Hey everyone! Very busy right now. But I needed to drop by for just a moment to tell you all that I will be appearing at WonderCon this weekend in San Francisco, at the Moscone Center. Drop on by! Should be a blast!

Lunch: packaged sushi. Just okay.
Jane on 02.28.07 @ 11:08 PM PST [link]

Wow. Didn't the actors and production people and everyone do a great job on Anne Cofell Saunder's and my Battlestar ep, "Dirty Hands"? I was so pleased with how it came out. Whee!

For those of you who didn't see it (possibly because you were watching the Academy Awards), the episode took place partly in a facility that converts Tylium ore into spaceship fuel. I don't know anything about this fascinating but fictional process, and I don't think Anne does either. So what does one do when one has to write about something both technical and fictional?

Well, here's part of a scene that I wrote into an early draft (it differs a bit from what was shot, but not by too much):

FENNER
Here's where we had the problem last time. The temp on this machine fell, but the indicator was stuck. We didn't know. The dross didn't all get burned off...

TYROL
Bad fuel.

FENNER
It's working now, but we've got a half-dozen other places along the line that could frak us.

The belt near Tyrol starts stuttering, moving forward jerkily instead of smoothly. A few workers SHOUT. The problem must be permeating down the line.

TYROL
Shut it down! Hit the switch!

FENNER
No! Not when it's jammed! The whole system will seize up!

Then the belt stops altogether, with a GRINDING WHINE as the mechanism tries to keep pushing the belt forward. Tyrol and Fenner both instantly react, moving under the belt, looking for where it’s catching.

FENNER (cont'd)
Find it. If it stops, the ore that's in the chamber will superheat...

Did you see what I did there? I totally faked it. But I faked it with authority. It's really a matter of making sure that the people talking about the process sound like they know what they're talking about.

And the best thing is that since they all know what they're talking about, they can do it in a sort of professional shorthand that sounds real and also avoids too much detail. The worst thing to do in this kind of a writing situation is fall into "as you know" writing, in which characters explain things to each other for the benefit of the audience. Don't worry if the audience doesn't get exactly what's happening, just make sure they understand the consequences of what's happening.

Lunch: salad from the Universal salad bar and a selection of Hershey miniatures
Jane on 02.26.07 @ 10:38 PM PST [link]

Oh! I just found another example of what I was talking about yesterday about extending the life of clams. I know I saw a joke recently -- I have no idea what it was on -- in which someone freshened up the "decaf" clam just a tiny bit, rendering it as something like, "Hey, maybe less Red Bull tomorrow?" Something like that, anyway. Not the best joke in the world, but loads better than just repeating the original. Red Bull is a nice contemporary touch, don't you think?

I'm also told, by the way, that the writers on Will & Grace used to refer to this process of clam rehabilitaion as "clams casino," i.e. clams baked into a fancy dish.

Lunch: "Buffet City" again! Bao and noodles and shrimp and sushi and fruit and... and...
Jane on 02.25.07 @ 12:40 PM PST [link]

There are many things that seem terribly clever and endlessly engaging when you first encounter them, but which quickly turn familiar and then grating. This year's hot toy, the newest novelty dance (aren't we about due for a new one, by the way?), the latest celebrity breakdown... these all have really short shelf-lives.

A joke that has outlived its shelf-life is consistently referred to as a "clam." I've talked a little about these before, I believe. You know a clam when you hear it. Here are a few of them: "I'm switching you to decaf." "Check please." "Who are you and what have you done with ___?" "Did I say that out loud?" "Too much information!" and its brother (hand over ears) "La la la". Also we have "Was it something I said?" And "That didn't come out right." Or "That came out wrong." And finally "That went well," and its sister, "He seems nice".

However, there are ways to adapt or revive clams even after they start to smell. Ways to extend their usefulness.

One way is, paradoxically, to overuse them. Stepping on a rake is a visual clam, but The Simpsons famously used it in an extended sequence which took it to absurd new levels. I also recently read a scene in which "That didn't come out right" was used a couple different times by different characters. If it had just been used once, it would be clammy. But the repetition of it became its own joke.

Another way is to use the lines in unexpected way. A character who has been sitting silently and suddenly blurts, out of the blue, "Did I just say that out loud?"-- that's pretty funny. (I bet it's been done, but still, funny.) "That didn't come out right" is pretty funny, too, if it's Dr. House saying it while removing a tissue sample.

