), produced by Brooks, and the Broadway play '' Laughter on the 23rd Floor'' (1993), written by Neil Simon. Tolkin, who won an Emmy Award and every other major prize for television writing, was the father of screenwriter-novelist Michael Tolkin and TV writer- director Stephen Tolkin. Biography Early life and career Mel Tolkin was born Shmuel Tolchinsky (, , , means "from Tuľčyn") in a Jewish shtetl near Odesa, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, the son of Nessie (Cartman) and Mendel "Max" Tolchinsky, a labourer and door-to-door salesman. A background of ant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danny Simon
Daniel Simon (December 18, 1918, The Bronx, New York – July 26, 2005, Portland, Oregon) was an American television writer and comedy teacher. He was the inspiration for the character of Felix Unger in his brother Neil Simon's play, '' The Odd Couple''. Biography The older brother of playwright Neil Simon, the two siblings wrote comedy together in the 1940s and 1950s. As a writing team the brothers wrote for Buddy Hackett, Jan Murray and Phil Silvers and also wrote for radio and television shows such as '' Broadway Open House'', '' The Red Buttons Show'', ''The Jackie Gleason Show'' and '' Your Show of Shows'' until 1954 when Neil left the partnership to write plays. As a solo writer, Danny became head writer of ''The Colgate Comedy Hour'' and then '' Make Room for Daddy''. He also wrote for '' The Phil Silvers Show'', ''Kraft Music Hall'', ''My Three Sons'', '' The Mac Davis Show'', ''The Carol Burnett Show'', ''Diff'rent Strokes'', and '' The Facts of Life'' and also wro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selma Diamond
Selma Diamond (August 5, 1920 – May 13, 1985) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actress, and radio and television writer, known for her high-range, raspy voice and her portrayal of Selma Hacker on the first two seasons of the NBC television comedy series '' Night Court''. Diamond was also the main inspiration for the character of Sally Rogers on the series '' The Dick Van Dyke Show''. Early life Diamond was born on August 5, 1920, in London, Ontario, Canada, to a tailor and his wife. Diamond's grandmother was a suffragette. * * Cue (September 5, 1953). * Newark Evening News, August 28, 1963. * Sunday News, January 19, 1964. When Diamond was a young girl, they moved to Brooklyn, New York. Diamond attended high school in Brooklyn and graduated from New York University. Career Diamond published cartoons and humor essays in ''The New Yorker''. Later, she moved to the West Coast and hired an agent. She worked in radio and, eventually, television. Her first radio writing c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucille Kallen
Lucille Kallen (May 28, 1922, Los Angeles, California – January 18, 1999, Ardsley, New York) was an American writer, screenwriter, playwright, composer, and lyricist. She was best known for being one of only two women in the most famous TV writers' room, the one that created Sid Caesar's ''Your Show of Shows'' from 1950 to 1954, along with Selma Diamond. She also worked extensively on Broadway, was a long-time writing partner of Mel Tolkin, and published six novels, including a series of mysteries featuring the character C.B. Greenfield. ''The Mystery Fancier'' discussed and reviewed her books, and one was quoted in ''English Historical Syntax and Morphology''. Sid Caesar's writer's room has been fictionally recreated many times. Neil Simon, one of the writers, memorialized it in his play ''Laughter on the 23rd Floor''; it formed the centerpiece of the 1982 film '' My Favorite Year'', and most famously, it was the office in which Rob Petrie worked in ''The Dick Van Dyke Show' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Webster (screenwriter)
Tony Webster (January 9, 1922 – June 26, 1987) was an American screenwriter. He wrote for Sid Caesar's ''Your Show of Shows'', ''The Phil Silvers Show'', ''Car 54, Where Are You?'' and ''The Love Boat''. He died of esophagus cancer at his home in Beverly Hills, California Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hills ..., at the age 65. References External links * American male screenwriters Primetime Emmy Award winners 1987 deaths 1922 births Deaths from esophageal cancer in California 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American screenwriters {{US-screen-writer-1920s-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woody Allen
Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen, accolades, including the most nominations (16) for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He has won four Academy Awards, ten British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Grammy Award, as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, Emmy Award and a Tony Award. Allen was awarded an Golden Lion, Honorary Golden Lion in 1995, the BAFTA Fellowship in 1997, an Palme d'Or, Honorary Palme d'Or in 2002, and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2014. Two of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Allen began his career writing material for television in the 1950s, alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, and Neil Simon. He also published several books o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Morris
Howard Jerome Morris (September 4, 1919 – May 21, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, and director. He was best known for his role in ''The Andy Griffith Show'' as Ernest T. Bass, and as "Uncle Goopy" in a celebrated comedy sketch on Sid Caesar's '' Your Show of Shows'' (1954). He did voices for television shows such as ''The Flintstones'' (1962–1965), '' The Jetsons'' (1962–1987), '' The Atom Ant Show'' (1965–1966), and '' Garfield and Friends'' (1988–1994). Life and career Morris was born to a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York, the son of Hugo and Elsie (née Theobald) Morris. His father was a rubber company executive. Morris attended New York University on a dramatic arts scholarship. During World War II, he was assigned to a United States Army Special Services unit where he was the First Sergeant. Maurice Evans was the company commander and Carl Reiner and Werner Klemperer were soldiers in the unit. Based in Honolulu, the unit entertained American tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
