Take 59 - Mike Royce, Everybody loves Raymond, Men of Certain Age

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for sure, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

For every success, there is months, sometimes even years, of painful failure. This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

That's the normal thing we have to be able to persevere. Like everything in our business here, hands in the country. That process takes care of that doesn't happen overnight.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose. And I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking, like, well, that's it for me. I blew my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. As ever, I am your English non-industry co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

And I'm your industry co-host, Noah Epslin. Today I'm excited to introduce TV writer, showrunner, and show creator Mike Royce. Mike started his career on Everyone Loves Raymond, where he won an Emmy along with the other writers and producers for Best Comedy in 2003 and 2005. On top of staffing a number of shows, he was a showrunner of Enlisted and the creator and showrunner of Men of a Certain Age, along with Ray Romano, as well as the modern reimagining of One Day at a time, which he co-created with Gloria Calderon Keldit. Kelly, welcome, Mike.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Thank you for having me. I'm extremely excited and I guess um terrified.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Excellent. Okay, I like terrified. So I guess actually I'm gonna start. This podcast tends not to sort of follow the news in the way that other ones do. We sort of tend to stick to our rejection, failure, and adversity lane. Um I think I'm gonna I think this counts as adversity. So obviously, you're a comedy writer. Was writing comedy easier when you won your Emmy 15 years ago than writing comedy now with a new world of uh awareness about issues and social media sharing and so on?

SPEAKER_04 2:32

I I would not say it's easier or harder, it's just different, I guess. But I wouldn't even say it's for me. I don't want to obviously try to make a generalization about what everybody else is going through. Um, I mean, I was a comedian in the 90s, being a comedian is different now, but it's also, you know, there's a lot, there's humor is everywhere, and there's a million great comedians. And so I, you know, it sounds like you're alluding a little bit to sort of the can't cancel culture and this kind of stuff. Um there's I you know, I think it's it's it the eras evolve always. We're the the thing now is we're just so aware of the era evolving. It's become more, you know, set people are are aware of changing, made made aware very quickly of how things change, I think, due to social media. Um, but you know, it was more, I mean, in terms of writing, it's more about how I mean, writing Everybody's Raymond was a lot different than writing Men of a Certain Age, which was a lot different than writing Enlisted and you know, one day at a time. Um, they're just different shows that existed in different eras, you know, that's my personal writing history. And uh yeah, I mean, I don't want to start shitting on people, but just generally speaking, I think if for some reason you feel held back, uh you probably are just you're you're rephrasing writer's block as being censored. I I don't know, you know, it's like I I I there's so many fucking things you can talk about, so many subjects to make fun of, so many things. It's like there's way too many, honestly. The problem is there's too much fucking content in the world. But so anyway, I guess I just don't, I don't see there's I don't see there's limits. There's you know there's social norms and being polite and not being a dick and these kinds of things, but I don't, I guess I don't, yeah, I don't think it's harder to answer.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

So actually, going talking of, I guess I suppose this is a resilience question. So when you were doing stand-up comedy, obviously the internet hadn't yet been invented, so sort of becoming famous by doing hilarious videos that go viral on Twitter didn't exist as a way of becoming successful and famous. So you had to do it, well, I imagine is the old-fashioned way of doing sets in empty pubs and handing out flies for your own show and all of that stuff. The grind of trying to make it as a stand-up comedian in the pre-internet days, does that set you up well for a career of rejection, failure, and adversity on the writing side of it when you graduated from stand-up comedy?

