SITCOM WRITERS TALK SHOP SITCOM WRITERS TALK SHOP Behind the Scenes with Carl Reiner, Norman Lear, and Other Geniuses of TV Comedy Paula Finn Forewords by Ed Asner and Carol Kane ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2018 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 9781538109199 (electronic) | ISBN 9781538109182 (cloth : alk. paper) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America To the memory of my father, Herb Finn. Whether through genetics or osmosis, his gift of humor shaped me as a writer and a person— and has made the hard times easier and the good times even better. CONTENTS LIST OF INTERVIEWEES ix FOREWORD ED ASNER xiii FOREWORD CAROL KANE xv PREFACE xix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxv INTRODUCTION xxvii 1 CARL REINER 1 2 LEONARD STERN 19 3 NORMAN LEAR 29 4 AUSTIN AND IRMA KALISH 43 5 JAMES L. BROOKS 55 6 TREVA SILVERMAN 71 7 KEN ESTIN 85 8 MATT WILLIAMS 105 9 DAVA SAVEL 125 10 LARRY CHARLES 139 vii Contents 11 DAVID LEE 157 12 PHIL ROSENTHAL 169 13 MIKE REISS 183 14 AL JEAN 197 15 JAY KOGEN 201 APPENDIX: MORE TALES FROM THE WRITERS’ ROOM 213 INDEX 233 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 243 viii INTERVIEWEES The following is an alphabetical list of interviewees and their television ca- reer highlights: Kevin Abbott: The Golden Girls, Growing Pains, Last Man Standing, Roseanne sam Bobrick: The Andy Griffith Show, The Flintstones, Good Morning, Miss Bliss (Creator), Saved by the Bell (Creator), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour James L. Brooks: Mary Tyler Moore (Cocreator), Rhoda (Cocreator), Room 222 (Creator), The Simpsons (Codeveloper), Taxi (Cocreator), The Tracey Ullman Show (Cocreator) tom Caltabiano: Everybody Loves Raymond Larry Charles: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage, Fridays, Mad about You, Seinfeld Adam Chase: Friends, Mom, Phenom Phil Doran: All in the Family, The Facts of Life, Too Close for Comfort, Who’s the Boss? Ken estin: Almost Perfect, Cheers, Taxi, The Tortellis (Cocreator), The Tracey Ullman Show (Cocreator) Lila Garrett: All in the Family, Barney Miller, Bewitched, Get Smart, Maude Charlie Hauck: Home Improvement, Hot L Baltimore, Maude, Valerie (Creator) David Isaacs: Almost Perfect (Cocreator), Becker, Cheers, Frasier, Mary (Co- creator), M*A*S*H, The Simpsons, Wings ix