Tag: TVWriter™

DAILY SHOW and COLBERT REPORT Episodes are Back Online

Whew!

Hey Photoshop pros, can you add a big red X to this pic and send it to us? (Yeah, didn’t think so)

Viacom Puts Full Daily Show & Colbert Report Episodes Back Online
by Chris Morran

For DirecTV subscribers, the ongoing Viacom blackout means it’s been nearly a week since they’ve been able to watch MTV, Comedy Central, Vh1, or Nickelodeon — at least without going to the neighbor’s house. In a move to win viewers over to its side of the battle, Viacom has decided that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to remove those full episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report from the Comedy Central website.

Both shows were on hiatus last week when Viacom decided to temporarily block online viewers from watching the archives of full episodes. That decision had been made in response to DirecTV telling its complaining customers they could just watch the shows they were missing for free at the various Viacom-operated websites. read article

LB: Three Shows I No Longer Watch

by Larry Brody

NETWORK’s Howard Beale, the spokesman character for writer Paddy Chayefsky,  famously said, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore.” I’m not mad, or even angry, but I am frustrated by some recent viewing experiences, so I’m not taking it anymore either.

In particular, three TV series that I thought would serve me well have committed the cardinal sin of irking me to  the point of no return: read article

My TV Review Part One

by Robin Reed

I was asked recently if I want to review TV shows for this site. I thought about it for a while and got a crazy idea. I want to review TV. Not shows, but all of television. At least my experience of it. At this point, many of you have already gone on to read other posts, thinking I am nuts. If you are still with me, I promise not to take up too much of your time.

My first TV memory is of my brothers and I trying to get my parents to let us watch “The Flintstones.” It was a prime time show, not a Saturday morning cartoon. It was hot. Celebrities did guest voices. It was “The Simpsons” of its day. But it was shown on a school night, and the absolute rule in my house was that there was no TV on school nights. read article

Writing for Children’s Shows

Writing for Kids’ TV
by Danny Stack

It’s odd that the genre of kids’ TV is often overlooked by screenwriting events, seminars and the so-called gurus. It’s also rare to meet a writer who aspires to write for kids’ TV.

Why is this the case? Perhaps it’s because kids’ TV is for, well, kids. And maybe there’s a misplaced notion that writing for kids must be simple compared to primetime drama or feature films. Or that there’s not much kudos involved in writing for the genre. read article

A Great Writing Lesson…

…from Ken Levine’s blog, …by Ken Levine:

Ken Levine? Not Ken Levine? Damned if we know

“New Choice!”
by Ken Levine

There was another great exercise for comedy writers in Andy Goldberg’s improv class last Wednesday. This one was called “New Choice!” Two people would do a scene and periodically someone would say something and Andy would interrupt with “New Choice!” The performer then had to devise an alternate line. If Andy wasn’t satisfied he’d again bark “New Choice!” Sometimes it would take two or three lines before the scene was allowed to proceed.

Example: read article