SPEAKER_04 5:32

So yes and no. It I think, first of all, even back then in the ancient times of the late 80s and 90s, when I started out doing comedy, there were guys, you know, there were people who just, you know, oh, they got five minutes and they're on a TV show and they don't have a full half hour. Like you'd bellache about people making it quickly who hadn't really developed their chops yet. That's just kind of always a thing. And I think the same thing happens if you make a funny video, or for that matter, if your tweet goes viral or whatever, uh, maybe you don't haven't learned and ingrained all the lessons of comedy that you need yet, uh, but you happened upon something that was very popular. Um, I was a little bit shaken when I went from being a very experienced and pretty successful stand-up comic to going into the Raymond room, which was I had one job on MTV in 1997. That was actually my first writing job. Raymond was my first network writing job, and um, I changed coasts and you know, it was a big I had kept doing stand-up for the other show. So anyway, the the point is I got in the Raymond room, and I kind of thought what you're saying was would be true, which is I'm I've I've you know um really I'm just you know, I'm I know how to do this. But the problem when you're doing stand-up, you're like the captain of your own ship, and and you decide what you're gonna say, and you basically you do you're the head writer, and you do a similar show every night, and then hopefully evolves a little bit, but like you're doing material that after a while that's you you bomb, but you're gonna do pretty well most of the time. You get in a room, and the first 10 things out of your mouth suck, you know, like and the reaction is not necessarily everybody laughing, even if it's good. Sometimes you say something, whether it's a joke or just an idea, and everybody kind of stares at you or scratches their chin or whatever. And I find I just found the instant rejection of a writer's room, which is just the way a writer's room works works, very hard to take for the first year. You know, I was used to saying things and everybody laughs for a half an hour, and then I go home and I feel great about myself, unless I bomb, but that's a different story. This this was really getting used to uh also just not not saying completely thought-out, perfect jokes that you've worked on for years. Suddenly it's like, whoa, what about this? What about that? You know, so I had to build up a different sort of uh, you know, I don't know, tolerance for rejection in that, you know, I was surprised. I thought it was it was like ego shaking because I'm like, I know how to do comedy, but like I'm learning how to do this. And the uh the Raymond writers were it was a very it was a great place to learn, but they were very everyone was very good. And I was very surprised on also them talking about story so much. They weren't the the jokes came last, as Phil likes to say. The story and the characters, everything else came first.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

So they'd be like, Well, we need Deborah feels like this, and she's like, you know, and then well, she that would make her feel like that, and then Ray would feel this way, and I'm like, Where aren't we doing where is it? Aren't we doing jokes with that jokes?

SPEAKER_04 8:50

You know, like learning all that um was was a whole experience.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

So which is harder standing on a stage in a smoke-filled pub or or bar in America, saying something that no one laughs at, or sitting in a small room making a joke or an idea that was meant to be funny, but none of your now peers laugh at. Which is which was the more soul destroying for you?

SPEAKER_04 9:20

I mean, I would say they're equally but differently soul destroying. You know, I mean, my first my first couple open mics I did, I actually did pretty well. They were false, kind of one was a terrible open mic where I just was not as terrible as some of the other people. And then the other, the second one, I brought a bunch of friends and they laughed at everything I said. So that then I my third set was at the improv and I happened to draw a good lottery number. So I got thrown in the middle of all these great comedians, uh including Bill Sheft, who was head writer for Letterman for a long time, Mike Rowe, longtime TV writer, these amazing New York comedians. And I ate it so hard, it was, it was, I thought I'll never do this again. And I took the long subway home subway ride back to my apartment on Staten Island. So I felt the this this horrible, horrible feeling in my stomach of humiliate, absolute humiliation. Then you fast forward to me, let's say, getting in the Raymond's room, and I think I know what I'm doing, and suddenly I don't. So it was like a new, and you know, the and the amount of people around me, you're kind of stuck with your audience, like you can't go home because they're all there just still staring at you. So, you know, it it yeah, it was it that it was very nice room, by the way. So it wasn't even like a room where they people would shit. I mean, there's plenty of insults, don't don't get me wrong, but as as things went, it wasn't everybody people wouldn't shit on your ideas. It just you just want to, you know, you want to, I guess I would use it, you just used to killing, and then suddenly I was bombing again. So yeah, neither fun, neither fun.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