Another way is to supplement the clam with fresh material. When Dawn complimented a burger on Buffy she said: "It's like a meat party in my mouth. (then) Okay, I'm just a kid and even I know that came out wrong." Yeah, the last part of the line is a clam. But "meat party" is priceless and tying her reaction to her age gives it more content than if it just sat there unadorned.

Another way is to express the same notion, but find a new way to say it. Even a minor variation helps. "Who are you and what have you done with ___" is less nerve-blastingly familiar as "Take good care of ___, wherever you're holding him."

There's also the option in which the writer acknowledges the clamminess. The Office can give Michael Scott any of these lines and have them work because the joke is that he still thinks they're funny. I can clearly imagine him saying, "That's it, I'm switching to decaf," followed by Dwight trying to actually take his coffee away while Michael fights to keep the smile on his face. In fact, just recently, Michael used the classic clam "...if that's your real name," and in his hands, it was funny.

The best option, of course, is to find your own jokes that are so short and punchy and funny that they would be clams if anyone else had thought of them yet. It's not an impossible task, actually. After all, every one of those clams listed above had its first appearance some time.

Lunch: Those stuffed jalapenos at Jack in the Box. Can't resist 'em!

Jane on 02.24.07 @ 03:49 PM PST [link]

When I'm writing an outline for a script I'm going to write, I find that I'm actually writing a sketchy little version of the scene in my head as I go, just tryin' it out, making sure that the scene is going to work, that there's a point to having the scene. You can catch problems that way, because sometimes a scene looks like it's going to work when it exists as a short description of a thing that happens, but it totally falls apart when you realize that your characters do not give a fig about that thing that just happened, and hence your scene evaporates.

If you come up with a couple lines or a joke or something for the scene, make note of it. It'll help when it's time to actually write the scene. If you really imagine each scene like this as you write the outline, you'll be amazed at how fast the writing goes. You can literally write a scene in a few minutes if, when you start typing, you already have it roughed out in your head.

Those of you who still insist on writing without a real, typed outline that you've given to friends for input -- you're buying a lot of extra work. And that thing you value, that sense of "finding the story," you can get that during this imagining stage, without wasting all the ink and time.

Outline! It's bones for your script! You need those!

Lunch: Salad, cheese and a roll. And Doritos.

Jane on 02.23.07 @ 09:43 PM PST [link]

You know how some shows have one episode with a totally atypical structure? I'm thinking of the Emmy-winning "Three Stories" episode of House which was set in a classroom and consisted of flashbacks to past patients, one of whom turned out to be House himself. I'm also thinking of the "Out of Gas" episode of Firefly and the "Unfinished Business," episode of Battlestar Galactica, both of which told stories in different timelines simultaneously. Episodes like these are often the most memorable shows of a series. But they're not typical.

So the question arises: Can your spec be an episode like this? My answer -- after some thought and internal debate -- is yes.

It's tricky, because a large part of the point of the specing exercise (spexercise?) is to write an episode that feels like a produced ep. If your spec is different than all or almost all of their produced eps, then you haven't really accomplished that. But if you execute your spec (spexecute?) properly, then that won't matter. Because another large part of the point of the exercise is to write an episode that is as good as the very best produced episodes. And playing with structure can allow you to do some very powerful stuff, memorable stuff, stuff to get a script noticed.

Telling a story that plays with time can be a great way to dig deeper into the characters by letting us see them at a time before the series started (as the Firefly and House episodes do), or during a time that the series simply didn't show us (as the Battlestar one does). Often, in stories like these, we learn something about why a character is the way they are. There is little that is more powerful than that.

You have to be careful, of course. Don't hang an act break on whether or not your main character is going to be killed in the past for example. And don't just assume any origin story is worth telling -- make it startling and yet oh so illuminating.

The structure should help you tell the story; it shouldn't be the story.

But if you've got a great one of these eps in mind, even if it breaks the rules, I say go for it.

Lunch: a cookie and water from the Universal commissary. A too-late breakfast stole my appetite.

Jane on 02.20.07 @ 10:05 PM PST [link]

Do you have someone to brainstorm with? Someone who is willing to just idly toss around ideas with you in an unstructured setting without time pressure? Dinner with creative friends talking about stories is probably the closest you're going to get to simulating the actual writers' room experience.

I have two close friends I acquired in the ABC/Disney writing fellowship. They were there on the "feature side" of the program while I was on the "TV side". To this day, they're my closest friends, willing to play endless games of Scrabble and accompany me on slot-happy Vegas vacations.

