Episodes

The day before his new movie hits 3000 theaters in 38 countries, we talk to the talented Adam Anders. He tells us about his transition from a very successful music career with shows like Glee to his 17 year journey to writing, producing, directing and songwriting for a Christmas family musical called Journey to Bethlehem. Adam talks about being creatively unfulfilled, the tightrope to walk when working on a religious movie and his extraordinary pursuit of Antonio Banderas. He explains how hard i...

Must. Listen. Episode. We have the legend that it David Kirschner. He talks getting his break designing an album cover for Neil Diamond, pitching Steven Spielberg at his July 4th party and Hocus Pocus going from abject failure to cult classic. David explains the story of Hocus Pocus taking years to make, bombing and leaving him in tears and then growing into a massive success. We hear about being sworn at by Harvey Weinstein, how he thinks naivety helped him navigate Hollywood and the importance...

We talk to Jeremy Adams about his life in animation. He tells us about the difficulties animated writers face, how they are treated compared to TV writers and how hard it is to break out of the mould. Jeremy tells us about his successes, the sacrifices his family had to make and the irony of creating great work for little pay and then watching millions be made in consumer goods products. He explains what makes great animated writing, they joys of the comic world and his dream to writer a live ac...

We talk to the extraordinary Deborah Pratt. She tells us about how she got her break in Hollywood, her period of homelessness even after Quantum Leap and what she did to get her career back on track. Amazingly, we also cover a wide range of topics from Frank Sinatra to Airwolf to fan chat rooms. Deborah tells us about fighting against discrimination, pushing hard for groundbreaking scripts and what she learned about showrunning along the way. We talk passion projects, flying helicopters and how ...

This season we seek to explore failure and rejection in different parts of Hollywood. We have Jordan Moblo, EVP IP Management and Creative Acquisitions of Universal Studio Group. He talks why he is plans to be an agent didn't work, the books that got away and how they try and treat the authors they work with. He explains how they set expectations for what might happen to a book during the long road to production, authors they try not to work with and how he deals with competition from both other...

We talk to the fantastic Lisa Morales. She tells us about crashing James Cameron's Hummer, her role as an executive and then giving that up to become a writer. She walks us through being fired for not being confident enough, imposter syndrome and rebuilding her confidence and her career. What she learned on her journey to being a showrunner, what she did when she got there and what her advice is to others on the way up are also all covered. We talk through the concept of 'caring but not giving a...

We have the the amazing ‘Jewaiian’ twins who tell us about writing Moana, their early failures and why poetry didn’t pay the bills. They talk about representation in native Hawaiian storytelling, being down to their last 12 dollars and the emotionally challenging story of the making of Adrift. The twins explain how they celebrate success, how they deal with failure and their lives as teachers. A wonderful chat with a couple of serious Hollywood stars who also tell one of the most extraordinary s...

Season 3 Premiere We have legendary Simpsons showrunner Mike Scully on the show. He talks about being pigeon-holed as ‘Cartoon Boy’, losing out on an Emmy to the Rugrats Passover special and writing jokes for $25 for Yakov Smirnoff. He tells us about being accused of being a UN Observer for being so quiet in a writing room, having a show cancelled for being too wild and crazy when they specifically asked for a wild and crazy show and tells us about the comedy show pitch which got no laughs. A br...

After a season break and, not withstanding the strike, the podcast returns. In this pre-season show, we talk about the strike, what people can expect this season and how much Noah surfs. We talk writers, execs and who you can expect to hear from.