I have a question about you know, uh coming off of Everyone Loves Raymond. So you you you kind of hit, I'm not saying they hit the jackpot, but it's very tricky, you know, in this business, people, you know, they get staffed and then they get let go. We had Bill Lawrence on, he talks about getting fired like five times in a row off his early shows. You you had the reverse situation where you seem to, and I and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just looking at your IMDB here, but you seem to have kind of earned your bones and your stripes coming up everyone loves Raymond. You went up from a sort of a lower level writer all the way up through the ranks, and you know, you and the other staff won two Emmy Awards along the way. So that show ends its natural, you know, runs its natural length. And and now you're back on the job market, and you, you know, judging by your IMDB, you got on shows fairly quickly. The next couple didn't last as long. So is are you beginning to wonder, like reevaluate your skills yet again? And not that this is all on your shoulders, obviously, there's a whole alchemy involved, but like, did you think this is how it always works, the Raymond situation? And that's how you're gonna go from one eight-year show to another or whatever, and then it didn't kind of what's the mindset when you're going from show to show to show?

SPEAKER_04 12:07

First of all, I have to be an asshole and say it's everybody who loves Raymond, not everyone. Sorry, that's what I know. No, listen, listen, the most insulting thing you could have possibly said. No, uh uh the the other Raymond writers, if they're listening, they'll appreciate the correction. That's all. So I'm just doing it for them. Um I always screw one thing up in every in every podcast. That's my norm. I mean, maybe everyone loves Raymond is a better title. Anyway, um, I my career is backwards, honestly. I always think about that because yes, I leapt upon, I came on everyone, everybody now I'm saying everybody, I I I got on everybody loves Raymond fourth season, and they got nominated for Emmys three months later. They were from the season before, but suddenly I'm there and they're getting nominated for Emmys. And um, and then I was there for six years and we went to the Emmys every year. And when we got done, I was like, all right, so where's my next hit show? Like, where do I go? Like, where do I sign up for the next? I just thought, I mean, I knew intellectually that wasn't the way it worked, but my heart was now used to six years of being in Los Angeles on a super successful, very wonderful to work on show. And it was uh, it was a, I mean, I got pretty depressed after it was over because even though I had deals and stuff and lining up, you know, all that kind of stuff happened after you come off a successful show like that. All the other stuff that happened after that, much to my great fortune, but also to you know, the situation you're alluding to, I was a showrunner after that. I actually turned down a deal, I had a couple of deals offered to me, and I turned them down to run uh Lefty Louis, which was Louis C.K. sitcom on HBO. And I did that because it was the other things were development, and this was an opportunity to run something. And Louie was like at that time, seemed like he was a you know, coming into his own. I knew him from New York a little bit, so it seemed like a good situation, good place to learn. But quickly, I mean, that showrunning experience was super hard. Um, and and every showrunning experience is pretty fucking hard. Um, that, you know, I sort of went from being, you know, Phil Rosenthal master showrunner. And that show, again, I was I didn't have to even endure any of the growing pains of that particular show. So suddenly, where I'm working with someone who, you know, Louie, leaving aside that he exists in a completely different context now, then he, you know, he pretty much knew what he wanted to do. And he needed someone to do it with because he was going to be in the show too. But I'm trying to figure out how to like lead, but there's already kind of a leader, which is him. Um, I have a lot of great lessons from Raymond. He wants to do a lot of things a totally different way. Um, and you know, the show, some people love to think it was kind of a mixed review situation. Um, but it was just emotionally, I felt like every day. I mean, I called Phil many, many times going, I'm fucking this up. I can, I, I can't, I don't know what I'm doing. I have vivid memories of my time on Everybody's Raymond, watching Phil, who is so good at all aspects of showrunning, you know, a multicam, and is an especially good director. And I would watch him know how to re-block scenes and take something that wasn't working and make it work without rewriting it, but also know how to rewrite it and do, you know, every aspect. And I would often put myself in his position in my head as the years went by. I'd be like, okay, if I was a showrunner right now, what would I do? And I I'm I swear I would start to I would have almost like a panic attack. Like I would be like, I can't figure out what I would do, what I would, you know, and then he would figure it out and go, oh, okay, good. I'm glad he's here. So then I'm a showrunner and I'm in that position. And I often, you know, I'm freezing, uh, people are looking to me for guidance. You know, Louie's looking for me to guide him sometimes, but also going and doing his own shit half the time. But I'm trying to figure out where what's my role. And it was a real um baptism of fire, I guess you could say. You know, I I it was good on many levels, but um, but yes, I that whole show I felt like you know, my plus then it got canceled. Then it got canceled immediately, you know, and it was mixed reviews. And the lesson that came out of that show for me was I really thought my career, I mean, I don't know, think I thought it was gonna be over, but I did think maybe I'm not gonna be a showrunner anymore. Like I ran a piece of shit in some people's eyes. You know, a lot of people love the show, but I I I was really worried about what it would do. But I learned the greatest lesson that you can learn about a failure like that, which is after you run a show, they don't go, he ran that piece of shit. They go, he ran that piece of shit. He's a show runner. Like now you're in the club and you get other opportunities when it came time to do men of a certain age, which was an hour-long dramedy I had no experience doing. And you know, Ray was like, he's gonna be the showrunner. Um, nobody questioned that because I had already run a show, a completely different kind of show. But even in failure, you know, that's a good example of failing up.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