They're also brainstorming fiends. I always try to take the start of an idea to Vegas with me, because I know that by the end of the weekend they'll have helped me turn it into something real and workable. My friend Kimberlee is an expert at cutting to the heart of a story and asking the hard questions that make me figure out *why* I'm telling the story. It's like taking an idea to a therapist to figure out its hidden motivations. Having your own personal story doctor is as good as having a medical one. Unless you have literal pneumonia.

If you've joined a writers' group or enrolled in a class, try organizing some after-class dinners. See if you click with any of the other participants. And be generous with your help on their projects too. Don't hold back on your ideas or make sly suggestions about how they can pay you back with a staff job once their spec pilot is a show. Give your suggestions freely, and take your only pay in the form of the ideas they'll contribute to your projects. If you can get that kind of dynamic set up, you'll have a resource you can draw on for years and years.

Lunch: avocado, blue cheese, sourdough roll

Jane on 02.19.07 @ 03:37 PM PST [link]

Hi! My Battlestar ep is NOT the one airing tomorrow night, despite what I may have said earlier, and in fact still may be saying elsewhere on this page. Please watch tomorrow, of course, but be aware that my ep will be airing NEXT week, on Feb 25.

And because I hate posting entries without any useful tips in them, here's a useful tip: you know how I've complained before about the "dual dialog" function in Final Draft? Well, it's even worse than I thought. If you're in revision mode and you make a change in any of your side-by-side dialog, it will stay marked as revised even after you select "clear revisions." You have to un-dual it, then clear it, then re-dual it again. This actually cost me time recently. Let my pain be your warning.

Lunch: the Chile Pasilla plate at Poquito Mas. You better be hungry -- this turned out to be a truckload of food. Seriously, it almost didn't fit on one tray.

CORRECTION: It is not, of course, "my" Battlestar. It is "our" Battlestar, co-written with my friend and colleague the brilliant Anne Cofell Saunders!
Jane on 02.17.07 @ 09:04 PM PST [link]

Remember Amanda? She's the one who sent the great letter I mentioned earlier this week, about landing an agent. Well, I wanted to give you a little bit more of her letter, because it was interesting all the way through. She's referring to some information I related a while back from my agents about how they're no longer recommending that writers spec episodes of existing shows.

Amanda: "And you are absolutely right re: original material. The first thing [the new agent] asked me for was anything original: short stories, one acts, pilots, etc. Apparently, the spec scripts are Step 2. After a show runner reads the original stuff THEN they ask for the spec."

She goes on to mention that this doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule, which is certainly the case. And I will mention again that the ABC/Disney fellowship wants traditional specs of shows currently on the air. But it's very interesting to hear that more than one of the big agencies is pushing hard for original material. At least once you're repped by the agency. Remember that Amanda got the agent with a spec of The Office. So hmm.

I know it might seem like I'm grinding this topic into the ground, but it's crucial to your specing careers, so I'm working hard to give you up to the moment info on this one.

Lunch: Koo Koo Roo -- chicken with yams and cucumber salad.

Jane on 02.16.07 @ 09:24 PM PST [link]

How do you break your stories at home? Do you write out the content and order of the scenes on a whiteboard, in a notebook, or on index cards? For years and years I worked on shows with whiteboards in the writers' rooms. But recently I've found myself in rooms with corkboards and cards. And I have to say I'm starting to get it. The ability to move scenes around effortlessly... well, say, that's not bad.

But when I'm not in a room with other writers, if I'm breaking the story for a pilot script, for example, I just plot it out on sheets of notebook paper. Unlike a whiteboard, it's totally portable. My notebook has accompanied me into every restaurant in town. And although you can take your stack of cards with you anywhere, you then can't see the whole episode at a glance.

Sure, sometimes I have to rewrite the whole thing because I'm making changes and the page is filling with arrows and scribbles, but the process of rewriting it is actually one of the steps in the process that I find most productive. Rewriting the descriptions of scenes is one of the best ways for me to start to *see* them.

Ultimately, do whatever works for you. Don't get married to any one method because it's what your teacher, friend or writing idol does.

