What famous writer do you write like?
Why are we asking?
Month: April 2014
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (Part One)
One of our favorite sites is Stephen Bowie’s Classic TV History Blog. We like it so much that the only reason we aren’t constantly posting its articles here on TVWriter™ is that, well, erm, Stephen doesn’t want us to. So now it’s our job to get as many of you as possible to go over there and slurp up the savory goodness that is his writing-reporting. If you love “old” TV shows, this short sample should send you to heaven!
by Stephen Bowie
Rescued from obscurity last year with an essential complete-series DVD release,The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis remains one of the most distinctive and intelligent American situation comedies. Conceived and successfully marketed as a youth-oriented enterprise – the everyday life of the ordinary teenager – Dobie expanded its vision, as all great television does, to articulate an overarching point of view on existence itself – a wry, wise one, with a strong undercurrent of melancholy. Verbally witty and tonally unpredictable, it was probably the most sophisticated sitcom to debut before The Dick Van Dyke Show – although its sharp edges and complicated relationship with realism (and reality) make Dobie Gillis more relevant as a precursor to the spirited insanity of Green Acres.
Dobie Gillis was one of the earliest television comedies to embody the unmistakable voice of a single, brilliant writer – from the fifties, only Nat Hiken’s The Phil Silvers Show and arguably David Swift’s Mister Peepers come to mind as fellow members of that fraternity. Though he had successes on Broadway (The Tender Trap) and in films (adaptations of The Affairs of Dobie Gillis in 1953, with Bobby Van in the title role, and his novel Rally Round the Flag, Boys! in 1958), Max Shulman began as a prose writer who took on college life in his first book (Barefoot Boy With Cheek, 1943) and introduced the character of Dobie in a series of short stories. Although the unity of tone in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is self-evident, Shulman asserted his control over the television series in no uncertain terms: “In Dobie Gillis, every script in the end went through my typewriter, sometimes for minor changes, sometimes for major ones. Out of 39 or so episodes, I’d write maybe 10 – anywhere from 6 to 12 – but I would polish or tinker with every one of them, because I wanted to keep the same tone.”
Peggy Bechko: You’re a writer? Do you trust your gut?
by Peggy Bechko
You’re a writer? Do you trust your gut?
Really.
It’s amazing how many writers might have day jobs and trust their guts to make the right decisions there, but when they get to their writing desk, suddenly everything has to be planned out just so and there can be no deviation.
Fear of Failure – Aargh!!!
Ya gotta love any interweb post that opens the way this one does. What? You don’t know what we’re talking about? Read on, MacCurious:
by Emily Blake
Time for some brutal honesty.
If you decide to be a teacher or an accountant or a lawyer or a doctor or a construction worker or most jobs in this country, you have a clear order of operations to make that happen. You go to school. You get an entry level job. You work your way up. You have a career.
The UK has its TV Writing Giants Too
We just don’t hear much about them. Till it’s too late. TVWriter™ pays its respects to Bob Larbey:
from Irish Independent
BOB Larbey enjoyed 30 years as half of one of television’s most successful sitcom-writing partnerships. He and John Esmonde had their first major hit with Please Sir! (1968-72), set in Fenn Street Secondary Modern School, with John Alderton as Bernard Hedges, the fledgling teacher trying to keep order among the unruly pupils who call him “Privet”.
Larbey and Esmonde switched to a more traditional domestic setting for their other big success, The Good Life (1975-78), but gave it a twist by making one of the two middle-class couples self-sufficient.