How much do you take upon yourself? You said that the uh everybody loves Raymond rooms. Yeah, I corrected myself, was warm, nurturing room. You know, you had this showrunner in Phil that was that was obviously something of a mentor to you and and was able to to to make this show work and also make the room, which you know, many rooms in Hollywood are are not uh uh sort of warm and nurturing to everybody. Do you sort of keep that mentality in your head that not only do I need to make the show a success on the air, but there's a responsibility to make my employees enjoy what they're doing? Are you kind of taking that into the rooms that you're working on? Or is that, you know, sort of not your issue? And it's more just like we we got to get this product out and that product has to be good.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

Well, I would say, I mean, yeah, what Phil's Phil ran things super efficiently and he put so much work into making, you know, like I mean, the food, as you may have, you know, was legendary. We, you know, he be insisted the food budget be a dollar more than anybody else's food budget. You know, these are things you can do in the early in the late 90s, early 2000s when you have a hit sitcom. You know, so and the hours. He made sure the hours we had a whole system where we got so far ahead um that we never had to stay late. We I can't even we order dinner like three times in the six years I was there. Um, and almost like as a joke, you know, we would go home at five every day, basically. So it was like, you know, a great model in terms of treating people like they uh have lives. You know, Phil's Phil would always say, you can't write about your life unless you have one. And obviously, a lot of Raymond was like pulling stuff from your marriage and from your children and relationships and stuff like that. Um, so I certainly took that into showrunning. I certainly was not going to start running a room where we're there till fucking a million o'clock and waiting till the last second, you know. Uh it's ingrained in me to get as far ahead as possible. It's also ingrained in me to put the work into the story so that you have the bones, that even if a script blows up at the table read, which does happen, uh, hopefully it doesn't happen very often. And if it does happen, you still got something, you know, it's not a complete disaster. And and you know, my track record, I think, has reflected, you know, we've any of the shows that I've run have run pretty efficiently like that. And and people haven't had to stay late. We didn't have, I can't claim to be as as good as Phil. But um, but you know, to say we've we've certainly ordered dinner on shows of mine, um, but it's been kept to a minimum. People feel felt like they had a life to return to, and I think I've, you know, I think I've been able to live up to that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

One thing you said, and you're not the first showrunner to say a version of this, is showrunning is hard. So what about it is hard? And which skills do you think that you don't possess or don't possess enough of to make it feel easier for you?

