When Writers Attack

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Unlike most of you, I am not a TV writer. As such, I was appalled and surprised to find that many of the fine people who write the scripts for shows that I do not watch are no longer working.

Why are they not working? Because of The Man, that’s why.

The Man, in short but fair terms, is stealing from the writers because The Man is also The Greedy Bastard. The writers agreed to a progressive increase in monies paid for their products being shown in other venues, and The Greedy Bastard Man did not live up to this agreement.

Why? Well, just look at his name.

I mostly watch news, cooking shows, NFL football and Eskimo porn. These are largely unaffected by the writer’s strike. I also watch too many documentaries, but these are in a dark netherworld since most of them only air 13 years after they are produced. As such, I’ve just programmed my TiVo to capture the Discovery Channel premiere of The Magic of Netscape 1.0.

This might also serve as a good indicator as to why writers are so important. I once heard someone say that “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage”. The more I think about it, I think it was an actor reading lines given to him on a DVD commentary.

So yeah, writers matter and they matter a lot. Without writers, we are faced the with spittle and mumbling on Fox News, or worse, reality television. People say that reality TV is written, but I don’t think so. It might be planned, rigged and outright false, but it is not written.

Written things cannot hold the premise that a British cook screaming at stranger for 47 minutes of network prime-time is a good thing. Without writers you get things like a dancing Osmond, most instances of the Emmy Awards, and (I’m pretty sure) cholera.

Additionally, putting a writer near or in your stereo speakers will result in an erection lasting longer than four hours, but you will not need to consult a physician.

Speaking of which, without writers, you get the Viva Viagra commercial. If you watch this, you will see a group of happy, middle aged suburban dudes who traveled to a deserted roadhouse so they could jam out a bastardized ode to the pill that re-galvanized their Love Gun.

I find this all very suspicious. If you’re snorking it up that well, you may sing a song, but you’ll be naked, at home and playing a decidedly different instrument. Also, since I know that you were wondering, I do know what song they were singing back when the lightsaber needed new batteries;

Limp thing
It’s like a wet string.
My gear is all noo-oo-oodly
Limp thing

You get the idea.
So, for the third time, writers matter a lot. They matter so much that unlike pretty much everyone else in TV and movies, if you don’t have them, you don’t have a product. Now before anyone jumps on my head, I’m sure you are right that ‘Designing Women‘ was a complex tapestry woven from the collegial activities of dozens of professionals all of whom are indispensable.

Except for the day when Annie Potts stabbed Jean Smart on the leg for calling her short.

One of the few shows that I do watch whenever I’m able is The Late Show. I’ve been a Letterman fan since he was merely an abrasive transplanted Midwesterner with funny teeth and inexplicable hair. Now he’s a late night legend, the progenitor of the likes of Jon Stewart and an old, abrasive transplanted Midwesterner with funny teeth and virtually no hair.

That’s an awfully long time. Back when I first started watching Dave he was actually slightly less obscure then Oprah, who was then working on the A-Team as the body double for George Peppard. Jay Leno, the snooze-inducing king of midnight hour talk shows was plying his trade as a really good stand-up instead of…never mind.

The Late Show writers have started a blog in order to write about not writing. It’s worth the read just for the funny, but it also gives you a pretty interesting (albeit reluctant) look at what this is about. Read that blog, find other ones and read them too. Make up a show, pretend to be a writer for it and blog about that (the ‘Whimsy and Passion of Maggie Thatcher’ is taken).

TV and movie writers are not rich, they do not generally have secure employment and they do the best part of what brings the crap you like to the screen so that you have a noise to distract you between handfuls of Cheez-Its and the speeches you regularly give to your kitty.

That was more auto-biographical then I had wanted.

 

 

 

 

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