Lunch: goat cheese salad

Jane on 02.15.07 @ 06:21 PM PST [link]

I just got the best letter, gentle readers. Seriously, this is one to frame. A regular reader, Amanda from Los Angeles, writes to let us know that she has landed an agent! At a big agency, too. This is a huge accomplishment! Cue the party music, but not too loud, because she's going to tell you what the key was:

...My Office spec took me a month to write and I'm so glad I took my time to make it right. I studied four produced scripts (as you recommended), and I spent a LONG time finding the averages: how many jokes per page, how many scenes per act, how many talking heads, how many pages in the cold open and the tag, etc. That way, when my spec was done, I could hold it up to the averages of the produced scripts. It helped a lot to approach the script that way."

YES! That's exactly right. That is *exactly* the way to do it. Study those produced scripts, people! They'll help you make a spec that feels so real that your readers will forget it's a spec. Make them believe it's a produced episode they happened to miss. The only way to do that is to be authentic. Even if your reader isn't terribly familiar with the show, there's something about getting it *right* that just shines off the page. (And I can pretty much promise you that with a show like The Office, your reader will be very familiar with it.)

I love that she didn't just count scenes and pages and jokes, as I have indeed recommended, but that she also categorized the *kinds* of scenes. As she mentions, The Office has those "talking head" scenes. And I bet Amanda didn't just count them. I bet she also checked on how many other scenes, on average, separate the talking head scenes -- are there ever two that are adjacent? I believe there are, actually, but I'm not certain. See why you need the produced scripts?

I had a friend when I was starting out, who prided herself on the speed with which she wrote specs. Problem is, no one can smell the speed on your script. Slow down and do the math -- or at least, the counting. Take a month, take two or three.

Amanda took her time, made a script that smelled not of speed but of Steve Carell, and look what it got her: a shiny agent all her own!

Lunch: tortilla soup and a Caesar salad from Mexicali

Jane on 02.13.07 @ 09:07 AM PST [link]

Hmm... what I thought was going to be one post about rewriting based on notes has turned into a trilogy. Here's part three:

Put it all on the table. You might think you're already doing this, but you probably aren't. There is almost always some moment, some exchange, some theme or whatever, that you are determined to preserve. Often, it's whatever inspired you to write the script in question. It's the moment that you woke up thinking about, that seemed to come into your head fully-formed and complete with music. Cut anything, you tell yourself, change anything... just not that. Let's call it a protected moment.

But sometimes that moment, no matter how inspirational, is a bay leaf. You needed it to get started, to get the flavor right, and now it's done its job. And until and unless you acknowledge that you've given the moment in question a special status, you can't even SEE that it has become superfluous. I'm sure there's a parallel to be made with people who carry on with unsatisfying jobs, bad habits, or problematic spouses long after they should have dumped them.

This is one of the hardest things to do, of course -- to cut or change a protected moment. Sometimes, if I'm considering a big change like this, I'll copy the script into a file called something like "experiment" and make the change there, while leaving the original file untouched. That way I can fool myself into thinking I'm not really changing it. Then I can read it without having that "what have I doooone?" feeling. And if I don't like it, I can go back to the original file knowing that at least I was open to every option.

By the way, I became aware of my own protected moments early in my career while watching show runners make changes that I, a less-experienced writer, was expecting them to balk at. Sometimes you don't realize you've put up walls until someone else starts inviting people to climb over them.

Lunch: "Buffet City" -- prawns and bao and pot stickers and tiny custard cream puffs

Jane on 02.10.07 @ 05:16 PM PST [link]

Several times during my career, I've heard experienced writers tell variations of the same funny true story. They've turned in a script to the network for approval, and the network executives have grimly told them that there are big problems with the script. They require that some character be fundamentally changed, or that a theme be entirely reworked, or that some other sweeping change needs to be made. In part two of this funny true story, the writer makes a one-word or one-sentence change to the script, like adding the word "proactive" to the character's initial description or adding something like "He stands victorious, his mission complete," to the final stage description. In part three of the funny true story the writer hands the script back to the network, expecting to be slapped for their impudence, but is instead praised for having made such a substantial change in such a short time. No one is sure exactly what was changed, but they know it felt better this time.

The moral of this story is NOT that network executives don't know when something feels wrong with a script. In fact, they do. Instead, the moral is that sometimes the person giving you notes on your spec script -- your friend or family member -- might not have a sense of which script problems require big solutions and which require small adjustments. All they can do is let you in on it when something that they read doesn't feel right. They're about pointing at the problem. As the writer, you're in charge of finding the solution. So listen and don't panic. The change you need to make might not be as big as you fear. It's like that old saying: sometimes the biggest fractures need the smallest bandages.