SPEAKER_04 21:07

Well, I I would yeah, I don't want to, I mean, your next anxiety attack is a moment away. It's always because so much shit is happening that could possibly throw you off course. Um for me, the anxiety has certainly lessened as I've gotten older and gotten more experience. The you know, I've for one day at a time on show day, up until the third season show day, I love it, but I hate it because you're you know, your audience is showing up to approve your thing. And it's so wonderful when they're laughing their asses off, and it's so the opposite when they're not. Um, and you there's no predicting it. There's there's you know, you get a sense. You can you can kind of certain shows you go, well, this one I have a lot of confidence. But boy, sometimes you get hit in the face with things, you know, the audience is a cold audience, or there's a script that's not quite working, and you haven't quite worked it out in rehearsal. Rehearsals can be not up to the level that they're going to be for performance because people are, it's just a different animal. You know, when you're rehearsing, sometimes you don't put yourself a million percent into everything. So comedy and the timing, and it's all it's also very delicate that it you don't know on a multicam until you get it in front of that audience exactly how it's going to work. So I would take uh panic naps on show day. I would just have to go into my uh my development office and just lay down. And I don't think I would really sleep, but I just have to close my eyes and just I don't know, center myself for like half an hour because uh otherwise I felt like my brain was going to explode, you know. Um, the biggest thing that I've gotten used to, I'm gotten better at, is unlucky Louie and even men of a certain age, and even you know, slowly after that, less and less, I felt like I'm the showrunner because I must be the best writer. Like they only gave me that job because I'm the I gotta be the best, you know. So then in my head, I'm trying to be the best writer all the time instead of being a showrunner. And at some point, I I started to understand, no, you you're you're leading, you just have to hire the best writers. I mean, hopefully you're one of them. But you're leading, you actually have the advantage of like, I got a writing problem, you fuckers take care of it. Let's, you know, I mean, not and then walk out, but like we have to figure this out together. And you're able to use these magnificent brains to help you, as opposed to like, I just felt like I if I don't solve everything myself, then I must suck. Like, why would I be in charge of all these people if I can't solve all the problems? Which was the uh uh the opposite way to think about it. So I finally have become a little more used to that, even though it's still not fun when you kind of don't know what you want and everyone is staring at you. Those moments just happen to anybody.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

But when you're lying on the floor of your office having a panic nap. On the couch, but yes. On the couch. Oh, slightly less as a bit of a I try to have a nap, it just doesn't really take. Okay, right. Couch is still quite dramatic. So you're lying, you're lying on the couch, having a, as you say, a sort of panic nap. Well, there are times, given what you said before about when you were doing stand-up comedy where you are captain of your own ship, are there times you're thinking, you know what, I want to walk out of this office, walk back onto a stage, and just tell my own jokes to a live audience and not worry about trying to overcomplicate my career with all this show running and writing and just do pure comedy the old-fashioned way?

SPEAKER_04 25:00

I think if I had been a younger man when I started my writing career, because since I was a stand-up, I didn't really get into the Raymond Room, Raymond room until I was 35 or so. A baby, he was married. I I didn't yearn to go back out and do stand-up, even when things, you know. I mean, really that whole first season of Raymond for me was a lot of ego punches and trying to, you know, I did fine, but like for me, I was really, I wanted to really prove since I was friends with Ray and I I got my job essentially due to Ray through a series. I helped him write a book. I wrote a sketch for him on Sunday Night Live. I mean, I had sort of proved myself writing-wise, but I still felt like I don't want to be in the room as just like, oh, Ray's friend is here, you know. So I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. Even through that year, though, you know, we're writing stuff about that's coming out of our lives. And I could see the the the the benefit of like that, and I had creatively felt like fulfilled doing that as opposed to feeling the need to just escape and go do my own thing um with stand up. And you know, really the only time I even thought about it was probably the first couple of years of Raymond. After that, I really did enjoy the culture of TV writing. Um, and I got plenty of times to joke around. So yeah, I didn't it it didn't become an escape for me, or I didn't want to.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

I I kind of want to stay on this for just one more second, though. The the looking at your looking at your IMDB, you seem to be like the comedian whisperer. You worked with many sort of big names, right? And they anchored these shows. And I'm guessing you could speak to them comedian to comedian. You could say I you they knew you were there, and then you're in the room and you're helping them, so you get some of the things they've gone through. Was there ever a desire and or some maybe friendly jealousy about like that they are the ones that are the face of this show because you were there, you were doing what they're doing, and now you're you're writing the you're you're their Syrano in many ways, and you're like, that could have been me.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

Uh, I never did feel that. And I there's a reason that I I think I figured out my stand-up took a long time to evolve. And you know, for most stand-ups, it's it's this way, but I think it took me longer. At first, you're just trying to get laughs, so it's like whatever joke gets laughs, and it might be a shitty joke that you have to discard at a certain point, but if it's getting a laugh, it's staying in the act. It may not even be, you know, you haven't figured out your persona yet, but I have a joke that works. So fuck it, I'm saying that joke. Um, as I went along, um I didn't, I don't think I really figured out my comedic persona till the last few years, you know. As I did about 12, 13 years, the last three or four years, I became what I think, what I would consider to be a good comedian as opposed to just a competent comedian. I still wasn't a persona that I felt like, oh, now I'm gonna get like I want to be in a sitcom that's built around me. I never really had that yearning, you know. And the other thing is, my I think what I discovered was my persona can only say certain things. There's certain things that I, you know, people accept coming out of my everything. When you're a writer, you can you create characters and you're suddenly you're a whole bunch of different people, you know. Even like it's not like I've written for a lot of political shows, but like I could never really do political humor for some reason. I just wasn't good at it, but I had a lot of political thoughts. So then, you know, later, at least on one day at a time, we're like dealing with issues. There's a lot of stuff that we talked about on that show. I could never do in my acts, it just wouldn't be no one would buy it, you know. But when you're filtering it through characters, uh, you know, that just opened up a whole bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

So you I I would love to spend more time actually talking about the nuts and bolts of one day at a time. Uh, but I'm gonna fast forward past that for a second. So you you've had this amazing career for for for a long time, a lot of shows, a lot of successes, some shows that obviously did better than others, and you're coming off of one day at a time, which had a nice run. Uh, and you're looking for your next thing. You obviously you had United We Fall, which came after, and or maybe came simultaneously. Uh, but the you know, I'm hearing from people in a common thread of this podcast with some really big names that have come on and have said to us, it's really hard out there right now. They're they're facing roadblocks that they've never faced before, where it kind of it it it's never this business is never easy, but it was easier, and now it's a little bit harder. And that that little bit is the difference between making a sale and not making a sale, getting on show and not getting on a show. And the landscape has changed for many of these people. And granted, some of them are you know getting their feet back and shows are starting to go, but what about for you? What are you seeing the now? What's the mic, Mike, uh, you know, your Mike Royce of this second, where it's like, you know, you're looking at the landscape of your career and what you want to do next. And the and Dan mentioned this in the very beginning, the world has changed, whether we like it or not. And some of the that that may not might not be reflected in you getting canceled, but it is reflected in the shows being picked up and you know, and what and how you need to sell things to the studios. So what's it like for you right now?

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Um, I would agree with, you know, it's uh hard. Uh it's it's much more unpredictable. I'm super fortunate to continue to be on deal at Sony. Sony put me on a deal, sorry. I started to deal with them and I came over from Fox in the early 2010s, and then I've been with Sony, been at Sony since 2015. Um, so fortunate to be developing while someone's paying me, always fantastic. Um, but the streaming services, um Sony mostly just deals with them now because the whole financial model has been upended. Nobody wants a studio like Sony that doesn't have its own streaming service, doesn't want to deficit finance broadcast shows anymore because the number of broadcast shows that make it to 100, uh, and the money that the broadcast people are offering to license the shows, it's all gone so far down. So it's just not worth it for them to go to those places most of the time now. So you're really dealing with the streaming streaming services and cable um uh sometimes. Obviously, there's a you know, nine streaming services or whatever it is, so you and uh 500 shows. So on the face of it, you think so many more opportunities, which I guess is true. But what I miss and what makes it I think harder is the steps, you know. I never thought I would miss pilot season, and I don't think I miss pilot season, but it's harder. You're taking you're trying to you're swinging for the fence every time. You're trying to sell a series every time. You know, uh there are, it's not like they don't necessarily make pilot deals and stuff like that, but it's you know, you it certainly used to be CBS is gonna pick up, I don't know, uh 30 pilot scripts, you know, then you're writing it, then you got that far. So you gotta, you know, you you you're writing the script, then they might pick it up to be shot. Now you're one of 15, you know, comedy pilots that might get shot or whatever. You at least could, you know, get the ball down the field a little further instead of just like, how about this PowerPoint presentation for 30 minutes? No, all right, moving on for a whole thing, you know. So you're really like gearing up the pitch has become so so important. Um, and in the past, you could pitch way less complete um concepts for series because you develop it with with them, and you know, you take it to like the pilot script stage or whatever. You didn't have to pretend you have everything all thought out, which of course no one who does any of these pitches does, but you pretend you do. Um and uh, you know, I think I don't know if it's the right way to do business. It's the what it's the way that's happening now, but um yeah, you you that that's what makes it hard, I think. You know, I think I've been I've over the last year and a half, I've been part of either supervising or developed a whole bunch of pitches and haven't been able to sell anything. Uh I there's a couple of things I can't talk about. So I'm gonna you know reserve the right to change that. But at this moment, you know, 20, the rest of 2020 and 2021, nothing across the board.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