Lunch: knockwurst with sauerkraut

Jane on 02.09.07 @ 10:02 PM PST [link]

When you've finished a draft of your spec script, you give it to friends to read, right? And then you wait for their reaction, as if you're being tested. Well, you are, kind of. But here's something interesting -- you're also testing your friends.

You're going to need input over your spec-writing career and beyond. Writers often -- almost always -- have friends read drafts before they submit them, even once they've got well-established careers. And they know *which* friends to hand them to because they've paid attention to which ones read carefully, which ones give constructive advice, which ones share their sensibility...

So start paying attention now. If one of your readers likes everything you do, well, that's perfect if what you most need is an ego-boost (which is possible), but it's not great if you really need advice. If another one has confident and specific recommendations but can't answer simple questions about the plot, then maybe they didn't read as carefully as they think they did. Someone else might be good at detecting problems, but might also leave you so demoralized that you lose confidence in your ability to fix them!

If you test your readers a little bit and keep track of them, you not only figure out whose notes work for you, you might even end up with a sort of tool kit of readers: someone who can help you sharpen your jokes, someone else who senses structural problems, and someone else to fluff the ego (it really is important).

Lunch: soup and the "thai crunch salad" from CPK

Jane on 02.07.07 @ 11:16 PM PST [link]

I don't normally like to tell tales from the writers' room in this blog, gentle readers. But I do have to let you in on this. Every day, at 4:15, guess what happens in the writers' room at Eureka? Automatically, apparently unbidden, bowl after bowl of hot fresh buttery microwave popcorn is loaded onto the table in the writers' room. Every day.

That is just *one* of the reasons that you guys should keep polishing those spec scripts!

Speaking of your spec, let's talk stage directions for a moment. You've probably figured out that I'm a big fan of them. I'm always telling you to make them poetic, to use them to convey a sense of style, of fluid storytelling, to do the work that visuals do in a produced episode. However, they do slow down a read, and you need to be careful not to overuse them.

Let's imagine, for example, that you have scripted the following moment (this is adapted from a moment in last week's episode of The Office):

MICHAEL
Wouldn't you ladies like a male stripper at your party?

ANGELA
No. That would be totally inappropri--

VOICE (O.C.)
Shut the hell up, Angela!

The camera finds the owner of the voice -- it's MEREDITH.

In my opinion, this reads better without all the information about how you intend it to be shot -- without the indication that the speaker is off-camera, and without the stage direction. Like this:

MICHAEL
Wouldn't you ladies like a male stripper at your party?

ANGELA
No. That would be totally inappropri--

MEREDITH
Shut the hell up, Angela!

The joke still plays, and it reads cleaner, quicker, and I think funnier, without the indicated direction. I think the second option is preferable, even though the reveal of the usually quiet Meredith was very funny in the produced episode.

It can be tempting to use directions all the time, in order to transfer the episode as it exists in your head, into someone else's head, but you have to be careful not to try to stuff too much in there. You're auditioning for the role of writer, after all, not director.

Lunch: chicken piccata with mashed potatoes and broccoli

Jane on 02.06.07 @ 08:23 PM PST [link]

Here's something cool you can do inside parentheses:

A PERSON
And then my rabbit exploded!

ANOTHER PERSON
(Don't piss off the crazy man)
Okay, I'll look into that.

Obviously, what I did here was just put the character's thoughts in the parenthetical. It's often more elegant and more fun to do this, than to find the perfect abstract words to describe the attitude you have in mind. What would it be here, after all? "Cautiously indulgent"? "Nervously placating"? Hmm.

If you've had trouble coming up with the perfect parenthetical, try this. And note that unlike in real dialogue, you can use swear words if you want, even for a network show -- those broadcast standards don't apply to words that only appear in the script but aren't intended to be spoken. So go goddamn nuts!

Lunch: Tried something different. "Buffet City." A big Chinese buffet facility. Oysters as big as kittens, dim sum, inexplicable sushi! Fantastic!

Jane on 02.04.07 @ 08:05 PM PST [link]

Good news! Andy Barker P.I. has a premiere date! It is: Thursday, March 15 at 9:30 (8:30 central) on NBC. You know this as the 30 Rock time slot of course, but don't worry, they'll be back. We're just borrowing the slot for five weeks of Andy Richter-flavored comedy.

This is, of course, the show I've most recently been working on, and I love it. You're going to love it, too. It's got Andy, who is charming and hilarious, and Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development), and a mind-blowing guest appearance by Amy Sedaris in one of the eps. This is a classy operation, gentle readers, a really funny show, and I hope you check it out! (I'll remind you again when it gets a little closer.)