So notwithstanding the fact that whatever you can't tell us, you've had a couple of unsuccessful years of pitching. I still think my question I'm about to ask is valid. So we've talked on this show before about the fact that a lot of writers are introverts, and there's an irony about the fact that people who don't really like standing up and telling stories in front of people to sell it actually have to do that in order to get the chance to then go and do the bit that they're really good at, which is sitting there with a page and writing it. You're obviously you were a stand-up comedian. So does that mean that if you had that gives you an edge when it is it not withstanding the last two years, does that give you an edge? You know, you've if you and an introvert writer have got exactly the same idea, but you're you can go and tell the story better in the room. Does that do you think that's something that helps?

SPEAKER_04 35:04

Uh yes, and weirdly enough, I have gotten really good at pitching because again, I sort of lived my career backwards. I on Raymond's six years of I didn't have to do anything. I didn't develop, I didn't do anything. Then I'm running a show that's already, you know, Louie had already developed. Then Ray and I created men of a certain age. There was no pitch because Ray was so super in demand that we kind of HBO got interested in what we were doing. They eventually passed, then TNT picked it up. But we never had to actually actually go in a room and and do a full pitch. We told HBO an area we, you know, we were talking about three middle-aged guys, you know. So the first time I actually had to learn how to pitch, I was, I mean, it I had already been in the business, uh uh I've been a writer for 12, 13 years. And it was almost kind of foreign to me when they after men of a certain age got canceled, and I pitched a couple comedies over at Fox. And I don't think I used my stand-up comedian skills to my advantage at that point, but I sort of quickly learned, oh, yes, this does advantage you. But it is weird because a pitch is like, especially when you're pitching a comedy, you're doing, you know, you're it's it's stand-up, but it's not. You're pitching character voices. I don't normally do, you know, I did do like impressions when I was a comedian. And you're doing, you know, you're telling the story in jokes, like you're writing everything to try and make everybody laugh. So it's this weird alchemy of like, you know, we're here's the world we're we've created we're creating for you with some jokes in it, you know, and here's the characters with hopefully we're making you laugh while we're telling you about the character. Like it has to be serious on a certain level. Although, if it's just literal jokes the whole time, it's not landing what you're even trying to do. So it's definitely a different kind of a thing, but I've now, I'm not gonna say I've grown fond of it because I'm really fucking sick of it and I like to just be on a show, have a show instead of pitching, but I don't hate it. I don't hate it, I must say, and I actually prefer Zoom pitching just because you can do what I'm doing right now. It's much more one way, and they just listen, and it's weird. I've always thought it was weird in person, and you're at the conference table and they're just sitting across from you, and you have your couple of visual aids, and then you're kind of doing a prepared thing, but it feels like you're doing a one-way conversation that and it's it's just an odd dynamic. This is less odd.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

I feel like you know, someone has pitched as well, the whole thing has just been weird from the get-go, but it's something either you adjust or you really don't have a career because they don't give you a plan B of like, well, have someone else pitch for you, hire that actor and put your name on it. That I mean, we if we could, we would, right? Um this does, you know, bring me um to our last question. And and you know, you as a for someone whose career has spanned a few eras, you might maybe be really well positioned to ask the to answer this question is, you know, if you were giving uh one piece of advice to somebody coming into, you know, let's just say comedy writing, uh, what would that advice be?

SPEAKER_04 38:25

Well, let's see. Uh comedy writing, first of all, I'm gonna I'm gonna answer this in two parts. Uh, I'm gonna say comedy writing, if you have any inkling whatsoever about doing stand-up, try it. Because for me, it's what made me a good comedy writer. I'm not saying that's everybody's experience, it obviously isn't. But I did a lot of writing before I was a stand-up. And I even wrote a sitcom like a couple years out of college. And I kid you not when I say that thing, you would read that thing and go, well, this is you obviously should just let's talk about what you're gonna do for a living because it's not this. It was terrible. And I'm I'm I'm not being self-deprecating in that you would think I had a degree, I was a writing film major, writing minor. You would think I would have known something, but I really didn't know how to write a joke. And then when you get on a stage and you have to say the thing, the the theoretical joke that's in your head has to be has to work out loud. And that is a different um, you know, calculation. So I learned rhythm and you know, just because I had forced myself to do it. So it's a good exercise. If you have any at all inclination to do it, improv, also obviously great. You know, just being responsible for the comedy that's coming out of your mouth teaches you a lot about how to write it, I think. And then the just as a global thing, you know, I've I think I don't want to say I've suffered more than anybody, but I I've had the opportunity, I've had three shows where my heart got completely broken. And uh, you know, a lot of people don't have the opportunity to have even one show. So I'm very fortunate to have had three heartbreaks, which was men of a certain age enlisted and one day at a time. Each time, and I'll do respect to all the other shows I've worked on in there, these were the shows that I either created or was the most uh invested uh at the start, you know. Um, each time I got very depressed and I really thought it's never gonna be like this again. I I mean, after men of a certain age, it was like a how am I ever gonna top this? How am I ever gonna have an experience where I'm writing very much about stuff that I it's like I'm relating to it, and you know, uh it's it's feels like it's not just jokes, it's it's all this stuff I wanted to do. And I mean, we won a Peabody award and we were canceled a month later. It was the that's like never happened in the history of television. Uh I think there's only one other show that ever won a Peabody that got canceled the same season it won a Peabody. Um, maybe more now because there's more shows, but it felt unjust and it felt like I'm never going to be able to do this, do anything rewarding again. And then some time went by and an enlisted came along, and it was so different than men of a certain age, so absolutely completely different. And I didn't create it, but Kevin and I had an amazing experience working together, and that became and then that had all kinds of trouble. That's a whole separate podcast, the injustice of enlisted. And then that went down, and a couple of years went by, and one day at a time came along, and that became its own insanely great, rewarding experience. And you know, the the lesson at the end of that is if each one of those irreplaceable experiences hadn't been cut short, I wouldn't have them all. You know, I I just can't believe how lucky I've been, even though I at the time would have preferred each one to continue, you know. But I I will never know, I would have never known what I didn't have. So there's always something, always something ahead of you, is what I'm trying to say.

unknown 42:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:15

Look, um, after spending 40 minutes listening to you, it's very clear why both everyone and everybody loves Mike Roy. Thank you very much for being part of the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

And that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. As always, we want to thank James Launch for the amazing theme music.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Do you before we sort of thank our wives and stuff, do you think anyone actually listens this far, or do they stop when the music comes back in?

SPEAKER_01 42:51

I think they normally stop after you mention your second and third podcast. That'd be my guess. Well, I haven't mentioned them yet, though, have I? Uh if you do want to reach out with us to us for criticisms, complaints, or praise, uh, you can either reach out to us through the website or I am at nebslin on Twitter. And Dan, do you have an account?

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Not that anyone really cares about. So if you've got complaints about the show, go to NEBslin and feel free to air those. If you have praise or you want to pay us in some way for something, come to at Dan Rutstein. And have a great day.