Lunch: shabu shabu -- beef and veggies and noodles cooked on the tabletop.

Jane on 02.03.07 @ 09:15 PM PST [link]

I watched an episode of Medium the other night, gentle readers, and I noticed something interesting. They do very abrupt scene transitions on that show, clearly on purpose. The space between the last line of dialogue in one scene and the first line of the next one is generally the same as between two lines in the same scene. It gives an interesting effect, because as a viewer you have to adjust on the fly -- oh, we're in a new place now -- over and over.

I haven't seen a produced Medium script, but it would obviously reflect this stylistic choice. Scenes wouldn't end with the very-commonly used, almost automatic stage direction: "Off her reaction, we... CUT TO:" since the cuts do not come off reaction shots.

The question on the table, then, is, to what extent is it important that your spec script reflect stylistic idiosyncrasies like this one? (I'm not just talking about Medium here, but about all the shows you might spec and all their little quirks.)

There's actually not an obvious answer to this one, since, as we've discussed before, you never know if the person who is going to read your spec will be very familiar with the actual show. As a result, it's possible you could violate all sorts of rules that a show follows and still be fine if your storytelling is sharp and your dialogue is snappy.

But why not get it right? If I were writing a Medium, I would execute the scene transitions in their established style. I would also try to make it very, very clear that I was making the choice to do so. After all, you don't want an uninformed reader to think that you're making abrupt, jarring transitions because you don't know how to do lingering emotional ones. I might even go so far as to do something like this:

ALLISON
Some line of dialogue

And just like that, we're in:

INT. NEXT LOCATION

And I would do some kind of variation on that for the first several transitions, making it clear that I'm making a choice. I wouldn't even blame a writer for going so far as to write a stage direction like:

And in classic Medium-style, we cut right into:

Lunch: tried to get to sushi, but LA was a big snag today. Ended up at Jack in the Box with those stuffed jalapeno things. Good.

Jane on 02.02.07 @ 08:50 PM PST [link]

Ooh, gentle readers, you know it's always a fun day when there's a guest speaker. Today I've invited showrunner-type Jeff Greenstein, currently of Desperate Housewives, to speak a little more about highbrow jokes and obscure reference jokes in general. He speaks first about jokes whose brows are so high they're not even on their own heads anymore:

"You know, the best examples I can think of are some of the jokes in the "earlier, funny" Woody Allen films. Jokes that wind up getting a laugh on pure rhythm, even if you don't get the reference, e.g.: "As Balzac said, there goes another novel" or "When it comes to relationships, I'm the winner of the August Strindberg award." [Another] one of these is SO ASTOUNDINGLY OBSCURE that it's actually TRANSCRIBED INCORRECTLY in the published script of Manhattan: Diane Keaton's character refers to her crippling headaches as "like Oswald in Ghosts" (meaning the syphilitic character in the Ibsen play), but the transcriber, obviously assuming Oswald means Lee Harvey, renders the line as "like Oswald and ghosts," which means exactly nothing."

Hee! I love knowing this stuff, don't you? Now, it's pretty clear that a joke at this level of difficulty is not going to help your spec script. The rhythm of a joke might draw a laugh in a crowded jovial movie theater, but it's not something that works very well on the printed page.

So I suggest you aim a bit lower. There are certainly reference jokes that are almost as obscure, though not highbrow, and this makes them at least a bit more likely to find an audience. Jeff gives a really cool example:

"... [M]y all-time, ALL-TIME favorite obscure-reference joke was on 3rd Rock. They had a scene in which Dick Solomon (John Lithgow) goes to the airport to pick up his supervisor, the Big Giant Head, played by William Shatner. "How was your flight?" asks Lithgow. "Terrible," Shatner replies. "There was some kind of gremlin on the wing!" Lithgow gasps: "THE SAME THING ONCE HAPPENED TO ME!!"

Of course this is a staggeringly ingenious reference to the fact that Lithgow and Shatner played the same role, that of a terrified airline passenger who thinks he sees a gremlin on the wing, in the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" -- Shatner in the original series, and Lithgow in Twilight Zone: The Movie. Phenomenal."

Readers aren't going to be impressed by an easy joke. Writing an easy joke is like being an easy date. Make 'em work for it. They'll appreciate it more.

Lunch: cheese-jalapeno bagel from the local Coffee Bean

Jane on 02.01.07 @ 07:34 PM PST [link]